Shalbourne Gliding – OLD WEBSITE
A friendly gliding club in Wiltshire
Excellent article in Marlborough News about our Women Go Gliding day which also covers our recent excellent day flying the Girl Guides group. You can find the article here.
Andover Advertiser 18th August
Newbury Weekly News 31st August
Today’s Newbury Weekly News includes a pull-out “Community Yearbook” the is “Celebrating a year in the life of our community in 2015 through the pages of the Newbury Weekly News”. One of the stories included from April was Bert’s flight at 100 years old (no mention of the film crew from ITV that followed him around that day).
Yup, this time the Beeb looking to fill one of their 90 second “what is the person in the street thinking about the forthcoming election “. This time the “the street” was “the glider” and the person was yours truly. Once again Phil’s camera mounts for the Puchacz were pressed into service (and much admired). In addition to the GoPro camera’s attached to and in the glider there were two full sized cameras on the ground, another GoPro sitting in the grass directly ahead of the Puchacz and the journalist wore “Pivothead” camera (looks like a pair of sunglasses but delivers full HD recording). After the flying shots it was time for the interview bit – with any luck they will fill the 90 seconds with flying shots and minimise the drivel spoken in the interview.
A great big thank you to Ken R for keeping the instructional flights going while I played at “media tart” and to the “Wednesday boys” for putting up with the distractions and disruption (again). Good news is that Sky haven’t realised they are missing out so that’s probably it for another 30 years. Chris (the BBC journalist) called me on the following day, very enthusiastic about the material they recorded and big thanks to the club and its members.
On to the important stuff (flying). Easterly with just a touch of north didn’t make for an easy day. Totally blue with a clear inversion line – there were those wondering if Bill C and Ken R knew something we didn’t as they had rigged their Duo. Turns out they did. They launched after 14:00 and from that point soaring flights were on offer. Broken lift, lots of drift but soaring nonetheless. That was, until the hangar flights from 16:30 on. The thermals then became consistent and strong. Tony P flew me in the Puchacz and over Shalbourne he rapidly climbed to 3,300′ – which gave us plenty of height for spinning exercises.
Bill and Ken took longest flight honours with an hour and a half. 26 launches with 9.5 hours of flying. A good day.
The sun came out to welcome Bert back to the airfield – but this time with a TV crew accompanying him. In the middle of April we got a day normally experienced in the middle of summer (mid 20’s, sunny, inversion, no cloud).
Bert is about to be one of the stars of a programme for ITV1 called “100 year old drivers ride again” (imaginatively named follow up to “100 year old drivers“). When they found out he is also a member of the gliding club they wanted to film him in action. The crew from the production company RDF Television (Harry – Director, Ben – video, Martin – sound) arrived ahead of Bert to prepare the Puchacz by installing 4 cameras (Go Pros). One on the wing and one on the tail (thanks to Phil’s purpose made mounts) and 2 in the cockpit (fore and aft) plus a recorder secured behind the rear seat. Then Bert and I were wired for sound – just hope I didn’t make any Gordon Brown type comments. Bert is rather frail so getting into the glider was a bit of a trial but his mind and reactions are as sharp as ever. We didn’t manage to find any thermals so just 2 short flights plus we had a cable break during the ground run. Once off the launch Bert demonstrated that he hasn’t forgotten how to fly.
While all that was going on Bob B and Peter E were attending to normal club flying. With 4 trial lessons turning up on spec plus a couple of folks needing the attention of an instructor, they were kept busy. One of the TL folks had been at the club the previous Wednesday and this time she brought along donuts and her friends. Bill C was the day’s soaring god with just over an hour. Those who launched within an hour of his launch were also treated to soaring flights. Outside of the hour window it was only Chris K who managed to defy gravity (in that case for 30 minutes)