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Sunday 6th July

Luckily the forecasted showers in the afternoon failed to materialise so we managed to get a full day of gliding in.

With the westerly cross wind launch heights were not fantastic but we were still able to get some soaring in.

All in all we had 32 flights, the longest flight was a meagre 28 minutes with the next longest flight of around 18 minutes, modesty prevents me from saying who did those!

Colin mended the leaking exhaust manifold on the Skybrid winch in double quick time which gave Jim McCormick and I a chance to test the reserve winch before the Skybrid was returned back to service.

Tony Chapman unselfishly volunteered to be ballast and the link to the  resulting video is below.

All in all a very pleasant days flying.

Phil 

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Wednesday 2nd July

With a promising looking day forecast there was a flurry of rigging activity, including those “on a mission”.  Justin B for Silver distance, Steve B for Gold triangle and Colin B for lots of kms.
First a short check flight and then the next instructional flight turned into a modest triangle taking in Burbage and Hungerford.  As the day progressed the cloud base increased from less than 3,000′ to over 5,000 (just).  A third of the flights were 50 minutes or more (Steve B’s 3:59 qualifies as “more”)..  Whilst some folks were lucky enough to get a couple of the longer flights others only got short circuits.  Naff all wind resulted in modest launch heights and no chance to escape a sink hole if that’s what you were launched into.  Even Fluffy Harris couldn’t keep the K7 airborne for long (unlike Sunday when the Olly responded to his magic touch).
After a 3 hours in the back seat Colin had returned and offered to trade places.  I sat at the launch point at 16:30 in the LS3, looking at a not so promising sky and thinking maybe it wasn’t such a great idea.  1,100′ launch but found some weak lift which eventually (about 20 minutes) got me to 4,000′.  Shortly after found something to take to 5,000′.  After that it was a romp off to Newbury then Andover (left Andover at 4,000 and arrived back at RIV at the same height without stopping to turn anywhere) then off to M4 north of Hungerford for my high key.  Paul P launched a few minutes after me and also managed to scrape away and soar the K8 for an hour.  Unexpected bonus at the end of the day.
As to the “men on a mission”?  Justin landed at Aston Down to claim his Silver distance.  Steve and Colin abandoned their tasks but covered a fair amount of ground.  Hopefully they will add their accounts to this blog.

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Sunday 29th

First launch, straight into a thermal and off to Hungerford.  Tony C mentions that this is the furthest he’s flown from the club, I comment that it’s all too easy.  Off to Conholt House for a bit of sight seeing to discover it wasn’t completely easy peasey – we didn’t quite get there.  Some great lift on offer but it cycled a couple of times so some folks ended up with not much more than circuits.  Alan P being one in his Olly.  He then offered Rod H the opportunity to fly his hot ship and Rod soared away.  Our 2 visitors who landed out will testify that it wasn’t all plain sailing.  The ASH25 did land close to the toilet block and there were reports of the P2 dashing from the glider – so maybe lack of lift wasn’t the reason for their landout.

Rod trying to figure out how to stop the Olly from soaring

Carol and Phil took the Janus visiting homes – their own (Thatcham and Andover), Paul P’s (Ramsbury) and a few others.  They managed to fly around the dead patches to stay airborne for 2:41 – and we thought they had called in for tea (or pea) as the Janus boys have been known to.

Plenty of folks needing the services of an instructor.  The way I found to get a break was to send Andrew P solo.  Not a first solo but the last one was 32 years ago.  He was even considerate enough to give me a decent break – 51 minutes.

Andrew seems to have left something behind (an instructor)

Surprisingly few solo pilots appeared so we were very grateful to Rod H and Graham T who did long stints on the winch and Trevor G who took over for the last part of the day and didn’t fly.  Without Colin B pitching in to help out in the backseat some folks would have left disappointed.  Thanks also to the folks that hung in to the end to make sure everyone got to fly.  

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Wenesday 25th

Good looking cu to south and to the north (out of reach) but we had a pretty sky on offer.  Nobody rushing to rig and launch with little prospect of soaring.  First off the block was Colin and Jonty who defied expectations and stayed airborne for 20 minutes.  From then it just got better and better.  The K8 appeared back online and Bill C proved it hadn’t forgot how to soar.  Three private gliders rigged (HZD, EEF and FOT), launched and stayed airborne.  Lots of gliders to running around so a good lookout was essential.  Having run around the countryside with 5.5 knot climbs available (on the average) and climbs up to 4,800, I returned from Andover at 100 knots to swap with Colin.  After a low scrape he invented, and tested, a new mini-triangle for the club (small task for those not wanting [or permitted] to fly out of gliding range).
Bonus of the day was getting to see the fruits of Peter E’s and William’s labour – his restored Riley Sprite before he heads off for a Riley rally in Le Mans.

No glider pilots car is complete without a tow hitch