Shalbourne Gliding – OLD WEBSITE
A friendly gliding club in Wiltshire
What a truly amazing time was had by those members who ventured up to the Borders GC (Ex RAF Milfield) in Northumberland recently to experience flying over the Cheviots.
I’ll let the photos do the talking but I’m sure we will be going back again. BTW if you want to come along next time get yourself cleared for aerotowing and bring your glider or if you have the required experience why not bring a club glider along instead?
A short video by Chris B can be seen here:
Composite structures can put up with remarkable amounts of bending and twisting, but they don’t fair as well when being squeezed or poked. A group of us scratched our heads this morning as to how several dents had appeared in the top leading surfaces of the Vega wings, until it occurred that they corresponded with the position of one’s fingers when pushing the aircraft.
The apparently hard surface of the wings at this point is in fact only egg shell thick, beneath that is a layer of foam on a thin fibreglass substrate. When Andy opened up the worst damaged area, about 50 mm in diameter, further investigation showed the damage had extended to an area about 150mm in diameter. So this little dent turned out to be almost large enough to be recorded as a major repair.
So when pushing on the front of the Vega wings please place the palm of your hand on the leading edge and avoid any downward pressure on the wing skin.
Monday:
First day of task week and the weather is not being helpful as Carol and I had to reset our task as conditions were a bit challenging. There were some good climbs in places but there were large gaps in-between.
We managed to complete RIV-WAN-DEV-RIV for just over 100k but only because we took advantage of a top up NE of Devizes.
Once established we noticed that the source of lift was a burning Combine Harvester and tractor/trailer, we could smell the burning tyres at 3500ft!
Steve Barber and Alan Holden, both in ASW15’s, found conditions pretty poor north of the M4 so unfortunately had to curtail their tasks.
Tuesday:
Despite RASP predicting fantastic conditions Tuesday was in fact worse than Monday 🙁 Lift was hard to find under the clag that was until Colin, in the LS3, latched on and squeezed 18mins out of his flight. This spurred the rest of us to launch and, despite valiant efforts by Chris and Steve O, Carol and I managed to stay aloft for 56 mins.
All in all a rather disappointing day but I’m pleased to say that John Douglas successfully transitioned to the Vega and had 3 enjoyable flights.
The rest of the week looks “unsettled” so hopefully we can get a bit more flying in.
After speaking with some of the instructors, and others who have now flown the Vega, I have decided to lower the limit on who can fly it.
From today the limit is now Bronze but certain members who have not quite gained their Bronze badge as well as Bronze badge holders can now convert to the Vega if they can meet the following conditions:
1) Demonstration of two or three consecutive fully held off landings in the Puchacz (solo or dual).
2) Demonstration of the ability to keep the wings level from “All out” until stopping after landing (wings MUST only touch the ground after the glider has stopped).
3) Must read the briefing notes and have their Logbook countersigned by the Duty Instructor to confirm they have read and understood them and have been cleared to fly following the check flights.
4) It is the members duty to prove to the Duty Instructor they they are current by producing an up to date Logbook. No logbook no fly.
So far all those who have flown the Vega are more than happy with it.
Yesterday I took a launch and released at 1200ft and quickly thermalled down to about 1000ft. I contacted a good thermal which took me to 4,400ft averaging 3 -4kts. A quick flight into wind along an energy line to Burbage followed and I only lost 800 ft getting there, on the return leg I only lost 500 ft. Back over the airfield I pulled full airbrake and maintaining 70kts descended at something like -60 degrees with the speed steady. Also when landing reciprocal (towards the hanger end) closing the airbrakes low to the ground to extend the float did not cause the glider to drop suddenly but just gave an increase in speed, very reassuring! Oh yes, it also has a new battery fitted as well.
So if you are Bronze, or not far off, get yourself checked out to fly the Vega as I’m sure you will enjoy it.
Phil