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Saturday 19/5/18 Flying Report – Alistair gets a leg-up.

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There were fewer members than usual on site on Saturday as some of the membership were on the Sutton Bank expedition in Yorkshire. Still, some enthusiastic pilots were ready to do some flying and Andy S was our duty instructor.

The morning briefing centred around the Article 239 RA(T) at Ragley Hall for the Midlands Air Festival. This restricted airspace 6 nautical miles west of the field presented a problem for cross-country task planning and local soaring. As well as this, two ‘holding areas’ were defined East and West of the RA(T) as nav-warnings for aircraft displaying at the event. The closest of these, centred on the large solar farm extended to a point as close as the Birmingham road.

With light winds, Andy set the field out with the winch at the east end so we would be coming off the wire at a point as far as possible from the nav warning area.

Just Mike C and David M decided to task. Mike planned to task south and then northeast in the LS10 and David planned club task Bicester out-and-return to stay well clear of the RA(T).

The RASP forecast was for a 5* soaring day but we were taking that with a pinch of salt on past experience and sure enough the first cumulus was very shallow with a notable haze layer aloft.

Mike launched early in the LS10 tasking SNI>OXN>NEW>MAH>CAL>SNI. David declared SN2>BIC>SN2 in the club’s SZD Junior as the LS4 was away with the club Sutton Bank expedition.

Peter C went up in the Astir to mark a thermal for David who was launching after him but unfortunately he ended up in a low scratch while David climbed to the East. Peter did however manage to get a picture of David as he came out of the SN2 start on task.

David starts his task in the Junior

David starts his task in the Junior

By early afternoon, David was back, finishing with a 27km final glide from a point south of Shennington and 106.9km flight total. The task had been a bit tricky due to wide gaps and poor visibility in the working band.

https://www.facebook.com/StratfordOnAvonGlidingClub/videos/1646866272034783/

 

Next up with a tasking was junior glider pilot Alistair who we encouraged to try his Silver Height gain which requires a total climb of 1000m (3280′) above the lowest recorded point. Peter C kindly furnished him with a Nano barometric logger and he launched in the club’s SZD Junior.

He was back in 5 minutes having contacted nothing but sink from a relatively low launch.

Not willing to give up, Alistair launched again and this time got away.

We watched as he made a couple of solid climbs in the airspace available to us away from the Ragley Hall event, the highest being directly over the airfield at Snitterfield.

We were confident he had made the height gain but watched with anguish as he returned to circuit height after about 50 minutes. Just 10 minutes more would net him a Bronze X/C duration achievement.

Unfortunately, Alistair landed just short of the 1 hr duration goal at 55 minutes from release. This didn’t put too much of a spoiler on his flight though as he’d managed to brake his previous best soaring flight of 18 minutes by a round sum.

Official Observer Peter also verified that he’d completed his Silver Height gain by a comfortable margin meaning he now holds one of his Silver legs before completion of his Bronze C.

Well done Alistair!

Mike also completed his tasking which gained him 1968 points on the BGA ladder for 346km at 79kph.

More photos from Peter C:

As the afternoon went on we saw several of the aircraft displaying at Ragley Hall including encountering some manoeuvring east of the holding area over Stratford. It was definitely a day for solid lookout!

A P51 Mustang gives us a wide berth as it transits out to the North East:

 

  1. In the late evening, long after flying had finished at Stratford, we watched the distant mass-launch of hot-air balloons from Ragley Hall.

Sunday 13/5/18 Flying Report – Launching With Purpose

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On Sunday we had club members on the field practically at the crack of dawn. Peter and Phil will deny it but they were probably in competition to get on the flying list first to bag the club’s LS4 for cross-country flying.

The forecast soaring conditions were bordering on the fantastic according to RASP but we were taking it with a pinch of salt due to the visible top-cover and previous model inaccuracy.

There were various requests for task and achievement flight attempts in club gliders including cross-country coaching. This meant checking out the club trailers for serviceability. The new K21 trailer was loaded with the club’s new K21 which is soon to enter service so we had to dig out the ‘Silver Torpedo’ for the other K21.

It took quite an effort as it had sunk into the glider park which had been saturated for so long over winter. It was found to be in generally good condition although the overrun brake was broken so Barry fashioned us a replacement part in the workshop.

On-check pilots got their check flights out of the way as early as possible to allow for their intended task flying while others took pre-solo training including local airspace training in the TMG. We also had a significant number of trial-lessons to fly which Andy D started flying in the K13 to allow GAG to be used for cross-country coaching.

Early on, it turned out Chris E was looking to do his Silver distance and Peter and Phil yielded their claim to flying the LS4 for his worthy cause.

After his check ride, Ed launched in the club SZD Junior G-CHDB attempting “a ten minute flight that might take two hours” for his Bronze X/C endorsement duration requirement. Completing all the requirements of the Bronze X/C endorsement will enable Ed to fly solo cross country in gliders.

The task flying began early. Originally planning to task out around 1300, the sky was developing quickly by mid morning.

Chris E launched in club LS4 G-DEMG tasking out-and-return SN2-BIC-SN2 to cover his 50km Silver distance achievement then flying back to Snitterfield after turning Bicester.

Chris moments before launching on his first solo cross-country to Bicester and back.

Junior glider pilots Dan and Emily launched in K21 G-CGAG on a 80km planned tasking SN2 > EVE > ETT > ALC > SN2. This would be Emily’s first cross-country flying experience. Dan, who is a cross country and competition pilot is used to flying a fair bit quicker than is possible in a two-seat basic trainer.

Ben E also took off in the club’s Astir G-FECO and followed GAG for part of their task, limited by his requirement to remain in gliding range until he can hold his Bronze cross-country endorsement when he turns 16.

Despite the forecast, the actual soaring conditions weren’t quite epic so only a limited number of private aircraft turned out. Neil in LS4 S5 went out on a local soaring flight to the south, Barry M brought out LS8T UG to blow out the cobwebs and CFI Steve went soaring in his LAK 19T FA.

Chris E made fairly short work of his task. He only stopped briefly to gain sufficient height to cross Stratford on Avon town on the way home.

Junior glider pilots cross country in the club’s K21

Dan and Emily returned having completed their task for a comp finish at SN2. Dan felt the task was fun but a bit laborious due to the performance limitations of the K21. Emily thought cross country flying was about the best thing ever, second only to aerobatics.

Trace from the K21 task

By this time, Ed’s 10 minute flight had turned into 2 hours and he finally returned in the Junior for a 2 hour 13 minute total meaning he now only requires another 1 hour soaring flight to complete the duration requirements of his X/C endorsement.

Next up, Emily loaded out the Junior for a 1 hour duration attempt. However, the sky was changing rapidly and although she managed a soaring flight, the sky dumped all of our gliders back on the airfield in fairly short order.

Phil C and David M who were yet to fly by mid-afternoon got in K21 G-CGAG but were advised to wait over the radio by Dan B who was now struggling to climb away over the ‘ridge’ in his syndicate LAK 19T.

Waiting out some better looking clouds, Phil and David launched towards a nice looking one which turned out to be 10km or more away when viewed from the top of the launch. After a very brief excursion out toward the sunlit ground at Edstone Hall, they returned to the airfield with their tail between their legs.

More grid-squatting ensued as Phil and David in the K21, Dan in the LAK and Emily in the Junior lined up in their aircraft for another go. A very decent looking cloud approached to the south-west so David and Phil took a dash toward it in the K21. Finding nothing but sink, they ran back for the field into a low scratch for lift near the A46.

Emily took an even more determined run at the same cloud but encountered the same conditions, having to return to the field minutes later as did Dan in the LAK. Only the K21 climbed away in a 30 feet per minute initial climb out to the sunlit east.

It was around 6pm by the time we’d finished flying and the beer garden at the Snitterfield Arms was ever so welcoming to our tired but happy pilots.

 

A gallery of photos from Peter C’s afternoon local soaring flight in the club’s LS4

 

David R Flies his first glider solo at SoAGC

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Congratulation go to David R who on Thursday flew his first solo sailplane flight at Stratford on Avon Gliding Club.

David flew with instructor Andy B in the morning as was referred to Stratford full-cat instructor Steve F in the afternoon for solo-standard checks.

Making the grade, David was sent solo in K13 G-DCBW.

https://www.facebook.com/StratfordOnAvonGlidingClub/videos/1638870729501004/?permPage=1

Well done David!

Sunday 29/4/18 – A New Experience

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A waterlogged airfield sparks a mini-expedition

Saturday brought a lot of steady drizzle to Snitterfield and by Sunday morning the airfield had a good soaking.

A north-easterly wind required flying from the far end so duty instructors Baz and Steve P disappeared off to the west in the cable retrieve car. Coming back some 25 minutes later, Steve had a liberal coating of mud up his back and it transpired they’d had to abandon the car and walk to even reach the far end of the field. There was no way we were going to be able to operate the airfield.

Still there were tasks to be done. The main one being getting the club’s SZD Junior into to the workshop so the wheel-brake could be examined. Naturally it was at the back of the hangar so we assembled a team to unpack five aircraft and repack four. The Junior was derigged into the workshop.

One of our members had their birthday and brought in some excellent home-made cakes which began to disappear pretty quickly! 😉

A bit before midday, we had word from one of our members that Bidford, the next gliding club down the road had enough dry areas that they were going to be operating.

Undeterred from flying by our own waterlogged field, a plan was quickly formed. Some of our members had never experienced aerotow launching so we would organise an on-the-spot mini club expedition down the road to get some flying done.

Several cars set off for the 30 minute drive over to Bidford. As our 10 pilot mini-expedition arrived, the tug and two K13s were on their way to the 06 launchpoint.

Two of our junior glider pilots, Jenna and Alistair had no hands-on experience of aerotow launching so they were sat down with one of Bidford’s instructors who gave them the long-brief on aerotow flying.

https://www.facebook.com/StratfordOnAvonGlidingClub/videos/1629684797086264/

 

When you’ve exclusively learned to fly gliders on winch launches, aerotowing provides new challenges, not least flying level in close proximity to the ground at the start of the tow.

Stratford pilot Chris is also a tug pilot at Bidford and he towed both Jenna and Alistair’s flights to 2,000′ with the Bellanca Scout tug plane. Flying from Bidford also gave them the opportunity to practice planning a circuit into a field other than their home airfield and flying around Bidford airfield which can be difficult to spot from the air when you are unfamiliar with it’s layout.

Stratford junior pilot Ben who has experience of launching on aerotow and is understood to be close to flying aerotows solo also took a training launch.

Later on, Stratford’s CFI Steve B flew with Stratford’s membership secretary Dan for what was the longest flight of the day at 20 minutes.

While sailplane launches at Snittefield are all on the winch, Stratford pilots often need to aerotow during expeditions and competitions so frequent practice can be necessary.

At the end of flying, we helped pack the gliders and tug away then dutifully drove the 30 minutes back to the Snitterfield Arms for our expedition debrief 🙂

Thanks to the members and instructors of Bidford Gliding & Flying Club for being so accommodating of our members and letting our mini-expedition get some flying done!

Step-up Sunday – 22/4/18 Flying Report

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68 launches and a raft of achievements for Stratford on Avon Gliding Club pilots.

Late on Saturday night, a few members had made their way back up to the club from the Snitterfield Arms and witnessed a spectacular light-show in the form of large storm cells passing over the field. The inevitable downpour that accompanied them set the scene for the field conditions the next day.

 

While the airfield had been drying fairly well, the situation on Sunday morning was a bit hit and miss. We could tow two cables directly to the launchpoint but the landing area was alternately firm and completely unstable depending on where you went.

The worst bits were coned off and with a very solid turn-out of members on the flying list, we began flying.

There was a little light rain around for a while but nothing we couldn’t work around. The post-frontal sky wasn’t particularly orderly but there was lift to be had with several pilots going off soaring early on in both the two seaters and the single seaters.

An early achievement flight was had by Ed who despite having flown most of the glass fleet had never solo’d a wooden glider. He launched solo in vintage K13 G-DCBW after a couple of check rides with Allan R.

https://www.facebook.com/StratfordOnAvonGlidingClub/videos/1623619894359421/

This adds to Ed’s achievement on Saturday when he moved onto his second single-seat sailplane type, the club’s Astir CS77.

Other pilots were getting their hand in both remembering how to or learning how to thermal depending on their experience level. The lift conditions were cycling frequently giving many opportunities.

Along with the whole club fleet, two private LS4s and a DG 300 were rigged and flown.

Next up for achievements was Ben E converting onto the club’s LS4 G-DEMG. 15 year old Ben flew his first glider solo with us on his 14th birthday and had flown both the club’s SZD Junior and the Astir as well as a few high performance two-seaters.

https://www.facebook.com/StratfordOnAvonGlidingClub/videos/1623711611016916/

Ben took several launches including soaring flights in the LS4 and commented that it is a fantastic aircraft to fly. 😎

With a number of pilots looking for field-selection practice, Mike took the club’s TMG for a short flight to test the field conditions but unfortunately it wasn’t quite firm enough for two-up use at the moment.

After briefing by instructor Mike, 15 year old junior glider pilot Emily converted onto the club’s Junior. Flying with us since the age of 13, the SZD 51-1 Junior is Emily’s first single-seat sailplane type.

https://www.facebook.com/StratfordOnAvonGlidingClub/videos/1623716001016477/

Hard to be sure if she liked flying single seaters as she took several launches and an extended soaring flight in an apparent effort to make up her mind 😉

Richard H also converted onto the club’s LS4 on Sunday. Having flown the rest of the fleet, Richard now has the LS4 available to him for local and cross-country soaring flights. The LS4 allows cross-country endorsed pilots to develop their task flying skills and also allows for competition flying.

https://www.facebook.com/StratfordOnAvonGlidingClub/videos/1623639431024134/

For pre-solo junior glider pilot Jenna, landings finally ‘clicked’ and she felt she’d made real progress flying with instructor Mike. Onwards to first solo!

The launch rate was steady throughout the day with few hold-ups. After 68 launches and a very long day, we were starting to feel it a bit but the enthusiasm for flying and the progress made by our pilots made it worth it!

One-Five – Sunday 18th February 2018

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The local TAFs were indicating an unflyable day for Sunday with low cloud and rain all afternoon. On the basis of the quality of previous forecasts, club members turned out to fly anyway.

Initial conditions weren’t far off forecast with mist at the airfield although you could see blue if you looked straight up. As our duty instructor Andy set off around the field to find somewhere usable to take-off and land, we readied the ground equipment and sailplanes for use.

Field set-up was one of our less common arrangements with the launchpoint at the top of the south-east stub runway and the winch as far around the track as we could get it for a maximum-length run albeit cross-wind.

The landing area was along the edge of the cross runway on a “One-Five” 150 degree heading marked on the right by the cross runway itself and on the left by a white sheet marker ~100m from the north fence . This marker indicated a “not before and not left-of” point to avoid the soft ground giving a total solid landing area of ~8x300m.

Displaced landing marker just visible left of the cross-track

In practice, the objective of rolling to a stop parallel to and just behind the launchpoint so that the aircraft could be pulled online by hand meant actual landing distances of <200m.

By morning briefing we had a keen bunch of solo and pre-solo pilots ready to fly. The newer pilots got to experience flying approaches across the north field onto what is a slight down-slope on “one-five” for the first time.

Launch heights weren’t the highest due to the short run and the negligible headwind component so actually getting from the top of the launch back to a high-key point south-east of the field for a left-hand circuit would pretty well deliver you to the circuit “on energy”.

All of the student pilots achieved a left-hand circuit although some less optimistic solo pilots took the easy option and shot right-hand circuits instead.

We opted early in the day for single-cable towout due to the soft areas of the field but the cable retrieve landrover decided to cut-out and have a day off. We re-tasked one of our glider retrieve vehicles to tow the cable out instead which worked rather well. A very brisk cycle of launches and landings meant the cable retrieve was in near continuous motion.

The weather proceeded to defy the forecasts with increasing visibility and cloudbase and no sign of rain. Although it was never going to get as good as the last couple of days, it was no hindrance to training flights.

https://www.facebook.com/StratfordOnAvonGlidingClub/videos/1563962360325175/

Dave P and Archie managed to get four flights each in, Archie getting back into solo flying as did Bob. The unusual circuit allowed for approach-control demos including side-slip approaches. The quick manual landing-area clearances meant that the ‘alternate’ landing area along the eastern perimeter track was never used.

Phil C flew with Andy in GAG, training towards his P1 rating and possibly IFP rating which allows flying with other club members in the two-seat gliders.

Bingo and Geoff worked hard for most of the day over at the main hangar applying new paint to the structural metal to prevent long-term corrosion.

Around mid-afternoon Peter C finally joined the exclusive group of operators who can call themselves *real* winch drivers, an achievement we celebrated later at the Snitterfield Arms.

Despite the low visibility at the start of the day and single-cable ops, we managed to get 38 launches done, the majority of which were training flights for our student pilots.

A huge thanks to everyone who stayed late for the big team effort at the end of the day when we ran into trouble putting the kit away. Especially Bingo who provided the method and solution. We’d have been truly stuck without you.

 

 

Wind, Hail & Soaring – Sunday 11th Feb 2018

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Wind, Hail, Soaring and climbs to 3,800 feet…

Every forecast except UKMO said the conditions would be flyable on Sunday but overnight rain put a big question mark over the usability of the field.

Members were on site from 0745 getting kit out and when the CFI arrived, we sent him out on the airfield, tasked with finding us something dry-ish to fly from 😉

We set up an unusual field configuration. With the winch at the west end and the launchpoint on the SE stub, the landing area was marked out with our new ‘hi-visibility’ technique between the clubhouse and the cross-track parallel to the north fence. This gave us a 20x200m landing area, easily achievable in the ~25kt westerly wind. With this area of the field being solid enough to support the aircraft, they could then be retrieved south down the hard runway.

We kicked off with a K13 and the Junior as the club’s K21 was parked at the back of the hangar and we wanted to test the load-bearing ability of the airfield. Pre-solo and early solo members requiring checks had their mettle tested by conditions that were generally described as ‘sporting’. Launch heights were excellent and there were early soaring flights in the Junior. The K21 came on line in the late morning to pick up the demand for instructional flying while the wind strength increased somewhat.

The density of the cumulus cover increased until it became apparent that there were wintry squalls around. The darkness of some areas of cloud bottoms suggesting cumulonimbus in places. Thankfully, the squalls were going around us so we could keep the launches going.

Our luck couldn’t hold out forever however and a fast-developing local squall appeared just north-west of us. A recently-landed K13 beat a hasty retreat back to the relative shelter in front of the hangar and the cable retrieve Land Rover abandoned it’s normal duties and sprinted across the field to provide shelter to the K21 as it arrived back in the landing area.

https://www.facebook.com/StratfordOnAvonGlidingClub/videos/1557289780992433/

The squall brought in a significant increase in wind strength and light sleet/hail so the landed K21 held position behind its Land Rover shelter for quarter of an hour. Even before the squall had gone through, it was apparent that conditions beyond still looked good so as the hail dissipated and the wind reduced, the K21 was towed back on-line to launch. As we launched the K21, the K13 was brought back on-line from the hangar area so we could continue around the flying list a second time.

As well-developed streets of cumulus passed over the field, Dan took pre-solo junior glider pilot Jenna up as a passenger in the K21. Contacting strong lift, they had a soaring flight of over half an hour, encountering lift as strong as 6 knots and peaking at 3,800feet AMSL.

The sky-scape in the mid afternoon had it all with cumulus formations, distant squalls and sunrays playing across the landscape below.

Towards the end of the day, another fast building squall developed just upwind of the airfield. Coupled with fading light and the expediencies of airmanship, we decided it was the last flight and took the aircraft back to the hangar for a wash-down.

From a doubtful start, to an awesome flying day. Well worth the launches 😎

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Flying Report

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We had a great day yesterday with pretty well wall to wall sunshine. It was cold first thing but was not too bad later on. We had a blue sky all day with just some high cloud later on in the afternoon. It was thermic during the afternoon with some long flights for the time of year. We managed a two cable tow out all day on the north side of the field with no problems but on the south side there were a few soft patches but they were not a problem.

Statistics are as follows,

Total Launches……………………28

Longest Flight…………………….54 mins. Well done to Dave J. who took a day off work, well worth it.

Second and third longest……..24 mins and 23 mins. Well done to John H. and Phillip C. with 24 and to Barry M. with 23. The 3 longest were all done in the Junior.

Total Flight Time………………….4 hrs. 50 min.

Average Flight Time…………….10 mins. First time in double figures this year.

Steve P.

2018 Flying Season Starts

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Two weeks into the New Year and three weeks since we last operated the airfield at Snitterfield, we are flying again at Stratford on Avon Gliding Club.

The weather towards the very end of 2017 was unkind and our airfield became water-logged meaning we were unable to launch from our grass.

Finally, on Saturday we were able to find sufficient dry areas to set up a workable field with the launchpoint at the western end. Although pretty chilly and with only moderate but VFR visibility, a decent turnout of members, all keen to fly managed a tentative first 21 launches.

Sunday saw a similarly good turnout of eager members who operated from the same dry areas of the field in similar although less windy conditions. The landing areas were marked out with sheeting and what may be the first valid use of hi-vis workwear on a glider field 😉

2018-season-startDespite having to operate from the far end, single cable operations and only three gliders in use (two 2-seaters + the Junior), the Sunday crew managed a stonking 40 launches including aerobatic flights and mandatory precision landings.

Well done to Bob who made his conversion to the K13 (yes, really) on Sunday and thanks to all the members who made on-the-spot surface repairs to the field and put effort into cleaning the (relatively un-muddied) aircraft after flying.

As flying and field conditions hopefully become suitable, we look forward to being able to resume visitor flying.

Our 2018 Flying Season has finally begun.