Congratulations to Neil C who has converted onto Stratford’s K21 today.
Stratford Gliding Club instructor Steve F gave Neil his conversion training and briefing before sending him off on his own.
Neil has flown several wood and glass single-seat gliders but K21 G-CGAG is his first glass two-seater solo.
Thanks to the help of Phil, Dan and Monsy, the airfield weather station now has a new anemometer and batteries and is back up and working again.
The pole is heavier than we remembered!
Stratford on Avon Gliding Club for many years utilised a double-decker bus as a ‘control’ vehicle for the airfield. Our second such bus was ‘138’ an ex Plymouth Transport Leyland Atlantean.
The bus system had it’s shortcomings, especially the weight being incompatible with much of the field’s surface and the advent of telemetry signalling meant we no longer needed the height it afforded for signal lamps.
The double-decker has now been replaced by the compact trailer received from Needwood Forest and Atlantean 138 has headed off behind a wrecking wagon to it’s new home at Plymouth City Transport Preservation Group.
Today, junior pilot Jesal converted into Stratford Gliding Club’s LS4 G-DEMG.
A new Cross-Country Endorsed Bronze C pilot, he’s aiming to join our other cross-country pilots flying tasks in it next season!
Yesterday Ben Edkins was sent on his first solo flight in a glider at Stratford on Avon Gliding Club on his 14th Birthday!
Ben who has been flying with us for some time was put through his paces by senior instructor Barry K, handling every simulated launch failure and situation put to him to prove his readiness.
When the moment finally came after lunch, mum and dad Sharon and Chris were watching along with Ben’s grandparents.
Ben ready to launch with Instructor Baz holding the wing of K13 G-CHSM.
Ben flew an excellent launch for a short flight followed by an equally excellent circuit and landing back at Snitterfield.
Instructor Barry congratulates Ben after his landing.
Ben is the third generation of Edkins to fly gliders with us, after his father Chris and his grandfather.
Proud mum Sharon with Ben, instructor Baz and equally proud dad Chris.
As one of our new solo pilots, Ben will be working towards his Bronze C and has ambitions to fly cross country and possibly in competitions when he is 16.
From there, Ben went straight over to Wellesbourne airfield for his first flying lesson in a powered aircraft on the same day. While you can go solo in a glider at 14, you have to wait until you’re 16 to solo in a power plane.
Sunday was an unseasonably good soaring day and Peter C sent some air to air photos from his flight in Stratford Gliding Club’s LS4 G-DEMG.
Cross-country wise, we’ve been trying to make the most of the taskable days presented to us. Today was another day that looked sufficiently taskable to result in a turnout of cross-country pilots.
The expectation was that the milky top-cover would be thin enough to allow an early thermal start followed by an early shut-off as the top cover thickened. The topmeteo and RASP forecasts were broadly in agreement and they turned out to be right.
General tasking was South-East as far as Aylesbury or Thame and then North East to Alcester with a leg back to Edgehill. Several 18M ships took this tasking along with a Duo Discus. The club’s 15M LS4 tasked shorter along the same line with an out-and-return from Bicester.
The 18M ships made their Southern turnpoints but on returning to the Stratford area were met by an overcast sky with scarce thermals. The club’s LS4 turned Bicester and made it back around the same time. Meanwhile Duo Discus 666 managed to get around the whole task by taking some pretty long glides through thermal-less areas to reach better climbs.
X/C pilots are now generally very quick to upload and score their traces after a day’s flying so the (h’cap) results look like this:
Barry K (with Mike) in Duo Discus 666: 229.9km @ 72.1kph – 1367pts
David M in LS4 G-DEMG: 106.9km @ 63kph – 692pts
Keith L in LS8 302: 149.7km @ 54.1kph – 671pts
Sharon K in ASW28 777: 143.3km @ 56.5kph – 652pts
A 360 degree video of a K13 glider landing on a breezy day at Stratford on Avon Gliding Club filmed by one of our members.
You’ll need to be using Chrome or Firefox browsers for this, Safari & Internet Explorer can’t handle it.
Today’s flying started early but to a rather low cloud base. Finding big enough gaps in the cloud was the trick.
The whole club fleet was taken to the west end to launch into a moderate easterly. Initial launches were cable-break practice towards aircraft conversion and pre-solo training. The cloud-base didn’t vary much early on but it started to break up to reveal blue sky albeit with a low-ish inversion. Once we were able to launch to full height, a number of private aircraft began to show up at the launchpoint including an LS8, LS4, ASW28 and a Sport Vega.
By early afternoon it was a busy cycle at the launchpoint due to the weak soaring conditions. Kit B had a good flight in the club’s Astir CS77 and several others managed to climb to over 2,000ft. After being put through the mill in the K21 by Barry K, Peter C was converted onto the club LS4 G-DEMG which he apparently rather enjoyed flying, having three flights including soaring. Others who hadn’t flown recently were given check flights and the cycle of annual flying checks was well under-way (more SCBs!).
Peter gets into Stratford’s LS4
Catherine J took several flights with CFI Steve B and re-soloed on K13 G-CHSM having previously been a solo glass pilot at other clubs.
David G also took a couple of flights with Steve B and coverted into the club’s SZD Junior G-CHDB, his first glass single-seater!
David G converts onto Stratford’s SZD Junior
The day was warm, nowhere more-so than in the Skylaunch cab which left winch-drivers wilting towards the end. Many thanks to Tony M who put in another epic session getting us all launched.
Visiting pilot Outi from Finland had the last flight of the day in G-CHSM with Steve H.
After just missing 60 launches a few weeks ago, Steve B reckoned we’d make it today and we in fact managed 66 winch launches which we think is the highest day total this year.
After packing everything away, it was approaching 8pm and a number of pilots retired to the Snitterfield Arms with the notable exception of Peter C who couldn’t make it. 😉
Today promised nothing but high temperatures, low visibility, high winds and thunderstorms.
As it happened, it turned out to be a pretty good flying day! Again we were over at the west end with the launchpoint for a south-easterly wind. Certainly after a relatively calm start, the winds picked up considerably although they were steady rather than gusty. The upper winds were impressive. One pilot recounted ‘pressing-on’ into wind at 80 knots and having the impression of going down rather more than forward.
The club’s TMG G-CHXK was out and about, Steve F flying with Les early on and then instructor Andy B flying out on a refresher with Barry K, visiting Wellesbourne for fuel. It’s possibly the first day the TMG hasn’t struggled with the field surface conditions this year.
Two of our aspiring cross-country pilots who were hampered by the weather yesterday were able to convert onto the club’s Grob Astir. Well done to David D and Kit B who will hopefully be able to fly the Astir during the club’s expedition this month to YGC at Sutton Bank.
New basic instructor Rois joined the team giving some fantastic flights in K21 G-CGAG to members of the public on their Trial Lessons.
Very noticeable wave indications formed in the sky but at least for a while, we were caught on the down-stroke and some flights through the middle of the day were fairly short.
The club’s LS4 was out for a second day of what looked like more circuits (timing guys!) but eventually climbed away to 3,000ft when the wave influence decayed and the air-mass started to become more unstable.
Privateers were also in evidence, Sharon brought her ASW28 ‘777’ out and had a good local soaring flight to shake down the aircraft for the cross-country season. Chris B had a soaring flight in SK. New arrival, Pegase 101 M7 also launched from Snitterfield for the first time!
The SZD Junior was popular; Jesal P flew it again with a view to flying the club’s Astir soon. Our newest member Outi, from Finland, flew with the CFI. An experienced pilot, hopefully she will be flying with us throughout the summer at Stratford.
All in all, a very busy day for us with 59 winch launches in total. Given the uncommonly warm conditions, we set up our first evening club barbeque hosted by Dan B. Around 20 members attended and the food was fantastic!
At the end of the BBQ, our CFI was lamenting that we’d done ‘only’ 59 launches instead of 60. He promptly launched himself backwards through the clubhouse fence to make up for it. What a hero.
