On Monday, junior glider pilot Archie L completed his FAI Silver badge flying from Stratford on Avon Gliding Club.

The FAI Silver badge requires that a sailplane pilot complete:

A soaring flight of 5 hours duration.
A cross-county flight of at least 50km from the point of release.
A height gain of at least 1000m above the previous lowest point.

Archie achieved all three of these goals on a flight which took him south-east to Bicester airfield before returning to Snitterfield.

As well as completing all three silver legs for a single claim in one flight, the out-and-return distance of ~107km also qualifies for the UK 100km Diploma part 1.

This on a day where conditions meant some of our advanced cross-country pilots were unable to complete their own cross-country tasks.

Well done Archie!

Last weekend two of our junior glider pilots converted onto new sailplane types.

First was junior pilot Ben L who, fresh from completing his Silver C in a single flight in our Astir CS-77, converted on Saturday to our LS4 high-performance single seater.

The following day, junior pilot Ed F who has previously flown our K21 and K13 single seater types converted onto our SZD Junior. The Junior is Ed’s first single-seat glider type and paves the way to fleet progression and cross-country flying.