Tag Archives: flying report

Tuesday 18th December 2012

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Today we finally managed a Doughnut Day. It all went very well. We were lucky not getting any mist or fog this morning and we were able to get set up on the South East stub runway nice and early. We had a good turnout of about 20 members.

Apart from some early morning misting of the canopies which soon disappeared we had no problems. Visibility was not great but we did get some sunshine and with the gentle N.W. wind it was not too cold. Everyone flew as much as they wanted and we finally put it all to bed at around 3.45pm.

As the flights were fairly short because launch height was not very high due to a very gentle crosswind we made life a bit more exiting by doing some of the circuits to the right. Very interesting and good practice for those more used to our “normal” circuits. So the details are as follows,……………………

  • Total Launches…………..30
  • Successful Landings……30 (this is for the C.F.I.’s peace of mind).
  • Total Flight Time………….2hr. 54min.
  • Longest Flight(s)…………8min. Well done to Dereck H., John H., and Phil Pa.
  • Average Flight Time……..5min.

All in all a good day, all the doughnuts and mince pies went and it was really good to get a days flying in especially in view of the forecast for the rest of the week. Many thanks to all those who turned up early to get set up, it really helped to give us a good day. Oh and last but not least, Thanks to Pete the Meat for the lovely chockies, a big tin and we struggled to finish them all by the end of the day but we did manage, thanks Pete.

See you soon, Steve P.

Tuesday 30th October 2012 – Doughnuts

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It may have been 4 weeks since we last had a Doughnut Day but it was well worth waiting for because today we had a fabulous day. The weather could not really have been much better with a 10kt. Westerly all day giving us consistent launches to over 1600′. The sun shone all day with only the last hour or so having a lot of cloud cover.

It turned out to be thermic with some really good flights from several members. The turnout was excellent with over 20 members present at 9am and probably 25+ an hour later.

It was a good job we had 2 instructors on hand to help Allan out, all 3 were kept busy from when we started flying at 9-45am until the finish which was not until light stopped play.

Doughnut Details are,

Total Number of Launches, 56

Total Number of Landings,…..a few more ! (only joking…..joking ….joking…..joking…..joking…joking….joking…)

Total Time Flown, 10hr 37min. (including several cable breaks, most simulated and one not).

Best Flight of Day, 47min. Excellent flight by Humph and Pete the Meat in H.S.M.

Average Flight Time 11min.

A few other flights worthy of mention, TonyM 41min, JohnG and Allan 28mins. GaryA and Nick 31mins. JohnH 20min. MartinC 22min. and last but not least well done to KenM who had 21min. in the K18 on his first flight on type.

I think everyone had a brilliant day, thanks to everyone who helped to make it such a success, it really was a team effort.

See you soon, safe flying, Steve P.

Saturday 28th October 2012

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Today looked like a mixed bag from the outset with rain forecast for the afternoon.

However, our CFI noted that there was a prediction of wave in the fairly strong Westerly wind so an intrepid bunch of pilots braved the cold to search for it. Always tricky to contact from a winch launch, we searched. Not entirely in vain as a couple of flights encountered reduced or nil sink in smooth air.

We only stopped trying when the rain finally drove us back indoors.

K13 G-DCCT about to launch in search of the elusive wave.

Saturday 27th October 2012

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It felt like brass monkeys today!

We had a stiff Northerly wind today which made the field setup a little awkward, flying from the SE stub runway, we had the winch in the NW corner and landed 34.The wind also provided significant chill against already low temperatures so most members have sworn to break out the thermals (underwear).

We had a good turnout of club members and a contingent of 4 from Warwick University Gliding Club. Launches were reasonable given the wind direction. Flights were a mixed bag; some pilots encountering only sink, some others getting short climbs under weak streets of cloud.

Winch driver training was given to PhilS and he gave some great launches. By the end of the day, everyone had got in the flying they wanted to do but the Snitterfield Arms and it’s open fire provided a more than welcome retreat.

Tuesday 14th February

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We were lucky with the weather again with a nice sunny  morning and good N.W. breeze as forecast. Launches were to around 15 – 1600′.  The wind slowly increased during the day to around 20+ kts on the ground and went more to the north. It went very grey by 3pm so we packed up fairly early as everyone had flown and retired to the “Snitt”.

We had around 15 members present when we started flying at 10-30 but well over 20 by lunch time so all the Doughnuts disappeared pretty quickly.

No long flights today but it was quite challenging, we had no problems and everyone had a good day.  Thanks of course to Allan as boss for the day, the winch drivers who gave us such good launches in some difficult turbulent conditions, no cable breaks or failed launches and last but not least to Barry and Phil who repaired the canopy of CCT so we could have 3 two seaters on line today, we really did need them.  Thank you all.

Well done to Jonty and Nick for the longest flight of the day, aahh you can’t beat old age and experience !!

Gruesome details……,

Launches  31
Longest Flight  12mins.
Average flight time 6 mins.
Total flight time 3hr 4 mins.

See you soon,  Steve  P.