Tuesday 18th December 2012

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.

Christmas/New Year Opening 2012

Richard writes:

The Club will be open as follows over the Christmas & New Year period :

 

Thursday 20th December

Saturday 22nd December

Sunday 23rd December

 

Thursday 27th December

Saturday 29th December

Sunday 30th December

 

Tuesday 1st January

Thursday 3rd January

Saturday 5th January

Sunday 6th January

 

You will note that its really just business as usual on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays over this period (normal rotas apply), with just one additional opening on New Years Day (thanks to Andy S for covering).

 

On behalf of myself and the Committee, may I take this opportunity to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

 

Regards

 

Richard

Sunday 16th December 2012

Today we managed to fly 33 more launches than on Saturday!

The field was very wet with little if any drying overnight so we had to go out and actively hunt the solid bits. The winch was set up on the southwest stub and we put the launchpoint in front of the main hangar.

The tow-out took the new ‘Z’ route along the cross runway and hugged the field edge back to the launchpoint.

The aircraft canopies took a fair while to stop misting (on the outside) which gave us plenty of time to get K8 G-CJHK and K8 former JXS ready to go on trailers to their new home at East Sussex Gliding Club.

Launch heights were good, 1,600ft was common and the cloud-base behaved for us.

Flight times were generally short but good training was done. Adrian F managed to squeak out 15 minutes and a 300ft climb on a street which was gone almost as soon as it appeared.

With careful planning, retrieves caused no problems and the field condition was not worsened.

Spot landings within a tracks width of the perimeter track on 190′ were order of the day and everybody achieved this admirably except for our Scottish visitor who had to show off his parallel parking technique. We duly kicked in his minor rut.

Ultimately, we kept flying until the canopies again began misting and the Sun escaped over the horizon.

Washing aircraft and vehicles down at the end of a good day!

Washing aircraft and vehicles down at the end of a good day!

Tuesday 13th November 2012

Today went very well after we had worked out how to get the cable back without doing damage to the field. We were also very careful in marking out a good solid part of the field to land on. It all went well and was a good exercise for people to land accurately from the slightly unusual approach on 24.

All 30 Doughnuts went by lunch time and we were lucky it stayed dry all day. It really was quite warm and we had our fair share of sun. It was good to see our new K6 on line and it was very well used all day. It is proving to be very popular.

Doughnut Details are….

  • Total Launches……………27
  • Longest Flight…………….13mins by Geof G, also worth a mention was 12mins by David S and 12mins by Bob Horsnell and Harry in a K13..
  • Total Flight Time………….3hr..35min.
  • Average Flight Time…….7min.

Backup Winch Doris worked well all day and gave us consistently good launches, at least one to over 1900′. The wind did increase during the morning but did not get as strong as forecast, probably no more than 18kts. max. By the time we finished it had dropped to almost nothing. A good day all round.

Steve P.

Tuesday 30th October 2012 – Doughnuts

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 27th October 2012

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

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.

Sunday 15th January 2012

It was certainly cold when we started out today but the members turned up, set up and we got stuck in.

The wind was generally from the South-East as it had been yesterday and although the sky was cloudless visibility was limited by a fairly low inversion.

We took two K13s and our K21 to the North-West launchpoint along with the single-seat K18. Launch heights were around 1,550. We have begun a new round of instructor training so the launch rate was steady. In the early afternoon, there was some definite thermal activity and some small climbs were made. The longest flight was 13 minutes. The T21 syndicate brought their aircraft up to the launchpoint and Derek H completed the required training to able to fly it solo – Well done!

During the day a group from Lasham collected a vintage 1943 Weihe glider which has been stored at Snitterfield for a while. The Weihe will become part of new gliding museum at Lasham. They had just a little trouble getting it into the trailer they arrived with.

Warwick University Gliding Club sent three members, a mix of experienced and completely new pilots who thoroughly enjoyed themselves. We also had two visitors from Scotland who flew with us while they are in Stratford on Avon on business.

All told there were 48 launches and only the arrival of sunset stopped play. Several members were again able to partake in ever-popular winter 4th launch free scheme.