First solo!

George may have postponed his fundraising cycle ride but he made good use of the day by achieving his first solo. Here he is before the event.

The cycle ride will be happening later in the year combined with other events, keep an eye out for further news.

Cycling to get a K18 in the air - EVENT POSTPONED


George's marathon cycle ride (see below) has been postponed for a while to allow time for a more comprehensive package of fund-raising events to be organised. Look out for news later in the summer.

Wouldn't it be nice to have another one of these?

Since joining the club's cadet scheme in January, George Hunter has made fantastic progress on his flying, now only needing a decent weather window for his first solo. He has also thrown himself into working hard for the club, and on Saturday 31 May he will be setting off on a 200km bike ride to raise funds for the refurbishment of the K18 currently languishing in a trailer outside the tug hangar so it can join the club fleet.


That looks like an awful long way!

Setting off from the club house at 0830, George's route will take in Enstone, Hinton in the Hedges, Buckingham, Stony Stratford and Aylesbury, before arriving back at the club between 1700 and 1800 (depending how many punctures he gets).

There are only a handful of K18s still flying, anyone who has flown one will know what a delightful glider it is to fly. The refurbishment project needs £1,000, so please support George in his efforts by making your donation at the office.

George keeping a good look out

The run of good weather continued

After Saturday's cross countries and the swooping and swirling of the Easter Egg competitors, Sunday produced more good soaring and under Symeon's leadership he sent Ruth J off in DJK with orders to not return until she had been airborne for more than 2 hours.

Not one to disappoint, she duly followed instructions and only came down after about 2.5 hours thus finishing the soaring elements of her Bronze C (she had flown an hour long flight the day before).

Whilst the sky didn't look 'classic' there was strong lift until late in the afternoon/early evening and Symeon was overheard (very tongue in cheek) chastising a student who had gone up to practise his soaring and staying up far too long (and late).

Ruth stood by DJK after her Bronze leg (Photo Symeon)

A racing task and Easter Eggs

The sun brought out plenty of members to have a go at a handicapped distance task set by Tim, so the launch point was very busy. Most people got back - Rob and Yan dropped in to Thame to take a look at their Vintage weekend line up - and your correspondent arrived back too late to find out who won, but it was a good day out.


Busy grid

That bit of polish will make all the difference

Ready to launch

Meanwhile back at Booker, the 'Easter Egg' aerobatics competition was underway. With two classes - Standard and Gorblimey - there was plenty of action, scored by a judge from the British Aerobatic Association, and the winner was David Humphreys with a very creditable score of 85%, Second place went to Alun Jenkins and third to Ben Followell.

David receiving the Easter Egg trophy - patience rewarded

Booker Rules Competition Day 3

After a couple of days of weather imposed rest, the competition was back into full swing with a middling forecast, possible cloud bases of 3,000/4,000ft and 2/3kt thermals. There was an impressive grid set up with 15 gliders ready for first launch at 12:30 for the task of Stokenchurch South - Ravensthorpe Reservoir - Booker SW - Booker Airfield for a Task length: 167.5km.

The 15 strong grid ready to go

 With club members happily soaring there was no excuse but to launch and the start line opened at around 13:30 although the cloudbase was at various heights from 2,500ft to 3,500ft around the airfield but most importantly everyone set off.

Unfortunately the day didn't work out as forecast and soon Shelagh was kept busy in the clubhouse taking calls from all the landouts.

Thame proved a popular bolt hole with CEH, JDV, 405 and 118 all landing there - they had a friendly reception from some of our old friends at Thame with Henry O and another Thame member coming up to the field and helping tow the gliders back.

Luckily there were a lot of pilots on hand to move gliders at Thame

Rob looking pleased with himself having beaten the plastic toys again!

The "Thame crew" just prior to returning to Booker

Bicester reined in J1M and LC - aerotows being provided locally (although LC had an interesting 'Cooks' tour back routing via Kidlington/Brize before he took command and steered his tug pilot in the right direction.

Lastly we had 844 landing at BOB - it was pointed out to Symeon that it was a glider trailer we used to leave in the field, not a glider to signal when the start line was open (for those of you old enough to remember comps before GPS and when photos were required).

Look closely to see the "start line open" glider

Provisional honours for the day went to Richard C (F1), with Simon V (Y2) and William P (LC) 2nd and 3rd respectively (although nobody scored any points for all their hard efforts). General concensus though was that a good day was had by all.

Booker Rules Competition: Day 2

Sunday proved as wet as forecast, so the Comp reconvened on Monday for Day 2.

The briefing started with prize giving: 3rd place Jim and Jeremy (315), 2nd place Nils (EN), 1st place Bob (279) whose 'how I dunnit' included highlights like hanging around for 45 mins at Didcot and 45 mins at Bicester. The champagne was well deserved for endurance and determination.

Results on SoaringSpot

Met Man Nils was cautiously optimistic about tasks, displaying complex graphs and diagrams which suggested a window of opportunity for a short task. He also enlivened his briefing with some more hints and tips for those going on the June expedition to Klippeneck in Germany. An example of the German v. English approach to forthrightness was:

'Would you like to come for dinner on Friday?'
English response: 'Well, that's a lovely invitation, I'll have a look at my diary'
German response: 'No.'

Back to the flying. The task set was Didcot-Bullington-Goring. As the sky became more threatening this fell back to Oxford East-Chieveley. The grid launched, milled around for a while and then arrived back at ground level, in time to derig before the heavens opened.

At least we tried.

Next opportunity may be Wednesday.

Booker Rules Competition Day 1

Plenty of action at the launch point today (as there was yesterday with many pilots practising for the comp)  with eleven competitors taking to the sky for day one of the Booker Rules Handicap competition. A task of 160.7km (Stokenchurch, Didcot, Newbury, Bicester, Hambledon Church) was set under a promising sky with a 15kt easterly wind.

Early spread out around Booker prevented a few from starting but the more intrepid set off to better looking clouds on track. There were soon a few calls coming in from landouts, most pilots opting for the easier option of airfields with the chance of an aerotow retrieve (although not all the airfields were receptive to the idea of letting aircraft take off again!).

Honours for the day go to Bob Smith (the only finisher) with a creditable speed of 52.2kph, 2nd place to Nils Wedi (136km) and 3rd place to JimWhite/Jeremy Gilby (96km). Sunday's forecast isn't looking to good but the forecast for Monday is looking good again so there should be some good flying.

Jim and Jeremy at Chalgrove trying to agree who was
 in charge when the land out became an option

MM at Thame on one of its 2 aerotow retrieves

Nils at Thame just before his aerotow retrieve (it has just rained which caused his downfall)

Great couple of soaring days

After the success of the Bronze C course last week, the run of soaring weather has continued with Sunday and Monday giving some exciting soaring.

Sunday was interesting with some good lift to be found but without a very high cloudbase and a very noticeable shear around 2000' where a 10kt westerly became a 17kt northerly. The general opinion was that the thermals were broken and not where you expected them to be under the clouds. This didn't stop Jim in J1M and Tim in Z3 from doing a 260k task under the new handicap task rules format (which can now also be entered on the National Ladder) - hopefully the first of many flights to be flown and entered this way.

Mondays launchpoint - late afternoon

 Monday had a better forecast with a reasonable northerly wind 3/4 knots predicted. Success was had by Stuart Whitehouse doing his 50k O/R to Enstone (for the second time after a logger failure when he did it last summer) and Richard Eaton with his Silver Duration in ECZ. Other flights included 987 and KV both doing Bicester Didcot, 949 and F1 to Hus Bos and Wellesbourne respectively. The good news is that the rest of the week is still looking good if possibly going blue.

987 heading south to Didcot under 5,000' cloudbase

Patience rewarded

Thursday provided a variety of non-aviation opportunities. After some model flying John went trout fishing, didn't catch anything. Simon and Yan went to Ystradfellte where Simon led the way up some hills and Yan took lots of pics of waterfalls. The guitar party went to Gilwern and did a circular walk including the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal and the River Clydach - and sheep - and ended up in a very nice tea shop in Abergavenny. Towards the end of the day the heavens opened, roads ran with rivers of red water (from soil run off - or possibly Sahara dust).

Canal walking

Gastronome report: The guitar school had three types of sausages with onion mash, followed by fruit salad. The Treasurer's party were fed by Chef John who sacked three sous chefs before producing a 3 course feast: steak with tomato and onion bruschetta, pork chops with onion and mushroom sauce, sauté potatoes and glazed carrots, and (half price Co-op) vanilla cheesecake.

On Friday the day dawned grey again but the forecast was for south westerlies and lo and behold it was right. We were treated to an afternoon of sunshine with the ridge working all down the Cwmdu Valley, with thermals to help out.

On tow - Mynydd Troed

Talgarth tug heading for the hills

The reservoir

Castle Dinas ridge

Spot the airfield

All in all a very enjoyable trip, although of course the weather could - as always - have been better. Many thanks to Black Mountains GC for their hospitality and to Richard Crockett for his hard work in organising the trip and for all the flying he did.

Too much weather

Sunny Tuesday ended with some calm evening flying and some rather more exhilarating strap-hanging as Richard practised a few rolls and other figures.

Yesterday was a scrub and the party divided, some setting off for the model shop in Abergavenny where James bought 'something sporty' (a Riot) while the more active group went for a muddy walk to Llangorse Lake.

Gastronome report: The Treasurer's household finished off the honey roasted gammon with potato pancakes , the guitar workshop had fish pie.

Today we have more of the same. James is 'test flying' his new toy, John is planning on trout fishing, the rest are contemplating.

Southwesterly forecast for tomorrow, in which case we will be ridge running to our heart's content.