Hi everyone
A word in your ear about Task Week. When I joined the club in the late 1980s Task Week was a big deal. Pretty much everyone who was the slightest bit interested in cross country or competition flying took part, in a range of gliders from K6 to Discus, with everything in between and including most of the club fleet. Many families came up for the week and brought their children with them. The place was busy and we all had a lot of fun. It was Task Week that got me interested in cross country flying, though I wasn’t very good at it for a long time. But every year I got a little bit better at flying tasks and landing out, sometimes not very far away. The advantages of Task Week for all of us are:
- Someone else tells you each morning what the weather will do
- Then someone else tells you what task to fly
- Then someone else tells you what NOTAMS are active in the task area
- There are always lots of people to help you rig
- If you are new to cross country flying there are lots of experienced pilots to explain and help
- You can compare your performance against others
- If you land out there are always people who will come and get you (once from Silverstone in my case)
- There is always food available when you get back
- These days there are quite a few high performance privately owned two seat gliders available in which you may be able to blag a seat with an experienced pilot
- The evenings in the bar are always fun as you compare notes with those more and less successful than yourself
- You learn about how to thermal better
- You learn about how to fly at the best speed between thermals
- Sometimes you learn about gaggle flying
- You learn about final glides (and how not to do them)
- There are prizes every day
- You can enter every task on the club ladder
- And all this for a very nominal entry fee that just about covers the cost of the day prizes.
The main objective of Task Week is to encourage and enable pilots to improve their Cross Country flying and introduce an element of competition to prepare pilots to move on to other, more formal, competitions if they so wish. For 2019 the format will follow that which we have developed over the past couple of years:
Entrants will be divided into classes by the pilots’ previous Cross Country experience and achievements. They will then compete against each other within their classes, on tasks devised specifically for each class. The overall result being decided by a pilot’s performance within their individual class. This approach puts everyone on an equal footing, you just need to be consistently well up the order in your class. If you have not done much cross country flying this is an ideal opportunity to stretch yourself. Full briefings are given every morning to make the whole experience as straight-forward and rewarding as possible. Not to be missed for any pilot wishing to improve their Cross Country skills.
Need I say more? This year’s Task Week starts on Saturday and runs to 25th August with Monday 26th August in reserve. Book in via the Office.
Your Duty Teams This Weekend Are:
Saturday: Steve Male (No 1), Charles Carter (TLs), Guy Hartland (winch)
Sunday: Steve Male (No 1), Mark Wakeham (TLs), Guy Hartland (winch)
Club Rules
May I remind you all that the club has a set of rules, often established by the members at an AGM, that are designed to make the club a better place for all of its members, not just for a few. One of the things that has been brought to my attention recently is the presence of dogs on the airfield. The club rules state clearly that dogs are allowed on the airfield but must be on a lead and controlled. Uncontrolled dogs are not tollerated anywhere on the airfield. However no dogs are allowed inside the clubhouse at any time. Just as I would not expect members to harass dog owning visitors if the dogs are properly controlled I do not expect members to break the rules about not having dogs in the clubhouse. Of course rules can be changed but the way to do so is at an AGM.
Happy landings
Jon Hall
Chairman