Hi Everyone
Forgive this being a day late but I took the opportunity yesterday to fly in the good weather and didn’t get home until late. The club was delightfully busy with lots of brightly coloured vintage gliders taking advantage of the ridge and enjoying some bungee launching in the afternoon. We have been priviledged to host fifteen visitors for wood week including six from Holland and two from Australia. Today couldn’t be more different as I look out of the window at pouring rain. A quick glance at the club webcams this morning looks as though the cloud is still on the hill. The good news however is that it will probably clear this afternoon and Saturday now looks a bit better than it did a few days ago and Sunday still looks like a good day for cross country flying and local training. Next week looking good too. Like any forecast these always come with the usual caviats. Trying to forecast weather even a few days ahead is always difficult as things change quite rapidly sometimes. For this reason, as a glider pilot, you need to become comfortable with looking at the now readily available data, such as RASP, Skysight or TopMeteo as well as the Skew-T charts from NOAA or other sources, and making your own assment of which days to fly. I know how hard it seems at the beginning but it is well worth the effort. There are lots of people around the club who are much better at it than me so if you need help just ask and I’m sure they will all relish an opportunity to show you how clever they are!
We also had two groups of young people from Holy Trinity Academy, Telford looking around the club and watching watch we do. Hopefully some of them will come again, possible for a camp, and start to learn to fly. Thanks to Paul Fowler and the office staff for looking after them.
Simon’s Cross Country Course
As no one seems to want to learn, practice or improve their cross country skills Simon’s course has been cancelled. I’m really surprised that there is so little interest in taking advantage of available club gliders and expert coaching at the best part of the soaring year just as the fields are beginning to be cut. I know not everyone wants to fly cross country and it can seem daunting at first but you won’t know if you like it until you try. We are very fortunate to have a number of high performance two seat gliders available on site for coaching, four, sometimes five Duo Discus and two Arcus, with very experienced pilots. Why not get one of them to take you with them and have a go.
Rockpolishers
Then when you are bitten by the cross country bug you can sign up for the club Rockpolishers team. Details are available on the website. The next event is next weekend at Aston Down. Support crew is always welcome or just go and soak up the atmosphere and excitement.
Task Week
And of course don’t forget the club Task Week taking place 17th to 25th August. 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 consistently be 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, Weather, Notams, Tasks, to make the whole experience as straight-forward and rewarding as possible. Who knows maybe you’ll get a chance to fly with one of our experienced cross country pilots in a 2 seater. Several of the turbo Duos are often available.
Not to be missed for any pilot wishing to improve their Cross Country skills.
Book in via the Office
Happy landings
Jon Hall
Chairman
