Saturday 27th July

Did everyone go to the Mid-Devon Show? or just seen the forecast with rain by afternoon?

Well the morning was flyable and a few members took advantage of the low turnout. James started his acceptance flights with CFI Pete, curtailed by a clap of thunder and a column of rain. Newly qualified BI Peter Sm flew his first Trial lessons.

Thursday 25th July

6mm of rain last night which gave rise to a little fog and low cloud in the morning, but time was well spent in repairing the HCX radio  and routine change of release hooks on KHA (thanks to Pete St and team of helpers). 

By 1100 the cloudbase had risen sufficiently to start winch launching, and after lunch it cleared for trial lesson aerotows and in the late afternoon it became very soarable with a convergence nearby.

The two-seater list was again very long and we didn't quite manage to get everybody flown so apologies to those who missed out. 

Matt Sm converted to the Junior, 
 

Matt converts to the Junior

and congratulations to Ollie for his First solo - more progress for our growing number of young pilots.

John  congratulates Ollie

In the evening a group from Exeter 41 Club enjoyed the late soaring conditions.

Wednesday 24th July

With 0.6mm of rain overnight, the airfield was still bone dry but it felt a little cooler today, and there was again a long list to fly.  All the gliders were in use but we were short of instructors in the morning with Mike F away and Pete W busy most of the day tugging. The Eagle made another appearence with JB & Malcolm. Congratulations to Peter Sm for completing BI acceptance checks with CFI Pete. Congratulations also to Matt Sm for completing his Bronze.

There were a number of trial lessons and Roly flew a honeymoon couple (one at a time).

Thermals were few and far  between a but some gentle evening wave set up in the valley in front of the South ridge.

In the evening, Ottery scouts just managed to get their flights in before the lowering cloudbase and hopefully tonight - some real rain.
Rowan presented Aeronautic Activity badges to four members of the Ottery St Mary Scout Group.

Thanks to Peter Sm for cleaning out the hooks on the DG505. 

Sunday 21st July

Sunday was another hot and sticky day but by early afternoon there were some thermals. As is often the case on such hot days. There was a general air of lethargy with quite a lot of club members resting at the clubhouse end of the field which resulted in a few devoted members doing all the work to keep the flying going.
John P flew his Lac and stayed up for several hours. Matt Sm completed his Bronze flight checks and soloed in the K13 (having been solo for some time at Mendip Club. Liam flew with John St in the DG505,in preparation to fly it solo, but was frustrated by problems with the cable releasing on the ground run.
Roly and Heather worked tirelessly to ensure that all the trial lessons were flown and by the end of the day everyone had had their fill.
Thanks to JB and John Si for standing in for Andrew (who had forgotten about his duty roster). - JB

Friday 19th July - One day course

We welcomed back Students and Teachers from Teign Academy for another one day course in their end of term aviation activity week.

The morning was rather slow due to one complete rope change and a number of other rope failures, but it got soarable just before lunch and all the students had soaring flights through the afternoon.

Their day at the club included flying and all the other airfield activities, most popular were the visits to the winch and 'Air Traffic Control'.

Grateful thanks to all the rostered helpers, and instructors and to Adrian for answering the call for more help on Google groups.

Thursday 18 July

Adrian finished working on the Disco before it got too hot. Meanwhile Steve was putting the final touches to his fabulous rendering of the west end of the ground hangar after working every morning for the last couple of weeks on the project in the tremendous heat - Jobs well done.

Blue sky and lots of sunshine again, clouds were forecast to appear by lunchtime. The morning flying proved to be a slow start as work on the cable had to be completed after the end had fallen off the drum.

Training progressed steadily with Peter and Adam continuing BI course alongside. Private owners arrived at the west end  en-masse at lunch time.

Adrian Jantar FDX got to Yeovil and Tiverton for 120 km, Gordon  H  Kestrel 575 collected local turnpoints for 137 km, Tom  DG1 completed 5 hours. Wyn LS7 W7 got to Chievely but landed out at The Park on the way back, Pete St Discus 230 completed a double O/R Shaftesbury, Wellington, Blandford for 308 km, and Ron and Lisa in ASH25 711 (following in Liam's footsteps?) went to Wantage and back  also 308 km.

Meanwhile back at the airfield,Congratulations to Ruth and Rick in KHA for their Silver heights, and commiserations to Ian G in FZF which had a problem with the logger.

Congratulations to Peter Sm for successfully completing his BI course with Adam.

In the evening, a group from Mitie with Mark L enjoyed some good evening flying and a barbeque.

Wednesday 17th July

Same hot weather, but today cumulus formed over the airfield. The whole club fleet was soaring and a few private owners headed off to Salisbury. Most found the Blackdowns as an island of soaring and decided not to leave the high ground. Pete St 230 Discus and JB Ventus found the conditions heaving further east, on their trips to Salisbury and back

Congratulations to Mark L Cirrus 477 for his 5 hours landing at nearly 19:30, and to Anthony B in Astir 375 for achieving his 3rd silver height in two days without a working logger.

Congratulations to Chris Cov for passing Bronze exam, and also to Matt Sm who completed his Nav test in Rotax Falke with Ian, and passed his Bronze exam.

Meanwhile Peter Sm and Adam were walking round the airfield in every direction from K13 launch failures for BI course.

Adrian P spent the evening changing springs on the Disco, and the evening group enjoyed the late evening sunshine.

Tuesday 16th July - Cross-country flying week

After Monday proved to be hot and not worth launching, a few more members turned up expectantly on Tuesday, Pete St decided to go 'rele bashing' at Mevagissey).

After a long wait for the distant cumulus to get closer, launching started at 1400. JB in Ventus took off first and pulled off really early (as he was still on QNH with French waypoints set!!!), but used the iron thermal to motor off to the clouds over Culmhead.

Next to go was Wyn in W7 LS7, Tom in DG1, Liam in Junior FZF and Adrian in Jantar FDX, bringing up the rear and nearly an hour behind were Pete and Jill in Duo Discus OL.

Everyone set off towards Sherbourne and found the conditions quite varied  but usable. JB led a noisy gaggle until it got split up near Chard, when everyone decided to do their own thing.

Tom and Adrian turned Chard and returned to North Hill, Liam and OL turned Sherbourne and returned, meanwhile JB and Wyn went on to  Iwerne Minster / Henstridge  but with poorer conditions.

Long way back from Yeovil for W7

 The forecast south coast sea breeze front didn't set up with any conviction but there was a murky convergence street back from Yeovil for the early returners, although Wyn & JB had to struggle in the blue.

Thanks to Ian for tugging.

Sunday 14th July

With a little cold advection forecast, it was slightly more promising than Saturday and RASP was showing some good convergence lines forming during the afternoon.

There were more members around than Saturday, and winching started fairly early.

High-based cumulus started popping just before lunchtime and private owners launched with a nominal task to Iwerne Minster (no we hadn't heard of it either), Hembury Hill and Shaftesbury for just over 300 km

The early launchers turned Iwerne Minster, but then a nice convergence set up on the south coast providing some nice lines of energy and going east again from Hembury wasn't as attractive as following the clouds into Cornwall.

A river runs through it. Exeter

Ron and Daniel  ASH25 711, Simon ASW20 SM, John P Lak OG and Matt ASW20 M5 completed various beats of the convergence and all headed off to Bovey Tracey, as there looked like some good clouds the other side of the Exe valley completing nearly 300 km.

Exmouth

 Pete and Jill in Duo Discus OL turned abeam Eyres Field in the south coast convergence and then went exploring a north coast convergence that joined up the peninsula and  got to 7000 ft, before the south coast convergence started again.

Teignmouth under some good looking clouds

Congratulations to Mark E for gain of height in Junior for Silver Height, and commiserations to Andreas in K21 and Antony B in Astir who also achieved the height but without loggers, and similarly with Paul L in SF27  for 5 hours but without a logger. 

Our new member Simon L (from Lasham) has resoloed and converted to Junior after his 10 year absence with gliding.

For ICL at Upavon, North Hill were second after Saturday, but  Liam was struggling after his late night retrieve the night before, and didn't fly, but Jonathan St in ASW19 877 winning the novice and completed an 83 km cats cradle. Overall North Hill are now in 5th place with 18 points.

1 - The Park 27
=2 - Wyvern 23
=2 - Bannerdown 23
4 - Mendip 22
5 - DSGC 18

Saturday 13th July

Funny old day - too hot to do much, more trial lessons than members so reduced price aerotows for a few.
More like beach weather than gliding, but also competing with Yeovilton Air Day, Tiverton Balloon festival and Powderham Castle Classic cars. A few members had also gone to Upavon for Inter Club League, Liam was flying Novice in K6, Rowan was Intermediate in Libelle, and Matt was Pundit in ASW24. Rowan had the benefit of being able to crack open the canopy on the Libelle every so often to cool down.
The tasks were Pundit 203 km, Intermediate 158 km, and Novice 117 km. Liam continued practicing field selections, Rowan very nearly got back, and Matt completed in the hot and blue. Scores available tomorrow - Well done Team.

Friday 12th July - Course week

Wednesday and Thursday: the sun blazed down out of a cloudless sky. It was very hot, despite the cooling effect of a brisk easterly wind. The afternoons gave us strong, rough thermals to around 3,000 ft, but also areas of severe sink. These were challenging conditions for the course trainees, but they all coped well. There was good coordination with the usual groups of Wednesday and Thursday flyers, and a brisk launch rate made sure that there was plenty of flying for all. The course dinner on Thursday evening at the Wyndham Arms in Kentisbeare was a thoroughly enjoyable occasion.

Friday - last course day: we had the airfield to ourselves again. The weather was much the same as it had been all week: blazing sunshine. But the wind had abated to a light breeze, providing precious little cooling, so that at times it was uncomfortably hot. We flew steadily throughout the day. A de-briefing and card-filling session at around 17:30 brought a hugely successful week to a close. Our grateful thanks go to our helpers Alan Turner, Dave Albasiny and Eddie Bromwell (assisted by Wendy), not only for their tireless work on ground operations, but also in providing training for the course members in those operations.

(ed. And a big thank you to the back-seat drivers - Robin and Stu.)

The July course

Achievements: 138 launches for 20 hours and 13 minutes, one first solo early in the week, followed on Friday with Junior conversion, and five pilots progressing to very close to solo standard. - RWF

Thursday 11th July - Course week

Thursday was another beautiful summers day with many launches for both the course and club flying. Rick flew his first solo soaring flight, during the short period of soarable weather.

 In the evening there was a group from SUB10 who enjoyed the continuing good weather for trial lesson flying, 
 

The end of the day

 and the Course dined out at The Wyndham Arms in Kentisbeare for their traditional supper.

Wednesday 10 July - Met Office evening

A group from the Met Office arrived for their evening session with a very pleasant evening to enjoy 19 flights.

Relatively chilly but enjoying the sun.

In all, there were around 30 people including visitors, helpers and instructors who devoured food from a brilliant BBQ laid on by Andria and friends. The bar's last night ensured some guests had liquid refreshment too.

BBQ action shot with new clubhouse housing the committee meeting.

Thanks to Chris H for rallying the troops and ensuring enough people were around to fly and help out. Thanks to the instructors and helpers too!

Wednesday 10th July

Wednesday with the third summer course in full swing and a beautiful sunny day, what more could you ask, the only problem was the 4 down everywhere.

After lunch the thermals started to pop and the sink between thermals went from 4 to 6 down, this made getting away quite a challenge.

JS spent most of the day flying the on-loan K13 which felt a little different to CCY.

- JSt

Monday 8th / Tuesday 9th July - Course week

The first two days: 63 launches, wall to wall sunshine and a first solo on Day Two - Congratulations to Rick.

Stu congratulates Rick for his first solo in gliders

 Wonderful team effort by course participants, helpers and instructors. Rest of week is looking equally promising.

Sunday 7th July

The Competition over, some pilots set off on a' Fly Home' flight, Pete and Stu set off in convoy with the SuperCub and the Rotax Falke to Banbury.
Meanwhile a few members from Mendip had turned up to fly with us.
The Clubhouse, glider workshop and hangars  began to return to normal and we said goodbye to the last of our visitors.

A great big thank you to all our club members  for helping to make the Competion Enterprise such a success. Many letters of thanks from our visitors keep flooding in.

Saturday 6th July - Competition Enterprise

The High pressure was stabilising out on the SW peninsula, and there was a wish to get all the competitors home early for scoring before the prize giving and Anniversary party. 

The Eurofox demonstrator arrived at North Hill ready to show off its fuel-efficient aerotow launches.

A task was set of  'Ever Decreasing Circles' consisting of a series of out and returns to a set of concentric rings round North Hill at 20 km, 40 km, 60 km and 80 km, repeating to closer rings within 3 hours of start or 5pm.

Matt in ASW24 M5 was second on the day achieving the 80 km ring O/R, Ron's total was 120 km  giving him 11th position on handicap, Liam and his logger were tired (after the previous days 7.5 hour epic flight) and distance to Yeovil and nearly back unfortunately wasn't recorded and even Facebook didn't have any photos to help the Scorer.

Flying over, now on to Unveiling the Commemorative Plaque Ceremony and Anniversary Party...

DSGC Members and Competition Enterprise Pilots gathered at the DSGC entrance and Gillian Wills unveiled a Commemorative Plaque,

" Dear Friends,
Today, when so many of yesterday's values have been undermined by the cultures of celebrity, notoriety, invasive bureaurocracy and political correctness, we remember with pride John Fielden and Philip Wills, and their steadfast belief in the worth of human endeavour and individual freedom.
We have come together to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the formation of the Devon and Somerset Gliding Club and the 40th Anniversary of the inception of Competition Enterprise and it is with pleasure that I unveil this commemorative plaque."      Gillian Wills

Gillian Wills unveiling the plaque

A fantastic party followed with more superb catering from Maria and team and music by Alex Hart.

Lisa and Justin cutting the Anniversary cake

After the buffet, prizes were awarded to the following:

First  Trevor Stuart Enterprise Challenge Trophy

Second Matt Wright Pop's Pot

Third Ron Johns Pop's Pot

The John Cadman Trophy was awarded to Trevor Stuart for his flight on Day 1 Point of no return.

The Blunt Nails trophy was awarded to Lemmy Tanner for highest score in a wooden glider. (100 points ahead of Liam)

The Sam Witter trophy was awarded Andrew Reid for an enterprising flight after using his engine.

The John Fielden Junior Scholarship award was presented to Liam Vile.

Friday 5th July - Competition Enterprise

A good day dawned, and the task setters were thinking great distances.The task was set as 'Some days are Diamonds' and a range of turn points were set at varying distances to cover the various performance of gliders (and expertise of the pilots). The line was chosen to the north east of North Hill, The Park, Avebury, Wantage, Newport Pagnell, Grafham water.
The day developed slightly better than forecast:
JB and Malcolm flew in Eagle BBB and although it had a good soaring flight turned short of the first turning point, Andrew in Cirrus KEB wanted to experience a long aerotow retrieve and landed at The Park. Congratulations to Jonathan ASW19 877 for turning the Park for Silver Distance and getting back as far as Chard. (having learnt much from Bob Bromwich in the DG500 on the flight on Wednesday). Matt ASW24 M5 and Rowan Libelle CLM both turned Wantage, and Ron and Dan in ASH25 711 went one further to Newport Pagnell.  The day winner was infamous Trevor Stuart in ASW27 who turned the furthest point of Grafham Water and returned landing near Taunton achieving 505km.

Diamond boy

However, congratulations to  Star of the day, Liam in Ka6 HEB (scoring equal 3rd with Ron in the ASH) and completing his Gold Distance and Diamond Goal with Culmstock - Wantage out and return, although he didn't quite have the legs to get back from the convergence line and sensibly landed just short of the airfield at Blackborough.
See the Competition Enterprise tasks and results on DSGC website. 

Thurdsay 4th July - Competition Enterprise

It was rather drizzly to start, with a weak coldish front clearing through during the morning, but with no significant change of airmass forecast. Low cloudbase was once again a concern for Competition Director and Task setters. Following a rebrief at 1200, with no indication that the airmass would change, the day was scrubbed.
At 1530 the weather improved with a significant drying out and club and crew flying continued until 1730 when convection died out.

The Eagle has flown again

The Eagle BBB was rigged and recommissioned after an 11 year break, which was followed by a syndicate champagne ceremony.

Cheers

Wednesday 3rd July - Competition Enterprise

Weather was miserable to start with a brisk N/W wind but by the time we got all the kit out and ready the drizzle cleared and we had a reasonable cloud base.

 The ridge was working on and off with a little bit of thermal mixed in, many members had soaring flights, the Wednesday club kept flying until Competiton Enterprise started at 3.45pm they launched 30 gliders in under an hour very good going! - JSt

At the morning Competition Enterprise briefing, Nick H received a prize for his first field landing with Muggles yesterday after helping out on many retrieves for others. It was clear that it would be a late start and a rebrief at 1330 followed. 

Jill the Met. convinced Justin that a wave task was a good possibility and a task of  'The Compass Rose' was set (pilot declared O/R into each quadrant from Tiverton East with launching not before 15:30  and finish at Sunset.

Waiting for the weather

 In the event, cloudbase proved to be slightly lower than hoped for, but the forecast gaps opened up nicely and DD2 landed last just after 20:00.

Liam picked his most scenic field yet - overlooking Chesil Beach.

Liam lands near Weymouth

There were two gliders in a field at Blackborough, and several around Tiverton.
Results not expected before tomorrow (scoring is a bit complicated on this one).

See the Competition Enterprise tasks and results on DSGC website.

Tuesday 2nd July - Competition Enterprise

The forecast was for a moist south west to southerly wind with lowering cloud and rain approaching, there was an extended briefing with many interesting personal tales of flights yesterday. Yesterday's winners were announced as local Matt in M5 closely followed by Andrew Cluskey in ASW 28T.

The non-flying programme kicked in, with talks from Tony Maitland on 'Channel hopping' followed by 'ridge running' by Trevor Stuart, Steve Eyles and Matt.

In the afternoon, there was a visit arranged by Chairman Lisa to Capital Air Charter, who had an interesting visitor in their hangar at Exeter Airport. The University of Wyoming were taking part in a meteorological research programme at Exeter, investigating extreme convective precipitation events such as Boscastle flood using an instrumented King Air.

See the Competition Enterprise tasks and results on DSGC website.

Monday 1st July - Competition Enterprise

The forecast was an improving situation with the promise of some convergences running somewhere along the south coasts.

The task was set as 'Beaded Breeze' (any number of 11 turnpoints in any order) deliberately set in the area that was hoped to see the convergence.

Initially, the cloud was too low to launch the competition safely, but cloudbase soon improved and they were off. The radio was amazingly quiet as no one was giving away their strategy. 

It was obviously tricky at times as there were a few early landouts and turbos were heard to run. 

Liam's field at Beaminster

 By the end of the day the scorers were hard at work with the complicated scoring system for this type of task.
See the Competition Enterprise tasks and results on DSGC website

Sunday 30th June - Competition Enterprise

The forecast was a little mixed but hopeful, and foggy low cloud took a while to clear.
The task was set as Ping Pong, (fly to Yeovil reservoir and then to a pilot selected turnpoint and back to North Hill). Unfortunately the cloudbase did not rise sufficiently for safely launching the competition, and the task was eventually scrubbed at 1500.
Several pilots took the opportunity to take a launch to fly locally, and the conditions improved late in the afternoon.
See the Competition Enterprise tasks and results on DSGC website

Saturday 29th June - Competition Enterprise

Opening Ceremony for Day 1 of Competition Enterprise celebrating the 40th event with an opening speech by DSGC President Dave Minson. Meanwhile Club launching started into an improving sky albeit with top cover.

The Task was set as Point of No Return? (Pilot selected Out and Return to anywhere).

Launching started at lunchtime and then there was a very early phone call that Rowan in CLM had landed at Stoodleigh

Rowan's field at Stoodleigh

  and gliders started returning to base from the very local area, caused by the normal North Hill wave interference at the motorway.

As the day wore on, conditions at North Hill detereoriated with lowering cloudbase but up country the soaring was still good.

Last competitor back was Bob Bromwich in DG500MB 94  with Liam in the back seat having turned Honeybourne and sawtoothed back from Nympsfield. Taking first place, Trevor Stuart in ASW27B 621 who had managed to find the forecast convergence along the south coast turned Duncton and landed out at Shaftesbury for a total of  291 kms giving 381 points.

There was a big buzz in the evening in the Clubhouse with an excellent Carvery and bar with everyone chatting with old friends.

See the Competition Enterprise tasks and results on DSGC website