Thur 17th May

 With Wednesday wiped out,  and considering it should be the height of the glider soaring season it was another disappointing day at North Hill. The South West continues to lag behind the rest of the country in thermal activity! 

The CFI turned up with the Clubs' latest acquisition - a big golf buggy - so much room for the golf bags / rucksacks and tyres!

Latest DSGC ground vehicle (Mark Courtney)

It was a bit of a slow start despite the field being set up for flying from the west end (just after dawn apparently) by Ashley who we believe gets up before he goes to bed! The flying list started with the instructors (Mike, Steve and Mark) pulling the bung on various unsuspecting P2's and the gliders landing in a variety of different locations around the airfield as the backlog of recency / check flights continued. 

Ground equipment (Mark Layton)

 

One or two flights managed extended circuits before the rain arrived conveniently at lunchtime. After reconvening somewhat prematurely after being conned by the CFI that it was clearing, we all stood out in the rain waiting for a further twenty minutes. 

Waiting in the rain (Mark Layton)

  Soon after launches continued in an attempt to get everyone flown but before long more rain arrived caused a premature end to the day. Unfortunately two gliders had to be walked back to the hanger, making those involved extremely wet. Most people flew and only a couple of unlucky ones didn't. 

Training  / check flights when possible (Mark Layton)

 On the plus side Dave Perriam took his first trial lesson flight visitor after receiving confirmation of his paperwork from the BGA earlier in the day. The second and third flights were frustratingly scrubbed due to the rain showers and low cloud.

A frustrating day for this time of year but the best was made of it by all those involved. - Mark Layton

Sun 12th May

 Having arrived at North Hill at 8 am and ensuring name was on the list it was a slow start to the day, slowly aircraft emerged from the hangar and daily inspection duly carried out. There was a short flying list  maybe due to the poor visibility /  threat of thunderstorms (which went to Wales and further North).

Launch point set up (Paul Gunner)

 The field was set up for 9:40 and the flying started with Thomas Gunner training with Ian Mitchell instructing for the day, with Paul Summers looking after the Trial lesson visitors, and Robert Lee on tug duty. 

Aerotow (Stewart Henshall)

 The day progressed at a slow but steady pace with training for new Junior member Adam Smyth progressing nicely under the watchful eyes of Ian who did sterling service in the instruction role. 

EuroFox sitting under the Cumulonimbus over Cardiff (Stewart Henshall)

The afternoon was rounded off with Spinning training and currency flying, once all the aircraft had been bedded down, home was calling. - Paul Gunner (first-time blogger)

Sat 11th March

 As I arrived on site this morning at 7:45 I thought I'd be one of the first people there ready to get out the ground equipment only to discover Ashley Thomas in his ever keen state had already got the launch point positioned at the west end of the airfield so that was one less job to do. Many more members were on site soon after with the first gliders being brought out the hangar before 8:00. 

There was good attendance at the briefing with Duty Instructor Simon Leeson giving us an overview of what we could expect from the day (very little soaring wise). The gliders were then towed up to the far end of the field with the very efficient ground crew retrieving gliders at lightning rate under the watchful eye of DLM Stirling Melhuish. Dan Hender looked after the Trial lesson Visitors.

 

Dave Perriam acceptance checks for BI by Mark Courtney (Hans Jenssen)

First up was Dave Perriam for his CFI acceptance checks with Mark Courtney - well done Dave just need the paperwork back now before your first Trial lesson visitor flight. And during the day Simon Minson was putting (returning DSGC Instructor) Simon Jordy through his paces for BI rating - well done Simon for passing the RE tests. 

Simon Jordy being checked out for BI by Simon Minson (RE)

  The only private glider out today was DG202-17 JDD with Nick Harrison checking it out, unfortunately the new syndicate partners Shaun Dayman and Paul Medlock  will have to wait for a nicer day to make their first flights.

After a couple of hours the LPV was repositioned in the Northwest corner so as to decrease the number of gliders landing near the cables hence further increasing the launch rate. Around lunchtime some flights managed to get away with some pilots having flights of 45ish mins in the very turbulent blue thermals. The airfield was all packed up by 17:30 with the gliders safely in the hangar. A good day was had by all. - Connor Williams

At the other end of the field a work party led by Peter Smith were busy..."Meanwhile James Hood, Stuart Proctor and Peter Smith removed the bottom tracks for the sliding doors to the tug hangar. Many years of steel rubbing on steel have caused corrosion and expansion making the doors very difficult to operate. One door was twisted and had to be cut open and straightened prior to the main task. Nuts and bolts have long since rusted solid so removal had to be by disc cutters. 

Stuart Procter, Peter Smith and James working on the Tug Hangar door rails (James Hood)

 

By great good luck with a little trimming the replacement tracks fitted exactly and were welded in place. Some final touches will be needed over the next few days but they were back in use for the end of the day.  A big bill from outside contractors avoided" - Peter Smith

We are so fortunate to have many willing volunteers skilled in helping with all sorts of tasks involved with running the Club. If any club member has a hidden skill - please make it known to a Committee Member or Club Officer. - J&P

Thurs 9th May

The overnight mist had cleared before dawn to a blue day but with poor visibility and a hint of a SE breeze. The ground equipment and gliders were all out and DI’d before the 9:15 briefing by Mike Sloggett (duty instructor). (No glider DI’s were allowed to be interrupted despite use of some agent provocateurs.) The message being reinforced in the briefing, don’t interrupt someone doing a DI. 

With a forecast of increasing SE wind it was decided to launch from the west end.  The gliders were walked up to the west end and the first launch got away at 10:30. Some wispy low cloud had developed which caused some early launches to release early. 

Chris Wool arrived to help Mike Sloggett with the two-seater list. Short flights were the order of the day until Chris and Mark Wallis found some thermal activity for a 38 minute flight. The SE wind forecast failed to materialise and with a slight west element in the wind it was decided to change ends and flying resumed from the east end. 

Tom Sides flew two Trial lesson visitors (on their 4th attempt at finding a flyable day) with happy customers and Chris valiantly put three card check pilots through spin / stall practice. By the end of the day the Perkoz wasn’t sure which way up it should be flying. 

 

Perkoz towed up by Eurofox (Jill Harmer)

All in all a successful day  if a little lacking in lift, with 28 winch launches and six aerotows before James Flory and Stuart Procter took over for the (first of the season) evening flying group with 7 more winch launches. - John Borland

Wed 8th May

 The early morning mist gave way to a brighter morning. A good show of members from first thing and we had DIs done on the K21s, a Junior and the Perkoz, and the field set up before morning briefing called for 09:30. Aside from the usual business  we revisited the plan consequent to the letter of agreement with Dunkeswell and Skydive Buzz. JB was involved in the original version and was able to add some background.  
 
Peter Smith asked for preference on the timing of future Wednesday morning briefings and a show of hands declared that henceforth it will be at 09:30.
 
Short flights were the order of the day with only Gordon Hutchinson and Roger Ellis managing double figures from a winch launch. The conditions suited several members keen to renew their winch launch skills which kept instructors John Burrow  and Peter Smith busy. Many thanks to JB for stepping in, it made for a pleasant and successful day. Paul Summers flew the only trial lesson booking in the Perkoz. It was nice to see Peter Warren back in the air, but not even he could manage to soar the south  ridge.  35 flights in total.

WT9 Dynamic (Peter Smith)

 We had a very sleek and shiny late afternoon visitor, originally bound for Branscombe then Farway but both were in the sea mist.  Jonathan May being well familiar with North Hill from tugging for Comp Enterprise and other visits diverted  to North Hill and asked to stay the night, which we were pleased to agree. - Peter Smith

Sat 4th May

 Lasham Task Weekend

The alarm went off at 4am this morning much to Dan Hender's disgust, but with the pull of Lasham Task weekend he jumped in the car for the journey ahead. We arrived at 7:30am and had rigged JDP by 8:30am, to then sit with a coffee awaiting the task to be set. 

G Dale surveying the competition (Rob Hender)

 At 9am Dan was happy to see a 50km task set, (this turned out to be a Junior joke) as however 5 mins later a 309km task was set for his class "Rum", which meant he was heading towards Wales. LAS - Hereford Cathedral - Bishops Cleeve - BlakeHill Farm - LAS

The grid started launching at 11:00am, which meant he took his launch at 11:29am, (just missed by Jill and Pete who arrived at 11.30am having been stuck in traffic on the journey up). …….. The first leg was long 150kms and thermals picked up to 4-5knots to 4000ft after Kemble. The turnpoint itself was uneventful and Dan was pleased to turn back as Wales looked ragged (dragons). The second leg started off really well with easy climbs up to a higher cloudbase, but hit a low point at Staverton before climbing away. All was good until the Swindon area when he changed to survival mode under the spreadout, seriously messing up the task speed. 16th out of 28 with 689 points for the day competing against Dave Watt, Andy Holmes, current World Champion Tom Arscott and several of the Junior National Team. 

Debrief in the bar (Sally Hender)

The DG202 was pulled off line and parked and the wings were washed (subtly encouraged by Jill). 

All pundits clean their wings after flight (Rob Hender)

Debrief in the cafe/bar followed. Checking on whether Dan's first 300kms qualifies for Gold distance, Diamond Goal - the flight was good, but no electronic declaration - ho hum!, Congratulations Dan first 300kms of many. - Sally & Jill

North Hill

 Many thanks to James Flory and the few instructors who were at North Hill today. At long last we got a taste of summer - perhaps the best for a week or two. We flew everyone, except Tom Gunner, who did an amazing job on cable retrieve most of the day, but left before we could fly him.  32 winch launches and 16 aerotows. 

Phil and Connor in DD3 (Stewart Henshall)

Phil Morrison and Connor Williams in DD3 enjoyed a flight out to the north coast  accompanied by Pete Startup 230  who flew to Ilfracombe and back.

 

The Eagle landing (Stewart Henshall)

The Eagle BBB was aired for the first time this year. 

Simon Minson putting Dave Perriam through BI checks (Simon Minson)

 Congratulations to Dave Perriam for surviving all day under the scrutiny of Simon Minson (RE) and signed off BI rating.   Sally & Jill