Mon 30th June - Brentor

The Day that nearly wasn’t.
Today was the first organised aerotow trip  this year for North Hill members to experience a new gliding site, our nearest neighbour, Dartmoor Gliding Society (Brentor). But it nearly didn’t happen, despite beautiful gin clear conditions at Brentor, North Hill was fogged in until almost midday! 

Eurofox arriving  (Connor Redburne)

Originally we had six DSGC members on the list to visit Brentor, as it happened only three made the trip due to unforeseen circumstances on the day, they vow to sign up for the next trip!   

Busy Briefing (Connor Redburne)

 Martin Woolner had never visited Brentor before and after a quick winch launch took over instructor duties in the back seat of a K13, Martin is keen to assist with any more expeditions to Brentor, “the views are fantastic” he said. 

 

Fantastic views of Dartmoor (Connor Redburne)

Dave Perriam continues to build experience at this lovely little club in preparation for a wave day in the future. 

Martin and Ashley in CCY (Connor Redburne)

Ashley is now cleared to aerotow at Brentor and plans to take his glider there next time. Steve Westlake was soon seen  jumping into the rear seat of a K13 and then into a very nice Puchacz!

Steve and Ashley in Puchacz (Mark Courtney)

The afternoon was relaxed and very enjoyable, the hospitality as usual, exceptional.
Stuart and I shared the tows between us, two at a time then a water break it was so hot! 

Sitting in the shade (Mark Courtney)

 A big thanks to Brentor for allowing us to visit, hopefully next time we will be able to bring 5-6 pilots from North Hill who have never experienced this site.
Visiting other sites is a fantastic way to improve your skills as a glider pilot, I highly recommend that any NH pilot wanting to broaden their horizons should sign up next time.
But none of this could happen if it were not for the Dartmoor Gliding Society allowing us to use their facilities, Thanks to DGS members for their help and Peter Howarth for being the duty instructor.we would like to thank them for allowing us to visit and hope we will return soon. - Mark Courtney

Sun 29th June

There was a reasonably sizable, and optimistic gathering in the clubhouse today despite some initial low cloud, and who were most likely all motivated by the prospect of the half sunny skies and thermals forecast for later in the day. Unfortunately for whatever reason - temperature not quite high enough, wind a bit slack and not quite from the right (or left) direction, Relative Humidity a percentage or two high - the cloudbase struggled throughout the morning to get above 500ft above North Hill.

Not that all was lost. - In preparation for Competition Enterprise next week Team Johns de-rigged and trailered 711. (A decision they could well regret come Thursday if the current RASP forecast is to be believed!) And LRD's rudder deflection asymmetry was attended to and corrected. Looks like it had possibly been set-up for a pilot with a right leg half inch longer than their left leg :)

Come the afternoon the cloud base had managed to lift to 1,500ft allowing for a few aerotows. Team JDD, also in preparation for Competition Enterprise, managed a couple of launches to successfully tease out the last of their control panel upgrade gremlins.

 

 

Blue Eagle flies again after the M5 incident (Ron Johns)

And most notably the blue Eagle gracefully took to the skies again ably flown by JB with P2s Chris Woodward and Ian Mitchell (not both at the same time!) now resurrected, as it were, from the ashes of it's M5 'incident' a couple of years ago. Just shy of about a half hour of flying followed by the best part of 20 manhours and a lot of huffing and puffing to de-rig it and put it in its trailer :) Beers were on the Chairman as reward for all those that hung around to help. Proof if ever there was that you can still have a productive and enjoyable day at North Hill - even if there isn't much flying to be had. - Shaun Dayman

 

(ed: Competition Enterprise starts on Saturday 5 July at Aston Down - and you can follow all our members taking part on Glide and Seek )

Fri 27th June

 What a day!

A huge ‘Thank You’ to anyone and everyone who played their part in the run up to and during today’s successful ‘Come Gliding’ Day.

 

Photographs and certificates for the visitors (Mark Layton)

 54 flights with a mixture of winch launches and aerotows (until the wind got a bit too boisterous  for the aerotow combination). 

 

 

Lots of happy smiling visitors (Mark Layton)

We had great sunny weather, and lots of happy smiling visitors as well as raising over £1000 for Devon Air Ambulance.

Safety Briefing with the Junior (Mark Layton)

Whether you were a ground helper, safety briefer, winch driver, cable retrieve driver, in Launch Control, on ‘Meet and Greet’ desk, an instructor or tug pilot - to everyone today ‘Thank You’!

From start to finish today there was a great ‘teamwork’ ethos to the day, everyone helping each other and showing off the great Club that we are all fortunate to be members of.

Well Done all - Mike Sloggett

Wed 25th June

After weeks of lovely sunny weather (not always ideal for glider pilots) things reverted to normal English Summer mode. The low cloud, brief periods of rain and fluctuating air temperature plagued us all day. One minute launches were full height, the next they were pulling off before entering the low cloud. 

Duty Instructors Peter Smith and Glenn Turpin (Mark Layton)

Duty Instructors Peter Smith and Glenn Turpin took control working their way through the flying list which involved a lot of walking up and down the field doing simulated launch failures for various card checks and the single Junior was in use by those who just wanted to get airborne. 

 

Graham Morris congratulates Mark Courtney (Mark Courtney)

CFI Mark Courtney became a student for the day as he was put under test to become a SPL Examiner ahead of the licencing changes at the end of September by the South West Regional Examiner Graham Morris. - Well done Mark FE(S)

Once everyone who wanted to fly had done so, the visitor evening group took over, but unfortunately with limited success with only the last few unable to fly due the returning low cloud. 

A frustrating day of stop start flying but at least we flew. - Mark Layton 

Sun 22nd June

 Club flying days are a little difficult to predict at the moment - not just the weather but also as to how many members will be turning up to fly..... Sunday was the latest day to see the Clubhouse very full for the morning briefing,  whereas the previous day had been rather quiet on the two-seater list. The fact that many of the members present on Sunday morning were very much around 14 years in age might or might not have been a link to the previous night’s social evening and related alcohol consumption but who knows… 

 

Some of our new Junior members (Mark Courtney)

With both K21s, the Perkoz and a Junior out of the hangar and the winch run set up for the forecast WSW wind direction Ron Johns completed the morning briefing and then it was on with the busy flying list. Ron, Mike Sloggett and John Burrow steadily worked their way through the training list during the day helped by Dave Perriam and Paul Summers flying with some of the ‘newbie’ junior members whilst Simon Jordy looked after our trial lesson visitor.

Apart from a short break in flying mid-morning for some heavy rain which had not been forecast, but which was not entirely unexpected, flying continued all day - whilst cloudbase was only around 2200ft the thermal streets made for some good flights under and around the dark clouds, with good lookout very much needed as always.

With the thermals continuing into the early evening, flying went on a little later than usual to make the most of the conditions. 

 

Congratulations to James Flory FI(C)

Well Done to James Flory who successfully passed his Basic Instructor (Coach) assessment with Simon Minson.

It was good to see many of our newbie junior members getting ‘stuck in’ to the ground operations side of things throughout the day - thank you to the experienced members who got ‘stuck in’ helping and supporting/training the newbie junior members to learn ground tasks whilst also driving the winch and running Launch Control, great teamwork all round . - Mike Sloggett

Sat 21st June

 Only a small group turned up on the longest day of the year, with just three people asking for training. The sunny days we've recently experienced were replaced with quickly changing skies and included sporadic rain showers and a blustery southeast, crosswind, thus requiring us to walk just the two K21s and one Junior to the west end of the field. 

Canopies covered for the strong sunshine (Karen King)

 

Steve Westlake handled the two-seater training and the other two gliders were initially used for solo flying. But then CFI Mark commandeered one of the K21s to give BI candidate Paul Medlock more coaching, and Mike Sloggett offered to instruct having arrived early for the member's evening party. 

 

Members Party (Mark Courtney)

 

The crosswind allowed the south ridge to work, and even led to what many felt was wave, with flights nearly reaching 3000ft. All in all, a good day with 18 flights and we packed up the toys at 5:00pm to get ready for the party. 

 

Vicki with some help from Bev (Jill Harmer)

 

Full congratulations to Vicki, in preparing a great meal for this year's Member's party. As well, special thanks go to Nick for getting the beer and Sally for so many of the other contributions, e.g., setting up gazebos and shade umbrellas, getting varied drinks chilled and ready for serving. And of course, her omnipresent quizzes and selling raffle tickets for a DSGC Charity prize draw. - Tom Sides 

 

"Thank you to everyone for their support and generosity for the raffle, and lovely to see so many of you at the Hog Roast last night, hopefully you enjoyed it as much as I did! Well done, Ashley Thomas for winning the top prize, the hamper.
I’m pleased to announce we managed to raise an amazing £550.00 for the DSGC Charitable Trust. Also a massive thanks to Vicki for feeding us all another fabulous spread! " - Sally Hender

Thur 19th June

Maybe they were deterred by the hot weather and the prospect of a long trudge up to the west end of the field for the forecast easterly wind, as the number of members present was somewhat smaller than normal for a Thursday. 

Hot day (Mark Layton)

 

The initial plan to just do aerotows only was yet again thwarted when the EuroFox failed to play ball with it reoccurring mysterious ignition fault. The winch was brought into action and with Callum Ellis and George Sanderson doing long stints before and after lunch we just about managed with the numbers we had. 

 

Towing back (Mark Layton)

Flights were relatively short with some a bit longer as the thermals, although keen to start, never really got going. The EuroFox made an appearance mid-afternoon after some fault-finding (thanks to the Team) to complete a couple of tows - but come 16:00 hrs everyone was feeling the effects of the heat and were glad to pack up before retreating to the clubhouse. A good day was had by all! - Mark Layton

Wed 18th June

 With the ground equipment and gliders all DI'd and the airfield readied for launching from the east end the wind tempted to have us change ends before we had even started! Thankfully it remembered the forecast at the last minute and started to strengthen from the SW. 

Messrs Turpin and Smith did most of the heavy lifting - and no doubt sweating - working their way through the flying list in what would best be described as increasingly moist conditions. No less than 17 training flights with some extended flight times courtesy of a reasonable abundance of thermals - albeit thermals that increasingly lacked clouds as the day progressed. 

Peter Smith with Paul Ives (Peter Smith)

 

Yours truly kept himself busy flying the 3 Trial Flights. Pete Startup managed the longest flight of the day making use of a convergence that got him halfway to Ilminster … and back! Nick Harrison had a couple of flights in JDD, as did Geoff Lawrence in HES and Kevin Fairburn continued to build his hours in HMS.

Thanks to Stu Procter for working on the Eurofox which managed to behave itself for most of the day. A full and productive days flying all rounded off with tea, cake, ice-cream and beer in the clubhouse afterwards. - Shaun Dayman

Sun 15th June

A better day was forecast today, which meant a busier Clubhouse for the second day of the weekend. 
The Duty Instructor had been taken out for Father’s Day, so we were lucky that Mike Sloggett, Peter Smith and James Flory were happy to stand in. We then had a surprise visit from Glenn Turpin back from sailing, who after currency flights, also stepped in to help complete the list.

Flying started at 10:30am with all four two-seater gliders in use, Gordon Hutchinson (DLM) making sure everything ran smoothly. At 12:00pm, the private owners started bringing their gliders over to the launch point. Dan Hender (JDP) taking the first aero tow, closely followed by Richard Roberts (V5), Simon Minson (SM), John Burrow and Alan Rappaport (DD3), Pete Startup (230), Mark Wallis (CEC), Chris Woodward (HKB), Paul Medlock (JDD), Barbie Fairclough (DFK) and Kevin Fairburn (new syndicate partner and first flight in HMS). 

230 " Cullompton - Sixpenny Handley - Cullompton 197km, Task set by Rich V5 for the North Hill Nomads 230, SM, JDP AND V5, and perfect to get us home before the day switched off." Pete Startup

SM " not quite so perfect 19km from home near Culmhead" Simon Minson

JDP " a bit tricky (slow) on the way back" Dan Hender

V5 " Well....... I overset as usual. Good day out with the DSGC team. Cloudbase was 4000ft to the east as forecast. The shut off was also as forecast, hence the 200km fallback . As it happened this was about right for the day in our location!  Extracted myself from picking fields twice, seabreeze seen on North and South coasts, central part was good to really good, with odd patches that could catch you out if not high enough into the headwind. " Rich Roberts

DD3 "What 'appened was.... although the forecast wasn't great Alan and I went for a gentle bimble round the club 100. Cloudbase started at 2000ft QFE but gradually went up to 3000 with a few good climbs. " JB

Got a bit difficult on the way back (Simon Minson)

 

Amongst the training flights, we had three previous instructors taking their turns, Peter Warren, John Sillett and Pete Harmer, lovely to see them all. Chris Warnes flew the two Trial Flight Visitors unfortunately the Eurofox failed on us part way through the day, but both visitors happily took the option of a winch launch instead and enjoyed slightly longer flights to compensate. Geoff Lawrence took over the afternoon DLM duty and organised the rest of the day successfully. Jill Harmer got back in the Launch point for the afternoon, to cover me while I flew, thank you. Everyone was flown by 5:30pm when we packed the kit away, and retired to the clubhouse for Vicki’s tea and cakes. 

Thank you to everyone for another successful days flying. - Sally Hender

Sat 14th June

 On arrival at the Club, possibly due to a mixed forecast of sunshine, showers and thunderstorms, it was immediately apparent that only a few members had been sufficiently tempted to come along on the last ‘pre-Summer Solstice Saturday’ of 2025. Maybe saving themselves for the club’s Social Event on Saturday 21st (note to all members - if you aren’t on the paper list please let Sally know asap if you’re attending).

James Flory kindly stood in last minute as Duty Instructor, with Simon Jordy available for trial flights and Stuart Proctor in attendance as Tug Pilot.  Given the low numbers and that the weather/cloud base was likely to be changeable, rather than a ‘no flying day’ the decision was taken to do aerotows only.  A decision gratefully supported by all present. 

Junior next (Karen King)

 

Over the next four hours, with a one-hour lunch break due to a downpour, there were 6 launches with 3 of those soaring flights taking the relevant pilot to a cloud base of around 3000feet.  James and Stuart each did a couple instructional flights, and by special request Stuart did some aerobatics during the final flight of the day (at the blogger’s request to ‘burn off height’ although in reality a reason is never needed!). 

All helping to dry the glider (Karen King)

Despite the forecast it was a reasonable day with Gordon Hutchinson Saturday’s pundit (72 mins), new members ‘family Hoggarth’ always keen to help and a small but efficient team of long-time members, particularly when it came to wiping down gliders.   - Karen King

Wed 11th June

A fairly standard day of training / check  / solo flights mostly circuits with a few extended. 

Well done to Kevin,  who can now apply for his licence (Ian Mitchell)

 

Congratulations to Kevin Fairburn who completed his Cross-Country Endorsement with Ian Mitchell in Rotax Falke, and supported by DSGC Charitable Trust. - J&P 

Sun 8th June

The danger of being the last in the clubhouse of a flying day is getting caught by Jill with “will any one write a blog please?” plea! So I was collared, no where to go… Excuses up front, I have little knowledge of the good work done up front only that JB and Pete Smith were instructing and Mark Wallis was in the DLM regalia when I met him. 

With SF and Eagle business to attend to I had only passing regard for the sky which looked to be playing out the forecast. Unstable, none too high a cloud base with a layer of high cloud and over-development keeping the sun from warming things too much. At times in the afternoon it felt autumnal to this man in shorts and flip flops! 

SM on aerotow (Simon Minson)

 

Pete Startup in 230 had the best crack at things visiting Crediton, Wellington and Chard for 110kms but he struggled back and I noticed Simon Minson in his ASW20 kept it local before switching into coach mode and flying with Paul Medlock on some instructor training flights. For a while it was quite soarable locally and the melee over the site quite intense! 

 

Stirling Melhuish SF27 in the launch queue (John Pursey)

My earlier SF business had involved rigging - getting Alan’s SF27 rigged and at long last we actually managed to get Stirling Melhuish up in it. With countless SF27 shares and outright ownerships to his name he of course, ironically, was flying the one we owned but he was there! Well done to Stirling, let’s get the next 2 SF27s over the finish line and go racing! 

Chilly in shorts today (John Pursey)

 

I was the last to land (in an SF naturally) at 5:20 after a jolly 90 minutes so, all in all not a bad day. - John Pursey

Fri 6th June - Course Week

 After a less than optimistic forecast for the week we managed to fly every day, with many long soaring flights in often very thermic conditions. 

 

June 2025 course

Everyone made great progress. Chris Mew returned to solo, Tim Petty made great progress to getting back to solo. Mike Rigby did his first solo aerotow and completed his longest soaring flight at over 2 hours. 

 

Well done Mike solo aerotow (James Flory)

Harry Rigby  made great steps towards re-soloing after a break whilst finishing Uni. Phil Taylor and Ainsley Fisher both made great progress towards going solo.

 

Great skies (James Flory)

Overall a great course with the weather delivering some great conditions. Thanks go to Kevin Fairburn, Shaun  Dayman and Emna Flory as our ever helpful ground crew, and Instructors James Flory and Guy Adams.  And a big thank you to Vicky for providing great food through the week.- James Flory

Thur 5th June

 It was a little wet to start, but course members were kept busy with lectures, unfortunately most of the Thursday regulars disappeared at lunchtime.

After lunch, the sun came out at times and the wind was spot on the right direction for the ridge to work (it still felt like Autumn though). The course instructors decided to get going,  with no rostered course helpers, there was a call for help to the Clubhouse, a minimum crew was found to operate the winch, cable retrieve and launchpoint  for the afternoon session.

Pushing the Junior on line (Richard Lean)

 

Most experienced soaring on the west ridge,  a few thermals early on, there was even a bit of wave possibly. All the course members had good flights and Mike Sloggett and Chris Wool  looked after the Thursday Regulars, with 14 winch launches (thanks Tim and Paul) in total. - J&P

Wed 4th June

 Today was a case of typical April weather, unfortunately its June! The odd bit of occasional drizzle, breaks for proper rain showers, dodging rain clouds, gusty turbulent skies with fantastic lift and strong sink whilst wearing wooly hats and jackets.

 

Assessing the Junior mainwheel brake (Mark Layton)

The day started with a small team derigging Junior FZF to investigate the ongoing mainwheel brake problem. To gain better access, the glider was inverted and placed on some small trestles to make it stable. The wheel and brake assembly had to be removed and refitted numerous times to determine the cause and having it upside-down saved George Sanderson, Gordon Hutchinson and Mark Layton from scrambling around on the floor. Glider manufacturers all have different idea's on how to make basically the same part and the Polish seem to be be masters at coming up with some clever but obscure solutions. It was found that various components of the brake system have become worn and now have to be replaced. Unfortunately, we don't have all the parts in our small stock of spares and those we have need specialist machining to enable them to be assembled correctly. Hopefully we can get it sorted in the next week or so.

Two lines for the course week (Peter Smith)

 

An improving sky (Richard Lean)

Meanwhile on the field, the course members and a smattering of Wednesday regulars were being guided by James Flory, Guy Adams and Pete Smith. Before lunch the flight times were relatively short, but after a rain-induced lunchbreak the conditions changed as predicted. 

Rain clouds in the locality (Mark Layton)

 

The thermals started to kick off and the end of the west ridge became a 'safe place' to top up on some height. There was some  terrifically strong lift about up to cloudbase if you were lucky enough to connect with it, but there was obviously some wicked sink about as well. 

Wildflower area (Mark Layton)

Most people had good soaring flights as the passing rain clouds stayed away from NHL for the rest of the afternoon. By 17:00 everyone had flown and with Chris Mew re-soloing after a bit of of a lay-off on the last flight of the day, everything was packed away. - Mark Layton

Mon 2nd June - Course Week

 The Course Instructors had put a call out for an early start, and the Cross-country pilots set a task for the Pundits of 

 NH2 - Fordingbridge - Okehampton -NH2 310kms 

W7 staying high (Wyn Davies)

  230
"Early launch fearful of sea air problems later - a good call. Great run to Fordingbridge and back, a couple of soft bits going in and out of Okehampton. With DD3, 711 and W7 for company." - Pete Startup

 DD3 
"A great day out in the Duo with Phil. Strong thermals made for easy going - except it took us a little while to work out which part of the clouds worked best! things slowed down a bit west of Exeter which gave us more time to enjoy the view!
Thanks to Phil for great company and Pete and Ron for setting a good task!" - JB

 711 
"Slow …(P2 Simon Jordy instructional flight he hasn’t really grasped turning long wings). Nice day out with the North Hill crew." - Ron Johns

 W7
"Early start. A slow and high trip to Fordingbridge. Didn't centre in thermals very well and at last made the turn point. Found it easier going into wind and on the way back got some lovely climbs. Unfortunately when I was back near the club, I got low and decided to end the task early. 216kms - Could have / should have continued,,, but I had a great day out with the North Hill gang. Thanks Robert for the tow." - Wyn Davies

and Shaun Dayman  (who was a course helper) was still after that documented 100km  NH2 - Chard - Knowstone -NH2 105km.

JDD
" Managed to duck out of being a course helper for a couple of hours so as to try and get my 100k Diploma. Thanks to Paul Medlock and grandson Alfie for taking over cable retrieve as well as Kevin Fairburn for doing a double shift in the winch! Headed east first like the others, good conditions all the way round pretty much as predicted by RASP, kept high and flew conservatively arriving at Knowstone above final glide. Task declaration issues unfortunately though might have scuppered an official badge claim" - Shaun Dayman

Sun 1st June

 With a blustery day forecast, and only four names initially on the two-seater list (50% of which were female!) it looked like a fairly simple day ahead for duty instructor Mike Sloggett, assisted by James Flory for the morning. However, as the gliders were being taken out from the hangar, more members appeared, however so did JB, who was happy to instruct too. 

We started flying at just after 10:00am, with boisterous conditions making it a blue card day. Rob Hender did winch and cable retrieve until the lunch break, thank you! Juniors: Lily Sanders Page, Adam Smyth and Faber Green made themselves very useful around the Launchpoint. We all stopped for lunch at 12.30pm due to lack of numbers. Dave Perriam then took on the role of winch and cable retrieve for the afternoon, thank you, with Paul Medlock doing the last stint of the day.  

SM enjoying some local soaring (Simon Minson)

 

Simon Minson was the only private owner out but enjoyed local soaring for the longest flight 2hrs 33. We continued into the afternoon, and managed to complete the flying lists by 5:30pm. 

Thanks to everyone on the field today, and a special thanks to Trevor Russell for stepping in and covering the DLM Duty. 23 flights in total, a good flying day. - Sally Hender