21/22 July

Some of the best flying of the year was to be had over last weekend with many pilots clocking up 7,8 or 9 hours over the two days.A lot of private gliders were given a much needed airing.  Many cross country flights took place although given the lack of available land out areas pilots were having to fly fairly cautiously .  Cloud base reached 4,800ft on Saturday and 5,000ft on the Sunday.  Winching took place despite the newly formed Lake Tibenham making it difficult to to out the wires (see pic above)

Summer Task Week; Worst Ever?

A small number of intrepid (daft!) pilots attempted a task week this week. Sadly the weather (damned jet stream!) beat us. Total flights, 2. Cross country distance, 0.

This must be the cue for some decent weather, perhaps we shall sneak in some tasks at the weekend.

It would seem that the stress of organizing the Airshow is starting to get to Eric !

Runway Numbers

In preparation for the Airshow - Barclay, John and myself spent the day repainting the numbers for Runways 21, 03 and 26, as well as painting in a an "H"  for the emergency helicopter on Sunday - then we ran out of paint !

I was fortunate, with thanks to John Mundy, to overfly the airfield later that evening to view our handiwork - hope you all notice them !!

Do not forget images taken at the airshow will be posted on   Tibenham Airfields Photo Album

Keith Sowter

Open Day; Saturday 23rd June

A great day; 115 launches plus motor glider flights. First launch was around 04.10 in the morning and the last, just as it started to rain around 20.00. Now the locals know what we do and who we are; we have gained new members and made new friends. Thank you to everybody who made this happen. There are already rumours of it becoming an annual event: bring it on!
See you at the Heritage Air Festival at Tibenham 8th July. Get your reduced price ticket on line now.
http://airshow.norfolkglidingclub.com/Tickets.htm

Eastern Regionals - Photo's

Several images of the the participants and action have already been uploaded onto the Tibenham Photo Album - have a look Tibenham Photo Album

Motor Glider

I am sure you will be delighted to hear that the Grob 109 is back in service. The "window" has been installed in the fin so that inspection is easy, and the problems discovered on other 109As has not appeared on ours.

Busy Bank Holiday (Saturday)

Stronger winds than expected but plenty of activity. Private gliders out included 08, LS7, L58, Y11, 20 and CJ all trying some cross-country. Well done Chris for getting round and tough luck Paul G, for the land-out. At least you were trying.

Busy club flying; 15 instructor flights before the weather became too cold and wet. Thanks to Chris, Paul W. and Dave for their help with the load.
I hope that is not it for the weekend, but suspect it may be! At least the motor glider is back together.

Wednesday 11th April 2012

A good days flying had by all. There was some good soaring to be had , The Assistant Rating Instructor course flew all day and a flying visit was paid to NGC by National Coach Mike Fox. The day culminated in Matt Vanston going solo, so congratulations to him and many thanks to the club members who helped out at the end of the day to finish the launches which were required to make it possible.

Sunday 25th March

Congratulations to Siona Ladley on going solo, Pictured here with Instructor Steve Flowitt-Hill

Sunday 25th February

Another great day, and by all accounts yesterday was good too! Somehow Mark and Steve managed a double duty and did much instructing; thanks to both of you for a great weekend.
Out today were JRK in LS7, Ray in HNC, Ben M in Libby, David in Y11 (tail skid repaired), Mark in the K6 and a majority of the club fleet. The only set back was a noon change of ends which delayed soaring but there were two hour plus flights to be had.
Well done Phil on your MG endorsement, and thanks to Dave M for doing it. All you need now is to get the Stemme started.
Last flight of the day launched at 17.18hrs! Superb!

Sunday 19th Feb - A cracking cold day

Well winter's been here for a few months and annual flight reviews have been in full swing, so there's not been much to post on here. But it seems spring might actually be on the way with a some good soaring conditions over Norfolk on Sunday. The usual Sunday crowd were about, with Andy V running the day and myself and Chris L doing the trials. JRK got there nice and early to rig, only for his syndicate partner to show up once it was done to nab it. Nice one DM I'm sure he didn't mind!

Many had good soaring flights with cloudbase up to about 4000ft (well predicted Mr CFI) and thermals lasting a few hours. A few even braved the T21 - did you lose many fingers to frostbite Mr Wright?





Thanks to everyone who helped out with tugging, winching, logging and all the other jobs that get done so we can fly. I won't try to name names (we'll be here all day) but you know who you are.

Fingers crossed the good weather will continue (haha) and we can get off to a good soaring season.

Our Last Flying Day

All the talk was of a great day so we were up early. Typically all was not as expected, the ASW19 needed defrosting and misting was a problem for everyone so there was a later start. John was a little stir crazy and keen to go, so as soon as a local member launched and reported climbs he was away.
Unfortunately as he made his way above cloud the gaps closed sufficiently enough to stop the rest for a while. Above the clouds, John was having fun at around 12000' or so, looking down at the countryside through valley-like gaps in the clouds. Soon, however, the gaps widened enough for the others to climb in and go. All had a good time.
After five hours John found a 6 knot climb which took him from 13000' to FL192. On the way up the wave box was opened but the wave broke down as he reached the top of the wave cloud. 185 metres short of diamond height! We will just have to come back next year.

footnote: John's feet took two hours to warm up after his longest flight for a long time. He is checking to see if 6h8m is his longest ever. (I've checked; it is my longest flight to date, by over 30 minutes; JR-K)

A Golden Day

The weather forecast was not great, and we had the usual slow start, changing ends and having to wait while some strong turbulence cleared. Steve, Josh, Adrian, David and Mike all got away first time and were climbing in wave very quickly. Highest climb was to over 15000' and Adrian and Josh (the old'en and the young'en) both claiming their gold height gains. Well done both of you! Weather looks even better tomorrow; stay tuned.

Aboyne Expedition

We have all had to play a waiting game, although David, having arrived last week had already been flying. The rain and low cloud of the last few days cleared sufficiently for us to launch this afternoon. Wave had set up in the Dee valley and could be reached from a 3000' tow, so off we set. Steve, John, Josh and Mike having varying degrees of success. Steve, in the Discus, getting the longest and highest flight. Adrian took a ride with Gerry, the seasonal instructor here, to gain more experience of wave, preparing for his first solo wave foray this year in the ASW19, planned for tomorrow.

No records broken today and the forecast over the next few days seems to change every hour, but we remain optimistic of a few days more decent gliding.

Fantastic footage

Have a look at this!
Down at the Sea-side! - YouTube Looks amazing (but is it safe?) The first part of the soundtrack is pretty good too.

3rd August: a Good Time.

I promised Peter Carter some cross country coaching, but the day was slow to improve from poor; that gave us plenty of time for a briefing and tea! I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of the President's Triangle.

We launched after 14.00hrs and got down to 1400' before we found a thermal. Up to over 3000' and a proper start. A good series of thermals took us to Norwich East and we turned this high after a climb. A line of lift continued all the way across "the fine city" until we got to the western edge. Here we lost all battery power (for the third time today!) but continued for a while. Without the audio vario we decided to return to TIB but at Wymondham fell into a 5kt thermal to over 5000', so game back on. At PIC we met up with Phil in the DG and lost out to him on the run back to DIS. We did take a climb or two edging toward TIB, with one flying and the other being audio vario and additional lookout. A great first time cross-country for Peter. I am sure this has whetted his appetite!

Competition Photo's

Images taken on day2 of the competition can be found on the Tibenham Photo Album website

Images were taken of all of the competitors and tugs

World Vintage Glider Rally 2000

With thanks to Bob Sage - I have just scanned 25 photographs taken at the 2000 event ( we now have a sub Album with 63 images taken the 2000 VGC rally)- these have been added to the my Tibenham Photo Album together with images of more unusal types seen at Tibenham at other events approx 2000-2004 .
We now have over 1,500 images of gliders and aircraft taken at Tibenham

Hope these are of interest

Cracking day, but not obvious From RASP

The trouble with RASP is that it is pretty good. So when you see a day that does not look too great, you tend not to bother. The kind of mackerel pattern you see below would suggest that maybe there are loads of showers or something. Speaking for myself, I would rather an all over smooth yellow colour than the mottled red. However, a few days showing up like the day below, which have turned out to be OK (well pretty good) have led me to at least turning up now.






If you'd looked earlier in the morning, say 11am, you would think that it would be a complete non-starter in Norfolk.





However, it was 'going' from pretty much ten a.m., and those people who got out to the club were in for a treat. Ray Hart was Duty instructor, with Chris Lawrewnce providing some great flights for trial lessons, as it was great soaring weather. I wonder if we get better conversion from trial lessons to members when the lesson is on a good soaring day.

In terms of acheivements:

• Beth Redpath got a Bronze leg


• Paul Gould got his silver height

Tim Heighton and Art Kerkhof explored XC in the Janus, and Mark Wright, Steve Brownlow, Dave Munro, David Taylor all went off in single seaters. I'm pretty sure I saw one Grob 109 exploring about too.






A couple of pictures: The east coast from near 7k', just south of Norfolk. I never knew my iphone did geo-tagging either, but going on the little maps in iPhoto: it must do.






Honington, with Mildenhall & lakenheath barely visible as sun pools in background. Note time is just past six in the evening. I've never been heading away from home so late before. The showers never reached Tibenham, you could see them to the North and East coasts, and later in the West.






Finally, if you look at the cumulous cloudbase for late in the day, you can see that it does indeed promise to be good up to around 7k'. Paul G saw around 7,800'. It was well worth turning up.


Now why could we not have this weather for the Eastern Regionals.