Well done James Loveland on completing his Silver Badge. Another Junior ready for competitions!!

A Great Day Out

An early briefing indicated enthusiasm. A trio of 500km flights planned and a number of 300km ones too.
Congratulations to David T for his first 500km; very well done David. Over 8 hours in the air. Better luck next time Peter and John.
Paul G, in the Janus with Peter C, and James F, in the Cirrus, raced to Corby and back. Check out the BGA ladder to see who was the winner!
More congratulations to James L for completing his Silver Badge with a 5 hour + flight; he even took time out to fly over his house in Ipswich.
Lots of other flying, Will, Mark, Tim and Peter; others I have surely missed.
A really good day, thanks Bob for being on duty, but rarely on the ground I bet!

Inter club league, Tibenham, 4th and 5th May 2013

Peter Ryland's report as task setter....

Day 1 Saturday

The weather forecasts conflicted a lot. In the end the strength of the wind and instability of the air were much more than forecast, producing very strong conditions in a 20kt Westerly wind, followed by big cloud streets that fired out rain and hail.

The Novices did not fly, but 2 pundits and 2 Intermediates from Tib and Wormingford took off and made a start.

The best flight of the day was George Green in T5 Discus who nearly got round the 118km task: TIB-THE-NMT-TIB having fallen out of the cloud climb due to hail, turned the furthest TP, but ended in a field near Debden.

Pundit.

Paul Robinson (WRM)   4points.

Dave Munro (TIB) 3 points

Intermediate.

George Green (WRM) 4points. 

David Taylor(TIB) 3 points

Day 2 Sunday.

All weather forecasts showed much lighter SW winds and overcast slowly moving east to reach us between 4 and 7 pm, so tasks were set to make the best of the good area. Blue conditions for much of the flight were expected and most started in the blue, finding some cu further west.

Pundit:  TIB-KLY-SMB-BSE-TIB 190 km circumnavigating the Lakenheath MATZ and Stanford danger area.

Rob Nunn(WRM) 4 points completed at 69 kph.

Norman Clowes (TIB) 3 Points 61kph.

Roger Davis (RAT) 49kph 2 points.

Inter: TIB-MRM-CAM-BS1-TIB 169km. As above.

David Taylor (TIB) 4points completed at 60.5 kph

George Green (WRM) 3 points completed at 56kph

Novice. TIB-SWT-RAT-TIB 102km with swt-rat being a silver distance.

Peter Carter (TIB) completed, inc silver distance and 5 hours. 4 points.

David Hearn (WRM) landed at Rattlesen.  3 points.

A lovely day at Tibenham, which also hosted a group of Peter Harrison Foundation sponsored disabled flyers.

****More flying all this week in the Spring Task Week. Briefing 10 am each day ****

GREAT WEEKEND FOR OUR JUNIOR PILOTS

WELL DONE

Ed after gaining his Silver Height

Peter after completing entire Silver Badge in one flight.

James after completing Silver distance.

Making excellent use of our K-21 during our disability press day on Sun.

David Jenkins performing some incredible aerobatics during the day.

Men At Work

On the first day of the interclub league, club members first helped re-rig the club ASK 21, which had been down to Zulu Glasstek for the final piece of work to make it friendly for people who have limited use of their legs.

The instruments now raise up as the front canopy is opened, much like many single seaters.

This also makes it easier for anyone to get in and out, and get their feet and legs under the front instrument panel.

The work was carried out in the lee of the hanger, as it was gusting 24Kts.

Ben and John Briefing Lee for a lesson in our Sky's the Limit Glider

Click on the link to see an excellent article published by Mustard TV

The sky’s the limitNorfolk Gliding Club is teaching disabled people how to fly 

The skies are alive... with the sound of... soaring chit-chat

Wow: months of rubbish soaring weather, then suddenly a proper XC day. Let's hope we get more of this. Here are some pictures to support JRK's flying report for 6th April.

Here Mike Hoy has had to remove the coaming to get at the SD card slot for the FLARM in one of the club's astirs, so that he can submit a claim for his Silver Height, and bronze leg.

Congratulations, and thanks for the drink!

Mike Hoy recovering FLARM trace

Still some scouts to fly at around 4:30, with the sky just starting to go blue from the East.


To the right of the photo you can just see the wing of the T21. At 5,200' it would have been around -8 ºC. Mark Wright said it was b***dy freezing.
Tibenham Launch point around 16:30

Two of us went pair flying, and set POT-PIC-CAM. In the event we left nearly two hours too late, and bailed out after PIC, although it was still working, as we were worried about the day dying before we could get back.

Here is Paul Gould's cirrus CJ near newmarket.

... and below highlighted (you may need to click the picture to see it) over Cambridge, taken from the south. Cloudbase was around 5,000'.

Cambridge (Marshall's) airport is showing bottom right, and to the left you can see all the old Uni buildings.

Spring, at last

A very busy day with a number of private gliders rigged for the first time this year.

B12 out with its new owner, also Y11 and CJ attempting a 300+ but beaten at Cambridge. At least you had a go chaps!
Two Zero beaten by some instrumental problems but still managing over 100k; nice one Steve!
Gas struts a problem for AV8, so out came the barge. I bet that was cold!

Mike H and Matt got their silver height, well done to you both! Silver height Matt, in your first day with B12; what do you have planned for the next decent day?

A host of flights, both Tim and I were kept busy all day by club members and scouts. Finally closed the hangar well after 18:00.

More days like this please (but please can I not be on duty?)

Tally ho.

Soaring and Snowing on Good Friday

A small but keen bunch braved the cold and still very wet airfield - yes those are ducks! Mark M, Ed, Phil and Eleanor S and myself took advantage of the conditions with a couple of flights over an hour and Ed having his first solo soaring flight! Also thanks to Peter N for lending a hand to get me in the air.

At times thermals were averaging 4 knots to 4,000ft, but a thick layer of overcast later meant that those conditions soon died away and brought some snow with it, so all was packed away by 2:30. When does Spring get here? I'm bored of the cold.

Disability Hoist on the way

Assessment of our disability lifting device was successful, we have placed an order so should have it in operation by our Open Day on 1st Apr.

So many helpers!

Another glorious sunny Sunday ending with what may be an unprecedented number of eager helpers anxious to pack the hangar in the half light!

Yes well done Ed Eveson on going solo on Sunday 18 November.  Busier than some summer Sundays the instructing team lead by Duty Instructor Bob Grieve managed over 30 flights.

Youngest ever first solo at Norfolk G.C. !

Congratulations to Sophie Jones who today became Norfolk Gliding Clubs youngest ever solo pilot (age 15) having been the first to take advantage of the reduction in permitted solo age. Sophie is pictured here with Instructor Chris Lawrence

What an equinox!

Saturday 22nd September

An amazing day for late September; just about everyone came out to play.   I had a very busy time; three and a half hours spent in the back seat of the K13 and with various P2s all making good progress in excellent conditions.
Meanwhile Tim H had his first BI duty, and he was busy too, with five trial flights; well done Tim and welcome to the instructor club.
Congratulations to James L for an out and return to Newmarket for his silver 50km and the first part of the 100km diploma in a club Astir; probably a little noisy as one of the undercarriage doors is missing! I wonder if this is becoming a club tradition. Paul G and CJ also did the task, well done.
Best flight of the day has to go to David T who managed HB1 out and return; over 300km in Y11. Brilliant!
Also out, with a newly repaired LNav (cheers Mike H), was 20, along with L58, HNC, OM (who may now have to wait until next season to get around the newer club 100, but you never know) and others I only found out about when I checked the log at the end of the day, perhaps some will appear on the ladder.
Over 50 flights today, not at all bad. Thanks to all for making the effort and flying safely.
And a great ceilidh to end the day. Very many congratulations to Karen and Mark.

Sat 15th Sept

Nice day for September, 6-8 gliders spent several several hours local soaring.

Plenty of training took place, good day was had by all.

Juniors Lasham Aug 2012

Some pictures of our juniors representing Norfolk Gliding Club at Lasham.

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 !