Youngest solo at Tibenham

What a great Christmas.
Only four days after his 14th birthday, and only delayed because of the weather, George flew solo for the first time. Many congratulations from us all George; probably the best Christmas and Birthday present ever.

Going solo? It was a breeze!

Congratulations to Sean Maciejewski on going solo today! Conditions weren't great and the strong breeze had a cold bite, but Sean persevered and flew alone for the last flight of the day.

Here he is just after the flight with DCFI Will Day. Congratulations Sean! Shame the bar wasn't open, maybe next time.

Portmoak Expedition

What a waste! We arrived safely and our hosts were great BUT! The weather forecast for the next fortnight, and even longer is very poor. Easterly winds if any at all, the worst direction, poor visibility and rain.

We all came home again, hoping for a weather window later in the month or next when some of us will return.

Another First Solo

The day was bright, some pundits were planning 300km and more, but as they struggled to make their way towards distant turnpoints (or more accurately back to TIB) one of our number was being prepared for his first solo. Pictured is Witold being congratulated by CFI Mark. Well done Witold!

Good day Sunday...

Possibly the best day we have had in East Anglia so far in 2014.
The RASP forecast on Friday for Sunday was not great, and Saturday - which had been looking good on Wednesday and Thursday had gone off the boil. But by the end of Saturday the prospects for Sunday had improved.

There were a good few vintage gliders on site still from the Vintage Rally, and these took advantage of the good weather. The weather also brought out a few glass syndicate aircraft: LS7, LS4, Astir, ASW27, ASW19, ASW20, Cirrus, Vega, all heading off to the south west.

Peter Carter turned in a quick time in an  ASW19.

I had my first un-powered aerial visit to Ipswich. You can see the Orwell bridge below. It was slightly difficult to get a shot in the sun.

In trying to do so I set my camera into video mode by mistake. You can see the clouds get dramatically lower towards the coast:

You can also see quite a lot of deep green in the fields, making them not great choices for landing, as is typical from late May to Mid July. For those who wish to track farmers strips, Mike Crook is maintaining a list of farmers strips, and the like, which are land-able. There is a book in the club-house with aerial photos, maps and descriptions. He showed me two new ones, which he had seen in the week. I will need to add them to the land-ables list which Martin Gregorie maintains here.

Ex-Members, Jan and Ian Atherton flew in for a cup of tea with their dog (who has his own ear defenders for the noise), and reported that it was indeed overcast between Gransden Lodge and Northampton, just as RASP predicted. It was good to see them, I must read up on their adventure, as reported in Sailplane & Gliding.

Pretty much the whole of East Anglia was working well on the day though. Here's a photo of Kings Lynn from the south east.

BGA Instructor course

Mark delivers the hangar packing patter to Don at the end of a very tiring day. They disembarked eventually!

Memories of last year

The walk of shame, We've all been there !

Improvers' Week; day 1

What a cracking day! The course got off to a great start with booming skies giving everyone a chance at a flight of around an hour, brushing up skills and making progress. Thermals in the 4 to 5 knot range and cloudbase up to 4400', who could ask for more?. As well as Will and me there was: Phil, Kevin, Allan, Graham, Mike (who went on to fly for almost four hours after a check flight) and Paul (working towards his BI rating.) A truly lovely day.

Sunny and Busy

What a nice blue March day. The wind had a bit of a chill but that didn't stop the band of many merry pilots from turning out and enjoying it. All three club two seaters, an Astir, the Grob 109 and Mark Wright's ASW27 all made an appearance, although the wind and inversion meant that there wasn't much in the way of thermals. I did manage to hover at 2,800ft for about 5 minutes with a trial flight but I'm not sure how!

Lots of training flights and pilots (including myself) blowing off the cobwebs after the winter. Congratulations to Angus for going solo again after 10 years away from gliding and thanks to Andy Videon (duty dog) and David Taylor (duty winch dog) for keeping the show on the road, along with the many other volunteers pushing gliders around and constantly retrieving from half way down the pesky runway 26 - you know who you are.

Let's hope the good weather sticks around but with a few more fluffy bits!

Horizontal Rain

High winds and rain meant a late start, but a small bunch were coerced by the CFI to stick around and enjoy a winch launch. As luck would have it the heavens opened just as the glider was out of the hangar, but despite the horizontal rain we stuck it out and flew anyway.

Tibenham; back on the competition map.

Now that it is all official I am delighted to announce that NGC has been selected to host the 2014 15m National Championship. This is great news for the club, an opportunity to showcase the newly upgraded clubhouse, and to welcome friends, both old and new.

Please put 16th-24th August into your diaries; enter the competition, or the Eastern Regional Championship, which will be running at the same time. If competitive flying is no longer your thing there will be plenty of opportunities to help Ray Hart (the Director) and the team both before and during the competitions. Please look out for future announcements.

Wednesday: at least one XC, Thurs might still be OK.

CFI lead from the font again, and flew an O/R to SMB.

Although it was hot and blue, the thermals seemed to be working to a reasonable height, as shown by MD's trace
Current RASP for tomorrow shows there might be a window of opportunity between 12:00 and 13:00. If there is a chance of something, Bob Grieve will do a briefing.

Task Week .Tuesday was good

Mike Watson completed the club 100K in possibly record time.

Five long flights. Three flights just over 300K (MW, RG, DT).

One 374k flight from the CFI (leading from the front).

And Clive Wilby and Alan Hall circumnavigated the London TMAs (535K).

Mike Hoy also did a first XC of 130K (TIB-WYM-DEP-WLW), giving him a silver 50K leg (to complete his silver),  a second 5 hour flight (he never submitted the claim on the first), and a 100K diploma leg. Congratulations.

There may be more that I have missed.

On top of the XC flights, some good local soaring, and enjoyment of the conditions

The 'Grid', after RG launched

The ab-initio course had another good day, with the students making good progress with the high-intensity instruction.

Tuesday looking promising for task week...

Today looked overdeveloped from around 11 a.m., but the ab-initio course had no problem soaring.

Clive Wilby also managed 374km in the Stemme at 76 kph.

The rest of us were more cautious, setting tasks maxing at 142km to Hunstanton Lighthouse (HLH).

For me it was my first time over water... not far over though.

First experiment with the panorama effect too... notice both wings are showing.

Tomorrow looks to be working with even lift up as far west as Bedford, and the high cloud-bases near bury... up to 6k'. The day will work well from 11am to 5pm.

Check your batteries are charged...

August task week kicks off....

... with some decent weather in the end on the second day (more WX later).

Today has been a busy day at the club. Along with Ben M running a normal flying day... John R-K and Dave Munroe have been giving extra coaching to a bunch of young pilots with a view to getting a few of them solo by the end of the week. The coaching will run to Sunday 25th Aug.

Also running this week (up to and including 25th Aug), for anyone who has missed it, is the "task week". The remaining Astir is available to club members for XC, if you request it (currently spoken for on Tues, Weds, Thurs).

On the normally non-flying days of Mon, Tues, Fri, there will be aerotows available to self authorising members, though you will need to be Bronze with an XC endorsement if you wish to go anywhere. Pilots from other clubs also welcome to join us.

Briefings at the back of club briefings, with exceptions notified here in this blog. In the briefings we will compare tasks we fancy (and why - including weather & NOTAMS), and maybe reach a consensus... or not. This week we will be trying out the OLC as a way of comparing flights. The OLC is about as easy to register for as the bga ladder, but does not require pre-decided TPs, the site just works out the longest distance you flew, using magic.

Well done Matt Vanston on gaining his bronze today.

  

The weather was windy today, with an average of around 20Kts aloft, from the West, with a tendency to overdevelop until around 2 p.m. after which it got pretty organised (as shown here). Even the K13, which was instructing pre-solo pilots was not bothered by the wind, as there was pretty strong lift, from the clouds that were working.

View towards Tibenham from south of Bury

In the 20Kt  wind there was a bit of streeting. This street (almost a road) from Tibenham to Thetford ran out of steam around 7km short. Not all the bits that looked like they should be working were. It looked impressive though.

The 'road' to Thetford

The weather for tomorrow (Monday) and Tuesday look good at the moment. Maybe see you there.

Inter-club Weekend at Rattlesden

Several competitors from NGC ventured down to Rattlesden for the third of the three inter-club league weekends this season. We started the weekend just 4 points behind Essex and Suffolk and hoped to clinch enough to overtake. The team for the weekend was Beth Redpath in the club's Astir N12 (Novice), James Francis in Std Cirrus CJ (Intermediate) and Peter Ryland in the DG400 OM (Pundit). Thanks to James L and Peter N who helped to crew.

Saturday
The day started with a thick layer of top cover which just about everyone thought was going to put paid to much soaring. Short tasks were set and the grid squat started, but then the skies seem to brighten just enough for it to get soarable. It was hard to get started with several pilots not risking to cross the huge grey gap to get away from site, those who did venture out were rewarded with some surprisingly strong lift in places considering the amount of top-cover still present. Unfortunately a huge dead patch around Diss brought an early field landing to some (myself included) but many got round. Results are as follows:

Pundit (RAT - CAM - DIS - RAT, 139.5km)
Winner: Peter Ryland (NGC), 2nd George Green (ESGC) 3rd Grenville Croll (Rattlesden)

Intermediate (RAT - NMT - DIS - RAT, 113.5km)
Winner: Paul Robinson (ESGC), 2nd James Francis (NGC), 3rd Roger Davis (Rattlesden)

Novice (RAT - DEP - GRF - RAT, 55.7km)
Winner: Adrian Tills (ESGC), Joint 2nd Beth Redpath (NGC) and Mark Nicholes (Rattlesden)

Sunday
The morning was much brighter with  more sun on the ground and the overnight showers dying away, but a 20kt westerly wind was blowing. Once in the air the lift was good in places, but with broken "windy" thermals and large dead areas with misleading dark clouds that should have been working but weren't. The first leg heading West was difficult with a couple of gliders in fields (not me this time) and some not managing to get away from site. It's times like these I wish I could add water to the Cirrus! Results are:

Pundit (RAT - OAK - DIS - RAT, 163km)
Winner: Roger Davis (Rattlesden), 2nd Robbie Nunn (ESGC), 3rd Peter Ryland (NGC)

Intermediate (RAT - SMB - DIS - RAT, 127km)
Winner: Vernon Bettle (ESGC), 2nd James Francis (NGC), 3rd Alex O'Keefe (Rattlesden)

Novice (RAT - DEP - GRF - RAT, 55.7km)
Winner: Beth Redpath (NGC), 2nd Dave (ESGC), 3rd Andrea Cornish (Rattlesden)

Well done to Peter and Beth for the day wins, enjoy the wine! Unfortunately Essex managed to extend their lead to 7 points overall, so they'll be representing East Anglia at the finals in Bidford. Oh well there's always next year!

Busy Tuesday

Well Tuesday on a non-official flying day at NGC. Could anything be happening?

Of course the answer is: "loads".

First off is Barclay, who has been continuing his selfless contributions to making a better clubhouse.
He was in the newly re-furbished briefing room, touching up the paintwork. Work will soon start on the offices, and insulation will be put into the roof space. Now that the new walls have gone up, and the new double-glazed windows, the room should be comfortable all year round. We'll know for sure in the winter (say Jan or Feb), but all the signs are promising.

The scouts are still on-site, and had managed to arrange a helicopter pilot to give them all rides in (I think) a Robinson R44. They seemed to be having a great time. Picture to follow, but the pilot seems to have flown down from somewhere up north to give her time, and fuel to the scouts at no cost to them. Wow.

A few private pilots turned up and one to use the club Astir, and Jim Lawn kindly came out to launch us all by tug.. with the help of scout leaders, who acted as wing runners (thank you runners).

RASP had made the day look like at least a 400K was on, so the following had a crack: Chris, David, Josh, Paul, Sophie, Tony, Wade.
The day started really well, but quickly over-developed with a fair amount of top cover. The only area which was working OK was a region between Wymondham and Great Ashfield on the north-south axis, and out as far west as 10K past Snetterton.
A couple of people got down to Rattlesden and back, and Chris and Sophie even got round the club 100K. Pretty much everyone got 3-4 hours soaring though, so although it was not the "day of days" it pretty much beats most of 2012's summer.

Jim Lawn did a sterling job getting everyone launched, helping the Scouts helicopter re-fuelling, and even picking people up in his car from parts of the airfield when they landed. Thanks Jim.

What a great day. What a great club.

Scouting for Girls, and Boys

Sunday 5th August
A total of 57 launches today, including 19 Air Scouts from 1st Carlton Coleville and 5th Canvey Island, who are camping this week. Special thanks to Andy (Duty Instructor) and Ben M. for helping with these.
Well done to the XC pilots who got to Ridgewell, and other places, perhaps not quite so far away.
Congratulations to Beth, at last she has her 5 hour silver/gold endurance leg. Well done Beth! I bet you won't want to do any local flying for a while. Good job the ICL is at RAT at the weekend!

An Interesting Day!

InterClub League. With Saturday scrubbed at briefing NGC sent a full team down to Wormingford for Sunday. Mark as Pundit, JRK as Inter and James L as Novice.

A very windy and "interesting" day saw all three land out, with only Beth available to crew, and she without a car. Mark retrieved himself by getting a cab back to WRM. James was retrieved by Beth and a volunteer from ESGC (many thanks, whoever you are). JRK retrieved by James and Beth as the sun began to set. Not their fault, but certainly not helped by the battery in my 'phone going dead just as I told James the name of the village I was in!

All safely returned to TIB or home, just before midnight.

The "interesting" for me was the wind. 20 plus knots at times, broken thermals, which were sometimes quite strong. Making headway was hard, especially watching hard earned progress disappear underneath as I thermalled away (from much too low down at times). A rain shower over NMT seemed to kill off the thermals just before I turned it and I could not climb backup for the last leg. First stubble landing of the year for me with a very affable farmer.

Interesting psychological tactic by the ESGC task setter, sending us to TIB first in both Pundit and Inter classes. Very tempting to quit here, especially as 20 had landed out from there at Knettishall.

Thanks to members of ESGC and NGC who relayed messages from me to James via passers-by.

Results: James was a runaway victor in the Novice, Mark second in the Pundit and JRK third in the Inter. Just one point separated ESGC and NGC for the day, with ESGC nudging it. RAT in a fortnight with only two points between us and ESGC for outright victory; could be exciting!

Not just the Youth!

Congratulations to Mike Hoy who succeeded in his quest for his Silver duration flight yesterday. So as to ensure that he managed it he stayed airborne for almost six hours. His wife was a little troubled at his failure to return home on time and came to the club to pick him up! He is due to go on the family holiday today.
Well done Mike! Enjoy the holiday.