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8 Club launches today before and after the competition grid was launched. Longest flight was 700+ km! The Arcus flew the standard class task, taking in a view of the preparations at Glastonbury on the way. Sam, our course instructor, flew an aerotow trip in the club’s DG500.

KNK at 17:00 hrs. Passing Malvern.

PS at update at 18:00 … they got back!

Doug and Alistair about to depart on a cross country adventure.

The talk about going for the electric air speed record the night before was a really interesting insight into how a dedicated team with a single goal can produce results and not be distracted. It was a great team effort and we’ll worth seeing Phill’s presentation.

Sunday saw a perfect competition launch starting at around 11:00 with everyone going on long tasks. That left us free to do a few Aerotows in the K21 with a small band of club members being flown by Tim Barnes and Geoff Dixon. Flights of up to one hour in nice soaring conditions and local cloudbase 3400 above site. Last landing at 4:30 just in time for the competition finishers to start arriving. If you’re around next weekend then come up to the club and see the action for yourself.

We are pleased to announce that we have Phill O’Dell at the club on the evening of Saturday the 11th of June @ 7.30PM to give a talk on Breaking the World Electric Speed Record

He set the world record for the fastest electric vehicle flying ’The Spirit of Innovation’, an electric plane developed by Rolls-Royce in conjunction with Gloucestershire-based firm, Electroflight, and YASA, a Mercedes-Benz owned UK firm.

An absolutely fascinating insight, Phill’s talk will take you through the trials and tribulations of being at the forefront of innovation and how the world record was smashed earlier this year.

This is being held at the club on the first weekend of the Nationals competition. If you wish to eat at the club beforehand you will need to check if you need to book in the clubhouse for food. Bar will be open afterwards.

Not a great forecast today, so no high expectations but the day developed into a fine afternoon. A busy day with 6 aerotow trial lessons with plenty of candidates for instruction keeping the instructor team busy. Congratulations to Nick Tarasek for his first solo and to Tim Andrews who after soloing yesterday completed another couple of solo flights today. Thanks to everyone that helped today.

A bit of a contrast to yesterday with solid overcast and a fresh easterly that forced us on to to the ever popular 09 runway. Still, we managed to get a reasonable amount of flying in before rain stopped play at 14.00: Tom Knight completed his winter refreshers (only 6 months late), Ettienne had his first introduction to launch failures and Miranda continued her three day course with Tim Bralesford. Many thanks to winch drivers Tom Coles and Richard Causey.

Just a nice day with hardly any wind for a change. Not a classic from the cross-country pilots' point of view but it was soarable from 11:30 until after 6 pm. Cloudbase rose to around 4000 feet above site as the cloud thinned leaving mostly blue thermals with just a wisp of cloud at the top. A tip from the experts, you needed to find the thermals in the blue bits and the cloud only formed as the thermal was finishing off.

Launching today was from runway 21 with both winch and aerotow available. A good line up of private gliders kept the tug happy and from the club fleet we had K21, K13, DG500 and K23 out. The Capstan was seen gracing the skies with its distinctive plan-form thermalling away.

The day started windy with operation from runway 03 and just 2 club 2-seaters, plus the K23 and a couple of keen private owners at the launch point. As the afternoon progressed, cloudbase rose to 4500 feet above site with thermals averaging 5 to 6 knots in places. The last couple of hours being the best with easy climbs from every winch launch.

Thanks to everyone who helped out. The atmosphere was really good with everyone working together. Particular thanks to those who stayed to put the gliders away after 18:00 hours.

Flying scrubbed due to high wind but very illuminating talk in the evening by Ian Macfadyen was followed by a curry dinner in celebration of Adrian Giles 50th anniversary of his first glider flight.