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Well, what a busy day, 85 flights all told with some modest soaring late morning.

A new course started with 3 keen new pilots. John Hammond, a returnee from last year, Brian Riegler, a motor cycle enthusiast and brand new trainee, Vernon Wilcox, a pilot who was hooked after his trial flight last year.

The Lasham cadets did a fantastic job running the airfield, many thanks to them.

Matt came back from his first flights in the ASW20 with a big grin on his face.

The picture shows Simon and Mike getting ready to show us all how it is done in their trusty Capstan.

Drizzle greeted us in the morning. David set about checking the winch cables and the rest of us moved into the briefing room to talk about altimetry and how to read a 1;500000 aeronautical chart.

Gill arrived in an amazing Rover 100 which caused a few admiring glances.

After chocolate biscuits and tea the weather cleared for a good afternoon of flying.

The group photo, Graham (left) an aeromodeller has quickly grasped the basics of flying and can now fly a circuit unaided. Jim, now retired comes to fly for fun every year, Joe Vickerstaff has now resoloed in both K13 and PW6.

Another busy day, fantastic thermals but not always when you need them. Tim macFadyen dropped in just not quite enough height to get back to Nympsfield and Mike landed out----thankfully not at Ely.

Grass collection was in progress for most of the day, so there were a number of runway landings.

Jo Vickerstaff resoloed today, well done to him the picture taken by David as he passed overhead to land on 21.

Jo cooked a magnificent gourmet dinner for the course, which we all enjoyed while watching the evening group flying.

Strong winds, rain, hail and gusts. Thunder and electrical storms stopped play for a while, but let up for the evening group to fly before the rains really started.

This picture was taken by winchdriver David , while we waited for a storm cell to pass. Course member Graham and the course instructor sat in the glider to provide the essential ballast.

It's quite possible that Carly Selwood and Mark Bowler enjoyed our best ever One Day Course. The day was soarable from first launch at 10.30 and each of them had close to three hours in the air, mostly above 3,000'. By mid afternoon there were some stonking thermals but also some chunky sink. The two PWs were kept busy with club instructions - thanks to Simon Lucas and Tony Hayes. Most of the cross-country pilots headed for the Long Mynd (maybe to egg on our team in the Rock Polishers). Tony Parker in the Ventus found wave near Ledbury and climbed to 11,000', apparently his final glide from Talgarth took less than 25 minutes. Mike Oliver in the ASW20 and Mike Weston and John Huband in the Arcus attempted Llanfair Caereinion - Ramsbury - Leominster for 500k, but conditions weren't quite good enough for them to get all the way round. Many thanks to winch drivers Andy Smart and John McWilliams.

Smiles and congratulations all round.

From left to right, Roger Appleboom---a visitor from Dartmoor, flying his K6 for a few days of fun., David our tireless winchdriver. Don the course instructor, Peter Harvey, went from very early solo to 3/4 of the bronze C complete and over doubled his total log book hours, Chris Owen, first solo and discovered soaring, Adrian Irwin, completed his bronze C, converted to fibreglass and flew his new Astir for the first time.

The busy week included a Thai curry cooked by Roger, exams, briefings an inevitable early starts to make up for a very wet Thursday. Hope to see you all very soon.

Well done Chris, solo today.

Chris is a pilot from Dartmoor Gliding Society on a course for the week. Chris has another love---sailing---well what else if you live in Cornwall!

Lots going on this week. Here we have Colin Boyd having a conversion to fibreglass before flying his recently acquired Astir.

Colin is vice chairman of DGS and plays in a Devon rock group when he is not flying.

Colin and his syndicate partner, Adrian Irwin, went on to successfully fly their own aircraft on Wednesday.

Quick note to say I am in the process of putting some communication material together for dissemination. It is always the case that in the first 3-4 months of the calendar year I have other priorities so getting around to newsletter writing isn't easy. We had a club committee meeting last evening (8 May), getting through quite a few important topics and making some key decisions, so I'll cover those. Of course fire-fighting takes precedence when equipment "goes tech" for whatever reason. Thanks to the guys (and Gill) who have been getting things put back together. More soon.....
DGR / chairman

Meet up at the hangar at 6.30 am! Well why not.

Good fun, and David the winchdriver added "why dont we have bacon sarnies on the bus as well"---so we did.

After 2 days of poor and unflyable weather this group came up with this great idea and gained a lot of additional flight training.

Colin Parker (solo from earlier courses),Steve Brackenridge( went solo 10 years ago),Alan Thomas (went solo on a course last year) Stephen Moor( doing some instructor training for the week)

Well done guys, I am sure it will catch on..