NEWSLETTER
Number 110 July 2004
Chairman’s Contribution........................................................................................................................................................... 2
CFI’s Bits..................................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Treasurer’s Notes....................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Towlines...................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
From the Flying
Field................................................................................................................................................................. 5
Anniversary Dinner................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Zulu 19 is Missing...................................................................................................................................................................... 6
What is Euroglide?..................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Thanks......................................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Task Week 2004.......................................................................................................................................................................... 8
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Please send Newsletter contributions to: John and Ann Parry Holly Cottage Wentnor Telephone..01588 650379 Email……..John.Parry@Virgin.net |
Club Details: The The Long Mynd Church Stretton Office Telephone......01588 650206 Office Fax.................01588 650532 Members Telephone..01588 650405 Email……………….office@longmynd.com |
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Club
web site: www.longmynd.com |
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Charles Carter
It will be interesting to see what the BGA
consider to be the overall impact of National Gliding Week. At the Mynd Chris Ellis did a splendid job of
coordinating the various events and involving the media and we had a number of
visitors to the club. We took the
opportunity of NGW to celebrate seventy years of flying on the Long Mynd with
some special flying events. The weather
spotted a chance to disrupt proceedings and did its best to pretend that June
is not a summer month. However, there
were a few reasonable days and one outstanding day on which some notable
flights were achieved and a record number of kilometres flown although not the
out and return to the
The week was rounded off on Saturday evening with a party generously given by Keith and Christine Mansell to celebrate Keith`s seventieth birthday which was on the previous Wednesday. Sixty five to seventy people including their children and grandchildren enjoyed a delicious supper with lashings of wine followed by music and merrymaking until the small hours.
During the course of the evening Keith was presented with, among other presents, a painting of a Slingsby Dart which he used to own. It is not sure whether the glider is taking off from a bungey launch or is in the process of a beat up. The CFI is on the case.
Many thanks to Nigel and Sue Holmes for their hard work in arranging and coordinating events.
Keith`s contribution to the club is legendary. Eight years as CFI followed by twenty years as Chairman was rounded off by a stint as Treasurer. Since he ceased to be a club officer we have made use of his various talents in many ways including his duty as a full cat instructor. Keith is a man who will always help if he possibly can and provides tremendous support to those of us who attempt to run the club. He also does sterling work as Treasurer of the BGA and the Royal Aero Club as well as being Chairman of Wentnor Parish Council and working for several other local organisations. Truly a man to salute and one whose services the club can only hope to call on for many years ahead.
I know that Keith would want me to mention Christine at this point because his work for us impacts on home life but Christine appears to take it all in her stride and her tolerance allows the club and many others to benefit. Talking of which, some of the newer members may not be aware that Christine acted for many years as subscription secretary to the MGC. Looking in my log book indicates that she retired in 1995 but the Mansell tradition would suggest that she started many years before. Thank you Christine.
It is good to see our crop of new members integrating so well and to all of you I would say that if things at the club are not going as you think they should let me know and we can attempt to sort out any problems.
A recurring problem which is frequently mentioned is the failure of some of the duty team to turn up. Please arrange a swap if you cannot do your day because it puts an intolerable strain on your fellow duty crew as well as reducing the amount of flying available if you do not do so.
The refurbished accommodation block is nearing completion and judging by reports is meeting with approval. Thanks to all who have given their time and materials especially Johnnie Roberts who has done the ceilings and Aunty Den with the curtains and to you artists who have made free with the paint brush. Dave Crowson has done an excellent job even if the contract has overrun a couple of days. A few more finishing touches will bring it up to four star level. Maybe we can charge four star prices.
Safe soaring.
Neal Clements
We are fortunate in
having an intake of new members and it is extremely important that we
concentrate on the prime reason that someone joins the club, that is, to
fly. There can be nothing more
frustrating for a new member than turning up, not knowing how it works or what
is expected and watching a good day go by with no flying or continual hold ups. We should be aiming for a launch rate of 20
an hour and this is perfectly achievable as long as the ground operation runs
well. In order to facilitate this, I am
pleased to be able to announce an improvement to the already successful launch
director system. Jan Outhwaite has
agreed to become the senior launch director.
The purpose of this very important role is to provide the club with a
ground operation that is safe, maximises the launches in a day and inducts new
members into ground handling and the duty rota.
To help achieve this
we have created a ground training card which contains all the items a new
member needs to know in order to be a contributor on the ground. Proficient members get a sense of
belonging. The launch directors, as well
as instructors can sign off competence on the card.
We are now fully into
the cross country season and it is appropriate to mention the difficulties and
dangers of final glide. The calculators,
both computer and mechanical, assume no circuit and an average sink rate. It is up to you to add the margins you think
appropriate. If you are finishing over
unlandable territory (especially buildings) then you MUST allow enough such
that you do not land short. The tricky
part is knowing when to give up. If it looks marginal and you are flying over
landable fields, when should you abandon the glide and land instead? Funnily enough, heading back to a hill makes
this a bit easier, if you can’t quite get in then you can turn away and land in
the valley, PROVIDING you are fully familiar with the fields. Heading back to a flat site is trickier, if
you leave it too late then you will be forced to land in a field which has
chosen you, without a circuit, and you may be downwind. A simple test is to keep calculating distance
to go versus height and if you are having to speed up then you have a good
margin, else watch the fields to one side of you and have one ready to go to if
you are not going to make it. An early
choice may well be inconvenient, however, landing
downwind in an unsuitable field may prove more than inconvenient.
Once again it is time
to start planning task week. The beauty
of this week is that it has all of the benefits of a competition without the
disadvantages. Tasks are set for you,
met is done for you and you can fly on as many or few days as you choose. The fields are superb, your retrieve crew
will be provided with a map to locate you in your field, and scoring/replay is
done for you. The tasks are discussed and
well briefed beforehand and advice is available on the task.. Most days more than one task is offered so
allowing for different abilities. If
this is your first cross country season or you just want to improve then I
recommend task week, the week before the last August bank holiday.
n.clements@talis.com
Chris Harris
G-CMGC has been away for a couple of weeks having its three yearly “Star Annual” inspection. The wings have been removed and the attachment points NDT (Non destructive testing) tested. The struts have been bead blasted and resprayed, as have the undercarriage legs so she will look very smart provided we can keep the sheep muck washed off! Unfortunately the engine news is not quite so good. One cylinder was well down on compression and a hairline crack discovered in the exhaust port area. A replacement pot has been fitted and the cylinder head and oil temperature gauges repaired. Star annuals are expensive items and there will be no change out of the best part of £3000. Our engineer reports that generally Golf Charlie is in good repair. Let’s keep it that way. Please take care of your tug!
Richard Platt
It has been a very busy couple of months since the last newsletter, with lots of flying achievements including several excellent cross-countries.
We welcome new member Nick Yates, who started with the Faulkes Foundation group, flying the DG505.
Roy Witton and Sarah Butler have
re-soloed. Colin Troise has gained his
silver height and duration. On 22 May
Nicki
Liz Adlard took ASW24 HDY to Hay and
Bidford, achieving 200 km on the 19th May. The weekend of 22th/23th
May saw the start of several good flying days, starting with Ian Mac (DZ) doing
230 km and Rod Hawley 330 km (Ashbourne Whitchurch in 494) on the Saturday. Sunday was a bumper day - Chris Harris,
flying 154 in 15m mode did 301 km (ABO-COT), Ian Mac 528 km (NPT-PEW-BLY),
Sarah Platt 360 km on the same task, landing out near Newport Pagnell. Mike Witton in the Jantar flew to Abbotts
Bromley and return. On Monday 24th
Simon Adlard flew J45 to
Another big day (actually a genuine 1000 km day as proved by Russell Cheetham in his ASW22, but from another club so enough of that here) was Friday 25th June. 750 kms were attempted from the Mynd by Iain Evans, Ian Mac and John Roberts. Sadly none were achieved but all returned with over 500 km under their belts. Walter Baumann completed his first 300 km and Rose Johnson did a quick 500 km just for fun before leaving for the opera (how flash is that?) Too many smaller tasks were completed to mention here (actually I have no details - see below).
Please note; I can only report flying achievements if I know of them. Solos and early badge flights usually get reported in the daily summary book but quite often cross-countries are not or at best details are very sketchy. Please add good flights to the list on the club house wall and better still give me some extra details so that I can pad out this little piece. We can’t all be in the bar on the day to hear it from the horses mouth but we would find the hows, wheres and whys interesting believe it or not. You could even write a short piece yourself! Go on, try it.
Martin McCurdie
There will be a dinner on 2 October in the clubhouse to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Midland Gliding Club. More details in the next newsletter.
David D’Arcy
A quick
report from the flying field, Saturday 22nd Sunday 23rd
May.
Initially, I
was intending to have the weekend off, but after reading WeatherJack’s forecast
and the fact he was offering one of his coveted ‘WeatherJack tee-shirts’ to
anyone who totals more than 1500 km over the weekend and with the ratings 5
& 4 (later upgraded to 5) for Saturday and Sunday and the words, “and it’s a weekend, what more do you want!”
I had to change my mind. It’s not often
we have weekends with such potential.
And so you won’t be surprised to hear club members turned up in force
for the weekend and enjoyed themselves.
Unfortunately,
I don’t remember too much of Saturday! I
know I eventually teamed up with Mike’e Witton for a task to Talgarth-Chirk and
had fun trying to stay airborne SW of Shobdon along with a few other Mynd
pilots, Keith Laidler, Bryan Searle, and Liz Adlard, landing at Shobdon re-lighting
and then gliding home. Think this was
the story for most as there were periods of spreadout all day.
·
Dominic,
in Z19, completed 300 km.
·
Mike
Greenwood re-did his Silver leg to Bidford, then aerotowed home, his tug pilot
in need of some map reading skills, as he virtually came in from Ironbridge.
·
Peter
Clare flew his first solo flight.
Hurrah.
Big excitement as the day looked even better than Saturday, four pilots declared 500s don’t know about the Duo. Martin was all set for a 500 km attempt but Richard Bennett claimed 494 in the nick of time and Martin went home as happy as ever!
· Rod Hawley (Number One) flew with 2 new members.
· Caroline re-soloed.
· Roger Andrews soared in an Oly 2B.
· Liz Adlard went sightseeing, visiting a castle and an abbey.
· Dave Jones did local TPs totalling about 160 km in a K23.
· Lenny attempted a 5 hour duration in the K8, think the spreadout got her after lunch, landing after 2½ hours.
· Chris Harris flew with 15m wings, and liked them, and did 300 km.
· Mike’e got back.
·
Tony Danbury got his Full Cat
rating, after two gruelling days at
·
Eddie finished his Silver badge
off, with 5 hours and height gain (I think).
He was a bit nervous when approaching the book which said
· Simon Adlard sold his LS4.
· Clive Cocker went to Bidford and back without his electric whizmos working.
· Julian went cross country, also with no electrics.
· Mac went cross country, and learned how to download his EW and analyse his flight to see what he really did, with the TV room computer.
·
Jonny Boy was in
· Camp Hill members flew again, but landed on the hill instead of Pillocks Green as Saturday.
· Richard Bennett and Dave Crowson landed out in the Duo.
· Ian Mac completed another 500 km in sixish hours.
· Sarah Platt, landed out completing 360 km on the same 500 near Newport Pagnell. Her furthest flight so far.
·
Dave Rance landed out at
Nympsfield on the return from
·
Dominic completed 535 km after
8 hours, landing at
· And Simon Adlard rigged his Nimbus 2B in preparation for a 750 km attempt on Monday.
Julian Fack
The Duo Discus 494 team of Julian Fack, Richard Hinley, Paul Garnham and Eddie Humphries is competing in Euroglide 2004 in early July. This will be the third time of entering the Duo in this exciting and unusual competition, so what does it consist of?
Euroglide is a race around a 2000 km task,
this year basically a tour round the German border, visiting 4 German
turnpoints. The start and finish is in
We try and keep in radio contact, but on any good day this is impossible as the glider covers the ground much faster than the motorhome. On landing the pilots send text messages to the drivers containing the landing position and any other instructions, and the drivers set the motorhome’s GPS to those coordinates. They then attempt to meet up with the glider as soon as possible, ideally before dark!
One of the firm rules is that you must
phone in to headquarters in
The next task is to find somewhere to eat, although Meg stocks the motorhome with emergency supplies, we normally find somewhere to eat out each night, followed by an early night if possible, as this is a pretty tiring business. Meanwhile we also try to find out how to get a launch the next day, sometimes needing to fly in a tug from a nearby club, sometimes we need what the organisers call a “displacement”.
Displacements, in our case movement by road, are allowed in steps of not more than 100 km in the direction of the task, and not more than 300 km total, but if you are pressed you can always “displace” sideways or even backwards. A fair degree of strategy is required, should we go back or sideways to a nearby airfield, or should we use up some of our precious “displacement allowance” and trail forwards to another airfield on track?
The whole thing is obviously highly weather dependent, last time we flew well over 500 km on the first day, over five countries, and just 30 km on our last day. We finished the 12 day comp with three days to spare.
The winner, world record holder Gerrit Kurstjens, finished in just four days in his Nimbus 4T. This year Gerrit’s wife, ex Mynd member and also a world record holder, Pam Hawkins is competing in her own Nimbus 4T.
We were introduced to Euroglide by Phil and Diana King, who will be competing again in their LS8-18. We generally kept pretty close together last time, which meant we could share some of the chores particularly finding launching facilities for the next day.
You can imagine the problems and adventures that happen in a foreign country whilst trying to make progress round the huge task, Euroglide is a unique challenge, and a real adventure in gliding.
Keith Mansell
This is just a brief note to thank all those members who by attending the party at the club on 26 June to celebrate my 70th birthday made it a most memorable occasion for me. The success of the party was helped by great food from Jo, claret from Tanners, a Marilyn Monroe impersonation by Helen miming to MM singing “Happy Birthday Mr President” and after the meal by music from Eddie Humphries’ band (although without Eddie who had set off for Euroglide).
My special thanks to
Nigel and Sue Holmes for their cloak and dagger work in consultations with
Christine over old photographs and other matters. Of the presents I received
from the proceeds of the whip round to which many of you kindly contributed the
Ian Walton painting of my old Dart 67 was especially pleasing. (Also present at the party were Jane and Mike
Randle who were in 67 syndicate.) Other presents
included a digital camera, a bottle of Dalwhinnie, a
Among the guests were three of my former instructors (Tony Adams and Chris Hughes) who taught me way back in 1958 when I joined the club and Mike Randle who during 1959 taught me most of my soaring techniques.
Again thank you all very much and please come to my 80th birthday party.
P.S. With 180 or so members every second day ought to be someone’s birthday. If we only celebrate when a decade milestone is reached every twenty days or so someone ought to be 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 etc so there should be someone hosting a party every three weeks!
John Parry
Task week will as usual be the week leading up to the August Bank Holiday, that is starting Saturday 21 August and ending Sunday 29 August.
If you wish to compete but will not be able to take part in the first day please let me know in advance. Once scoring starts it is impossible to add extra competitors other than as hors concours.
Martin tells me that there are still club aircraft available for hire during task week. If you are not cross-country cleared this is a great time to get together a team including a suitably qualified P1 to fly a K21 or even the DG505.
GPS loggers are required. No trace, no points! So now is the time to make sure that you have kit that works. It will help me if each aircraft uses the same logger throughout the competition. Once a logger has been used by one team it can not be used by any other team. I will be equipped to download EW, Colibri and Cambridge loggers and should be able to download any logger with a serial connection but if you are planning to use any other type of logger please contact me as soon as possible so I can make sure that I have any special cables and connectors. It is unlikely that I will be unable to read compact flash cards. Please don’t count on Garmin track logs.
I propose the following rule change:
“Gliders with engines must have their engines sealed before the flight. If the seal is broken at the end of the flight a GNSS landout will be awarded at the point of starting the engine so long as the logger recorded engine use; otherwise no points will be scored for that flight.”
If you have a glider with an engine which works you may like to check that your logger will record engine use before the competition starts.