Expedition reports, cross-country flight achievements, cadet milestones, and airfield updates from Gransden Lodge Airfield.
Rather than edit the video as usual into a snappy minute or so, when I watched the footage back it seemed far better just to trim the ends and publish the whole ten minutes from take-off to recovery back to the launch point as the whole video gives such a lovely taste of evening flying, … Read more "Tuesday evening flying in Bluebell"
Here are some clouds. Note that they do not look tall and fluffy. Tall and fluffy usually comes from strong thermals, the rising columns of warm air which keep us in the sky. Given the look of the clouds, I thought that yesterday wouldn't have a lot of lift. I was wrong! It was amazing for … Read more "A marginal day?"
Well, that winter was a bit rubbish wasn't it? The less said about that the better. So here are some photos of gliding this week. Look at the blue sky! And the little fluffly clouds! Eagle-eyed readers will spot muddy knees though. Evidence that there's still moisture around on the ground. (Hooking gliders onto the … Read more "Spring arrives…"
Thanks to Steve Pearce and Robert Welford for these lovely photos from the airfield today.
For the first time, one of our pilots has taken the CAA SPL Assessment of Competence, and passed. What does all that mean? A bit of context: If you decide to learn to fly with us, here's how it works: Pre-solo training, where you fly with an instructor. Then you go solo! (huge milestone #1) … Read more "Our first Sailplane Pilot's License test"
Saturday was a good day for us (despite bands of rain afflicting the west side of the country for the past few weeks, we've remained relatively dry). It was filled with achievements, despite it being one of the shortest days: Olivia converted to one of our high-performance single-seater gliders, the Pegase Janine added aerotow rating … Read more "Achievements on almost the shortest day of the year"
Loops, humpty bumps, and chandelles are demonstrated in this ASK 21 aerobatics flight, filmed at sunset.
I’m an early post-solo student, and I plan to practice my launching, landing, and soaring skills during my eighth solo flight in the K21. My instructor, David Williams, suggested that I could stay up longer in the afternoon as the weather improves. After releasing the cable at around 1500 feet, I soared through the thermal … Read more "A Surprise Silver Height"
Recently we had three of our solo pilots all converting to new glider types on the same day. Converting to a new glider is an exciting step in your gliding journey, so we spoke to each pilot about how their conversion went. Olivia: K21 to Junior Olivia converted from the K21 two-seat glider to the … Read more "New Wings, Same Sky: 3 pilots convert to new glider types"
