From time-to-time the opportunity is taken to derig a glider, place it in its trailer and then take a day or a weekend away from Shawbury at local airfields such at Seighford and Long Mynd.  This all provides valuable experience in flying in other environments and at other locations and is a great way to hone your skills and to experience new challenges. And so it was that last weekend, with Shawbury unavailable and a great forecast, a few intrepid souls took R66 to Seighford for the day.

We were warmly met by our hosts the Staffordshire Gliding Club and after a Covid distanced morning brief we completed positives on R66 and lined up for an aero-tow launch. It was interesting to see how the field was laid out, with Winch launching on the South side, aero-tow launch in the centre and all landing on the North of the strip.

Colin Haynes took the first launch into some booming thermals and got away for over an hour before handing over the aircraft.

During the day cloud base rose to some 5,500 ft but there was a lot of haze, limiting forward viz.  Nevertheless all enjoyed a flight of over an hour on a brilliant day’s soaring.

Derigging at the end of the day, what did we learn?  We had gone through a comprehensive checklist before leaving Shawbury and the only item that we didn’t take was a hand held radio – we will next time.  Turn up in plenty of time to rig before the morning briefing.  If you want a decent soaring trip don’t allocate more than 3 per aircraft.