RAF Shawbury Gliding Club

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Flying Report Bank Holiday Mon 6 May 24

The B team are back from Sisteron judging by the trailer we found outside Hangar 4 this morning.

It was only a few who had managed to wrangle a day pass on Bank Holiday Monday rather than visit yet another garden centre or wotevs the exciting alternative was😂.  But conditions, it has to be said, were not good with high cloud – (Bronze C Theory test; what clouds are these?)…...

…..sitting over a low cloud base and obscuring the sun.

Paul Sutton having travelled from Warrington to join us made the most of the day fitting in five launches in R35. We’ll have him solo soon.

Early launches were limited by a 1,700ft cloudbase that eventually rose, late in the day, to 2,000ft.  But this did not deter Kieran who, after a check flight with Colin (err, one of them is still a cadet😍)……

……then went on to claim hog of the day with a trip of 52 minutes in R43, his first flight in a single seat aircraft.  Well done Kieran.

Of course that was the signal for the other single seat jockeys, who’d all been sitting around awaiting the sacrificial launch, to take to the air.  None got even close to Kieran’s time!  And one of these is also still a cadet!

Our two tuggies, Colin and Nick, shared the duties between them but it was not easy to drop aircraft in lift as conditions improved little during the day.

But at least everyone got a trip before flying ended at around 1500.

#vulcanbomber decided that the only way that he’d get a decent trip was to fit an engine in R43!

Despite the conditions we enjoyed a fun Bank Holiday Monday.