MIDLAND GLIDING CLUB

Hello everyone.  I’m writing today from Santa Cilia de Jaca in the Spanish Pyrenees.  This annual pilgrimage to the mountains has been going on for a lot longer than I have been taking part and some of the party are very experienced.  We have two Duo’s, an Arcus and a JS1 here at present.  We arrived late Saturday after an overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Santander after pretty much continuous rain all the way.  It continued to rain on Sunday but Monday cleared nicely and we all flew.  Conditions improved on Tuesday and Wednesday but today we all decided to do some fettling.  Friday looks like thunderstorms.  The airfield at Santa Cilia has two hard runways east-west and a grass strip down the middle which is sometimes useable depending on the amount of recent rain.  It has a large hangar for visitors which means we only rig once, a nice briefing room and a big cafe and bar serving food all day.  These are big mountains up to 12000′ plus but a lot less busy than the Alps.  Unlike the Alps it doesn’t have a lot of land out options.  Anyway we are all having fun and getting some good flying.

Your duty teams this weekend are:
Saturday: Steve Male (No 1), Peter Orchard (winch)
Sunday: Steve Male (No 1), Nigel Lassiter (No2), Peter Orchard (winch), Glyn Macarthur (LD)

See you all in another two weeks
Happy landings
Jon Hall
Chairman

Hello everyone.  What a great weekend we had with lots of sunshine, some clouds and some long distances covered by Mynd pilots.  Once again Wales had some of the best weather in the country.  This week’s course have had some good flying too starting with one of them taking a trip to Snowdon and back on Monday.  As I look out of my window this afternoon the sky looks really soarable so I hope you are taking advantage of it.  I leave for Jaca tomorrow to indulge in a bit of mountain flying so it is possible you won’t get another blog post until I get back in three weeks, though I will try.

Your duty teams this weekend are:
Saturday: Chris Alldis (No 1), Steve Male (No 2), Simon Adlard (No 3), Steve Male (Motorglider), Peter Orchard (winch), Dave Cole (LD)
Sunday: William Brewis (No 1), Steve Male (No2), Simon Adlard (No 3), Mark Wakeham (TLs), Peter Orchard (winch), Laurent Couval (LD)

New Trial Lesson Briefing Presentation
I am happy to tell you we have updated the Trial Lesson Briefing Presentation and it is now in use.  I have to warmly thank the team of Mike Greenwood, Rob and Jean Shepherd, John O’Reilly and those who took part as extras for the filming.  It is a big improvement on the previous version, which served us well for a number of years, but this one is now completely up to date and, more importantly, much easier to edit, expand and renew.  Mant thanks.

Vitaras
I’m sorry to say that one of the Vitaras died last weekend but thanks to the prompt actions of Julian Ravest it has been replaced with another one.  Julian took on the job of selling one of the old Land Rovers, which he did, more than funding the replacement of the Vitara and the purchase of another gearbox to keep in stock and still had enough cash left over to put more than £500 in the bank.  We still need to fix the Shogun which requires a new clutch.  We have the parts but lack manpower to do the work. If anyone has the skills and the time please let me know asap.

Weekday flying
It is worth remembering that as a club we enjoy weekday flying during the soaring season because we run professionally led courses.  It is the course members that pay for the professional instructors, some of the fleet, the professional winch driver and some of the winch kit.  Our aim is to be the club of choice for residential courses and to do that we have to offer the best possible experience for the course members.  We do this in a number of ways including excellent accommodation at a relatively low cost and superb catering.  We also have to give the course members value for money so we give them priority during the course weeks.  But this doesn’t mean that members can’t fly at the same time.  Private owners almost always manage to fit in with the requirements of the course instructors and check flights are usually available if arranged in advance but are sometimes limited by the course demands.  If this happens then check flights are freely available during members’ weeks and event weeks, which are more or less every other week at present.

Telford Balloon Fiesta
A huge thank you to Tim Brunskill and his team who helped make the club’s presence at the Telford Ballon Fiesta such a sucess.  On both days there was a constant queue of youngsters who sat in the cockpit of the ME7 and had the controls explained to them.  Our photo below shows Jared Chohan, 14, from Halesowen , a junior member of our club, introducing an even younger lad to the glider.  Jared being 14 is eligible to fly a glider solo which he hopes to achieve in the very near future.

East winds
Another east wind day but it reminds me to remind you that the motorglider can fly in strongish east winds so why not take advantage of it to do some navex or field landing practice.  You know it makes sense.

Club ladder
I mentioned last week about putting flights on the club ladder.  I forgot to mention that the BGA analyse the data from flights logged on the national ladder to find out which chunks of airspace are frequently used by gliders.  This data allows the BGA to prioritise where to concentrate effort to defend airspace from requests for more control zones and airways.  So it is vital that all cross-country pilots put their flights on the ladder to show what airspace we use.  If a pilot doesn’t wish to officially put a flight on the ladder it is still worth uploading the logger file to the ladder web site.  There is a button “Add Airspace-only Flight” on the ladder home page (https://www.bgaladder.net/Home) for this purpose.

Hope you all have some great flying while I am away and see you in three weeks or so.
Happy landings
Jon Hall

Hello everyone.  So for once I can say with some confidence that Saturday will be a very good day.  All the models more or less agree and it should be good for 500k plus for experienced pilots and definately great for Silver Distances or multiple romps around Tim’s Triangles.  This is SkySight’s prediction for a 500k task I have been looking at – not saying where in case I or the weather change our minds!

Your duty teams this weekend are:
Saturday: Steve Male (No 1), William Brewis (No 2), Charles Carter (TLs), Stephen Alexander (winch), Dave Cole (LD)
Sunday: Clive Crocker (No 1), Mark Sanders (No2), Dave D’Arcy (TLs), Pete Orchard (winch), Laurent Couval (LD)Cross Country Development Week
MGC’s cross-country Development Week will take place from 7-12 May.  It will provide potential and early cross country pilots with a structured training opportunity to refresh their cross country skills prior to the main period of the cross country flying season. So far not people interested.  So sign up and get even more attention form ther coaches and a chance to fly with one of them in a Duo.


Tim Brunskill needs some volunteers to help out setting up on the Friday and running the stand on Saturday and Sunday.  The future of the club depends on us increasing our revenues and this is an outstanding chance to do some sales and recruitment from the 40,000 visitors expected at the Fiesta.  Please give up a half day of your time to help deliver, rig or talk to people at the show.  We have decided not to take the BGA Simulator but will have a glider on display.  Get in touch with Tim at this email address.
Temporary Membership Sign Up
May I remind everyone that it is illegal and extremely risky for us to fly anyone who is not a full or temporary member.  This includes members of the public who arrive for a trial lesson.  We must make sure that they sign a temporary membership form in the office before they are taken out to the launch point and put in a glider.  Not to do so means they are are not members and therefore they, and we, are not insured.  Any sort of accident under these circumstances would be disasterous.  Please make sure it never happens.This applies particularly to Launch Directors and BIs.
Associate Members
There has also been some confusion lately about Associate Members and their flying priviledges.  May I take this opportunity to remind you that we no longer have a Social Membership category.  There are only two categories of membership; Full Flying Membership and Associate Membership.  Associate Membership has a number of sub-categories such as Junior Membership.  Ignoring the Juniors for the time being Associate membership is for anyone who does not, or no longer wants Full Flying Membership.  The category comes with certain priviledges such as use of the club facilities, club member rates for purchases and accommodation and a maximum of four flights per year, one flight per quarter.