Hello everyone
Friday the 13th is supposed to be unlucky but as I look out of my window I see streeting Cu with a light WSW wind. I hope at least some of you are taking advantage and flying today. The new membership year starts at the end of this month and April has always been a reasonably good flying time so if you aren’t, now is the time to get current and recent and make sure you are in check. And don’t forget those field landing and navigation exercises in the motor glider.
Your duty teams this weekend are:
Saturday: Nigel Lassetter (No 1), Matthew Cook (No 2), Geoff Dailey (winch), Laurent Couval (LD)
Sunday: Guy Hartland (No 1), Matthew Cook (No 2), Denise Hughes (TLs), Geoff Dailey (winch), Jon Hall (LD)
Annual General Meeting
The club’s Annual General Meeting takes place at the club on the 4th April starting at 1800. Whilst this is a formal meeting, a requirement of the organisation, to conduct legally required approvals and the appointment of officers and committee members, there is always a members’ forum held after the formal meeting has closed, which enables members to raise questions and make suggestions for the new committee to consider. I urge you to attend and take part in this discussion, to help move the club forward and to take an active part in formulating the club’s future. You can’t complain after the event if you don’t like the way things are going and you didn’t take part.
If you want to put forward a resolution pertinent to the business of the AGM, and wish it to be added to the AGM Agenda, it must be received by the club Secretary by the 20th of March at the latest.
Contact details
Any club struggles to maintian accurate contact details for its members as emails, telephone numbers and addresses change. It really helps if you make a point of going to the office once every year and checking that the details we hold for you are accurate and up to date. We sometimes hold email addresses in more than one location so it is important that they are the same.
Cross Country Coaching
A reminder that at our club we are fortunate to have a number of very decent two seat gliders. Two of these, KA and JF, are owned by experienced cross country pilots who have been approved by the CFI to do cross country coaching. So if you want to experience a cross country flight, try a decent sized task or need some mentoring contact Julian Fack or myself. KA is part of a syndicate so will not always be available, depending on its use by other syndicate members but if it is a soarable day and I have a seat available I am always willing to share the flight, as is Julian, in our Duo Ts. There is usually no cost except for paying the launch fee and a contribution to any fuel used. I am also offering coaching on the club simulator. Other two seaters are owned by instructors who may also be willing to do some coaching. Don’t be afraid to ask.
BGA Ladder
I make no apologies about reiterating that if you do any sort of cross country flight away from site, you should upload it to the BGA ladder. Mark Sanders, our Ladder Steward, calculates scores for our trophy awards at the end of the season from the flights and traces logged to the BGA ladder. If you drive a glider with an engine you must have a logger that records engine starts or Means of Propulsion (MOP). More importantly, the BGA uses the the flights logged on the ladder as supporting evidence when defending our airspace. Shrinking airspace is going to be one of the potentially most damaging influences on the continuance of our sport in the future so it is really, really important.
Government announce UK to leave EASA
The BGA circulated the following:
Many have seen the news item re the UK leaving EASA. I was at a CAA briefing on this topic yesterday.
The UK is leaving EASA on 1 Jan 21. The existing EASA regulation on 31 Dec 20 will be cut and pasted into UK law with no planned changes for 2 years. This is consistent with the no deal plan that’s been in place for some time now. After 1 Jan 21, there may be opportunities to tweak the law. But there’s likely to be a long queue.
So the BGA’s ongoing development of Sailplane Flight Crew Licensing (SFCL) and Declared Training Organisation (DTO) compliant systems needs to continue.
- Re SFCL, we’re agreeing any necessary conversion tweaks with CAA ahead of 8th April 20, when SFCL comes into force ahead of a requirement to comply by 8 Apr 21. We’ve indicated to CAA that they should expect more conversions towards 8th Apr 21 than 8th Apr 20. So nothing new there.
- Re DTO, there’s a detailed BGA working plan on paper including, importantly, development of required resources inc course programmes and of course comms with clubs. We’ve advised CAA that the DTO conversion will happen towards the end of 2020. Nothing new there either.
The latest info on licencing will continue to be updated at https://members.gliding.co.uk/pilot-licensing/pilot-licence-conversion/. Meanwhile, the BGA will continue to use the avenues available to us to achieve the most useful and proportionate outcome for gliding, including re pilot medicals.
Kind regards
Pete Stratten
BGA Chief Executive Officer
Happy landings
