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News Archive > 2006 News Summary
July
An excellent start to the month with Saturday the 1st giving us some superb wave
off a southerly wind. Robert took the K.21 east to Turriff and back while Martin
flew 770 west to Inverness and back. Martin had to give up a 6kt climb at 13,000
ft at Nairn because he forgot to switch the oxygen on, missed out on a few
height ladder points as well because the logger wasn't on either, at least not
at the start of the flight! A few others managed to get above 10,000 ft
including Chris in R53, Roy in JYC and Phil and Gill in the ASH. Click on the
picture for a few more photos from this day.
June
Solo at 16 - On Monday the 26th June club members turned out to send
Callum Reid solo on his 16th birthday. Click on the picture for the full story.
Our CFI, Geddes Chalmers, has injured his back in an accident on Saturday the
10th while field landing his own glider. We wish him a speedy recovery. There
was a strong southerly wind at Easterton that day and Geddes had the only glider
launch as conditions were deemed too turbulent afterwards. As is often the case
though, southerly winds give us our best lift and Geddes thermalled into wave
reaching 17,000 feet and flying to Oban and back.
May
The first of our Ash weeks began on Saturday 29th April, thanks to Roger for
collecting it. After rigging, it was flown down to Tarland and Huntly before
returning to Easterton. On Sunday, Robert had two trips down over the
Cairngorms, once again demonstrating the ability of the ash in the right hands. Monday was the only day
the ash did not fly. On Tuesday the wind increased to give wave conditions, and
the ash went to 15,000 ft and a 250 km trip to Dalwhinnie and Aboyne. On
Thursday Phil took it to 23,000 ft between Elgin and the site, and on Friday the
wind reduced to give thermals to 6000 ft rising to 8000 ft over the Cairngorms,
with some wave, the best being beside Ben Rinnes to 16,000 ft for Stuart Harris
(No Barograph). Saturday was one of the best gliding days seen recently, with
6kt thermals from 11 am.
April
Winter persisted with unseasonal amounts of snow for the time of year making the
site very wet and muddy. There were some soaring days but a lot less than normal
for the time of year. The tug came back at the beginning of the month but
unfortunately due to problems neither the K.21 or the Junior are back online.
The K.21 undercarriage has been a pig to remove and the Junior requires a
mandatory modification to the rudder hinge that our inspectors haven't had the
time to deal with due to the high number of C of As on other gliders to be done.
March
R.I.P. Eddie |
A dismal month with weekend after weekend of bad weather and only one day with
any reasonable flying. The K.21 is still offline because of problems with the
undercarriage. The Junior is now offline for C of A as well. The tug is still at
Kinloss awaiting paperwork. Eddie Traynor - It is with great sadness that we report the death of
club member Father Eddie Traynor.
Eddie was the priest at St Peter's church in Buckie. He had been ill with cancer for a number of years but despite his
illness and heavy work load he still maintained his membership of the club and
occasionally found the time to indulge his passion for gliding, most recently
only a couple of months ago. He will be sadly missed.
February
A month of two halves. The first half of the month saw us with a few decent
soaring days with lots of pilots getting some much needed time in the air.
Robert Tait managed to land out at Dufftown just a few kilometres down the road
after setting a 318K task, some might say it was a bit ambitious for February
but nothing ventured as they say. The second half of the month was plagued by
poor weather and very little flying was done. There was however one day when
there was low wave over the site and unusually people were able to get away from
800 feet, X15 made the best of it getting to 9,000 ft in the spay valley. Stuart
Harris has come back to us after a gap of 6 years and gone solo again. The tug
has been moved from Aboyne to Kinloss and is awaiting paperwork to be signed
off. The K.21 is now offline for C of A.
January
A good start to the year with a lot of soaring both ridge and wave in January.
The first weekend of the year we had 8 gliders up between The Rothes Glen and
Ben Rinnes. Saturday 7th was the best day of the month with wave up to 13,000
ft. The tug went for C of A to Aboyne and the weather station at Burnbank, about
quarter of a mile from the airfield, has been incorporated into the website. Oh,
and one last thing, we winch launched the ASH for the first time! It probably
wouldn't have happened if the tug wasn't away.
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