Club History

Our CFI, Ray Nicholas, scraped home after eight hours in the Phoebus on May 7 to complete 500km. A Gold distance attempt to Land’s End by Dave Scholfield on Easter Sunday in the club Skylark 4 fell short at Launceston. Anne Bradley, Steve Huband, Philip Turner and Dennis Badham have gone solo, Pete Higgs and John Baxter have their Bronze Cs and Eddie Foggin achieved Silver height on May 7. Since last appearing in these columns, we have boosted the club fleet with a Skylark 3F from Keevil, Also certain of our members have developed a fetish about antiques – the Tutor has been dragged from the back of the hangar and given a C of A and Tony Bullock has flown his K-4 for five hours on Inkpen ridge. The highlight of our social year was surely the dinner-dance. As a final point, visitors to South Marston are asked to note that we are now restricted to Ihe use of runways only, so please keep off the grass. 

As you can see, we have acquired a new tug. We are pleased with its performance-it’s capable of launching the entire fleet (including the hangar) to 2000ft in two minutes. Its only drawbacks are a rather high fuel consumption and certain difficulties getting aerotow retrieves from New York. For the record, our club Skylark 4 landed at RAF Fairford in the summer. It was flown by Tony Bullock who, although he denies it, we are sure was thoroughly lost. Since it was late in the evening, HAC allowed him to store it in the hangar alongside Concorde. It was aerotow retrieved the following morning. Incidentally, Fairford don’t like gliders very much so it’s not a recommended practice.

A sudden heavy shower of glass ships, one afternoon in May, turned out to be 28 National’s pilots falling to earth on our second runway with three more a couple of fields away. (see Nationals report, p164.) South Marston has never seen so many gliders at one time and we had visions of a, dramatic increase in membership. Minor miracles were worked by Jeannette Martin in the kitchen and Mary Blunt in the bar to feed and water the visitors. Congratulations also to Mary on going solo. A replacement Blanik brings the club fleet back to full strength of a K-13, Blanik, K-18 and Astir CS. Another newcomer is a recently refurbished Rallye tug” though our primary means of launch remains the trusty tow car.

The club held its first open day on Sunday, 22nd May, at the South Marston Airfield. Miss E. C. Millin, the Mayor Elect of Swindon, made the inaugural flight of the new T-3J, watched by some 2,000 spectators. Brian Porter of the Parachute sub-section made four jumps and the visiting Olympia syndicate from Coventry delighted the crowd with aerobatics culminating in a beat-up which put Farnborough in the shade. After the departure of the Auster tug for Eastleigh the T-31 passenger flights were continued by auto tow until late evening. Eventually, the call of the bar and sausage and mash supper enticed the diehards from the airfield. We now hope to fly every Sunday and will be delighted to receive visits-intentional or otherwise.

We were pleased with our performance in the Southern League, coming second to Lasham. Recent achievements include a Silver C for Josie Butcher, Silver distance for John Hanwell and a five-hours for Brian Payne. Ian Collingwood has gone solo and Phil Gaisford came third in the Lasham Regionals, flying the club’s Astir. Our barbecue and second open day, both in August, were very successful due to a great effort by the organisers. We were shocked and saddened by Don Sharpe’s field landing accident; an unfortunate end to a skilfully flown 300km. He is recovering in the Sturges Ward of the Nuffield Hospital, Oxford.

We had a very successful open weekend on June 20-21 with Club flying between 4am and 9am on the Saturday. Cooked breakfast was provided by Angie Higgs, Anne Bradley and Alison Lock and as a result of the weekend we have several new members. The Humbro task week wasn’t as successful as last year due 10 the weather but creditable performances were achieved by John Le Coyte. Eric Winning, Bev Hill and our CFI, John Baxter.

There are times when we have more instructors than pupils on ‘the airfield, no doubt due to the combined effect of the weather and the recession. Another factor is that the bar is closed and being rebuilt by Steve Foggin, John Baxter and others. At the AGM in December Pete Higgs was re-elected Chairman and there was a debate on the club fleet with the decision to defer a decision to next year (as we did last year!). Our annual dinner-dance is in February.

Our season ended with more than 15000km flown, an increase of 40% on 1979. Colin McKennan (Kr6CR) and Brian 6eale (Dart 17R) have their Gold distances and Bob Lock (K-8) has completed the first and only Silver C of the year with a flight to Booker. Mike Nield and Mike Beattie are on instructors’ courses this month. 16 The Blanik recently dragged 1000ft of cable across the dual carriageway and through some bedroom windows before dropping it in a local housing estate. We all learned a lesson and batmen now watch like hawks for cable overruns. Eric Winning has become Projects Officer (again) and is organising his 30 or so volunteers in various winter type jobs.

We look set to exceed the 1979 cross-country kilometres by a fair margin in spite of some Indifferent weekend weather recently, though il is disappointing not having had any Silver distance flights so far this year, Henry Devonshire organised Ihe task week, the larges1task being a 212km quadrilateral completed by Colin McKewen (K-6cR). The British Team Squad representatives arrived with some high-powered machinery for the Competition Kitty weekend and the Saturday night barbecue proved that they can dance as well as fly. On the one frying day most people landed at about the same spot so there was no real winner (see report in the next issue). John Devey has gone solo and Steve Parsonage and helpers are filling out a trailer for the Skylark 4.

Soaring started in February and by the end of May we had achieved far more cross-country kilometres ‘than the same period last year. Phil Gaisford leads the ladder with Norman Parry second, Norman having had a remarkable wave climb of 12 000f1 earlier in the season. Cross-country pilots have had to pass a written test on air law and navigation, set by CFI, John Baxter, before being let off the leash. The Blanik, which replaced the T-49, isn’t yet as popular as the K-13 but spends a lot of time in the hands of Steve Nash and others giving passenger flights. The Astir and Skylark 4 have joined the K8 but the Skylark needs a new trailer before it can fulfil its proper cross country role. Local real ale bas replaced the fizz served in the clubhouse and in addition Angie Higgs and the girls now provide food most weekends. John Chapman has gone solo and Bob Locke completed his Bronze C. We have a passenger flying weekend on June 21-22, a task week starting June 28 and a Competition Kitty weekend on July 19-21, with the annual barbecue arranged for July 19.