Club History

After five years of existence, we now have the first syndicate formed within the dub. This is the ex Dunstable Grunau, which has been acquired by Messrs. Bailey & Co. A second group has formed and will be taking delivery of a Skylark 4 in the New Year. Much aerial activity has taken place since our last appearance in these columns. The latest solos are: John Thorpe, Howard Johns, Ian Stokes. Colin Maxfield. The ladies have also had, excellent results; loan Savage, Jenny Wills and Margaret Young. Well done. girls! Cs have been completed by Chris James, Joe Pippa. Dave Bailey, Howard Johns, Mike Hoffman, Bill Rawlings, and Geoff Turner. Now for the hard stuff: Malcolm Parkins and Jack: Purchase both gained Silver legs-distance and height-by flying to Dunstable. Clive Castell flew to Lasham for his distance, using a cloud street all the way, and’ arrived at 5,000 feet. 7 Other cross-countries include G. Turner, 12 miles; me, 12 and 25 miles; Jack Purchase, 5 miles; George Turner, 275 yards: John Young (El Supremo), 34 miles. Chris James managed 6,000 feet in the Swallow but without barograph. Various members have already sampled the Huish ridge, and this should prove most useful during the winter. Before the AGM Stan Perry and Sam Colborne’ resigned from the committee, and this was a great loss for us. We are indeed indebted to the tremendous amount of work and effort they have given to the dub.

The last few months have seen the bar prospering as a result of numerous celebrations of Cs, Bronze C’s. etc. These have been achieved mainly by this year’s new members, whose enthusiasm seems to have paid off, particularly their ability to get up early ID the morning. Not that the old hands have been idle, however, Jack Purchase having notched up our first Gold C height. 10 The volunteer wives were called upon again, in the fund-raising field, and did an excellent job organising a barbecue in June. and a jumble sale in September. A word of caution here to other organisers, be sure that all you. sell is jumble. One of our members is now minus his camping gear. Our tow-car fleet has been supplemented, although perhaps not improved, by the addition of an F 500. “What a ride! Does anyone possess a spare workshop manual for the above or the F-100? We could certainly use one. We have a new and rather unique winch under construction which should prove very useful on our local ridge. Dave Schofield is the “genius” behind this. backed up by our invaluable mechanic, Doug Rawlings.

Our proud boast in the April issue of having flown five 300kms on the same day was somewhat deflated by the printer deleting the word five! Despite such adversity we are currently trying hard to improve our last record having already completed more than 5000km by the beginning of June, including Silver distances from Colin McKewan and Steve Nash to complete their Silver Cs. The poor weather during the “Hambro cup week” only allowed six pilots to fly on one day, completing over 1300km including three 300kms. Our usual problems of a shortage of new members and reliable launching facilities are still with us – our resident tug has been laid up since last November. Hopefully our recent massive increase in membership and flying charges has not put off too many, but maintaining a club fleet of five gliders operating only at weekends by a club the size of ours is unfortunately getting more difficult. We are currently debating whether or not to say goodbye to our Skylark in an effort to further tighten our belts. 15 However, we are looking forward with optimism to the Summer season with its usual crop of flying weeks, parties. barbecues etc and we hope to cultivate two new instructors. Phil Gaisford and Mike Beattie. the former also having got his name down for the British Team Training Scheme. Visitors are always welcome but please remember that we are only permitted to use the runways and tugs must have permission from Vickers ATC.