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Up and Away The Bicester Gliding Centre Magazine

Autumn Issue 2016

2 Up and Away—Autumn 2016

Up and Away—Autumn 2016 3

Thanks to our contributors and photographers as

always.

Mike Pettican was excused from his write-up on the

Regionals as he has been rather busy of late. Many

Congratulations to Mike and Claudia on their

marriage!

We are starting a Letter Page in our next edition and

so I look forward to hearing from you with your

opinion and ideas.

Many Thanks

Kathy Ludlow (Editor)

October 15th—Introduction Day

November 5th—Bonfire Night

19th—Introduction Day

December 17th—Introduction Day

Dates and times are subject to change—check the

weekly Bicester News and the online Calendar:

www.bicestergliding.com/calendar.htm

DUTY TEAM DATES OCTOBER—DECEMBER, 2016

CONTENTS

Future Club Events ............................................ 3

Duty Team Dates ............................................... 3

Chairman’s Letter .............................................. 4

CFI’s Letter—Volunteering .............................. 5

2016 Cadet Challenge ....................................... 6

The Bicester Regionals 2016 ............................. 7

Diary of a Regionals Pilot ................................. 8

rats tails ........................................................... 11

ADVERTISERS INDEX

LX Avionics ...................................................... 2

Lawrence Furnishings ....................................... 6

David Doyle ...................................................... 6

Historit ............................................................. 10

Lawrence Furnishings ..................................... 10

BFG Carpentry ................................................ 11

Lamps Electrical Wholesaler .......................... 12

EDITOR’S LETTER

“Up and Away” is the magazine of the Bicester

Gliding Centre, and is issued Quarterly.

Any submissions should be sent to the Editor, Kathy

Ludlow: [email protected]

For information on Advertising, please contact the

Editor, or the office: [email protected]

Deadline for submissions:

1st March, 1st June, 1st September, 1st December

Bicester Gliding Centre, Bicester Airfield

Skimmingdish Lane, Bicester, OX26 5HA

T: 01869 252493 (Main Office)

FUTURE CLUB EVENTS

Team A Team B Team C Team D Team E Team F Team G Team H

Saturday Sunday Saturday Sunday Saturday Sunday Saturday Sunday

8 October 9 October 15 October 16 October 22 October 23 October 29 October 20 October

5

November

6

November

12

November

13

November

19

November

20

November

26

November

27

November

3

December

4

December

10

December

11

December

17

December

18

December

This issue’s cover image is Andy

Elliott’s Libelle being launched

during the 2016 Bicester Regionals

Photo courtesy Pete Atkinson.


CHAIRMAN’S LETTER

W ell, our summer season got off to a

bad start but came good towards the

end; we have done over 8,000

launches since the start of the year,

916 in June and 1,283 in August. We are expecting a

large number of OUGC members again this year - we

had over 40 last year. As I’m sure you know, we sold

our K21 to OUGC during the summer and we are

sure they will make good use of it during the coming

winter, starting with their Freshers’ Week, which

actually lasts about 6 weeks for us, and brings in

many new members.

GP & Regionals

Both the GP and our Regional Comps went very well

and we were able to provide lots of ‘normal’ club

flying for our members during both comps. This

worked particularly well during the GP, with only 18

competitors (it is limited to a maximum of 20 for

safety reasons). Our members used the same backup,

weather forecasting, tasking, food and the showers

etc. The GP, led by OJ, was a big learning curve for

everyone involved; OJ did very well and the event

was a great success. Mike Pettican and his team did a

great job organizing the Bicester Regionals this year;

it was a big comp that was well run, and even

managed to attract good weather.

We were planning to hold a National Comp in July

next year but BH have been unable to fix their

Flywheel event; they are waiting on Goodwood who

are waiting on Silverstone to fix their F1 date. As we

cannot confirm the date we have had to advise the

BGA to seek another club to run the Nationals. We

will be running our Regionals again in August 2017.

Hangar Move

I am pleased to say that we have a date for our move

into our new home, hangar 137, which is on the left

as you enter the gate. As part of our long-term plan

for the club,

Bicester

Heritage has

asked us to

move out of our

existing hangar

by Friday 21st

October. This

would mean

that starting on

Monday 17th, we would need help to move the

aircraft and empty the hangar of all our gear

including the MT bay, the parachute room, the

comps office and the battery room.

Could all private owners kindly remove their

batteries from the battery room before the 17th and a

new charging area will be set up in the hangar as

soon as possible. If you have any of your own gear

in the hangar, please could you remove it as we are

bring in a skip to dispose of the club’s unwanted gear

and we don’t want anyone running the risk of having

possessions being disposed of by accident!

Some of you will remember the great turnout we had

when we vacated the northern part of the existing

hangar some 2 years ago; many hands did make light

work of the task. We are discussing with Bicester

Heritage the option of moving the office, bar, crew

room, briefing room etc. to the offices on the south

side of hangar 137. This will mean a lot of

refurbishment by BH before we can move and is

therefore not likely to happen before the end of the

winter.

Fleet and MT Maintenance

Terry Mitchell is starting to plan the winter annuals

and maintenance for our glider fleet and will be

asking for help again. Under Terry’s leadership, and

with no small input from him, we managed last year

to do all the maintenance ourselves, saving the club a

lot of money.

Our Chairman, Roger Wilson, keeps us up to date with what is

happening in and around the club.

“Both the GP and our Regional Comps … were a

great success”

“Many hands … make light work”


I t is probably true to say that most gliding clubs

run near to the margins of viability. The

difference between making a loss, or a (usually

very small) profit, could be a spell of bad

weather.

Another reason for losing money is bad management

and decision-making at the head of the club. I think

we are lucky at Bicester, that by and large the

committee and Chairman are doing a solid job and

the club is viable. However, this can change quite

quickly. It only needs a couple of committee

members to have personal circumstances change and

there can suddenly be a void, and a well-run club

turns quickly into a loss making concern.

You might think that this can easily be solved by the

election of new committee members, and this is

indeed true…provided that there are suitably

qualified members that are willing to do the job.

So have you thought about who might replace the

Chairman, the Treasurer, or the other members in

charge of the club, were they to choose to cease

doing their job?

Whatever your answer, I have to say that looking into

the membership, it seems to get more difficult each

year to ‘line up’

replacement

management

were it to be

needed.

It is not that

there aren’t

members able

to do the jobs, more that fewer folk have the time to

devote to it, (or perhaps that they have never really

thought about a committee position).

There are some pretty long standing members who,

year after year, continue to fill the roles and frankly it

worries me! ‘Cometh the hour cometh the man’ is not

much of a succession policy. Perhaps, ‘Ask not what

your club can do for you, but what you can do for

your club?’ might be more relevant?

The season of club politics, AGMs and the like is fast

approaching. We need more volunteers!

CHIEF FLYING INSTRUCTOR'S LETTER

In this letter, Dave Watt looks at: Volunteers

“To volunteer, or not to volunteer, that is the question”

A big thank you to all those who helped including

Andy Elliot, Basil Fairston, Jim Crawford and

Charlie Ingram Luck who undertook a number of the

annuals. Twiggy and Terry have been doing all the

50 hour checks on the MG’s. Andrew Reid has spent

a lot time getting the instruments working in our

gliders, and Dickie has been signing his life away

and working on the radios. All this reminds me, OJ

with help from Debbie spent a number of weekends

and evenings repairing the wings of ESB before we

sold it to OUGC; again this saved us a lot of money.

You may not realise the amount of work that has

gone into the MT fleet this year by club volunteers.

Terry Mitchell junior spent days getting the green

trooper usable again and Richard Chapman with help

from Charlie got the Peugeot back on the road (well,

the airfield).

If you become aware of a problem with our fleet,

please tell Twiggy or Terry and put a note on the

white board in the crew room; this includes problems

with glider instruments.

Roger Wilson

Chairman

“Ask not what your club can do for you,

but what you can do for your club”

“If you become aware of a problem

with our fleet...”


by Julian Bane

C ongratulations to the formidable Cadet

Team who took part in the "2016 Cadet

Challenge" which was held at Nene Val-

ley Gliding Club (Upwood) this summer.

Our team from Bicester beat both Cambridge

(Gransden Lodge) and London GC (Dunstable) and

came second overall, only narrowly beaten by the

hosts, Nene Valley. Well done!

Back row: Chris Chitty and Julian Bane; Front Row Alfie

Hooton, Sam Jones and Owen Fouche.

The grid during the Bicester Regionals 2016

Image courtesy Jay Boyden


We are looking for Articles and Front Cover Photos

If you have an interesting article you would like to see published, please send your contribution to the Editor,

and we will try to include it in the next available Edition. One full page is about 800 words without images.

We are also looking for good quality photographs for the front cover. They should be high resolution, size A4

portrait (or can be trimmed to that size). Please include a brief description, and the name of the photographer.

The Bicester Regionals were successfully directed by

Mike Pettican with OJ as his Deputy and of course

the tireless “Mel the Met” who managed to conjure

up some good weather.

There were six days of varying flyable conditions,

with the Open Class having a last task on the final

day. Thanks go to all of the organisers, sponsors and

helpers and congratulations go to :

Club Class

1 LL Andy Elliott 5,117

2 705 Alexander Simon Ramsay 5,066

3 574 Luke Hornsey 4,998

Open Class

1 X8 Mick Webb 5,272

2 DW David Watt 5,205

3 490 Steve Eyles 4,669



DIARY OF A REGIONALS PILOT

by Andy Elliott

A disappointing Nationals at Pocklington

with just 1 day's flying had left me with

fire in my belly to do well at the

Regionals. This would be my first

competition year flying my own glider, the mighty

Libelle. Bought in October, I had painstakingly kitted

her out with all the instruments needed to compete in

competitions. You actually become a Libelle when

you fly one, you just strap it on and her wings feel part

of you and so I’m sure you can feel my pain of not

having flown her to full potential on the one day we

had at Pocklington.

I thought I had the capacity to fly her well but having

no water ballast capability was a massive handicap.

My thought process was an essential part of my game

plan; when to start, ignore the decisions of other

contestants and keep my wings level as much as

possible. It took me a few days to get into my stride

but luckily for me it was a 6-day comp.

Day 1: 147 km – Landed out

at Finmere, I needed an extra 800

ft to get home. I definitely started

10 mins too late. (10th 508 pts)

Day 2: 156 Km - It all came

together, setting off at just the

right time, late but not too late

(1st 880 pts)

Day 3: 267 km - a 25 point

penalty! I just could not help

myself; I had had such an

enjoyable flight and finished with

a fabulous pull up to finish the day

in style. (3rd 934 pts)

Day 4: 202 km - The mighty

Libelle and I were as

one. (1st 1000 pts)

Day 5: 252 km - I got low but

scraped away – thought I'd blown

it but obviously not. (1st 1000

pts)

Day 6 - I got low on the second

leg but at 900 ft over Towcester

found a weak climb to 2500 to get

to a strong climb 7.3 kts to 5500.

A 55 km final glide from the last turn. I was now

the overall winner for my class! Obviously I was

delighted to be in such an enviable position but

there was still one day to go......

Day 7 Grid squat – finally scrubbed to my relief.

Most days were challenging as there was a

competitive field of pilots and most days were blue

with the odd haze cap to show the best climbs.

A modern club class glider is not required to fly

competitively. Last year I had a Discus with far

superior performance (plus water ballast) but

struggled against the more mature gliders.

All in all the mighty Libelle was an excellent choice

for me, with incredible ‘bang for buck’ I would highly

recommend one to any aspiring competition pilot who

wants to compete on a budget.

Andy on launch, and later in final glide

Image courtesy Pete Atkinson

Image courtesy Pete Atkinson


The Regionals Winners: (left) Mick Webb—Open Class,

(right) Andy Elliott—Club Class.

That is what the sky should look like during a competition—taken during the Bicester Regionals 2016



well, what a summer em. all that complaining about

poor weather and bang – we get all the soaring in one

go em. first the sailplane grand prix which we were

very honoured to host. i was kept busy hosting fellow

aviation rodents from deutschland who complained

about british beer and kept on telling stories about

how much better everything was in germany. like ex

gga pilots em.

after this, we had the inter-university comp where the

‘allegedly’ best brains in britain took to the skies. i

was a bit confused by the rules, chose the wrong pilot

and ended up going round and round in circles over

the airfield when i thought i was headed across

country. i would stick to university challenge if i

were you chaps.

then the bicester regionals, which were fantastic.

good weather, great flying and convivial gatherings. i

decided to fly this comp and go double vintage by

doing the whole event with andy elliott, a vintage

pilot in his vintage libelle flying in the club class. he

probably though the squeaking was one of the control

runs needing some lubrication, but i brought him

good luck em.

i managed a bit of tug and motor glider flying over

the last couple of months, but who wants to fly power

when the soaring is good qm.

on the subject of tuggies, shame that hugo has left to

start a new career with pikey air. i found his flying,

like hugo himself, to be pretty smooth. but that’s not

required where he’s headed. and i’m sure he will

enjoy living in wroclaw or bratislava – or wherever

mr o’learey decides he should be based. more

jeopardy than an raf posting em .

as for the filming, there is a part for a rat em. I went

to the audition and am carrying on with the family

show-business tradition. my grandpa basil had a very

major part in an episode of fawlty towers in the

1970s. the episode was even named after him.

keep a careful look out and bear a thought for your

favourite hangar rat during the upcoming move….

happy landings em.

by anonymouse

There are a number of ways to get more information about what is happening around the club. “Bicester News” is an email sent out weekly throughout the year, containing headline news related to the club and gliding in general. If you are not on the distribution list, give your email to the office: [email protected]

Our hangar rodent, still

unable to use the upper

case on his laptop, shares

his musings.

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