Cambridge University Gliding Club

Emmanuel College, Gardner Room (turn left on entering the college and up the stairs facing you)

We will have members at the ready to answer any of your questions, a talk about gliding and learning to glide from an instructor, and some exciting footage on display. And all this over drinks and nibbles!

Come along and find out more about the club. We are also planning to announce our trial flight dates at the squash. I hope to see many of you then!

On Tuesday and Wednesday next week (2nd and 3rd October) CUGC will be hosting a stand inside the Fresher's Fair at Kelsey Kerridge Sports Centre and also outside on Parker's Piece where we plan to rig a glider! To find us insde, you'll need to head upstairs to Fenner's Gallery where all the sports clubs are. We are on stall U12 on the Fresher's Fair map.

We'll have people around you can talk to about gliding in general and the University Club in particular. We're always keen to meet interested people so do come and say hello and we will answer any questions you might have. We will be having a Gliding Club squash on Wednesday 10th October at 7.30 pm in Emmanuel College (more details later) where you'll have another opportunity to find out more. We're planning on running some trial flight days throughout term where you can come and have a go but dates aren't confirmed yet.

If you'd like to make sure you receive information about our trial flights, please email enquiries@cugc.org.uk and ask to be added to our trial flight email list. See you next week!

After a false start in May Week due to weather we finally made it down to RAF Bicester yesterday to fly our annual competition. After suffering through a morning's weather so bad the temptation was to shift to a spot-landings comp the clouds eventually broke and it became soarable (just) at about 2pm. With very difficult conditions both teams found it extremely hard to make significant height gains and most flights fell well short of 35 minutes (our set flight time for the day) let alone the 50 required by the original rules! In the end though, a trio of strong performances from Nick Laux (flying a K8), Adam Spikings (K13) and Peter Buchlovsky (K8) sealed the day, with us eventually winning by 112 points to 85.

A special mention to Nick who took the longest flight of the day and also the largest height gain (26 minutes and 800 feet) but thanks to everyone on the team for competing, to everyone at WGC for letting us turn up and fly, and last but not least to the OUGC team who provided good competition and good company!

The 2007 Varsity Team was:

• Martin Hughes (Capt)
• Nick Laux
• Adam Spikings
• Peter Buchlovsky
• Rebecca Ward 

On Thursday 21st June, we're holding our final trial flight event of the year. We'll be running trial flights throughout the day and booking is now open. So if you missed out on our other events, now's your chance to make may week special! To make sure you hear about trial flight days/evenings as soon as they are announced, make sure you're on our trial flight email list by emailing enquiries@cugc.org.uk and ask to be added to it.

UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE UNABLE TO PROVIDE TRANSPORT TO THE AIRFIELD for trial flights this term. Please do not book a trial flight if you are unable to get yourself to the airfield for your alloted time on the day of your flight. Click on 'Trialflights' at the top of this page to find out more about your transport options and to book a flight.

Heya

 I've finally got round to organising the end of term socials, though I don't know how I can see beyond those evil punishments most people call exams, a.k.a. torture. See the events calendar for details, and please let me know if you're interested in coming along!

  Keep smiling folks

Becca 

This term we've got one more trial flight evening that we're running on the 26th May. So if you missed out last term, be sure to book a slot for this one (there are still spaces left). To make sure you hear about trial flight days/evenings as soon as they are announced, make sure you're on our trial flight email list by emailing enquiries@cugc.org.uk and ask to be added to it.

UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE UNABLE TO PROVIDE TRANSPORT TO THE AIRFIELD for trial flight evenings this term. Please do not book a trial flight if you are unable to get yourself to the airfield for 17:45 on the day of your flight. Click on 'Trialflights' at the top of this page to find out more about your transport options and to book a flight.

Updated 20/05/07: Trial flight evenings for this term are now fully booked. Join the reserve list (by following the trial flight links above) or email enquiries@cugc.org.uk and ask to be added to the trial flight email list so that you are the first to hear about trial flight events when we announce them.  

Hi all!

If anybody has not had the kit order list from me a) get yourself on the member's email list and b) please email me directly for a copy (rw339)

Money and orders due in this Saturday

Also, I have some tickets for the Rocky Horror Show up for grabs.

Becca x 

  Unfortunately, the rest of the interclub weekend has been scrubbed and no scoring flights were made :(

However, there are some photos below and more in the gallery from my land out on Saturday to keep you all amused!

Yesterday was the first day of the Hus Bos interclubs with Adam as our Novice, me as the intermediate, and Colin Smithers and Phil in the ASH flying in the pundit class.

The forecast was/is your typical interscrub one but nevertheless we held out hope that the clag would burn off and we would get at least a short task late in the day. The classes were set 75k, 100k and 145k tasks initially but at about 3pm when the sun finally appeared and we all realised that we might actually fly, the Novice task was scrubbed and the other two classes' tasks dropped back to the class below. So I called a start just after 4pm and with thermals as strong as 1.5kts and clouds as high as 1800ft, I landed out not very far away at about 5.20. It seems everyone else in the intermediate landed out or gave up at about the same point as I did and no-one in the intermediates got past Y*.

The adventure wasn't over yet though - I struggled to find a way into my field for a trailer and by the time Gavin arrived to pick me up I had three options. Take a gate of it's hinges, cut through some barbed wire, or remove a wooden stake from the ground. All involved driving through at least one field before we got to the glider! Luckily the first one worked. We then realised that my car was going to be incapable of towing a full trailer up the hill in the field next to mine so we called the cavalry (Colin and his 4 wheel drive) who arrived just as my wheels had had all the spinning they could take. The cows in the field took a great interest in the whole affair and managed to leave great blobs of cow spit all over my car as I abandoned it to help with the trailer. Phil demonstrated some extraordinary cow herding abilities (photos to follow shortly!) and it wasn't too long before we were on our way back to Hus Bos.

We're hoping for at least one more task out of the next two days - will keep you posted! 

* Y is part of the scoring formula. It is a distance equal to 2/3 of the total task distance. Someone must get past this point in order for anyone to get any points at all.

A good day out was had by all at the CUGC airfield picnic yesterday. I had a fantastic time, so I thought I'd bore you all with it!

 I winched all morning, with relatively few hiccups (snatching gliders on take up slack, and failing to launch the Olympus, though they did ask for a launch slower than Bluebell). After my duty I went back to the clubhouse and met up with Martin H, Peter B, Andrew Laurie and Mark - a trial flightee. We then proceded to stuff ourselves with lots and lots of yummy food, as we'd all brought far too much. The effort was too much for Peter, who spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping it off in the clubhouse! 

The rest of us trooped back out onto the airfield, where Martin jumped in a Junior again and I smiled as sweetly as I could and was allowed to get the Discus out. I had a check flight with Andy Beatty which was wonderful fun, we thermalled up and used aerobatics to get back down! So then I was allowed to go solo in the Discus, which is a wonderful aircraft to fly - so responsive and thermals like a dream.

All this put me in such a good mood that I had a disturbing tendancy to burst into song or skip across the airfield. My apologies to those who had to endure! Anyway, after everything was packed away we had some cake that hadn't been eaten at lunch, then a nice leisurely convoy cycle home (me, Martin, Mark and Andy Judd) ending up in a good pub to finish off the evening.

If only every day were like that!