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News Bytes

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 Calum Reid solo on his 16th birthday. Follow the link or 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

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.