Southdown Gliding Club

Another excellent gliding day at Parham yesterday with several cross country flights - most notable being a 200 km O/R by Rob in the Club Astir and a 'nearly' 300km by Ric in his K6e. Needless to say the 'glass' ships did a bit better! The pictures show a satisfying day at the club (but no glider pictures!). The first shows the tug, resting at midday, having launched all of our gliders (both club and private) leaving the launch point empty! The second picture shows our juniors washing down the retrieve vehicles at the end of the day's flying. Well done team juniors!

Learning to Fly - A Documentary Film
Coming soon🤔

Rain at Parham this morning stops flying. However, some of the regular Wednesday stalwarts (come rain or come shine) get stuck into navigation exercises👍 Can't wait for good weather to put what we learnt into practice! Pictures timed at 09:10h!

May Bank holiday Monday 2019 - best way to start the working week ahead.

OK, I know you do not want to see a picture of an empty hangar, or how many gliders were in the sky yesterday! So here are a couple of pictures of gliders on the grid at Parham awaiting launch and one from a Shark in flight, This was taken by Graham Smith over Harting looking south towards Hayling Island. There were many epic glider flights yesterday, with a couple of Lasham pilots using the South Downs (down to Eastbourne) as a jumping off point for longer tasks via Weymouth, Dorchester, Brecon then back to Lasham. Seems that a couple of pilots encountered some snow showers on the way back to Lasham! Have a look at the BGA Daily Scores https://www.bgaladder.net/DailyScores/Enq uiry

A rare sight at Southdown Gliding Club, both of our hangars empty today. Where are the gliders? Where do you think? Parham and Lasham pilots enjoying the thermal and ridge lift along the fabulous South Downs!

A full house of 39 pilots gathered in Southdown Gliding Club's impressively re-furbished clubhouse last Thursday (2 May 2019) evening for a Safety talk given by Geoff Connolly of GASCo. Present was a mix of glider and microlight pilots (and one autogyro pilot), with visitors from Kenley, Ringmer and Hadfold Farm. The wide age range included very early ab-initios, instructors, experienced XC pilots, PPL’s and former and current ATPL’s. The most experienced pilot had 25,000 hou...rs, the least experienced 3.
After we had spent a few minutes finding out whether our personal psychology was lion, elephant, giraffe, squirrel or chimp based, we moved on to more serious topics!
The presentation was delivered with a light touch but carried strong messages. These included hazardous mental attitudes, threat and error management, how to avoid loss of control accidents, collisions (these last two supported by some very scary video clips) and airspace infringements.
Everyone got a very comprehensive pack which had a lot of safety information in one place. Those who had remembered to bring their logbooks received an impressive GASCo Safety Endorsement stamp👍
All agreed that no matter what your age, background, experience or what you fly, these talks are relevant and invaluable. We left with the message ringing in our ears ‘SPREAD THE S WORD - SAFETY!'
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Rod and Will recently "steamed" along the ridge in the Southdown Gliding Club DG505! Short, but sweet! (the video, not the flight!)