Sunday the 8th of September Paul and Mark friends from my flying club got round to mine at 6.45 to drive to Siege Cross in Thatcham the home of a great glider event near Reading. Most of the people I flew with at out the Binham trip will be at this event, the weather given was light showers and cloudy with light winds. We got there at 9.15 and as usual a very laid back atmosphere with gliders coming out of peoples vans and cars.
As you can see more talking then putting planes together, but this is very normal at these events which what makes these events so good there is no pressure at all not like other powered shows I have gone too though out the years.
A very good turn out of pilots and planes as usual and loads of friendly faces.
The traditional que to be towed up
Here is the normal scattering of gliders after a flight and gives everyone a good chance to have a good look and take photo's, as I have done below.
A very nice collection of scale vintage and latest glass ship gliders
John and Paul standing next to one of 3 tugs for the day , this one being a greenly belonging to John who is also the designer and builder of one of the most built tugs a round the country, that come in many sizes for petrol and battery powered planes and the plans are free from http://www.ghostsquadron.co.uk/
At this point there was eleven gliders up at the same time with two tugs working at the same time to get everyone up into the air, as you can guess some thermals have been found, and some nice long flights were had by all, and more fun when 6 gliders came down at the same time safely. Tony in the middle of the picture at the time was flying a tug and Simon in the right hand side of the picture is one of the other tug pilots flying a Porter tug along side with John and Steve .
Mark my other freind that came with me for the first time is going up with his latest glider for the first time .
Mark has now the full assistance of the Ghost Squadron with Tony towing up and John at the controls for the maiden flight.
Well up she goes and the que's still keep on coming.
Antonia seen here with Ray towing her up, with John now completed the trimming of Marks glider and handed the Tx over to Mark to enjoy his first flight.
I think Mark's face tells more then what I can put in to words about the flight, The glider is a Multiplex dg300 4.25meter wingspan.
Here is one of Antonia's gliders sitting on her dolly that she made, this dolly is a must for when the grass is a little high or like this glider the wings are very long and thin and prone to have a wing tips catching the ground.
What I didn't know was in future events this year that I will also be using this dolly.
Just had to put this picture on I have just found on the Scale soaring site of my Gruanu baby. There are more just follow the link
http://scalesoaring.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1378242566/0#11
Dave caught over relaxing mid way through the day
I would like to say a big thanks to all the people that made Siege Cross happen and thanks for a great day, see you all next year.