News

The Inter-Services Regional Gliding competition was held at RAF Keevil 3 – 11 Aug 19. The Competition involved pilots from all three services (regular and reserve) racing gliders around courses of up to 300km accross the south of England.  Despite poor weather precluding 5 of the 9 flying days, the competition was hard fought with the Army eventually winning the overall trophy for a second year running.

Highlights of the competition include LCpl Danny Richmond of the AAC winning the Club class in his Standard Cirrus glider, B11.  Maj Tom Clark AGC(SPS) winning the last day of the competition having only taken up the sport less than a year ago and Sgt Lee Davidson of the REME being the highest placed Army pilot in the Sports class flying an Army owned Rolladen-Schneider LS8 glider, A10.

With immediate effect we are changing our the name from Anglia Gliding Club to Army Gliding Club (Anglia).

Having already tried her and at ballooning, microlighting and helicopter flying, local Suffolk resident Nora Brier took to the skies at Wattisham this Friday for her latest thrill - an aerobatic glider flight - to celebrate her 100th birthday!

The local TV news crew were in attendance to record this impressive occasion, with the report available to watch here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-29485974.

I recently had the opportunity for some soaring in America during two trips there for work. I visited the friendly folks at Coastal Soaring in Pensacola, Florida (www.coastalsoaring.org) and Carolina Soaring in Spartanburg, South Carolina. (www.carolinasoaring.org).

Coastal Soaring is located about a mile from the Gulf of Mexico on the North West side of Pensacola, Florida. Pensacola is in the far west of the Panhandle of Florida, about as far from Disney World as you can get and still be in the same state. It’s the only gliding club for quite a ways, so they have members from Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. They even have one member who lives in New Orleans, Louisiana and drives over 200 miles to fly. The Ridgewell crowd thinks they have it rough driving to Wattisham in the winter!  Due to the presence of Naval Air Station Pensacola the city prides itself as the “Cradle of Naval Aviation” and home of the Blue Angels. I went through flight school there as a brand new Second Lieutenant, so I was looking forward to starting my American gliding career in familiar airspace.

The days may now be getting shorter, but the gliding keeps getting better! Congratulations go out to Gwyn for his 500km flight from Wattisham last week. Not content with that, he and Lee Davisdon took a tow to 3000ft on Saturday to play around in some wave lift that had formed over the airfield, reaching a height of 6500ft.

Conditions were tricky on Sunday but that didn't stop Alison Eke and Carl Thomas re-soloing - congratulations!