621 VGS Historic Flight

Fortunately two pleasant weather days fell on two consecutive Fridays and a good time was had by all. Some more of the ex Air Cadets that were unable to make the August date came along and flew the Sedbergh with big grins all round. We then said goodbye to WB981 as it returned to Keevil with Rick flying his first Sedbergh P1 trip and James Blake experiencing his first open top glider flight, first aerotow and first cross country! Rich Manara also converted to the Sedbergh and Swallow

The following week saw the Prefect and Swallow flying, a very nice and gentle September evening. Andy Trickey flew the Swallow for the first time in many years and Rich Manara converted to the Prefect, I think he’s gone into hiding with three conversion rounds pending! PT and Rich also got to grips with the winch!

I have received the following e-mail and fabulous photos

Dear Adam

I was in contact with you some while ago with the intention of visiting your unit at Hullavington.  At the time my daughter was living in the area, so I was there quite often.  However, she has moved over to Ireland now, so I no longer pass that way.

I recently scanned all my old colour slides into my computer and found the attached photos.  The first five were taken at Weston and the rest at Halesland.  The last three depict myself, about to depart in a Prefect, John Stride (who eventually became CFI) and Mark Rudd (Instructor} with John Abell (another Staff Cadet).  John carried on to have a career in the RAF, flying mostly Javelins and Phantoms.

Yours sincerely

Chris Roberts

 I have been in contact with Chris and hopefully we will be able to get him along to visit us sometime soon.

621 VGS Historic Flight answered the call from the Air Cadet organisation to assist them in their 70th Anniversary Celebrations in the form of a flypast at the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford last weekend.   

The Historic Flight aircraft were joined, on the Tuesday, by the past aircraft flown by the Air Cadet organisation: a Tiger Moth, Chipmunk, Bulldog, Tutor, Venture, Vigilant, Viking and another of Al Stacey’s gliders, a Sedbergh to replace WB922 that is currently being recovered.  A Chipmunk, Cub and Robin were used to the five gliders. 

After practice on Wednesday, display approval was given on Thursday, with the first flypast of Fairford taking place on Friday evening.   Sadly Saturdays display had to be cancelled due to wet weather.  It was a close call on Sunday with wet and blustery conditions calming just in time for the display to go ahead.

At the Hanger Party, RIAT’s traditional closing event, the display was given special mention by Air Commadore Nigel Wharmby of the Air Tattoo’s Flying Control Committee. “The display with training aircraft and gliders was truly remarkable given that the wind and weather made conditions phenomenally difficult,” he said, adding: “I salute you.”

Mid summer week seemed a sensible time to pick for flying vintage gliders! With a not too promising forecast we started the week with Al’s Sedbergh having to stay at Keevil due to strong winds. In fact the strong winds were set to stay until Friday along with heavy showers. It turned out that on most days we wouldn’t have been able to fly the Sedbergh due to the wind strength so instead turned to the MKIII which coped admirably with 25kt gusts! Joined by Rick and his SHK and the Astir DNE, our Swallow completed the line up for the majority of the week. Only on Friday did the winds abate and the Prefect came out on what turned out to be a soarable morning.

With large chunks of the midweek days washed out we spent some time cleaning the gliders, the MKIII had a brand new front seat fitted whilst KK and Dom fitted a new canvas tilt too the winch.

A couple of successful evenings allowed Martin Wintle and the Summerells to get airborne with a typical English summer BBQ after and just to prove we did get some decent weather I’ll insert the following photo! Along with a nice one Rob took of Tony on the approach.

All in,  a great week despite the weather. Mike Newton flew the MKIII for the first time since 1979, KK also flew the Swallow again after a similar time. Dom Polhill converted to the MKIII and then the Swallow. We managed 109 flights and a bit over 18 hours airborne.

Another Grasshopper has found its way into the hangar. WZ798 has been rescued from storage at the Bournemouth Aviation Museum and it has been permanently loaned to the Al Stacey collection. It will be stored for a short time with the Historic Flight whereby it will be assessed if it can be returned to airworthy status.

The first full Friday of the season was blessed with fine weather and a good breeze. This helped the MKIII get reasonable heights as it was being used to get some back into current practice before stepping up to the Swallow. A rare 1250′ was seen on one launch but that might have been due to Oliver Summerell being in the back seat!

Phil, Darren M, Daryl, Jim and Jono all converted to the Swallow with Nick B re-converting after some 30 years! Jono got the best of the breeze and nearly made the magic 2000′ on the launch.

The Prefect also came out to play, can’t be many times that the Prefect and Swallow flew together in VGS use! Phil also discovered that extra cocpit weight causes the Prefect to stop quite quick!!!

Towards the end of a very hot and long Easter course the Grasshopper came out to start flying operations again after the layoff whilst efforts have gone into the Sedbergh recover. Rich Manara had his first flights on type with emotions ranging from initially quite nervous to being completely speechless and then with a massive grin on his face couldn’t stop talking about it!!

Then the moment we have all been waiting for as the shape of the Swallow appeared in circuit. Not to pass up an opportunity I took a tow behind the Rotax Falke as it departed for Keevil, it is a delight to fly and thermalled very nicely. I’m sure everyone will enjoy converting over the next few months.

The Historic flight features in the May Edition of Pilot Magazine after they visited for a photo shoot on last years Soaring week.

Significant progress last week, with Vicky, Adam, Nick J, Andy T, Gav and Webby providing the workforce. The wing is almost ready for fabric, it is slow going as we are strengthening the trailing edge ( to prevent the well known Slingsby warping!). There are 4 glueing operations involved with 24hrs drying required between each, it takes a couple of hours just to remove the staples that have been holding the glued surfaces together. The repairs to the holes in the leading edge have been finished, and the remainder of the wing has been sanded, sanded again and more sanding just to make sure!!

This photo shows Andy trimming the supports for the new ply trailing edge, another tricky ( oops - bad pun!) and time consuming job.

And of couse the endless sanding. Lucky to catch Nick in this one, if he wasn’t on tea break then it was the 15min hand cleaning time prior to tea break!

With plenty of manpower we were able to get the fuselage outside and start stripping the fabric and removing everything from the cockpit area.

John and myself were at Biscester on Friday.  We moved some of the aircraft Dave has and will be working on around and assisted in rigged a Ventus 2c,  very nice aircraft, in order to make space in the workshop for a Sedbergh wing.   You don’t appreciate just how large they are when it’s rigged, or since Vicky and Oli stripped the wing last week, just how little the individual wooden components are that construct it.

Once the heavy “manly” work was complete - we moved on to making some see-through patches for the manufacturers date labels are on each of the wings, tail, rudder etc.   Sewing the section of see through plastic to a piece of Ceconite fabric was only made less “girlie” by having to drill holes into the plastic!   We made two, which we then fixed to the rudder and tailplane.  

After lunch Dave handed us a stanley knife and pointed at the three cracks in the leading edge.  After a detailed explaination of the repair process, handed John a power tool (always a risk) and left us two it.  It felt wrong to start with, slicing at the leading edge, but we cut out the cracked sections of the 3 ply, 1/16th of an inch wood and shaped some timber to put behind in order to fix the new sections to.