The video displays a glider circling within a thermal, accompanied by the sound emitted by the electronic variometer, or vario. The pitch of this sound alters to signal whether the glider is ascending or descending in the air, enabling the pilot to focus on flying without needing to glance at the instruments. Two variometers are …
City University from London has established a tradition of bringing its engineering students with a keen interest in aviation to CGC, offering them a unique opportunity to engage in firsthand airborne data collection. Despite the harsh winter weather taking its toll on the grass runways, rendering them waterlogged and dotted with puddles, today marked a …
I had a day to kill so thought i would drive up to East Anglia for a spot of plane spotting. Exercise Joint Warrior 24/1 was being run so i was pretty much guaranteed to see some fast jet action. I checked the NOTAMS several days before. RAF and USAFE fighters were up over the …
The Inter-Club League is a friendly competition among small number of nearby clubs (in our case: Gransden, The Gliding Centre – Husbands Bosworth and London Gliding Club – Dunstable). It is distributed over several weekends during the summer. Any member cleared for cross-country flying is eligible to join our teams. We can have up to 3 pilots …
When the days grow longer and the clocks go forward, an intrepid band of volunteer crew and instructors come together to offer flying lessons for our members on Tuesday evenings. Evening gliding is an amazing experience! Starting at 6pm and running till sunset, these evening lessons are excellent for those building up experience in the …
Once you’ve arrived at the main gate on the B1046, there’s still over a mile of farm track and then the old airfield perimiter road to navigate before arriving at the clubhouse. Please follow this route as it ensures you won’t come into conflict with landing or launching gliders, but do also keep a good …
Exam Structure The Bronze exam has 10 sections, each with 12 multiple-choice questions (for a total of 120 questions): For a detailed list of the sub-topics in each section, see pages 49 & 50 of “Part FCL for Glider Pilots”, available here: http://www.egu-info.org/dwnl/Part%20FCL%20for%20glider%20pilots.pdf The pass mark is 75% in each section (i.e. 9 correct answers to …
Launching a glider into the air requires a fair amount of power, but unlike the the US Navy we don’t have steam powered catapults to launch our gliders we make do with a slightly different kind of American power, an 8.2 litre V8 from General Motors. These power units are incredibly reliable and produce enough …
A man with a watch knows the time, a man with two is never sure. Segal’s law As you would expect the tracking available from FLARM units fitted to all the aircraft at CGC is much better than that from an Android phone, but it’s still an interesting comparison. Both use a combination of GPS …
After you go solo there are many new things to learn, and new goals to reach which can often seem much more distant than the magic objective of “unaccompanied” flight ever did. Sadly, many people get lost on the way, and do not receive the help they need. These notes are not much, but perhaps …
