Gliding and other ways to
idle away a sunny day
A place for images old & new to finally see the light of day
Capturing images digitally has never been easier but there is a downside. Personally, I have over 100,000 images on my hard drive, many of which have never seen the light of day. That’s was the driver for this site, a placeholder for images that I like and also, possibly, my friends and family might like also.
Just about me…
Cotswold Gliding Club was my first intro to gliding on a holiday course in May 1995. Joined in 1996 after another holiday course when instructor Mike Pirie sent me solo. Had some long stints away from gliding, also had a couple of years at Bowland Forest ridge flying but CGC was always my gliding ‘home’. Photo is my brother-in-law taking an experience flight with me in the club ASK 13, don’t know why he is smiling he hadn’t seen me fly yet!
Something of a Petrol Head
Back in the day my son and I remodelled Toyota MR2 Mk1’s and attended track days. This was one of my cars which eventually had it’s 1600cc engine replaced with a 2.0 litre Turbo unit. Image was taken at Anglesey Circuit.
Back in the Day
Started building control line model aircraft when I was twelve. Went into radio control models when I could afford it right up to beginning gliding in 1995 when I more or less drifted away from the hobby. Always aerobatic both power and gliders. This one was a particularly good aerobatic glider built from scratch. Good racer too.
Two video’s from 1996 one year after I began gliding. Taken with a non digital camcorder (obviously) so I have done what I can regards quality. Back then the club used Reverse Auto Tow, launch point control was from a duoble decker bus, (yes it was an old bus but it worked). Gliders were launched using automatic Ford 7.0 litre V8 trucks, we had two, left-hand drive, steering column shift, bench seat and sun roof (handy for looking backwards at the glider as it passed overhead on tow) The cable was single strand piano wire and needed to be nurtured with care, abuse was not an option – although that happened more frequently than we would have liked! Take a look at the vids, although thirty years ago both capture a time most people coming to CGC today will not know. It may enable them to appreciate more of what CGC have now.
You may even recognise a few old members!!
