Club Maintenance Weekend

Wolds Gliding Club is run by volunteers - which means everyone mucks in with jobs around the airfield. This last weekend we suspended flying and spent the whole weekend doing all those jobs that have mounted up over the last year (or ten) - including:

  • Filled potholes and smoothed parts of the runway

  • Cleared the glider hangar (and hoovered it!!!)

  • Cleared out the sliding door tracks

  • Cleared the tug hangar

  • Regravelled the road into the club caravan site

  • Regravelled the peri-track where it flooded

  • Emptied the loft

  • Cleaned the control bus

  • Reorganised the ballast weights and various other equipment on the control bus

  • Washed and polished the 2 seat gliders (4 of them)

  • Washed and serviced the trailers (4 of them)

  • Done an ARC on one K21

  • Done several other jobs on the same K21

  • Cleared out a load of old computer equipment

  • Litter picked around the site perimeter

  • Cleaned the winch

  • Removed a load of ivy from some walls

  • Cleared a load of brashwood from around the campsite

  • Cleared the main entrance way which has got a bit muddy

As you can see, this is the first time many of our members have ever seen a vacuum cleaner :-)

Open Day 2023

We had our first open day since COVID on Saturday 24th June. It was a huge success - with over 120 flights in a single day (even Manchester Airport only manages 587 flights per day!) It was a huge team effort with help from over 70 members and their family.

Looking forward to next year…

Wolds Gliding Club Wins Prestigious Safety Award

Wolds Gliding Club has been recognised by the BGA for

“creating and energetically maintaining an exemplary safety culture”

…with a prestigious award at the recent BGA conference. The Saundby Sword Safety Award 2022 was received on behalf of the Club by Alan Rands from BGA Chairman Andy Perkins. The valuable sword itself has to remain at the BGA but the Club has received a fine engraved glass trophy for permanent display at Pocklington.

The Saundby Sword was donated to the BGA to be used as a safety award by the late Dr Peter Saundby and is the ceremonial sword issued to his father, Air Marshal Sir Robert Saundby. During his time as an RAF flying instructor his father had actively promoted improvements to flight safety.

A glider pilot as well as a senior RAF medical officer Peter Saundby was for many years a medical advisor to the BGA and for other air sports and was himself recognised as always having been a great advocate for better safety.

New advanced training glider

Wolds Gliding Club members at Pocklington airfield are looking forward to a new two-seater training glider and trailer for the club after winning a grant of nearly £117,000 from East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s commuted sums fund. 

Deputy chief flying instructor Graham Wadforth, who led the team that put the grant bid together, said “An important feature of the new glider is that it can be fitted with hand controls which will allow disabled pilots without full leg function to practice all aspects of gliding flying in an aircraft with a much superior performance than the Club’s existing adapted glider. This will enable those pilots to participate in every aspect of glider flight, some of which are presently denied to them.”

Club chairman Craig Scott commented “The Council noted that, as well as being a members’ sports club, the club is part of the tourism offering of the area to the general public. As the Covid-19 situation improves we are hoping to be welcoming visitors again soon to try gliding and before long some of them will be able to enjoy their experience in one of the most advanced two-seater trainers available”

The new glider will be similar to the one in the picture below - a DG1001 Club Neo: