KIWI GIRL
IN ENGLAND by Abbey Delore
Eighteen year old Youth Glide Canterbury member Abbey Delore is in England on a Gap Year. She has recently moved to a new school placement at Seaford College and is located in Petworth, West Sussex, near Brighton on the coast. In between actually working at the school and taking trips to Switzerland, Italy and Ireland, she has been visiting Lasham Gliding Club, where she has had numerous flights. Abbey tells us a little of her Lasham experience.
Lasham was amazing. ‘’Wow,’’ was my first reaction. This was different to anything I’d ever seen before in the gliding world. It’s classed as an airfield but looks more like an airport! It’s huge! Lasham is the biggest gliding club in Europe, with 600 acres of land, three runways, about six jumbos parked up on one side of the airfield as well as a billion glider trailers and gliders. On a very average soaring day there were so many gliders lined up for a tow/winch on both sides of the field that it looked rather like a contest was being held. I couldn’t understand why they were so keen as there was only a 4,500 ft cloud base. I met up with a few Kiwis such as Ben Flewett and Kat Hodge, John and Debs Goringe, Annie and G Dale, Chris and Annabelle Garton, and Luke Dale. Somehow only forty minutes after arriving I was a member of Lasham Gliding Club! Abbey and Luke Dale.
(They have a very good set-up for juniors under eighteen, with free membership, free use of all club gliders and half-price tows and winch.) Shortly after that, a big jumbo jet headed in to land. After signing and forging parental consent, Luke got us a free glider and we launched into the low cloud base sky, gaining 2,000 ft on winch – only costing me 4 and a half pounds. I was stoked! We were thankfully flying an ASK-21, but the main training gliders were K-13s. It had been a while since I’d been back in the skies flying my beloved libelle ‘Shrek’, let alone flying a twin, so I was very rusty. Up in the British skies it was just crazy! Massive clans of gliders flying extremely close to one another. My eyes were held open very wide. I was feeling rather anxious about traffic and flying so low. But to the Brits it was “booming” (HAHA I thought to myself). Heading in to land was another story. The air traffic was crazy, no radio calls were needed. It was pretty much: if it’s clear then head
20
June 2009
