As predicted at last night's Club Night, today's weather was good for a Parlick Grid attempt. Chairman Jones trundle round the first 9 cylinders AND made it back to the ridge, thus scoring 9.5 points - the first score of the 2018 season.
And as the PGC is one of the challenges in the Northern Challenge Trophy, that also means he's the first Pennine pilot on that scoreboard too, clocking up 223 points (tbc).
Upload your IGC tracklog to xcmap.net to score!
http://xcmap.net/resultNct2.php

July 12th was a good day for the Grid Challenge. Mike Endacott scored a solid 8 on his first attempt, Simon Baillie came back and equalled his previous best with 11, but the big news is Phil Colbert has smashed the record by tagging the first THIRTEEN cylinders, in numerical order, in one flight.

At the AGM it was announced, somewhat perfunctorily, that the loop league trophy would be retired after being awarded for the 2013 season. There were a number of reasons for this, including:

• Needing to submit flights to a second league (Leonardo) made it more complicated
• Technical issues with the league website meant it didn't work as smoothly as it should
• Further technical issues meant it didn't display properly (or at all sometimes) on the club website
• The existence of the grid challenge, which it was felt duplicated some of the elements of the point of the loop league

But the committee has changed its mind! It regards loop flights as something to be encouraged. Independently planning and executing a loop flight (out & return or triangle) is an challenge that can push forward a pilot's skills without the additional concern of arranging retrieves that downwind XCs require, and is sufficiently distinct from the grid challenge that it's worth keeping on.

We are therefore announcing that the loop league WILL be returning for the 2014 season, with some modifications. For full details see http://www.penninesoaringclub.org.uk/index.php/competitions/loop-league

After a cold, windy winter, springtime is definitely here. Some big flights have already been put in the league, including a big declared triangle in the Lakes on Saturday April 6th achieved by not one, not two, but three of our top pilots. Many others have also been out and about, which means at the time of writing, Pennine is not only the leading club in the XC League with 1221 points - with 13 pilots in play we're also the most active! And many of our "usual suspects" have yet to blow the cobwebs off and submit a flight - so come on, the weather's turning and it's time to play...