Pennine Soaring Club Articles

Bonus April 2025 Club Night - Pete Logan - 100km or Bust

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 13:41:17 +0100

As a special treat, we’ve had one more club night before the break until next winter. Pete Logan, Dales Club Chief Coach kindly agreed to come and talk to us about getting to the next level and flying that dream 100km.

View Pete's presentation from the night.

Amazing Flights with Richard Meek

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 11:15:23 Z

Monday 11^th November Club Night Meeting – SeaView Inn – 7:30pm

This was yet another excellent evening with Richard Meek presenting a well put together collection of slides and videos covering his flying exploits over the 2024 season.

Richard covered a very detailed preparation process which involved checking weather forecasts, national forecasts, finding the best site for the day (where-ever that was in the whole UK) and the potential routes and goal setting. Everyone was impressed by the level of panning Richard puts into this, even down to using Google Earth for the picking of potential landing fields close to his chosen goal. Indeed Richard even looks for railway stations nearby and the time tables for trains taking him back to this TO location. The only thing Richard, didn’t seem to do was pre-book his train ticket prior to the day!

Richard also showed some excellent videos of his epic flights and competition tasks, but also showed his human side of when things didn’t quite go to plan, such as the epic recovery of his wing when caught up in a significantly large tree!

I think all members present would agree this was an excellent informative and entertaining evening. Richard has presented at Club nights previously, and hopefully will present at future meetings to come. Certainly not one to miss!

Social Night October 2024 - Weather forecasting to fly

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:14:04 Z

Pennine Soaring Club first Club Night of the season. Weather forecasting to fly. Various speakers to help to simplify good to fly, safe to fly and choosing the correct site.

Thanks to Brian Stewart, Andy Archer, Simon Baillie and Neil Charles for presenting.

Links to sites mentioned:
RASP - https://rasp.stratus.org.uk/
LazyRASP - https://lazyrasp.com/
XCWeather - https://www.xcweather.co.uk/
Weather School - https://weatherschool.co.uk/
Weather School YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/WeatherSchool
WeatherWebdotNet - https://premium.weatherweb.net/
Met Office Aviation Briefing Service - https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/services/transport/aviation/regulated/national-aviation/uk-services/pre-flight-briefing-services/abs/index
Mountain Weather Information Service - https://www.mwis.org.uk/
Wind At Altitude - Hilltop Analytics - https://apps.hilltop-analytics.com/weather/

Here is Brian's presentation from the night:

Pennine Soaring Club Awards 2023

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 14:55:09 Z

The awards for the 2023 season were awarded at the well attended AGM. The winners are as follows:

Paraglider Pilot Improvement Award

Ed Knowles

and

Matt Baird

(not present)

First 25km XC Flight

Ed Knowles

33km flight from Parlick on 9th July 2023

First 50km XC Flight

Scott O’Neil

53.9km flight from Parlick on 9th July 2023

PSC League Overall

PSC League Sport

Best XC Flight from Pennine Site

Phil Wallbank

124km flight from Parlick on 16th June 2023

Loop League

Paul Winterbottom

Best Local Flight

PSC League Fun Class

John Murphy

29.84km FAI triangle on the 7th April 2023

Representing the Club – National

Elliot Brown

1st place in Buttermere Bash Lakeland Charity Open B comp. and 1st place in LCC B comp.

Representing the club – International

John Oliver

British sports, St-Jean-Montclar: 1st in Reynolds, 4th overall

https://airtribune.com/bst2023/results/task6176/comp/overall-winner

British champs: 1st in Reynolds, 3rd in Sports,16th Brit, 52th overall.

Most chuffed about been first sports on one of the task's and been in sight of the leaders.

https://airtribune.com/bpc2023/results/task6295/comp/overall

World Civl rank 1318, UK Civl rank 48

Retrieve Award

Brian Stewart

Retrieve from Tebay for Jim and John

Club Award

Neil Charles

Creating the Wind at Altitude app

Club Award

Paul Redman on behalf of MRT (not present)

For their assistance involving an incident at Parlick

Bent Upright

Andrew Clegg

For best tent landing!

William Marshall Trophy for Services to the Club

Simon Scott

For services as chairman

Special Lifetime Achievement Award

John Murphy

For 27 years dedicated service to the club committee

GASCo Safety Evening

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 12:22:47 Z

GASCO Safety evening - Monday 19^th Feb, 7:30 to 9:30 pm at the Sea View Inn.

This is a joint event with Bowland Forest Gliding Club and is a safety talk delivered by GASCOo (General Aviation Safety Council).

These are very informative, interactive and thought provoking events. This will be a tailored event covering topics across both our disciplines including Threat & Error Management, Loss of Control accidents, Electronic Conspicuity, Human Factors, we are also looking to have the opportunity to discuss the local issues, particularly the shared airspace around Parlick.

It is likely to be a packed room so turn up early!

Club Social And AGM

Sun, 11 Feb 2024 14:42:44 Z

In addition to the important business of the club AGM, our own Neil Charles will be giving us an update on the latest in Electronic Conspicuity and developments on his excellent Wind at Altitude site.

Social Night December 2023 - Andy Archer - Learning to fly microlights & the adventures beyond

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 13:14:04 Z

On Monday 11th December 2023, Andy Archer gave a talk on learning to fly 3 axis microlights.

A big thanks to Andy for giving this talk, For the benefit of anyone who couldn’t attend, we’ve recorded the meeting, click on the YouTube video below to watch.

Social Night November 2023 - Richard Meek - Six Flights for the 2023 UK XC League

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 13:14:04 Z

On Monday 13th November 2023, we had a good turnout for Richard Meek’s talk on his six flights which won him the XC League title in 2023.

A big thanks to Richard for giving this talk, For the benefit of anyone who couldn’t attend, we’ve recorded the meeting, click on the YouTube video below to watch.

October 2023–John Oliver Live!

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 13:56:19 +0100

We kicked off the winter club nights at the end of the year with a discussion of the incident on Parlick the previous day. For more information on this see Safety Notes October 2023

John Oliver then gave a talk covering such items as

Flight preparation using Microsoft Flight Simulator or Condor to get familiar with the terrain before travelling.
Pictures taken through the season
What equipment used to take pictures, how to configure the camera and how to post process the pictures captured.

Simon Blake captured some notes below:

1. A suggested minimum spec for a PC to run Microsoft Flight Simulator useably for paragliding purposes would be nice.

Hard drive size: 400GB, It uses a lot!
The scenery is not stored on hard drive, but cached from the internet as needed. So an ok internet speed is needed
A graphics card, GTX1080 ok. I used a GTX1660. Only upgraded to GTX3070 to max out settings with complex 3rd party aircraft (A320 with weather radar and Cu’s reflecting in lakes ect)
Tuning up graphics quality and using 3rd party aircraft increases demand.
20 fps Minimum frames per second required before glitches occur.

2. Details on that sailplane simulator - what's it called, what kit do you need, what's nice to have, what's the Discord server stuff?

Condor 2. Low spec computer ok. Internet only required for multiplayer.

Download from https://www.condorsoaring.com/ 60 euro. And you may end up buying 1 or 4 extra aircraft. Such as a K8 and ASK21 that Boland club fly (To feel how much rudder it requires!)

The multiplayer servers.

https://www.condorsoaring.com/serverlist/?wdt_search=cndr2

Yorkshire gliding club at Sutton bank are the most active uk users.

https://www.condor.club/comp/competitions/202/

The XC league of online soaring. And where the tasks are shown before they appear on the live server list.

Discord is a sever for voice chat used by gamers. Very high quality, no lag sound.

It is also been used as a forum more and more these days.

The UK Virtual soaring club

https://discord.com/channels/647177273232850965/647177273660932145

Yorkshire gliding club at Sutton bank are the most active users.

3. Some recommends on joysticks and other interface devices?

Any joystick ok. Rudder with a twisting joystick or dedicated pedals.

Microsoft sidewinder force feedback 2, USB version form eBay. Made in the 90’s. They don’t make em like that anymore. Not the precision.

Rubber pedels

https://flightsimcontrols.com/product/vkb-sim-t-rudder-pedals-mk-iv-2/

£200 approx. Higher quality than most real aircraft. Pivot style rather than slider, as found in sailplanes.

Head phones and mic.

4. What was that tablet with the colour e-ink screen? Tech specs, manufacturer, purchasing source etc.

I use a TLC S8. Only exported out of China with English operating system by one person on Ali express

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004500210787.html

Sorry, the price has gone upto £510, but he will knock some off if you ask.

Too big for none comp use. RLCD has no back light. Other TLC products claiming to have “NexPaper” are not RLCD

5. What was the app you were using in on for competition? (and what are the alternatives? and do they work on that tablet? (Is it android?))

I use XCTrack. Most comp pilots use it now, plus another device. The task is passed around via a QR code. The XCTrack layout can be very different on a large screen.

6. What was the flight planning app you were using? (Flyxc.app, formerly Thermikxc, if I recall correctly...).

Yep, Fly app.

https://flyxc.app/?s=20&l=ukn

7. I've written "flying with others" - I think there's a whole talk on this but just the recommendation to fly in gaggles.

Yes, defo! Maybe Richard Meek's talk will contain some more on this?

8. What's the name of that woman doing the research about vultures? Where can one find out more about that?

Hanna Williams

https://www.hjwilliams.space/research

Clouldbase mayhem epposide link

https://www.cloudbasemayhem.com/episode-160-soaring-birds-with-hannah-jane-williams/

9. What are the alternatives to Lightroom? (Is GIMP any good for instance?)

Just get lightroom! Everyone uses it.

10. What size monitor do you use, what did it cost etc.?

Ultra wides are made for photo editing. I use a 1440p 34” LG 34UM95. It was £600 years ago and only 60hz. Now there is much more ultra wide choice and they are much cheaper. Unless you want one of the new 4K OLED, HDR, wide gamut, high speed 120hz+ gaming ones!

4k is over kill for a TV at the opposite side of a room. But it is more useful when you are close up to a big monitor. I might need to upgrade. Although don’t get sold on resolution. Like camera mega pixels, The resolution is one of the least import factors, its just easy to sell with. Colour gamut eg 99.7% of RGB or better is more important. Deep blacks, ok dynamic range ect

I calibrated it with a https://www.xrite.com/categories/calibration-profiling/i1display-pro

But my monitor was very close to correct. Just brightness and colour balance where a little off. Sign of a good one. Some bad ones are very far off.

Microsoft Fancy zones

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/fancyzones

Good for managing window size on large monitors. As i still view some stuff, like webpages, at 16:9

11. Details of the printing service you use?

https://dscolourlabs.co.uk/

Every one uses them.

Good prices for professional quality

If the print doesn’t turn out how you expect, its your monitor settings that are wrong.

Free test prints too

12. Recommendation for a lens - wide vs. distortion

I’m out of touch. I only know the full frame models. The professional stuff is expensive, but they don’t depreciate. So if you buy / sell a lot, they are cheap after the initial payout. I mostly break even. But the len's don’t break, even if you drop them. Ebay: buy mid-day during the week, sell 7pm on a Sunday.

Google “Flickr lens pool <name of lens>” to see if you like how a lens looks

https://www.flickr.com/groups/14725517@N22/pool

For full geek out read https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/

13. Recommendation for a body, if you're doing body/lens thing?

As above, i went Sony when they made the first large sensor that was stabilised. Now i know the button layout i stick with them. There is so much choice now. The Sony RX100 used to be the goto good small camera. But also many more options now.

14. Is there a simpler camera that's still a camera that would be usable for flying?

Small is fiddley. I find larger simpler. They all have the same auto functions.

15. Megapixel recommendation - is it always more is better, what do you use etc.

With small sensors, more is normally worse. Apart from smartphones that are using the extra pixels for noise cancelling and to give the AI sharping more to guess with.

Apple proved 12mp was the peak of a phone unless AI was involved.

For a large sensor 12 ok if you dont crop or print large canvas size. Best for low light use, Due to the seize of each pixel.

24pm average these days.

42 over kill. But I like it for deep cropping in. Only the best, mostly modern lens can resolve more than 24mp. So no use without a sharp lens.

Mega pixels is not the measure of how good a camera is. Its just easy to sell with that number, so they are often used in marketing.

To geek out on low megapixel street photography cameras, watch youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@GxAce

16. What are the settings you really need to use in Lightroom and what do they do?

The right hand panel lays its functions out in order of importance. Exposure, white balance and cropping are what are important. The rest is optional.

Import Raw files. And only convert out to jpeg if you need to share.

The evening was well attended and was a great start to the winter evenings!

Social Night - Richard Meek, Bir Billing

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 13:14:04 Z

On Monday 12th December 2022, despite the snow and ice we had a good turnout for Richard Meek’s talk on flying in Bir Billing.

Richard went into detail on the flying conditions, equipment and navigating the terrain and knowing where and where not to fly, unless you like a multiple day walk out!

A big thanks to Richard for giving this talk, For the benefit of anyone who couldn’t attend, we’ve recorded the meeting, click on the YouTube video below to watch.

Pennine Social Night November 14 2022

Tue, 15 Nov 2022 16:47:44 Z

20+ members were treated to an evening where they were informed, educated and entertained by our own Neil Charles about FLARM Flight Decks and Tracklogs. This was a follow-up to a previous talk on this topic, and the interest from the members reflects the rapid growth of instruments with tracking and conspicuity capability.

Neil gave a lively and interesting presentation to clear away some of the clutter (everything seems to be called XC-something) that surrounds this subject, covering the latest hardware and software that can broadcast your location to others and receive warnings of the approach of another aircraft. We had a lively discussion around the issues of Airproxes covering some recent incidents, and the response (or lack of it) from the CAA, with a reminder that a lot of military traffic is using maps and stopwatches to navigate and can’t receive FLARM or similar signals from us. In other words, we are invisible to them if they have their heads down in the cockpit juggling map and stopwatch. Sobering thought when you’re flying in any of the RAF’s favourite low-level routes.

Thanks Neil for a great evening, this important topic will need constant re-visiting as our airspace becomes ever-busier: drone super-highways are looming over the horizon, we will need to keep a close eye on how these things will be integrated into our lives.

Here is the link to the Slide Deck

Repack 27th March 2022

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 12:14:23 +0100

A big thanks to Barry Sayer for organising this at the Chipping Village hall on Sunday.

We had a morning and an afternoon session with Guy Richardson from Ginger Nomad who gave us all the benefit of his expertise to have a repack session. His guidance in interpreting the sometimes unclear packing instructions and a combination of instruction and demonstration ensured that everyone was able to get their reserves ready for the new season.

Pilot Lecture 2 – 17th January 2022

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 16:46:30 Z

Metoerro, Mereteology, Meterelegy Weather

An excellent turnout of Pilot candidates attended a presentation at the Sea View as part of our series of talks preparing members for their exam. Our own Jacob Cleverley treated us to a thoroughly-researched presentation on the complex topic of weather, or ‘met’ as real aviators call it – Jacob should know, he works with the best.

This is a demanding, complex area of theory and Jacob’s presentation cut through the dense scientific theory to make it understandable by everyone and will have given all who attended a very thorough grounding. Highlighting several of the topics, Jacob was able to give practical examples relating to local sites and his own experiences flying them. However, the old hands in the ‘naughty corner’ at the back of the room could have done without being shown what the East coast looks like from 3500’.

A big thank you from the club and especially the Pilot candidates. We look forward to reading of their successes in the near future.

Download presentation as PDF

Winter Club Night - November 2021 - Neil Charles - Live tracking, FLARM and flight deck gadgets

Fri, 03 Dec 2021 14:45:17 Z

Here is the talk given by Neil Charles for the PSC club night on the 8th November 2021.

For more details, see the Get Tracking link on Neil’s page.

Back to Normal, at last

Wed, 13 Oct 2021 10:55:53 +0100

The winter social season got off to a cracking start at the Sea View on Monday, 11^th October. It was great to see a couple of dozen old faces and plenty of new ones eager to get together, talk parabollox over a couple of pints and to listen to John Westall describe “A Year in the Life of a Hike and Fly Pilot”. John gave us a run through 2020’s programme of gruelling hike-and-fly challenges he’d done with his flying mate Keith ‘Bud’ Patterson. He had us all on the edge of our seats with his descriptions and pictures of the sketchy take-offs and dodgy conditions which are ‘normal’ for these exploits. From our local hills, via Wales, the Lakes and Dales, to the grandeur of the Eiger, we enjoyed vicariously the thrills (and spills) of his year.

John shared with us that his own inspiration to take on this challenging aspect of our sport came from attending a PSC winter social night with Steve Nash. Maybe some of our keen young pilots will get similar inspiration to follow John’s rapid progress. Certainly they will need to follow his examples of meticulous planning, preparation and goal-setting if they want to get close.

Thank you for a great evening, John, we’re already looking forward to hearing about next year’s achievements.

Planning Declares–the Repeat

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 13:19:36 Z

(or how to get to Whitby mid week without bumping into one of those noisy RAF thingies)

Monday 13th January 2020, 7:30 PM, Sea View, Chorley.

Come and listen to master planner and declared flight guru Simon Blake as he tells us how to make the most of the flight planning tools available

PSC Christmas Do 2019

Sat, 28 Sep 2019 16:27:00 +0100

Venue: Bistrot Pierre – Preston (back by popular demand)

Date: Sat 21st December 2019

Time: 5pm – 7pm + Drinks afterwards

Cost: £27.50 per head – (£10 deposit per person required)

Max attendees: 30 (first come first serve basis)

Christmas Menu – we will be required to complete a pre-order of the food by mid November

Please let me know if you would like to attend andyarcher60@gmail.com along with your menu choice.

I'll then send you an email back with details regarding the deposit.