Shenington Gliding Club

In the spring of 1984 Altair GC started operating at Edgehill Airfield. The club was privately owned by Derek Godfrey (who was also the CFI) and it had been temporarily operating out of Cold Harbour Farm. The club owned T21s and an Oly and operated on just the 3 hard runways - the 8-acre run did not exist then.

Altair was superseded in 1990 with the establishment of Shenington Gliding Club. Paul Gibbs, the airfield owner, had originally learnt to glide at Bidford before joining Altair a few years before helping set up SGC. 14 members from Altair Gliding Club set up the club, with the intention that it should be democratically run with an elected committee and constitution. The club operated weekends only and Reg Curwen was the only Full Cat Instructor - his previous experience as professional CFI at Portmoak making him the ideal choice as the club's first CFI. Don Birks was DCFI and Bruce Hopkins the only other instructor (Bruce runs the John Deere firm on the airfield). The club borrowed £10,000 from the bank, which was spent on a winch and a Ka7 two-seater glider, and a syndicate bought a Ka2.

The clubhouse bar was the original building (a portacabin built in the late 80's), the rest of the clubhouse being finished 1994. Until then the only ladies toilet was at the Kart Club, which also meant trying to find the key. A static caravan was donated to the club for use as a bunkhouse (this was replaced with the existing static caravan in 1998) and work continued on the buildings during 1993-94 with central heating and the cladding of the bar making it as comfortable and inviting as possible at the end of a day's flying. The bar was set up and run by Paul Gibbs and Ollie Howe (Ollie also owns the George and Dragon in Shutford and was a tug pilot and active member of the club for several years).

In 1996 Lu Kennington and Bruno Brown converted a coach into a refreshment bus and cornered a lucrative market in hot breakfasts. This has since been a regular and welcome site at the launch point.

In December 1996, Shenington Airfield and buildings stared in a feature length episode of the BBC series Dalziel and Pascoe, after filming had been abandoned at Camp hill due to the wet. Some club members got their faces in shot and the go-kart track was magically transformed into a lake by clever editing - an omen of things to come as the Easter floods of 1998 created much the same effect.

Most launches at the club are by winch -Previously a 6.5litre Chevy engine mounted on a 1940's German Fire truck, used to wind in the 1500ft or so of steel cable around a winch drum. This was modified over the years to enclose the cab and improve the gearing systems. The club took delivery of the second winch in 1995, originally intended as a back up winch, but it became more highly utilised as the weekday winch when the club took on the 7-day operation.
The club now uses a Skylaunch winch which has recently been refurbished.

The 'bund' (the small embankment on the airfield side of the Kart track) was erected in 1992 as a sound barrier to help protect the village from the noise of the go-karts. Prior to the building of the bund, the gliding club would utilise the go-kart track to lengthen the effective runway. There was a gap left in the embankment until the following year, through which the winch would be positioned giving extra height on the launch.

Mary Meagher joined the club from Booker in 1992 and brought the Super Cub G-OFER with her to tow with. Although primarily a winch site, aero towing is becoming more and more popular especially with private owners.

G-OFER is still owned by Mary and flown by several club members. Until recently there were only 2 weekend tug pilots other than Mary, which made it hard work for all involved, especially during the summer. This has grown to about 10 tuggies who operate under the authority of the club's tug master, and the introduction of a formal weekend tug pilot roster with several tuggies available ad-hoc midweek.

The club started with a Ka7, and the use of a syndicate bought a Ka2. The club also used a T21. When Mary joined she bought the club a Ka8, which was gradually paid for by the club. Martin Breen also let the club have use of his Ka18 for several months. Eventually the club fleet became Ka7's and Ka13's.

When the club went to a 7-day operation, this coincided with proposals from the BGA to introduce the Cross Country Endorsement before Silver C. This would mean there was a far greater requirement for access to a motorglider. The club bought a Falke motorglider G-BTUA that was privately owned and already based on site. The club had previously had the use of this motorglider for some field landing checks and gliding training, but the purchase of the Falke ensured that it stayed as a facility at Shenington.

In 1993 Mike Cuming was given the go-ahead to set up a weekday training school - The Gliding Centre. This was against the committee's liking at the time, but some of the founder club members recognised this would be a great step forward to its vision of a 7 day a week professionally run operation.

The Gliding Centre was a revolutionary way of gliding training. The courses were aimed at getting as many people solo in 1 week as possible. It was very popular due to the concept of advertisement and the slogan 'Solo in a Week - and Why Not?'. It was the first in the gliding movement to offer intensive training courses with a guaranteed number of launches, a lead that has been followed by many gliding clubs since.

The courses had 10-15 students each week with 3 or 4 instructors, some were 'invited' instructors from other clubs that would do a few weeks at a time. Because there were so many people at the gliding club mid week, Mike arranged meal deals for glider pilots at the local pubs, visiting a different pub each day of the week. Sadly, the cheap meals are no more, but some club members try to retain the tradition! Mike's instructors included people John Oxley-Dean (now CFI at Denbigh Gliding Club), Simon Adlard (now the National Soaring Coach) and Andy Parish (now Manager at Husbands Bosworth).

The training school owned its own gliders; Ka13s, Ka8s and a Ka7/Ka13 conversion (this is a Ka7 with the wings lowered, commonly mis-named a Ka10), 2 Falke motorgliders, 2 winches and an Auster tow plane. The Ka7 was one of the first training gliders in the country to be fitted with a rudder hand controller for paraplegics. Mike's winches and cable retrieve truck all ran on LPG and there was a gas tank installed at the airfield entrance. The club's winches were not gas converted until several years later.

Paul Gibbs achieved his Full Cat rating and very quickly became CFI of Shenington Gliding Club at weekends with Mike Cuming CFI of the Gliding Centre operating midweek. This made Shenington unique in that the BGA allowed 2 CFI's to operate from the same airfield at the same time. With the prosperity that followed the club fleet became K13s and Ka8s, the Ka7 being used mainly as back up and for solo flying.

The Gliding Centre gave the club the step up it needed as many of those who took a course joined the club to progress past solo through weekend flying, doubling the club membership in 2 years. There are many instructors still with the club from the Gliding Centre days including Bruno Brown, Ian Atherton (who started out as Mike's winch driver!), John 'Red' Staley, Terry Herbert, Tess & John Whiting and Mark Stevens. We also still have a few pilots who learnt with the centre including John 'Dodger' Hartley who learnt to glide at the age of 79 and still continues his role of weekday launch point co-ordinator.

The club also learnt about increased launch rates and efficient operation from the Gliding Centre's weekday operation. Over 100 launches a day were being taken during midweek and the weekend launch rate ran at 80+ launches per day.

When the Gliding Centre left Shenington in 1996, SGC made a decision to take over the midweek operation, running courses on a similar but less intensive basis but in order to keep the airfield open for club members to fly midweek as well as weekends. The courses still guaranteed 40 launches, with more emphasis on individually tailored training.

John Dean was the first Course Manager and DCFI whilst club instructors gave up their holiday and spare time to instruct midweek (Don Birks was virtually living at the club!). There were 3 pupils to each glider - both Ka13s were generally in operation fulltime during that first year. The club was also able to employ professional winch drivers during the summer. Most of the ground-work such as cable retrieve and moving gliders was done by the students themselves, and by the many club members who turned up to lend a hand and fly.

After the first season of its 7 day a week operation, the club could afford professional course instructors, which has been the way ever since, operating with an average of 2 students per glider. In 1998 Rowen Griffin (ex Long Mynd course instructor) took over the post of Course Manager and became DCFI following John Dean's departure. In 1999 Paul Gibbs relinquished the post of CFI to Rowan and became club Chairman and Safety Officer.

Rowan then handed on the baton of CFI to Phil Brennan, who was an original member of Altair, and has been with the club since 1992.