Weather Coming Up at Bellarena
There are more good weather forecasting tools on the links page.
Latest News
11th March 2012
The QUB Gliding Club's Annual General Meeting will be taking place on the 28th March at 18:00 in clubroom 2 of the SU. In this meeting a new committee for the next year will be elected, and we will also present an amended version of the club constitution to the vote for approval. Further details of this will be posted here shortly.
If you want to join the committee this is your chance. There are no requirements apart from being a current student at QUB (undergrad or postgrad).
There are four positions we need to fill, namely Chairperson, Treasurer, Secretary, and Equipment & Infrastructure Secretary. If you are interested in standing for any (or all) of these positions I would appreciate it if you tell us by email before, though you can declare your intentions on the night, likewise if you have any questions.
8th October 2011
Last night we were informed that the Ulster Gliding Club is revising their flying prices for the new membership year (started 1st October) Full details on the cost page. The prices of aerotows have risen slightly (£26.50 to 2000 feet rather than £24 for us before), this is due to the rising price of Avgas fuel used by the tug plane, we also no longer get the price discounted by £1.00. Basically this means that even when flying the "expensive" UGC two seat aircraft, the first hour flying costs £37 per hour rather than £34.50 before, so still pretty reasonable! Interestingly the single seater Grob Astir's charge of £0.35 per minute has been reduced to £0.27 in an effort to get more people flying it.
We were unaware that these changes were coming, so we apologise for the misleading price information we had given people before.
5th October 2011
Introductory meeting for new members and interested people between 18:00 and 19:00 in club room 3&4 (it is just one room, we don't know why they numbered it that way). This is the best opportunity to get to know how the club operates, and how we intend to get everyone flying as soon as possible. If you have not joined the club this is a good opportunity to do so. If you think gliding may be for you or know someone who might, this meeting is a good opportunity to see who we are and what we do. Also the Ryan's pub quiz is later that evening, so if there are people interested this could be a good way to get to know eachother on a less formal basis.
29th September 2011
The Freshers' Fair is on the 29th September, come and see us if you'd like to try flying, or just want to see what the fuss is about. We will have a stand in the Students Union Snack Bar, as well as a glider on the lawn outside the Lanyon building over the road for you to come and have a look at. Membership reduced to £20 if you join at the Freshers' Fair!
24th September 2011
The website has just had a massive overhaul, there is now far more information in our FAQs, and what was there has been updated. There are still upgrades in the pipeline so keep an eye out.
6 - 14 August 2011
A small team went to the Inter University Task Week competition at Aston Down airfield where a fantastic week of flying was to be had. David Lisk's flying enabled the club to place third overall in the cross country scores.
News Archive
Notable events from the past.
22 - 30 August 2009
Congratulations to David Lisk on his first competition at Junior Nationals in Dunstable from the 22nd-30th August 2009. Using the London Gliding Club's K23 (a single seat K21) he finished in 33rd position out of 45 competitors. His greatest achievement was completing a 264km task on the first day of the competition! Overall a fantastic event and great achievement for the QUBGC.
11 - 19 August 2009
The QUB team consisting of Amy Barsby, David Lisk and Matthew Reynolds entered the inter-university competition held at Pocklington this year. We were very fortunate with the weather and the only day we lost was the first day when everyone was arriving as it rained all day. Many cross country flight took place with the most notable being 55km in a K8 by Amy, a great achievement given the less than ideal conditions, and 92km and 156km by David in the club's Junior. Matthew studied for and passed all of his Bronze exams during the week and successfully converted to several new aircraft. We would strongly encourage anyone, at any stage of progress to consider participating next year as the atmosphere is great with students from all over the UK taking part and much progress can be made by packing lots of flying into one week.
9th August 2009
Congratulations to Martin for flying solo. He did the majority of his training at Bellarena in the K13 and K21 and in Slovakia he flew the Twin Astir. Once he returned home, he was sent solo for the first time after just 6 launches. That makes two first solo's in the last few months and we would like to see more coming.
11th - 19th July 2009
The trip to Birr was a success and a total of 8 QUB members attended: Abi, Amy, Bruce, Claire, Conor, David, Matthew and Peter, taking a combined total of 26 launches. Local soaring took place on all the flyable days and cross country tasks were declared on two days. Wednesday 15th saw 6 gliders participating in the task with 2 returning, 3 landing out and 2 abandoning. Among the landouts was David, who landed in a huge field just over 40km away. It took a crew of 7 and several hours to retrieve the glider.
Saturday 20th June 2009
Congratulations to Abi on going solo this weekend! After two flights with Harry on Saturday, she launched on her own for a third flight in the Queen's K13. This was a result of a lot of hard work throughout the year and is an example to us all of what can be achieved when you put your mind to it and fly regularly. The picture below was taken just after she landed and the other shows her final approach.
