Welland Gliding Club

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Welland Gliding Club

The Welland Gliding Club. Based near Corby in the beautiful rolling Northamptonshire countryside. No one else has permission to sell them.
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Gliding gift vouchers are ONLY available from our website, (see link below) or from the British Gliding Association.

13/06/2026

Friday saw our fourth youth group visit of the year as Rushden Scouts finally paid us a visit after a previous weather cancellation and had a cracking evening, with thermal conditions hanging on until well after 6pm in a fresh breeze. Our initial connection with the Scout movement was with Sywell Air Scouts but word has spread and this year will, weather permitting, see visits from Sywell, Rushden, Thrapston and Woodford, with another group from Stamford handed over to our friends at Upwood as our diary is full - a nice problem to have !

01/06/2026

Our first flying week of the year ended yesterday evening with ten straight days of gliding and 200 flights, some of them in sweltering conditions. The fun included a direct lightning strike on our hangar, which unhappily incinerated our solar power control system. Our friends from PSGC brought over a Husky tug on Wednesday which made a nice change, and we hope to be able to report on one or two first solos in the coming weeks as a latest batch of trainees make rapid progress. And this week sees the Club give a fitting send off for our old friend and colleague "Strzeb" Strzebrakowski, an exceptionally talented cross country pilot, who passed away recently (pictured) and who would undoubtedly have been with us for flying week.

19/05/2026

An eventful few days for Welland GC since our last report. Sunday gave us wildly unstable air for the afternoon with huge showers never far away. We soared to 5000 ft and more, with some climbs literally off the clock (see photos). Whilst most satisfied themselves with local soaring, James Fowkes braved the unreliable conditions and flew his first 100 km for some years via Crowland and Upwood, a great effort. Meanwhile, Andy Burton, Dave Arblaster and Gregg Taffs are now back from mountain soaring at Sisteron in France and we're steeling ourselves for the blow-by-blow accounts which will surely follow in the clubhouse next weekend. Earplugs are on standby.

10/05/2026

Last Saturday delivered a belting afternoon across the Midlands once the blue broke and Welland duly cashed in. There was plenty of soaring to 4000 ft and more, but the star for the day was Michelle Strickland, who finally achieved 50 km for Silver distance in her Cirrus with a run to Silverstone (surely one of the most spectacular BGA turnpoints) and got most of the way back before landing at Tower Farm airstrip in Wollaston where the locals were friendly. Our photos show Michelle's moment of unbridled joy at reaching 50k and her opportune snap of Silverstone. Meanwhile Mark Rushton enjoyed a rare outing in his glider and took this snap of Pitsford Water from 5000 ft.

05/05/2026

We managed three solid days of flying this weekend, with Saturday being the best of the lot as we soared to 4000 ft and some private gliders emerged for the first time in 2026. Sunday and Monday were less spectacular but fine for training, and Jeff Smith converted to the Junior (pictured). We recruited yet another Sywell Air Scout as a member and we now have no less than 5 of their number on our books! Sean Naisby and Jerzy Lelusz popped in from Crowland in a motorglider and had a play in our Blanik before heading home again. And we raised a glass to mark the passing of long time club stalwart "Streb" Strzebrakowski who succumbed to a short illness over the weekend - his pair of 500 km flights in three days of our 2024 Flying Week is the stuff of legend at Lyveden and we miss him terribly.

27/04/2026

It's been a fruitful long weekend for Welland GC. We like to consider ourselves unofficially twinned with Sywell Air Scouts and we were delighted to welcome them back for a group flying evening on Friday. Saturday saw soaring conditions that exceeded the forecast by some margin but the day belonged to the Poles - Pawel Gajdka converted to the Junior and Marcin Rymarz flew the Acro solo for the first time (pictured). Meanwhile, Lewis Lunden's expedition to Wattisham was rewarded with a second flight in a Discus and Silver Height - still 4 months shy of his 15th birthday ! And we captured one happy smiling face on a visitor flying with Bob

20/04/2026

Sunday's stunning soaring conditions were fully exploited yesterday at Lyveden, along with every other club up and down the country. Our recent joiners now understand the sheer joy of climbing over a mile high, with Marcin Rymarz topping out at a whopping 6200 ft in our K8 to bag his silver height. Talking of K8's, we were treated to a distant view of our old specimen, GDB, as Saltby's Edward Oliver passed overhead on an amazing 300 km via Scunthorpe and Grafham - it must have been seriously polished since it left our hands ! And this week we look forward to welcoming our old friends from Sywell Air Scouts for their first flying evening of 2026.
Photos show Josh admiring the views at 5000 over Corby, and Pawel on final approach in our Acro.

10/04/2026

Friday was undoubtedly one the best soaring days of the year. As Welland couldn't muster a team at short notice, two of our pilots took a trip to our friends at Crowland and it was simply a hoot. Mark and Roy did some aerotow currency work and the latter got to over 4000 feet in fantastic lift. Mark then took one of the local junior pilots up for an hour and they topped out nearly a mile high. As we left, another Crowland local was minutes away from his 5 hour flight for his Silver badge and we really hope he got over the line ! Photos show PSGC's Husky tug having a day off, a classic wooden K6cr on final approach, and Mark's snap of The Wash taken when local Junior Michael was showing him how to thermal properly. And the fourth snap shows Crowland tug pilot Graham at the end of a winch launch check-flight at Upwood on Wednesday, so all this inter-club bonding is leaving us with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

03/04/2026

With a dodgy forecast for the forthcoming Easter weekend, Welland GC took advantage of a brief weather window on Thursday and we had a blast. Everyone got to soar, eventually topping out at 4500 feet by late afternoon, and a few more members got their currency back on the winch launch. We had one welcome visitor, Barry, who popped in from neighbouring Crowland to join the fun, and we all felt rightly smug as the hangar doors slammed shut at 6pm. Photos show instructors Gregg and Andy landing the Acro, Roy climbing through 4000 ft in the K13, and visiting Barry preparing to fly our Acro.

Address

Lyveden Airfield, Harley Way
Brigstock
NN143JD

Telephone

01832 205237

Website

http://www.wellandgc.co.uk/

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