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I attended the Lasham GP 2008 yesterday which was intended to be a day that would include a round of the Glider GP series, a flying display and a world record attempt. The attempt was to break the record for pulling a aircraft by wheelchair users. DHL kindly provided a 757 which arrived in the morning despite the weather and a large crosswind.
BUT, dear oh dear the British summer struck!! Thanks to everyone's enthusiasm some events did take place and I thought you might be interested to some pictures I took in between the rain which hopefully give you a flavour of the day.
So here we go, this picture shows the arrival of the 757 expertly flown by Capt John Bellamy and FO Martin Bethall.
The DHL cargo 757 was then towed off the runway which was just as well as it was followed by an RAF Chinook from nearby RAF Odiham.
We then had rain followed by more rain, I do love summer.
I then proved to myself that I have no future as a reporter as I got caught out by a wet cake break by not getting into a good position for the world record attempt. So I apologise for the the poor photo but it does give an idea of how the team of 35 strong wheelchair users set about the task of pulling the 757. Ropes were attached to the main wing landing gear with the hope of pulling the 757 100m along the runway to break the world record.
I am delighted to report that they did the hard part of getting the 65 tonne 757 moving quite quickly and broke the world record: a fantastic achievement.
At this point the weather looked dreadful but after an hour or so it improved to allow some of the keen pilots to show off their skills and entertain those who stayed on hoping for the best. In my case to allow more cake eating! So below you will see a few pictures from the display.
Thanks to our summer the glider GP pilots never got an opportunity to take off, spending the day on the ground. I really enjoyed the day and I just thank my lucky stars that both Lowepro and my E-3 are waterproof!
Cheers
Chris
BUT, dear oh dear the British summer struck!! Thanks to everyone's enthusiasm some events did take place and I thought you might be interested to some pictures I took in between the rain which hopefully give you a flavour of the day.
So here we go, this picture shows the arrival of the 757 expertly flown by Capt John Bellamy and FO Martin Bethall.
The DHL cargo 757 was then towed off the runway which was just as well as it was followed by an RAF Chinook from nearby RAF Odiham.
We then had rain followed by more rain, I do love summer.
I then proved to myself that I have no future as a reporter as I got caught out by a wet cake break by not getting into a good position for the world record attempt. So I apologise for the the poor photo but it does give an idea of how the team of 35 strong wheelchair users set about the task of pulling the 757. Ropes were attached to the main wing landing gear with the hope of pulling the 757 100m along the runway to break the world record.
I am delighted to report that they did the hard part of getting the 65 tonne 757 moving quite quickly and broke the world record: a fantastic achievement.
At this point the weather looked dreadful but after an hour or so it improved to allow some of the keen pilots to show off their skills and entertain those who stayed on hoping for the best. In my case to allow more cake eating! So below you will see a few pictures from the display.
Thanks to our summer the glider GP pilots never got an opportunity to take off, spending the day on the ground. I really enjoyed the day and I just thank my lucky stars that both Lowepro and my E-3 are waterproof!
Cheers
Chris
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