Summer meeting

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Location notes

Welcome!

Shenington Gliding Club, our hosts, are based at Shenington / Edgehill airfield - privately owned by Paul Gibbs as part of his farm. He is a glider pilot and the club safety officer.

The club is owned and operated by its members. Mark Stevens is their Chief Flying Instructor and along with other instructors and officials is unpaid. It operates on the basis of mutual help and co-operation. The hub of the day's activities is the launch point (a caravan with windsock) where the despatch of gliders is logged. Most are towed aloft by one of two cables from a winch at the upwind end of the runway. Having descended guided by parachute, the cables are dragged back to the launch point by a decrepit pick up truck. Some launches are behind a powered aircraft. Keep off the active runway - a cable suddenly rising from below can make the eyes water, remember circuits may be either handed and landings may be from any direction.

If you want to glide, (highly recommended) find the duty instructor via the log keeper, introduce yourself and your name will be put on a blackboard for flying in turn. Privately owned gliders share the same facilities so it may appear that other people are queue jumping. Whilst waiting, try watching and learning to be helpful without endangering yourself or others. Keep your own tally of flights and pay at the end of the day. There is no longer a refreshment bus at the launch point so bring such food and drink as you will need. There are cooking facilities available in the clubhouse. Remember dehydration is a real risk of gliding.

The hub of evening activity is the clubhouse and bar. The barbecue is DIY on coals provided. Packs of food can be bought from the clubhouse. Go - Carts (how do you spell that word / those words?) may be practising on Saturday (free spectating) and racing on Sunday. They are to be found behind the bund on the West of the airfield. Please get there by walking out to the road and back through the official entrance not through the intervening field, which is understandably hostile.

When you fly, avoid local villages especially Shenington in the valley off the end of 11. This is a particularly noise sensitive point. Offenders are fined, persistent offenders disbarred.

Have fun, enjoy yourself and stay safe.

John Busby has written the following notes

There is a little confusion here for pilots in that what the locals know as Shenington Airfield is called Edgehill on the half million chart. Geographically and geologically Edge Hill is a scarp that starts at Warmington Hill and finishes at Sunrising Hill. In between there are some very interesting villages; Radway, Ratley, Edgehill and Shenington. The first three are in Warwickshire and Shenington itself is in North Oxfordshire.

Saunderson Miller the rector of Radway built the Castle Tower at the top of Edgehill on the spot that King Charles raised his standard in 1745 one hundred and three years after the first battle of the civil war in1642 (my family are reported to have been involved in the erection even though that section of the family were Quakers at the time). General Earl Douglas Haig lived in Saunderson Miller's house (Radway Manor) during W.W.I.

The surgery where I used to live and work in Warwick had been James Cook's surgery. James Cook Qualified in Medicine at Cambridge and was a friend of William Harvey. Cook was Cromwell's surgeon at the battle of Edgehill and worked continuously for three days after the fighting had stopped, treating the wounded of both sides. One of his patients on whom he performed an amputation was still drawing a Royal pension at the age of 106. In 1650 James Cook bought the building and in 1670 published 'The Marrow of Chirgury' which became the official naval surgeon's handbook for the next one hundred years. A copy of this book can be seen by special request at the Royal College of Surgeons (of England). The village of Ratley on the other side of 'Edgehill' boasts the oldest Inn in Warwickshire, dating from the 11th century, and one of the largest operating tables in the country - for horses and other large quadrupeds.

Locals remember Shenington Airfield as the home to Wellington bombers during W.W.II. In the 1950s, my father persuaded the RAF to sell, and his company (Automotive Products) to buy, the site and it became a vehicle test track until the company sold it thirty years later.