Visit to Glider Heritage Centre

On a lovely sunny, yes sunny, day in August, the 16th to be specific, fourteen members of SRFC visited the Glider Heritage Centre at Lasham airfield (https://www.glidingheritage.org.uk/). It was a good day for gliding as there was a lot of activity on the airfield with gliders being launched by winch and by aero tow. The sky was blue with cumulus cloud bobbing around providing lots of lift for the multitude of modern gliders in the air. However, our visit was for the purpose of visiting the Heritage Centre, home to seventy-five vintage gliders from the early days of flight.

 

We gathered in the café around 10:30 to gain some energy for the day ahead, coffee for some and rather more for others. Tony Fendall, our host, met us at the café and around 12:30, once Chris and George had go their coffees having flown in, we headed off to the Heritage Centre hangars over the other side of the airport.

We started off with a presentation on the history of gliding in the UK with some great videos of historic interest, which just went to show how gliding has progressed over the decades. We then had a tour, led by Tony, of the two hangers that are home to the seventy-five gliders. What a collection it is  from contraptions only a very brave person or fool would step into to gliders with a very good performance looking quite modern.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gliders designed and built by Slingsby, Abbott Baynes, Bill Manuel, Schweizer, Laister- Kaufmann, Scott Light Aviation, Jose Weiss, Jacobs Schweyer, Zlin, J. Lemp, Hersteller Flugzeugbau, Elliotts of Newbury and more.

If you are interested in aviation I would recommend it for a visit, they are open at weekends and mid-week tours as we had are available by prior arrangement.