Graham Garnett has written “What’s been happening” and Glyn Bradney “What’s ahead”. Fingers crossed we enjoy good and safe flying in 2026.
WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING
I write this whilst still in the depths of a cold and very wet British Winter, although finally the snowdrops are flowering and the crocuses are showing their heads, so things are looking up and Spring is slowly but surely making an appearance, roll on March! Of course, by the time you read this the soaring season in the Northern hemisphere will be under way (hopefully!)
At the Gliding Heritage Centre as always the workshop has been busy all Winter with work being undertaken on Matt Cooks Oly2b, just a spruce up, new paint and a general tidy up before it goes back into the hangar ready to be flown by GHC members again. This glider is available to all Lasham and GHC members who are under 26 years of age to fly for free, a very generous gift made by Matt last season and continuing into 2026, it proved very popular last year with the youth with Milo MacDonald completing his Silver distance in it in the early summer.
Other projects this winter have been the completion of our Slingsby Falke T61 which is still awaiting paperwork from the BGA and UK CAA before we sell it.
We have been very generously gifted another Schleicher K8 well known to long term Lasham members.
With the competition number “153” this green K8 was delivered new to the Surrey and Hampshire Gliding Club, in those days the name for the club single seater fleet at Lasham in 1969. This K8 was the first in the S&H fleet and served for 35 years as a club glider before being sold privately, it has always been based at Lasham and many, many people, still members at Lasham have flown it and completed Silver legs in it including me in April 1995 with my Silver distance flight from Lasham to Old Sarum airfield just over 50k away! Thanks to Mike Jenkins for his kind donation. Note this is housed in the main LGS hangar. We’ve agreed with the LGS that their members can fly it with priority given to members of their Youth Flying Group who won’t get charged for flying time. Whether a youth member or otherwise if you want to fly “153” speak to the LGS office. It remains owned by the GHC. 21 Mar and Matt Cook’s son Henry flew it for his first flight in a single seat glider.
The restoration to museum standard of our American World War Two training glider the Laister-Kauffman TG4 is on-going and starting to look really good now. GHC volunteer Andy Wooley and his small team of young apprentices have been recovering the fuselage and have put large panels of clear ‘plastic’ in place of the original fabric so visitors can see the structure which would otherwise be hidden. This exciting project will be finished soon and when it is the glider will be hung from the roof in one of the hangars for members and visitors to enjoy.
Last Autumn we had our second ‘glass’ glider donated to the GHC, A Swiss Diamant 18. David Chapman kindly gifted us this iconic and early glass glider and he trailed it down to Lasham on the 5 Sept 2025 from the Staffordshire GC. The Swiss Diamant was one of the very first production glass gliders with ours being built in 1968. It last flew in 2023 and is currently in the workshop being tidied up and getting it ready to fly as part of our usual rotation this season. There are many people who have told me that they are looking forward to flying this classic and beautiful Sailplane.
The Spalinger. A decision has now been made by the GHC committee that this glider, although immaculate and to all intensive purposes airworthy, the handling is just too challenging for us to allow members to fly it.
As mentioned in the last VGC News magazine it has proved to be more than just a handful in flight and despite the very best efforts of all concerned it will now be a permanent static exhibition glider in the Hangars, a big shame, but the very last thing we want is to hurt anybody or to damage this almost entirely unique glider.
Re the Swales 15T kindly donated to the GHC by Jerry Henderson-Newton. Unfortunately we’ve been unable to obtain any paperwork for the glider, the previous owner couldn’t find his and there’s nothing in the BGA archives. We were optimistic re getting the glider flying again, that now looks rather unlikely.
The most exciting aspect of the workshop operation at the moment particularly on a Sunday is the number of young volunteers we have regularly turning up to help with all sorts of work on the gliders. This half dozen or so Apprentices (as Gary Pullen calls them) are aged between 18 and 28 and can be relied on to turn up and put in a day’s work under supervision of the more experienced. It’s wonderful to have them at the workshop and bodes well for future succession within the GHC.
WHAT’S AHEAD
THE SECOND HANGAR EXTENSION (24m x 24m)
A lot of groundwork went on late Autumn / early Winter down to the team led by Gary Pullen and Richard Moyse, especial mention of Andy Woolley, particularly in 2026. However, looking back to latish November you’d think everything stopped – that’s because effectively it did! A lousy very wet Jan and Feb has prevented us from getting the foundations in so that Lowthers can come and install the main structural pillars as the kick-off for the actual construction. The thinking was likely February with completion in hopefully early Spring. However, here we are in early March still sat on our hands thanks to Lady Weather! Update mid- March with some good news. To progress we needed the consent of East Hants District Council which was received early March. Also that of the building inspector who visited and checked the site on Tues 17 Mar and gave the thumbs up. Suddenly a spell of several days of dry and sunny weather! Fri 20 Mar and the support bases are inserted and cemented in. These are what the main vertical structural pillars of the hangar will attach to.
Lowthers have just delivered all of the metal framework pillars and began preliminary work on the construction Tues 24 Mar.
A fair way to go before we see a completed hangar but a cause for celebration in that the train has finally left the station!
WINTER TALKS
The 2025/2026 series concluded on Sunday 15th March with Andrew Jarvis’s talk. We’ve had 5 talks over the winter of which 4 were recorded. The one we sadly missed is Afandi Darlington’s, the confusion over that is primarily down to me – Apologies! All of the other 4 are available via the GHC website – www.glidingheritage.org.uk . 3 of them, Will Stoney (The Penrose Pegasus), Gordon MacDonald (Joining broken glider bits back), and Andrew Jarvis (Jumping off piers with wings on) are freely available via <News and Videos><You Tube Videos>. These videos are also posted to the secure (password protected) part of the website which is only available to GHC members knowing the password. <Members Area><Guest Area – enter Password><Winter Talks>. This is where you’ll find the first talk (October) by Izzy de Montet-Guerin – not to be missed!
SPRING FLYING WEEK
This will be held from Saturday 16 May to Friday 22 May. Recent flying weeks held in May have given us very good weather – so fingers crossed! Visitors from other clubs (and their gliders!) are welcome. Note visitors need to book in with the Lasham Gliding Society. Also note unusually there are no Lasham comps being held in May, apart from a weekend event at the start of the month.
VGC NATIONAL RALLY
Following on directly from our Flying Week is the VGC National Rally to be held at the lovely North Hill airfield Saturday 23 May to Friday 29 May, hosted by the Devon and Somerset GC. North Hill is a 110 miles trail from Lasham, so not too far!
If you want to enrol here’s the link:
GLIDERS
A.) EXPECTED TO BE AIRWORTHY FOR 2026
Steinadler (2 seater), TG3 (2-seater), Tutor (“Pink Panther”), Eon Eton Primary, Hutter H17, K8 (G-CHRJ). Note Matt Cook’s Oly 2b is available with a priority for the GHC’s younger members.
B.) POSSIBILITIES
DIAMANT 18
Note the 18m Diamant is as I write this in the course of having its ARC – under the leadership of Ed Smallbone and Gary Pullen. Built in 1968 it last flew in 2023 so we’re reasonably optimistic it will get through the ARC without major modifications being required. I don’t think there’ll be much dissent to my saying the Diamant was the best of the early glass production runs by a fair margin, significantly better than the Phoebus.
The latest update is that a problem has been found with the canopy locking mechanism. It’s being looked into by Nick Bowers. Needs to be fixed before we can apply to the CAA for the ARC.
SLINGSBY TYPE 15 GULL 3
Loaned to us by the Brooklands Museum in July 2013, this unique glider, only one of its type ever built, has been on display at the GHC ever since. Not quite finished when WW2 broke out in Sept 1939 it was first test flown in the Autumn of 1940. Famous for its Price Bira of Siam connections. Last flown in 1993. Towards the end of 2025 we started talking to Brooklands about the possibility of getting it flying again. Following a favourable response we’ve now completed a major inspection without any significant problems being found. The paperwork has just been sent off to the BGA asking for a new CofA to be issued. Awaiting confirmation from Brooklands, but we’re reasonably confident they’ll agree to the glider being flown with the GHC paying the flying insurance.
LOOKING A GOOD WAY AHEAD
Two 30m square hangars, a much-needed hangar extension, and a state-of-the-art workshop, what do we do next!?
Well we don’t have a spray booth and the GHC CoM is going to give consideration to building one in the 2nd hangar extension that meets all current safety requirements, which it must be admitted are onerous.
The GHC effectively started in the Spring of 2012, our first hangar, the Chris Wills one, opened in Aug 2013. In 2014 we kicked off a huge project to build a Museum Building. This culminated in a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2015 for £1.9m to finance it . Well not too surprisingly we failed! – after all we were a very young company back then. That’s the one failure we’ve had in otherwise 14 years of success and achievement. For your interest here is a plan of the proposed Museum Building.
You’ll see “Archive” bottom right. The GHC does currently have an archive, it’s located in what’s known as “Rorke’s Drift” and David Williams is in charge of it. David Williams is also the Vintage Gliding Club archivist, their archive is housed in “Fumble” the WW2 Maycrete hut on the north side of the airfield just south of The Avenue.
Both Archives are effectively storage. It’s been suggested that they ideally should be relatively easily available and “viewable” to members. Easy to say that but how is that meaningfully accomplished?
So the GHC and the VGC have agreed to have an initial meeting to discuss combining the two archives into one, and how we would run it. I’d think if we agree to a combined archive, it will be in a new building on the GHC site. Early days but watch this space!
Graham Garnett and Glyn Bradney
28 March 2026