- This event has passed.
Welcome back to Parham for Jose Weiss 115!
June 17 - June 21
In 2007, 2008 and 2009, Southdown GC hosted a unique trio of VGC Rallies.
The last of these gloriously celebrated the centenary of what the late Martin Simons calls the world’s first soaring flight, when Eric Gordon England gained maybe 50 feet altitude over the South Downs (very close to Southdown’s Parham site) in the Jose Weiss bird-shaped glider called Olive.
Southdown GC has become an outstandingly successful club, blessed with its closeness to the finest soarable ridge in the South of England- and often some very benign sea breeze fronts as well.
From 17-21 June this year, we invite VGC members to join us once again! Very sadly , many of our previous visitors are no longer with us, but we welcome those who maybe have not flown at Parham before, as well as those who still remember that wonderful trio of rallies. Incidentally, although the rally officially opens on Monday 17th June, we anticipate and welcome some ‘mission creep’, with arrivals and departures in the weekends before and after the rally itself, particularly as the weekend of 22/23 June is our habitual Longest Day event!
In recent years, there have been some changes and improvements at Parham. In particular, the Clubhouse has been totally rebuilt (to the design of the late Jim Cornish, formerly a VGC member and Oly 463 pilot). We now have a more powerful Tost winch, and have also joined the ‘Eurofox Club’, with two of these great towplanes, which are so well suited to vintage operations.
We intend to have some model flying too. Champion aeromodeller and kit originator, Chris Foss, is a very long-established Southdown member. If you get busy now, there is still time to build a model of the historic Jose Weiss ‘Olive’ glider!
There will be social events and we may even be joined by some members of the extended Weiss family .
More details will follow soon, but there is already a dedicated web page for the rally, with a detailed guide prepared by Craig Lowrie, at https://www.southdowngliding.co.uk/
Please contact me at ukrallysec@vintagegliderclub.org