Dartmoor Gliding News- Saturday 18th October 2014

With the wind at 15 knots, gusting 25 from the south and a cloudbase which very rarely cleared the tree tops this was destined to be a non flying day right from the off.

Repairing the entrance
The hardy few just got on with work around the airfield. Ged, David, Bob and Stefi dealt with the large pothole that had developed at the entrance gate with lots of swinging of picks and shovels. Rick, who spent the whole day working on the ML winch was joined by Stefi and much of the repainting and a myriad of minor jobs are now complete.

Winchmaster hard at work on the ML winch
Stefi masking the windows prior to spray painting
Ged and I decided to complete a couple of outstanding jobs on K7M G-DCLT. The first was to improve the battery box fasteners and reduce the size of the shelf that it sits on. The second job was to test and repair the Total Energy system on the glider which was definitely not working correctly. For those new to gliding, the Total Energy System is used to prevent the variometers from reacting to changes in airspeed which would make them much less effective in showing the rising/sinking air around the sailplane.  The system operates from a probe mounted on the leading edge of the tail fin. After several hours of testing we found and repaired 2 large leaks in the system and are looking forward to testing our handiwork in the air.

Yours truly removing the tailplane from CLT
Hoping for better weather soon

Steve

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