With fog, low cloud and rain on the menu for most of today, it was impossible to match club members' airborne achievements of last weekend and the previous Wednesday.
Difficult, too, to equal our Chairman's descriptive prose generated during countless hours spent each week commuting on National Express coaches. One has to admire Martin Cropper's commitment; travelling down from London by coach on Friday night, grabbing some 'family time' on Saturday and then, after spending Sunday instructing and running the airfield, heading back to London ready for his day job (and blog-writing) on Monday morning.
But back to today. As usual, we had the usual healthy mixture of Wednesday regulars and newcomers, but were amazed at one point when an enthusiastic visitor appeared out of the murk seeking to purchase a trial lesson voucher. (Even more amazed when, during the afternoon, Jeff Cragg arrived bathed in a brief ray of bright sunshine!)
For most of the day, however, the weather could not have been worse, so we decided to progress various new or ongoing tasks of potential benefit to the entire membership. The only exception to this was the annual inspection of our own ASW20F, and Martin Broadway and I are most grateful to John Bolt for undertaking this, with extra ''muscle' provided by various willing colleagues.
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| Martin and Bob fettling the ASW20 |
'Sod's law' welcomed us as soon as we had removed the vehicles from the hangar, because we discovered K-13 DMX wedged on its dolly due to a punctured main tyre. So this was placed on the 'to do' list temporarily while Dave Bourchier set about conjuring up replacement parts. As is usually the case with Dave, he was successful. Therefore towards the end of the day he, Phil Hardwick, and Ged Nevisky were able to indulge in the delights of lying on a damp and dirty hangar floor and repairing the glider ready for the next flying day.
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| As part of repairing the puncture, wheel break was adjusted |
The next task was to get K7M CLT de-rigged so that the wing fabric can be removed and the structure inspected, prior to being completely recovered with new fabric. Despite realising that they were temporarily depriving themselves of a key training resource, pre-solo members John Rogers, Adrian Pike, Adrian Irwin and Kit Smith helped to ensure that many hands made light work, and one wing is now in the workshop, with the other, plus the fuselage and tailplane, in the hangar. Inevitably, this upgrading comes with a downside, in that we're temporarily down to one two-seater. However, I am sure that with goodwill all round, combined with some early starts and improved operational efficiency, we'll continue to be able to meet the needs of club members and visitors alike.
Before the hangar doors were closed, some planning for the repacking was undertaken, to make the Zugvogel more accessible to the increasing number of solo pilots wishing to fly it, and putting the currently under-utilised Pirat at the back.
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| The only blue sky we saw all day made a 30second appearance as we closed the hangar doors |
So much for the glider-related tasks. Out on the airfield, Steve Raine (with a little help from his friends) towed out the 'newly-cabled' ML winch ready for action, and brought the Guslaunch down beside the clubhouse for fettling. Steve then joined Vice-Chairman Colin Boyd to continue their mammoth task of completely re-wiring the clubhouse and hangar.
It's quite amazing how - mainly because of the great team of enthusiasts who form the core of our club's membership - whether at weekend or on Wednesdays, even the duffest of days can turn out to be fulfilling,
and even fun.
Bob Pirie
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