Dartmoor Gliding News-Wednesday 15th July 2020

With John Smith, Martin Broadway and Barry Green at the airfield all keen to work towards getting their wings back after lockdown, all we needed was the weather to fly. Unfortunately it was another day with low cloud that didn’t want to clear even though it looked brighter particularly to the south.

John Smith arrived at the airfield first, only to find that cattle ha managed to get in. The landlord was contacted who arrived to herd them back into the top field. He asked if the wire could more securely retain the hurdle fence as it was believed the cattle had managed to breach the fence. The securing wire has now been threaded through the panels and around the poles.

Wire threaded through the panels.
 Scratch arrived to continue cutting the grass. He first wanted to raise the decks and investigate why the mower was not cutting as well as usual. Realising a new hydraulic hose had been fitted the decks were soon raised. As well as a lot of grass under the decks, Phil Hardwick notice that the blades appeared to be fitted upside down. The rotation was checked to confirm and Scratch set about fitting the blades correctly.

Decks raised ready to sort the mower.
When Colin arrive, Andy Davey and Steve Lewis set about helping him with the ARC on their Zugvogel. The fuselage was moved to the hangar to be worked on.

G-CHSH under inspection.
Roger Green was at the airfield to finish the electrics in the containers. The first problem to resolve was an earth on the lighting circuit. This was diagnosed to the wrong connections at the terminal block in the light fittings. When we started fitting the tubes it was noticed that a LED starter had been included. It was found that the wrong tubes had been supplied. This meant that the internal wiring that had been ripped out had to be re-instated. After a lot of work, we were ready to start switching on.

Workshop and storage container illuminated.
Glider workshop illuminated.
It’s been a lot of hard work, but this project is complete ready to move things in.

In the bus, John continued by fixing the tables in place. Only gas, water and electrics to be completed now.

Tables nearly reay.
Even somewhere to hang your coat then flying.
Some good work was achieved around the club. Please can we have some better weather to reward those who have worked hard during lockdown and bad weather.

Peter Howarth

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