Saturday 18th April 2010

First glider at the launch point at 0810 and the 2 more by 0820. Amid all this frantic activity DCFI Mark Courtney still managed to find time for a cup of tea and a slice of Sandra's delicious lemon cake.

The day was sunny, with blue sky and light winds from the SE. which deilvered a warm day with over 8 hours of soaring available.

Longest flight was Ged in the Open Cirrus who returned for a break after 2 hours 17 minutes.

There were lots a visitors today ready to take advantage of the weather and sample gliding for the first time who were ably flown by Martin Cropper and David Jesty. Other visitors included 3 pilots from North Hill and 1 from the Wyvern club. DCFI Mark Courtney had a busy day with check flights and  training which included new member Mark who started his fixed price to solo today.

We had a passing visit from ex CFI Roger who made a low pass in his Dimona motor glider

Dimona above Jantar1 and Capri posing for a photo shoot

The real heros today were the members who gave up their flying to get tasks done around the club. Bob Jones spent the whole day at the winch instructing new drivers. Karon painted the K8/K6 trailer, a Forth Road Bridge size task which was later fininshed by Martin, Roger and Barry. Karon's husband Chris completed the repairs to the red Discovery. Thanks chaps ( and chapesses )

Steve Lewis

1 comment:

Steve Lewis said...

Comments received from Paul G Beckett

Many thanks for a stonking weekend on saturday. I must admit that there are few clubs that will/can offer as warm a welcome to a visiting Silver C pilot than yours!

Having not been able to go diving because of my medical and the asthma issue I'm glad I was able to come along a fly with you lot. It's been a while since I flew a vintage ship.
The K7 unmodified which I'm used to seems to have identical handling to the Ka13 apart from the need for more rudder input due to less dihedral. The Ka8 was delightful to fly once I negotiated my winch launches okay. 32 minutes in the air was quite enough to take in the magnificent scenery before needing to come down to answer the call of nature.

Thats another first for me too - Winch launching anything of vintage calibre.

Also further thanks for your crews for teaching me early on how to ride a quad bike - I've never played with one of these before, they are about as much fun as you can have on the ground with your clothes on! and certainly are worth their weight in gold compared to a tractor, as you can pull one of these backwards to get to the glider if the rope won't reach! :-)

For those who visit your club from North Hill - I shall hopefully see their faces at the Interclub league when I'm back at Wyvern - I'm not competing this year, but I shall be around as a ground dogsbody.

As for the Eventualities Brief, you can let the duty instructor know that I have patent pending on ASDA............ :-)

Attitude
Speed
Decision
Act.

Only kidding, but this practice monniker I brought in to my gliding because I got fed up years ago of instructors yelling at me from the back seat for doing it wrong, so the laws of Keep it Simple came in.

But once again thanks, The day was awesome and I was made to feel right at home straight away unlike many of the glass only bigger clubs that I've been a member of!

Kindest regards

Paul G Beckett