Wednesday 28th December 2011

The few stalwarts intent on 'committing aviation' at the club today found themselves engaged in an increasingly chilly and moist 'Rain Dance'. Not only were there heavy rain showers to be endured and huge puddles to skipped across or waded through, but a pair of Raines (Steve and son Rob) eager to get airborne.

Rob Raine settles into K-13 DMX for his first glider flight, accompanied by his father Steve (centre) and Insturctor Dave Jesty.

The only other pilot to fly today (apart from Dave Jesty and myself sharing back-seat duties) was Rick Wiles, who prised himself away from computer work in the clubhouse in a brief attempt (cable break!) to stay current.

In addition to the wet and increasingly gusty conditions, our main problem today centred around cable breaks, resulting in a pathetic 'successful launch-to-launch failure' ratio of 3:4. This was through no fault of either the pilots or the winch driver, and we suspect that unreported snarl-ups in recent weeks may have compromised the integrity of the relatively new cables on the ML winch. Today, the few successful launches delivered to us by John Howe were corkers, but otherwise he and club Chairman Steve Lewis spent far too much time having to retrieve and re-join broken cables - getting colder and wetter in the process (along with those of us at the launch point).

Back at the hangar our technical team (  Chris Kaminski and Martin Smith ) augmented by Mike Keller, Mike Ashton and Alan Carter spent many hours continuing to renovate the Pirat's wing centre section, while Ged Nevisky worked beneath the red Land Rover Discovery attending to unreported serious damage to a rear shock absorber assembly.

Team work on the Pirat wing

Sandra Buttery was also on-site, while three of our staunch committeemen, Steve Lewis, Bob Jones and Ged Nevisky, were seen in earnest conversation regarding matters strategic - or maybe just comparing hangovers, Christmas prezzies and New Year Resolutions.

Pictured through a fogged-up lens enjoying the comfort of a warm clubhouse are (from left) Ged, Dave and Rick.

A happy, safe and soarable 2012 to you all.

Bob Pirie