Saturday 3rd November 2012

The forecast led us to believe that today would have a blue sky, a light westerly wind with showers arriving in the early evening. In fact the wind was light southerly, there was a lot of cloud and showers right from the start.

Before starting the flying, the Saturday group performed the monthly TLC on K7M G-DBVB ( vacuum, good clean and oil all round ). With K13 G-DDMX currently away having it’s rudder hinges renewed, the Bocian was taken to the launchpoint along with BVB and K8 G-DDWG and by after the showers had subsided flying commenced at 11:30.

Visitor Steve Wilden returned to fly with us today after his introduction to gliding in the simulator last Wednesday. While I was flying Steve in the BVB, supervising instructor Ged introduced Mike Jardine, Chris Kaminski and Matthew Wiles to the delights of the Bocian and after successful familiarisation flights with Ged, each of them flew it solo.

Matthew and Chris posing with the Bocian after their type conversions
( camera shy Mike was driving the winch by this time)

 Not satisfied with with his efforts so far, Ged turned his attention to Dave Wallis who has recently returned to gliding after a long absence. After a series of successful circuits and practice cable breaks, Ged got out of the back and Dave flew solo, completing 2 good circuits. Well done.

Dave Wallis being congratulated by Instructor Ged Nevisky after his solo. 

While all the flying fun was going on, Winchmaster Rick Wiles, assisted by Dave Bourchier and Colin Boyd spent their day in the hanger refurbishing the second drum and brakes on the Guslaunch winch. They are now talking about replacing the engine??

So what a day. In between the showers, which became increasingly heavy and wintery by the end of the day, we flew a visitor, completed type conversions for 3 pilots, sent a pilot solo for the first time in 10 years or so, continued the Guslaunch refurbishment and gave a glider it’s monthly service. Excellent.

Steve