Wednesday 12th December 2012

A bitterly cold day, combined with a biting SE breeze and still-sodden airfield beneath the deceptively crunchy surface deterred all but a small hard-core of solo pilots from venturing up to the club today.

However, those of us who made it basked (?) in a total lack of precipitation, and enjoyed the luxury of operating from the west end of the field, with the clubhouse, wood burner and even unfrozen lavatories within easy reach. What's more, our spirits rose with talk of wave (which sadly never materialised) and the formation of a few embryonic cloud streets hinting at some potentially usable lines of energy.

Bob getting ready to give the K8 a workout.

In order to blow away the cobwebs after three weeks in sunnier climes, I took a couple of launches in the K8, managing firstly 11 minutes, but second time around 25 minutes and a climb to 1700 feet by allowing the K8 to do what it does best, namely turning tightly in well-defined thermals, and bimbling along gently to take advantage of whatever those energy lines had to offer.

K7M G-DBVB almost ready to go

Both the K8 and K7M BVB made several flights; the latter either two-up with Ged Nevisky in the back seat or flown solo, but during mid-afternoon everything went downhill fast. First of all there was a cable break, but then during the winding in of the repaired cable the two cables came together and then there was a massive snarl-up a the winch.  The team battled heroically in arctic conditions to unravel the mess, until - with both cables on their last legs anyway and a delivery of new cables scheduled for later in the day - the decision was made to go to work with the cable cutters. Everyone present on the field got stuck into this operation, cutting the cables into sections, then coiling and stacking them ready for delivery to the scrap yard.

As darkness fell and most members went their separate ways, Steve Lewis remained hunched over the woodburner awaiting the arrival of the promised delivery which finally arrived at 6.45pm.

In contrast to this disappointing ending to the day (which unfortunately meant several people didn't get a flight), we had an unscheduled visit by a very welcome potential new member called Naurooz Ismail, who took a couple of trial lesson flights with Ged. Naurooz, who lives in Fowey, first tried gliding about 40 years ago when, as a member of his school's cadet force, he attended a gliding course at Biggin Hill. He soloed in a Slingsby Sedbergh (T21b) after 17 launches, and then did a further dozen or so solo flights before moving on to other pursuits.

Naurooz waiting for Ged to get ready

Bob Pirie