Dartmoor Gliding News-Sunday 9th November 2014

Today was makey learney day. In last week's blog mention was made that sometimes there are so few members on site they are required to perform like one-armed paperhangers; today there was plenty of turnout but only one instructor, and winch driver, both of whom were me! So some kind of remedy was required if we were ever going to get the two-seater into the sky with both seats occupied.

The K-8 gets rich – at the end of yet another rainbow..!

Fortunately, brains had already been applied to this prior to my arrival and never let it be said that the Sunday Soarers are 'winch wimps', for by the end of the day we had 3 new potential winch drivers ready to spread the load. The plan involved getting Chris Jones up to speed on the winch whilst using Pete Howarth at the other end as guinea pig in the K-8. Once Chris had winched sufficient launches for Pete to retain currency in the K-8 (where he'd re-soloed only last week) the plan was for Chris then to launch solo in the K-13 whilst I supervised Pete on the winch, but fortunately the cavalry arrived over the hill in the shape of Jerry Wellington and we were able to 'crack on'.

We were treated to an overflight by a Helimed EC135 helicopter today who called up on 130.1kHz on a 'Priority A mission' to Derriford and received permission for the overflight from retired 747 pilot Adrian Irwin.
And they spotted the K-13 in circuit

 And crack on we needed to for various weather experts (seaweed outside the door etc.) predicted a trough line by 1200 that would bring with it all sorts if precipitory mayhem. In the event there were, similar to last week, some rapidly developing cumulus that swept up from the south, and south-west (in the afternoon) creating showers which were sufficient to interrupt flying, but not to stop us (see photo). Whilst this put pressure on the Flying List, we were able to cycle everyone through and I was, a little parochially perhaps, glad that there were no visitors as they would definitely have impinged on club members’ flying.

Another day of sharp showers (it was actually raining on the upper surface of the K-13).

So no surprise then that the longest flight of the day was a mere 7 minutes (both Allan Holland and Jerry Wellington being first equal in the K-8); but - in addition to placing 3 new winchmen in the training pipeline - we were able to get some useful flight training achieved, some launch failure demos, zigzag circuits etc. and I hope that all - especially those who travelled some distance, such as Chris Owen and Pete Harvey from Falmouth and those from closer by such as Adrian Irwin and Chris Jones - got something of value in the day.

At the East End - Pete Howarth as K-8 guinea pig for winch driver training…

Man of the Match Award has to go to Pete Howarth who as we can see, at one point was the flying guinea pig in the K-8 before metamorphosing into returning winchman (he has driven ML winches before) at the other end of the airfield (see photos). And the prize for Best Overall Improver has to go to daughter Paula who, having not flown with yours truly for a while, stunned me with her general handling ability and capacity to assimilate trimming and speed changing - but then that’s 20 year olds for you..!

and at the West End - Pete Howarth as trainee winch driver..!

Thanks go to all the team for their early morning plotting that plucked success from the jaws of what looked like a pretty bleak prospect at the outset.

Martin Cropper