Although heavy overnight rain left low cloud shrouding the airfield this morning, all the talk was of when the clearance which was due – 5pm, 2pm or 1130am - depending on your degree of optimism. So in preparation for the latter, best case, scenario, we got the hurdle fence down, winch set up in the top field and settled down to wait…
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Sharp eyed Roger Appleboom spots a threat to the first launch of the day…
before the cables were even towed out..! |
But not before Roger Appleboom had spotted a cable break even before the cables had been towed out! How so? Well our photo shows how one ferrule of a repair had broken, leaving one end of the cable poking through the reel. How about that for Threat and Error Management? (Roger called it being observant…)
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| The cable repair team at work. |
As the morning wore on (elevenses at ten, lunch at eleven…) the cloud did indeed lift, only to be replaced by a strengthening wind - exactly as forecast – settling at an average speed of 17kts and gusts well over 20 which, with only one K-13 available for use at present, prevented us from flying today.
So it was back to the simulator, where everyone, including new member Paul Lowther, who received instruction from Pete Howarth, and Paula Howarth (who gave instruction to Dad Pete!) tried their hand, finally tempting Adrian Irwin into practising his barrel rolling technique…a manoeuvre quite simple in a twin jet Jaguar, but a considerable challenge in a (simulated) Nimbus 3!
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Adrian Irwin was inspired to practice his barrel rolling technique today
(but not in this pic, in which he is less than 100ft above the runway..!) |
Whilst we busied ourselves with other minor tasks around the site and the sun did begin to break through mid-afternoon, with no let up in the wind’s gustiness we decided to recover the (now repaired) cable, put the winch back where we found it and re-erect the hurdle fence – in short, we called it a day. With June just around the corner, things (as D:ream would have us believe) can only get better…
Martin Cropper
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