Dartmoor Gliding News-Wednesday 16th December 2020

When I arrived at the club the duty instructor was coming back from his morning inspection of the airfield only to report that the centre track was awash, a veritable river.  This wasn’t unexpected as the culverts draining the airfield, and the hangar apron, into the ditch alongside the road were in full spate.  So today was to be a non-flying day which was reinforced by some regular heavy showers throughout the day to remind us.

However, despite the appalling weather early this morning, despite blockages on the A30, despite fallen trees, and despite copious amounts of standing water on the back roads that engulfed windscreens with spray, the hangar elves turned up and engaged in a myriad of activities on the site.

How many elves can you spot in the hangar?

A tip run got rid of a lot of the waste plastic, insulation, metal etc. from behind the club house.

The glider instrument holdings were rationalised and the excess will be carefully packaged and sent for evaluation and sale.

The SF-27's belly was coated with a snazzy white gel coat and the repair to the pared-back wheel box continued apace (in a previous life the FS-27 had been a racing glider and had a lot of performance improving modifications that are not required on Dartmoor!).  However, copious use of a heat gun was required to raise the ambient temperature in the hangar to be able to work the glass fibre.  Plans have been formulated for a GRP tail dolly to improve the ground handling of this heavy-tailed glider.

The Chief Elf mixing up some magic potion for the SF-27

 K-13 wheel hub was shod with an inner and outer tube and added to the tyre cabinet as another spare.

These busy elves declared themselves not tyred (Ed: Groan!) in the slightest.

The blue K-13, CCY, received some tender loving care.  The yaw string has been repositioned (lowered) to be in an elf’s line of sight and the canopy ventilator modified for better demisting (all that heavy breathing by flying elves) on wintery flying days.  The canopy restraining cord has been replaced and re-orientated.  The mechanical variometer and the altimeter were inspected but left in situ.  Finally the cockpit was vacuumed.

The blue K-13 receiving sparkle dust from an elf.

The Chief Elf, after supplying the remaining elves with mugs of tea mid-afternoon, then called time.  So we shut up shop and went home (whistling as we went, of course).

What do you mean you want to go home?

There may have been some other activities that I missed but thanks must go to all today's hangar elves for their normally unsung toil.  

Gavin Short