The alarm goes off at 6:30 and as I get up to make the tea I noticed that it's almost totally dark outside. Autumn is here, but what lies in store for the Thursday Tinkerers today? It won’t be a normal Thursday for the Tinkerers as on the club calendar it's detailed NRI which I'm led to believe stands for No Rated Instructor (Ed: I know you would have put a more salty word for the middle letter but this is a family blog).
In way of explanation the day is rated NRI as Mike Jardine and Rick Wiles are away on their holidays so Peter Howarth very nobly stepped up and volunteered to instruct on Saturday as well as his normal Sunday for the greater good for the trainees. So as a result Thursday is NRI and the Thursday Tinkerers will have to make the best of it.
I have time to check the weather forecast, both RASP and SkySight; nothing very promising there but we can fly in a northerly crosswind, which seems to be the normal at the moment. As Fleet Manager I've got a few tasks to keep me busy, and a few other members too. So we might not fly.
I unlock the front door and I noticed that although the overnight rain has stopped the ground is quite wet which doesn't augur well for privateers getting their gliders out and rigging to go soaring. However, the club now has two K-8s rigged in the hangar which are just perfect for those all autumnal and winter days on Dartmoor. So I don't pack my parachute, my glider batteries, or my avionics in my car today. In my preparations for autumn I have been cleaning and applying Dubbin to my boots. Wet feet when flying is just nasty. We might get some more soaring days this autumn or we might just have to wait for the wave season to start.
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| The Roberts father and son combo replacing the brake shoes so that the monolith can slip the surly bonds of earth (Ed: Acknowledgement John Gillespie Magee. Who would have thought that spaceship engineering was so basic?) |
On arrival at the club it was raining again but not for long. After tea and lemon drizzle cake (from Saturday’s BBQ) had been consumed we started on some tasks. Peter Howarth removed the fuselage of his Kestrel from his trailer so that he could reinstate a fettled instrument panel. On completion, he had to call for help as the belly dolly wheels had sunk into the soft ground (Ed: There was quite a bit of rain during the night on the moor). The extra bodies quickly assembled to assist didn’t work until sturdy rubber sheeting was liberated from a nearby K-6 trailer, EWO, (Ed: Thanks Ed!).
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| Peter Howarth and Martin Broadway return the Kestrel to its lair. |
In the hangar Martin Broadway removed the defective electric vario from FXB and I capped the Total Energy pneumatic line. He re-taped the turtle deck with wider tape and also sized up the cockpit for a new seat back and new seat belts.
Then the monolith was on the move. Richard was ready to test drive his trailer, empty at first to be prudent. It was hooked up quickly and then off it went.
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| Conditions were improving (Ed: You mean it was no longer raining) but the black clouds and gusty north wind didn’t bode well for the Thursday Tinkerers to go flying. |
We have received an interest in our spare K-13, G-CHXP, from another gliding club. So HXP’s documentation was reviewed and photos of the placards and the weight and balance tables were taken by squeezing into CCY’s trailer which contains HXP’s fuselage and tail plane. HXP’s wings are in the storage container. After much searching Peter and I located HXP’s canopy which was under a cover at the back of the storage container. There is also an interest in the twin-axle AMF trailer so that needed to be surveyed too.
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| Phil and Gavin checked out the twin-axle AMF trailer at the east end. |
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| Errugh! That’s not a K-13. There’s a squatter living in the club’s trailer. They even have a blanket in there. Cheeky wotsnames. |
After Richard’s test drive of the Discus trailer (aka the “Monolith”) he and it disappeared up to the east end so quickly that I couldn’t capture it on camera (Ed: Was it travelling at warp speed then?). The dad and son combo quickly transferred V5, the Discus, from the AMF trailer to the monolith. Job done and there was no longer a disturbance in the Force (Ed: I think you are getting your Sci-Fi genres mixed up).
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| The bailiffs have been and the squatter has been evicted |
So how does an AMF trailer work? (Ed: These trailers are highly rated and sought after. The trailer is fitted for a K-13. It has a nose support, a belly dolly with a swing arm to raise the fuselage (not in the photo), and a floor fitting to secure the under fuselage securing bracket. See the red mark on the K-13 schematic below. The system works well. The belly dolly can accommodate a K-13 fuselage with either a skid or a nose wheel. The tail plane has a separate cradle that runs along the port floor track and is secured to the floor. The wings go in tip first, into wing tip dollies that run along the floor tracks, and the roots are clamped in the brackets at the rear. Simples (Ed: No! You definitely don’t want Meerkats in the glider trailers).
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| A K-13 schematic showing the securing bracket on the fuselage, in red. |
After Phil and I surveyed the AMF trailer we decided that before it is sold the lights and brakes will need to be checked and four new tyres fitted.
Back in the clubhouse there was ground school for Paddy with lectures by Peter which included approach control. This allowed Paddy to progress his pre-solo card.
Doubtless there was other work going on but I failed to notice it.
We finished early, and although the sky was promising at times it had greyed over by the time we departed. We didn't fly, but we got a lot of jobs (tinkering) done.
Gavin Short
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