This morning, from the warmth of my duvet and a mug of tea on the bedside table, I perused the weather forecasts for the day. RASP, Skysight, yr.no, and even the Met Office were in agreement: Low cloudbase, warm moist air giving poor visibility, rain starting late morning and intensifying, and then by late afternoon a clearance.
When
I arrived at the clubhouse the Duty Instructor, Peter Howarth, and the
Duty Basic Instructor, Phil Hardwick, were deep in conversation
concerning the plans for the day. Sensibly, I put the tea on! The
result of the conversation was that when the first One Day Course phoned
in Phil had to gently let them down and tell then that we weren't
flying. The second One Day Course was presumed missing in action as
nothing was heard... Hopefully they will rebook and we will see them
soon (Ed: You are upbeat today. You do realise that its mid February and
still winter?)
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| This was the view at 1530. It didn't look that good at 1000 hence no photo! |
So
that means that the good news for those glider pilots who are unable to
digest news that is longer than 280 characters (Ed: Do catch up at the
back it increased from 140 characters in 2017) is that today's blog will
be shorter than normal.
After
Andy briefed the privateers on the status of their parachute packing,
and that there was only one trainee, Matthew Stone, a practical
demonstration, rather than a classroom lecture was devised (Ed:
Otherwise known as we need to change the cables on the winch and everyone
is to help).
The
pick up was manoeuvred on to the apron where a roll of winch cable was
manhandled out of the hangar and loaded on to the custom made reel
holder in the back of the pick up. Meanwhile, the winch was taken up the
field ready to dispense and receive cables.
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| The nifty cable reel mount that we inherited from Predannack ATC (Ed: What a great bit of kit) |
To
be brief, as those particular readers must be flagging by now as I have
exceeded their 280 character limit: One cable off, one cable on, second
cable off, second cable on. Old cable chopped up and placed in blue barrel. Job done.
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| An unidentified flying object is spotted over the hangar later in the afternoon (Ed: Have the Pentagon commented yet?) |
Scratch
had been busy earlier rebuilding the brake master cylinder for the
cable drums on the winch. Apparently the master cylinder is from a 1932
Morris 10 (Ed: A likely tale! Statistically its most likely to be from a
Mini, the original and not the ersatz German one.)
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| With almost no trainees today Scratch explains the workings of a 1932 Morris 10 brake master cylinder (Ed: No one can complain that the lectures at DGS are not diverse) |
In
the hangar Colin and I continued working on the annual inspection of
K-8, FXB. Before that I busied myself with some small but important jobs
on the K-13 fleet.
After
lunch Colin completed his inspection of FXB's fuselage and then roped
Richard into touching up the fuselage tubing (Ed: What are you thinking?
Clearly living in a world described in 280 characters has clearly rotted
your brain!) with ubiquitous grey paint.
I
rebuilt FXB's tailplane and elevators whilst giving the paint a tidy up.
Reapplication of the mylar strips and fitting the split pins will have
to wait until Saturday by when the touch up paint will be dry. Richard
was inspired by his painting and our Strategic Planning discussion
held across the hangar by setting to and painting the cockpit edges of CCY
and FGR (Ed: In grey obvs!).
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| Open canopy! The scene in the hangar after Richard's painting frenzy |
By
now members were starting to slip away followed closely by Richard.
Colin and I tidied up, packed up, and locked up, by about 1530. Of
course the sky was starting to brighten and the cloudbase lifted as we
started the drive home.
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| Andy, in a magnanimous mood, leaves his second sandwich and a banana for the Saturday crew when they arrive (Ed: I am sure that they will be nicely ripe by then!) |
No
flying today but good preparatory work on the winch and glider maintenance progressed for when we can soar again FXB's annual inspection
will continue on Saturday with a focus on the second wing.
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