Today was always going to be a bit different as we were lucky enough to have the lovely Andrea Ormsby visit us from the BBC Spotlight programme. The main reason was to help us promote ‘Women in Gliding’. Only about 5% of glider pilots are women and as a small club open to all we have always been keen to attract more women into gliding.
The forecast was very marginal and with the wind and low cloud it was decided that conditions were not good enough to fly our trial flight visitors and we also cancelled our scouts evening flying.
In order for Andrea’s visit to be of some use to her, despite the weather, she filmed us throughout the morning, from the briefing given by Duty Instructor Mike Jardine, getting the gliders out, putting on parachutes, and Mike briefing Val Kiely prior to her training flight. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great but a small weather window opened up and so we were able to launch Andrea who filmed her very brief flight. Andrea then filmed Val on her (also very brief) training flight. After interviewing Val and myself the weather got steadily worse and with the wind strength, low cloud, and drizzle the decision was taken to stop operations.
 |
| Andrea filming Val whilst the hangar is unpacked. |
 |
| Spotting a possible weather window approaching I Daily Inspect the K13. |
 |
| Andrea films herself with Mike. |
 |
| Andrea enjoying her flight. |
 |
I film Andrea returning from her flight, I wonder if my
footage will be good enough for the programme though? |
 |
A smiling Andrea who thoroughly enjoyed her
flight returning with the K13. |
 |
| Andrea filming Val preparing to fly. |
Whilst the filming was taking place Colin and Gavin worked on the Puchacz in the hangar and were accompanied by Neil, a prospective new member, and Steve Lewis. Mike Bennett showed our Fencing Contractor where we needed a new fence. |
| The Puchacz getting some TLC. |
As always the Dartmoor members made Andrea very welcome and helped flight operations to make her day a success.
I'm not sure when the completed piece will appear on Spotlight so keep an eye out for it.
Steve Fletcher
No comments:
Post a Comment