We are in meteorological autumn, and the aftermath of Hurricane Erin is bringing us occluded, warm, cold, and then warm fronts in quick succession, approaching from the southwest at frontal speeds of 30 to 35 knots. More Wednesday Waders than Wednesday Wavers then. A time not to feel guilty at being late on parade for an appointment with the practice nurse in my local surgery, and in the afternoon departing early to Cadleigh, Ivybridge to give a talk on "Modern Gliding" to the South Hams MG Car Club.
Time for the Waders to get stuck into some jobs in the hangar, clubhouse, and the Motor Transport hangar. I brought my strimmer to cut the grass around our "Learn to fly a glider" signs which indicate the way to our club.
Richard, the Duty BI, cancelled our visitors by telephone whilst the rain was hammering down on the clubhouse roof. Then Richard revealed that he had visited Tesco en route. Cue Richard and Peter busy in the kitchen producing a late breakfast of bacon and sausages sarnies. Yummy! Thanks, Richard.
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| Chef Richard, who was assisted by Sous-chef Peter, starts the production line of tasty bacon butties |
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| Despite professing to having already eaten breakfast John Osment succumbed to a bacon butty |
Then Steve Lewis turned his hand to removing the Polish standard format Bigraphs (CC) on the nose, fin and rudder of the Puchacz using my small heat gun. It had been drawn to our attention that a Ventus flying out of Lasham has the competition number CC. A clash. So we had Trigraph stickers made up with HCC for the fin and rudder as per the BGA recommendation.
The Trigraph mounting team, Steve, John Allan and I, set about measuring and debating the alignment of the new letters. Satisfied, we set about in good Blue Peter fashion with soapy water, squeegees, and Fablon (well, vinyl letters).
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| Steve carefully aligns the transfer sheet into position on the port side after carefully measuring and marking |
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| Now the starboard side. After a team effort of removing the backing sheet, John applies the finishing touches |
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| The Puchacz, resplendent in its new livery while the Trigraph team check the port side |
Back in the clubhouse, there were extensive discussions on the new Sailplane Pilot Licence, the associated medical standards, and the underpinning national legislation that comes into force at the end of the month.
Heavy showers continued throughout the day. Just when you thought it was brightening up down came the rain. By early afternoon, members had started to pack up and leave. John, Steve and I were the last, pleased with our work on the Puchacz's new livery.
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| During the afternoon it started to look nice on several occasions. Thirty seconds after I took this photo, it was hammering it down with rain. |
The talk to the MG car Club went down well with lots of follow-up questions and interest. The grandfather of Rowan Guest, a recent One Day Course candidate, was in the audience WhatsApping like a teenager to show Rowan what he was listening to. It's a small world! In lieu of a speaker's fee, the MGCC made a donation of £35 to our club. As they say, "every little bit helps" ***.
Gavin Short
*** Despite what the Tesco marketeers would like you to think, this expression, with slightly different wording ( everything helps ), dates from the late 1500s.
