My apologies for falling off the horse – back up and running – it’s a pity Uniform Lima can’t get re-hinged that quickly!
Iggy filed this for Wednesday 19/09.
Tuesday was a good thermal day. Light winds, well spaced Cu and a cloudbase rising to 3500 at Matamata. All seen from the office window! Damn! Wednesday (19 Sep 12) was forecast to be similar to Tuesday. Good! You know the rest of the story …. Yes - the high cover developed more than predicted and a little “feature” moved in preventing thermal activity. However, BZA burst into life at 2pm and Roger in GJ was followed by Neil Raymond in XP. Both took 2500 tows and made for the ridge. Roger reported: “Great time over at the ridge in softish conditions I have to say but a wonderful 1.30 flight. Pity more did not turn up to enjoy the potential the day actually offered in the end. Neil also had a wonderful ride over there in XP. We both came back well satisfied young? men.”
As for the tow pilot - BZA was washed and was returned to the hangar prior to gliders landing and I got back to the office also well satisfied. As for the Duty Instructor – Ralph Gore got to run two wings!
So, to the weekend:
A great, summer-like weekend in many respects with Saturday chalking up 20 slots on the time sheet and Sunday 14!
I wasn’t there Saturday but Julian filed the following for me:
An outstanding spring day with Tony Davies completing 20 tows!
Our very committed new Student, Pieter Bronkhorst, arrived 20 minutes early and had a1 hour flight in the morning and 80 minutes later in the afternoon. The thermals were going 4 to 5 knots to 4,000 ft by mid-afternoon.
A big welcome home goes to Phil Smith, who completed his BFR in fine style and flew VW for the first time in 18 months.
Stuart Wilson & Dave Reed both flew WW, with Dave ending up at the top of the by then waning thermal, putting much more experienced pilots to shame. Our other new member, Mark Shrimpton,(formerly with Tauranga he has joined us after a time out), flying with Mark Drayson showed good skills. The Duo Discus was also enjoying the day, with Dave Dennison getting to spend some time with Steve Care in his new acquisition. Fin completed the roundup of high performance singles and Evey Belworthy had a flight with Julian in the K13 at the end of the day.
That’s 3 new members folks Pieter, Mark and Evey (now officially a member after all her contributions!) – that a great start to the goal of 15!
Sunday saw the return of NI (just – I missed the Drury off-ramp listening to something intensely intellectual on the radio – doh!!), and a bit of repositioning at the end of the day meaning XP is in hangar 15 for a while!
Mark S got us off the board with 2 circuits in PC then disappeared for his first solo for a while in PC – 3 nice landings and some good thermalling go under his belt for the day. Bob and Steve got YL into it after a circuit – disappearing for an hour and 40. The followed a rush of single seaters XP (Julian), VM, (Paul K), RY (Alan), and NB (Jacopo) all got away for hour plus stints.
PC then took Dennis and son Hamish Crequer away for another 1hour 26 completing its workout for the day. Evey and Steve Care managed 17 minutes in the K13, and Mark rounded out his busy weekend with a flight in YL with Bob.
Were off!!!
PC
