After much prompting from the erstwhile editor of  "Keepsoaring" updates of "This week @LKSC" follows

Graham Rowe, a fang farrier, late of Armidale and now of Sydney soloed recently ..

as did Peter Murfett (a QF FO) in the Junior after a couple of days with Garry Speight

A great improvement to the overall appearance and facility of the club is the new entrance road .
Sam Clift is seen here at the start of play with  his little toy preparing the old surface for the new road base.

...the road base going on...

....the finished car park...

...and the road down to the clubhouse.
These pics really don't do the job justice so why not come up (or down for that matter )
and have a drive on it for your self

In the meantime, more visitors to LKSC. From the left Phil Endicott, Ron Cameron,
Anthony Bailey from the UK and Dave & Jenne Goldsmith from Victoria with their Ka6.

A recent addition to the tug pilot ranks is Marty Kahout (L) explaining the finer points of the Callair
to Peter Szell from Adelaide who was over for some instruction and who will be back next year. 

More recently, Simon Corcoran and Milan Petkovic visited us.
Simon is in Australia on a working holiday from Ireland, soloed in the Puchatek
and Twin Astir and then the Junior.
Captain Milan operates out of HKG with Cathay Pacific on B747's and had a good week
pushing the LS 6 around in preparation for another 1 000 km in Namibia. 

And finally, we welcome our new "summer tuggie"
Luke Kingston Murphy who started with us this week.
Luke follows in the foot steps of great summer tuggies at Keepit and I am sure all
members will make Luke feel at home.

May 4 day weekend at Keepit

Lots of people at Keepit for the four day weekend, but mostly I think to help out at the working bee on Saturday.

Ian Downs was the duty instructor on Friday and I got back into the tug. It was last August since I last flew it so I did three take offs and landings before towing, and Phil Anderton was present to revalidate me.  Ended up doing 11 tows, which was good fun.

The Puchatek was the weapon of choice for instructional purposes and Greg Nelson from Tamworth had three flights with Ian. Jay Anderton and David Bull launched in LS6 and Discus 2 respectively and disappeared for quite some time. Matthew Atkinson self launched in the DG 400 HDB and did not come back till late, but confessed to using the iron thermal once or twice.

It was not a particularly easy day, with most of the good clouds being just out of reach for a 2000ft aero tow, but it seemed that those who made it to the clouds had a pleasant couple of hours soaring.

Chris Madden, ex Caribou pilot, flew with Ian Downs a couple of times in the Puchatek in order to learn more about thermalling, but the tuggie obviously didn't tow them to the right place - sorry guys.

Later in the afternoon, about 3 o' clock-ish, the clouds spread out a bit, and it started to look a bit dead, however John McCloud, Vic Hatfield in respective Cirri (?) launched and flew about for ages, reaching 7000ft, and didn't come back till nearly 5 'o clock. Chris Madden took another launch with Allbuts this time and managed a good hour. Funny sort of a day.

On Saturday, it was all hands on deck with the working bee, but Allan made sure the less experienced pilots who had come along, got to fly. Lots of chainsawing, mowing, earthmoving, repairing, plumbing, painting and cleaning got done. Flying wise, Allan flew with Chris Madden and Bruce Paulson in the Puchatek and then they both did some solo flights. Andrew Rankmore did the towing.

After all the work, we had a great Chez Dircks - good company, excellent food. Music by Brad Edwards. Thanks Bob and Jan.

On Sunday we had an excellent talk by Bruce Taylor about thermal structure, and how to centre them - can't wait to try to put it in to practice before I forget it all again.  Andrew Rankmore had to leave early so Jay Anderson stepped into the breach as tuggie.

 Lyndon Waddell turned up for a couple of flights but had to fly early so he could get home in time to do his school homework. Allan Buttenshaw flew with Lyndon in the Puchatek, and I flew with Chris Madden in the Twin Astir. As both these pilots had done about 6 solos, we covered the altimeters and gave them their A certificate test flights, which both managed perfectly. Chris flew the twin astir so nicely, I decided to put him into the Junior for his first single seater flight.

No one else bothered to fly except Matthew Atkinson in HDB. There was hardly any lift about, but nice and smooth for training flights.

Sunday night Ian and Joy put on a Barbecue, and we had another very convivial evening in the Club House. We were joined by a father and son team of Qantas Pilots, who were to do a mini-course with Ian for the first half of the week. They seemed to enjoy our company, but sadly the rain set in on Monday, and they decided to come back later in the year.

Jenny Ganderton

Our  Super Slovakian, Tomas the Tuggie, returned  from  Indonesia on Sunday
after interviews with Susi Air for a position as First Officer on Cessna Caravans.

On his return he received word that he had been successful and he returns to Indonesia
in May to commence training. Tomas' last weekend at Keepit will be over Easter

Good onya mate!!

3 happy AEF's with Al Giles

Colin and Marilyn Mercer and Colin Hardy enjoyed great flights with Al last week
in perfect late summer / early autumn Keepit conditions

Another visitor to LK - an R44 picking up a bit of fuel after a stop at the Dam construction site

For no other reason that I think it is a great shot of a Cessna 310 engine. Going into
Tamwoth last Friday

A very happy Bruce Paulson (R) after his first solo !!

Mathew Minter , newly returned from Taiwan was Bruce's instructor on Monday for this
significant event.

Well done Bruce !!

After much prodding from the erstwhile editor of Keepit Soaring, transmission of "the Blog" has resumed.

The break in transmission was caused by a very busy time at the club which is reason itself for continued reports so here goes a summary.

Scott Wines from Southern Cross joined us for a week  in January for a conversion to the Junior and to complete  out landing checks

A smiling Lee Braithwaite after his conversion to the Jantar. Lee has contributed  a considerable  amount of time and energy over the last 10 days in upgrading Flarms and batteries - many thanks for your efforts Lee !

Two of our international members - Jim Staniforth (L) and Paul Roche (R) visited;  the weather was not clement but their presence was most welcome.  

Norbert Gulzynski and his wife (Angelica) came to Lake Keepit via Poland and Norway to progress his cross country  flying.

During  their stay, we had an eclectic mix of nationalities speaking an eclectic mix of  languages - a Pommy speaking Danish, a Pole speaking Norwegian, a Yank speaking Swedish and a Norwegian who could speak the lot, including English - what a night!

Chris Bowman, our Secretary, bought his son along to learn to fly and guess what - he did !!

Sam went solo after 5 days and has joined LKSC as a full time member; well done Sam

LKSC hosted the Grand Prix Qualifying event last week which provided some great racing.

On day 2, LKSC pilots were placed 1st and 2nd flying JS1's and the "happy snap" above shows Brad Edwards (L) and  Bruce Taylor (R)  and in the middle, Todd Clarke the happy JS Australian agent

Andy Smith from the UK has been with us for the a month and in that time has done some heroic flights. 700, 500 and 300kms are grist for the mill for Andy and he has been a welcome guest - hope to see you back next year mate 

Prior to returning to work on Tue 4 Jan, your correspondant spent some time at the Temora  Avation  Museum weighing up the possibility of an addition to the Tug fleet but fuel burn seems a little excessive for our purposes !

After seven and a half years in the making, a nervous Phil Anderton (LKSC Tugmaster)  was at the controls for the first flight of his beautiful RV 7 VH - XPA. The above is a very proud  Phil post first flight - well done mate and here comes Avalon !!

Lake Keepit turned on another cracker day for an Air Experiance Flight for Harley and Etoille.
Harley  is a mate or Bob Dircks i.e. another Citroen nut and  was visiting Bob on their way back to Melbourne.

Our members fom Newcastle, Mark Jones and Ken Williams converted to the Jantar  and enjoyed a couple of good days soaring.

Ken also doubles as a wild life guide for our European guests and assists our tuggie in the pursuit of carp

Ken and Tomas befriended  Stewart, a young galah with a broken wing, and took him into  Waterways wildlife park at Gunnedah for treatment.


2011has the  promise of being a great one for LKSC and I look forward to seeing you here and keeping you up to date via the blog.