Wednesday 29th May

Beautiful warm sunny day, with themals to about 4000 feet during the middle of the day. Vic Hatfield flew cirrus QV and Chris Bowman flew the club's LS7 and they had a good old chat to each other on the radio in the process.

Ray Ash, who will be 86 in a couple of weeks had the best soaring flight in the two seater, accompanied by Allan Buttenshaw. Ray said he hadn't flown an aerotow launch for about 20 years, but it was like riding a bike - you don't forget. He had  never flown a fibreglass glider before although he owns or part owns about 5 wooden ones! Plastic presented no problems for Ray, and Allan said he was just a passenger in the back seat!

Tim Brooks achieved his first solo flight in a glider, although it has to be said he has a lot of hours in Cessnas. We think he is hooked!! Congratulations Tim.

More of the same tomorrow with any luck.

Tuesday 28 May

Not as sunny, but a better soaring day today than yesterday. John K and Tim B continued their training with Allan Buttenshaw - the best soaring flight of the day was 43 minutes. I had fun flying the tug. Work proceeded on the foundations of the new hangar. Not much else to report.
Jenny

Club Activity 27th May

A sunny but rather stable day, very cold in the morning, but quite warm in the afternoon.

Present at the club were Harry and Wendy Medlicott, and visitors from Gulgong John Kingsland and Ray Ash, and Tim Brooks, an experienced power pilot who is trying gliding.

Geoff Neely flew the tug in the morning, while I flew with both Tim  and John - thanks Geoff - but in the afternoon, Allan Buttenshaw arrived to take over the instructing for the week, while I am relegated to the tug!

Harry and Wendy flew in their Arcus, mainly to test instruments.

Allan did a couple more flights with each of the trainees - they were able to delay their descent slightly but I think the longest flight was about 30 min.

A good day for practising take-offs and landings!

Anzac Day

Anzac day was a day of highs and lows. We got started early, and after three flights with me, Bill Keats re-soloed - he had only done one solo on a previous visit some months before.

Hi second solo flight was so successful, that we sent him off for another two!! Well done Bill.

Fellow trainee Ben Newlands assisted bill with glider retrieval and wing running, as you do, but then disaster struck, and the main wheel tyre in the G103 went flat. We attempted to pump it up and fill it with slime, but to no avail. The other grob was away at Bathurst, so we got the twin astir out and continued with it. Unfortunately after a couple of flights, the tailwheel tyre fell off the rim on the twin astir, so we had another tyre to fix.

This put paid to the training for the day, and unfortunately Ben Newlands missed out on several flights. He had to leave next day but has promised to return in a couple of months.






Hans and Simon Bleuler visited again, and Simon flew in the Junior, and is now well on the way to getting his C certificate.

Hans was able to transition into the Junior the next day.

Many thanks to Graham Heagney, our tug pilot with infinite patience and ability to fix things, we were able to patch the tube from the Grob IUR and get it going again the next day.

Both Simon and Hans had several soaring flights in the Grob and the Junior and both are progressing well.