Weekend Ops

It has been a bit quiet for the last week, but I did one launch last Friday - Dave Shorter practicing for the Gunnedah airshow.

On Saturday morning early, I towed Ian Downs in IUR to Gunnedah, to operate with the winch before and after the airshow. One of my scariest ever flights as there was lots of low cloud, and at one point I thought it was going to sock in behind and that I wouldn't get back to Keepit. Turned back, still with glider in tow, but just past the Carrols saw there was a large blue area to the north, so we decided to go around the other side of the cloud to try to get in to Gunnedah. It is surprisingly difficult to find when it is covered in cloud! Found the road and followed it, Ian did a great job coping with descending on aerotow, and with my speed changes. Because it was so cold and humid I was very worried about carby ice when I had to throttle back to descend with the glider on behind. Every time you use the carby heat, black smoke emerges from the exhast. Called inbound to Gunnedah at 1300ft (500 AGL) and had to descend more than that to get under the cloud on the Aerodrome. Flew downwind along the runway, Ian released and immediately turned onto final and landed. Flying back to Keepit involved a fair bit of scud running too, and I was very happy to be back on the ground.

Later the cloud lifted a bit to about 2000ft AGL, but still solid overcast. At Gunnedah the clouds broke up and the airshow went ahead. Geoff Neely came out to do the rest of the towing. He towed Dave Shorter to Gunnedah to do a fly past just after the airshow, but the jet on the JS1 didn't start for some reason, and Dave ended up landing there. Undeterred,  he took a winch launch, started the motor and flew back to Keepit. West of the Carrols there was some soaring to be had, but it stayed overcast for most of the day at Keepit. I postponed an Air Experience flight that was booked in until the next day.

On Sunday Chris Carr and Charlie Szpitalak turned up for briefing but there were the only ones there. It was a much better day, old and sunny. The only flying to be done was to launch Dave Shorter to fly to Gunnedah again (the airshow happened again on Sunday) and the AEF flight. I said I would do the AEF if Chris wanted to go home, which he did, but he got the glider ready for me ready to take off, which was great.

The day turned out very soarable with plenty of cu, although not very high. While I was soaring with Lewis, the AEF person, Dave Shorter soared back from Gunnedah, so Lewis was able to soar with another glider. In the same flight, he was also able to soar with eagles and pelicans! His comment was "Cool!"

After landing with Lewis I pulled the ASH26E out and went for a small flight, but by that time most of the lift was gone.

Quite a good day of gliding for the time of year!