A Sunday and flyable weather?.......
Clearly some members had decided that the lure of Christmas shopping or present wrapping was much more exciting than the potential for sitting in the Clubhouse drinking and eating, and lamenting the weather outside, although to be fair Cheryl and Graham had a captive audience for their Christmas food menu.
Clearly some members had decided that the lure of Christmas shopping or present wrapping was much more exciting than the potential for sitting in the Clubhouse drinking and eating, and lamenting the weather outside, although to be fair Cheryl and Graham had a captive audience for their Christmas food menu.
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| Mark's face when he arrived and saw all the kit still in the hangar (Mike Sl) |
The arrival of "Mr Motivator" (Mark C) asking
in a focused polite and questionable way (well actually there was quite
an expletive word count in same) stirred the small group of members
into action and soon gliders were being taken out of the hanger to be
prepared for flying - with the limited numbers it was decided to only
use the two K21s and the launch point was set up in the North East
corner of the field.
Meanwhile a count up of winch drivers did not take long and despite the worry that the "Scrooge of Christmas Present" (our Club Treasurer quite understandably trying to protect Club funds) might well have had a different view it was decided to use the Pawnee rather than winch .
But then someone opened the Advent Door marked 'Winch Driver' (well actually the Clubhouse door on to the field) and through stepped Jonathan who had decided to come out for some fresh air and ended up winching all morning.
Meanwhile a count up of winch drivers did not take long and despite the worry that the "Scrooge of Christmas Present" (our Club Treasurer quite understandably trying to protect Club funds) might well have had a different view it was decided to use the Pawnee rather than winch .
But then someone opened the Advent Door marked 'Winch Driver' (well actually the Clubhouse door on to the field) and through stepped Jonathan who had decided to come out for some fresh air and ended up winching all morning.
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| Let's get going (Mike Sl) |
Winch launches continued
during the morning with at one stage the winch deciding to 'not work' -
those present saw the apparent launch failure and commented "That is an
interesting height" only to find that it was nothing to do with Santa's
Little Helper in the back seat pulling the release !
Whilst the winch was kindly sorted by Mike R, aerotow launches started with Mark C and James continuing with the latter's Basic Instructor training - and again Mark C had a present for James of a simulated rope break early in the aerotow after which Mark C decided that James had earned the opportunity for a higher launch height.
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| Landing back after a simulated rope break (Mike Sl) |
With so few on the
ground to keep flying a decision was made to stop for lunch during which
the orographic cloud, which had threatened to get lower during the day,
had clearly become lower.
One more aerotow and one more winch launch (which was aborted due to the low cloud in and around the field) and it was time to stop flying having got various, sadly not all, members up into the air, well overdue smiles evident from same.
Thank you to those members who gave their time to help others fly, appreciated by those of us who did so.
Not a Christmas Cracker of a day but as noted in the blog for last Thursday, unless you are at North Hill you will not fly...- Mike Sl (ed:getting into the Christmas spirit)
One more aerotow and one more winch launch (which was aborted due to the low cloud in and around the field) and it was time to stop flying having got various, sadly not all, members up into the air, well overdue smiles evident from same.
Thank you to those members who gave their time to help others fly, appreciated by those of us who did so.
Not a Christmas Cracker of a day but as noted in the blog for last Thursday, unless you are at North Hill you will not fly...- Mike Sl (ed:getting into the Christmas spirit)
And a big thank you to Rowan and Mark C for getting the new webcams up and running, you can find them on the DSGC website with a latest view and an optional time lapse through daylight hours. Rowan is also making some progress with resurrecting the North Hill weather station data. - J&P
