Thursday arrived with a strong NW wind and low cloud about 200' above the field. A good crowd of Thursday regulars had turned up more in hope than expectation. Julie had the café open by 8:45 so tea and chat followed for some time.
Stewart Henshall and Kevin Fairburn arrived and disappeared into the Simulator room to continue the work on installing the new force-feedback joystick with the linkage manufactured by Peter Smith. After a lot of experiments, Chris Wool was invited to have a go and declared it a great improvement. There is more work to do to finalize all the settings but the performance is very encouraging.
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| The new linkage for the force-feedback joystick (Stewart Henshall) |
By lunch time the cloudbase had improved enough to try a winch launch. It was declared a no-solo day due to the wind strength and variable low cloudbase. Mark Courtney and Guy Adams did the first met flight and confirmed the ridge was working with cloudbase around 900feet.
With the wind on the ridge approx 30kts north westerly, Chris and Guy Adams proceeded to work through the list to get everyone flown - eleven in all. Big thanks to Chris and Guy for persevering in the challenging conditions. It can't have been that comfortable in the backseat at times. Eleven pilots with currency restored. All kit was safely put to bed by 16:30 however the lights were still burning in the simulator room - Great work Stewart, Kevin and Peter. This is becoming an ever more useful asset to the club especially in the difficult winter months. - John Borland
