It was one of those lovely April spring days where you start off de-icing the car windscreen, having to slap on the sunscreen at lunchtime followed by lighting the log burner once you get home in the evening! Despite the sunny but uninspiring forecast of blue skies with limited soaring the clubhouse was full at duty instructor Mike Sloggett's morning briefing. With several Juniors present, due to the Easter holidays, the average age of those present took a nose dive nearly as severe as the American stock exchange!
Launch point ready (Mark Layton)
With yet another long walk to the west end it was an initially a slow start as both Euro Fox's were in use due to a broken winch from yesterday. With Mike, Ron Johns, James Flory and Wooly sharing the three available 2 seaters the long left hand side of the flying list was steadily worked through.
A full complement of working ground vehicles (Shaun Dayman)
Flights times in the generally dead sky were relatively short as expected but things got better by mid afternoon when the odd thermal were present if you could find them. There were a few flights of 30 minutes and the one private glider of Eric Alston G29 managed just over an hour.
No Winch but Bumblebee with Alan Rappaport helping out (Shaun Dayman)
Achievement of the day was Kevin Fairburn getting signed off solo aerotow before completing one on his own. In addition new junior member Jack Sewell was keen to get involved and was soon doing most of the basic ground tasks.
Simon Jordy and Robert Lee looking after Mark's tug duty (Shaun Dayman)
Behind the scenes George and his two apprentices completed the Perkoz's annual and 1000 hr service before rigging and weighing it and Stirling fixed the broken winch late afternoon with both ready for the weekend.
In all a good day was had by all. - Mark Layton
