Spurred on by a weather forecast that promised a lovely flying day, a small, but purposeful, collective of club members gathered shortly after 08:00 to ready the equipment for the days gliding. Early morning mist was burning off as the sun did its thing, and the ground equipment was soon DI’d and readied for use. The collective then realised that no one present was signed up to supervise hangar movements, so retired to the Clubhouse for an early cup of tea. No sooner was the kettle on when the grownup’s arrived, with the requisite qualifications to supervise the hangar movements, so tea was abandoned, and the aircraft were being walked up to the western end of the field by 09:30, with the first launch shortly after 10:00.
Duty Instructor Martin Woolner looked after the mornings 2-seat training, with Steve Westlake continuing to work through the training list in the afternoon, supported by CFI Stuart, James Flory and Simon Leeson at various points throughout the day, with James and Simon sharing tug duties too. The instructors, as ever, were kept very busy with 2-seat training - in addition to regular club members, it’s good to see some people who have recently enjoyed trial lessons with DSGC coming back to the club with a view to sampling much more of what gliding in general, and the club in particular, have got to offer. Today’s trial flights were predominantly flown by James Smart, with Simon also helping out, and spanned the full age spectrum, from 12 years old to a 91 year old gentleman Fred Packer (having flown over 23,000 hours in various aircraft including Javelin, Canberra, Brittania and Hastings) and now enjoying his first flight in over 25 years. As the morning progressed and conditions showed more thermal promise, several private gliders appeared to join the club fleet at the launch point and flight times started to creep up commensurate with the conditions.
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Congratulations to Josh Batchelor converting to Junior (Andy Batchelor)
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Under the tutorage of Martin Woolner, junior club member Josh Batchelor (16) completed his spin refresher training in the Perkoz and, after a check flight and solo on the K21, was converted on to the single seat Junior, completing 2 further solo flights.
Early afternoon, we watched with a mixture of surprise and incredulity as a privately-owned Robinson R44 helicopter made an approach to North Hill. Initially, some people thought the helicopter may have suffered some form of malfunction and was making an emergency landing, but this turned out not to be the case, and the geographically challenged pilot flew right over the launch point, down the winch run and came to the low hover outside the hanger before realising he was not, in fact, at Dunkeswell, and made a hasty departure to the east, eventually landing at his intended destination. The matter was pursued by the CFI and the club flight safety team and I’m sure lessons learnt will be promulgated soon, but for now, this potentially serious incident demonstrates the need for lookout and vigilance at all times. A salutary lesson in ‘expect the unexpected’…….
With just over 50 launches for the day, and numbers onsite dwindling, the aircraft were returned the hangar by 17:30. Overall, a very rewarding flying day. As ever, it’s impossible to thank everyone individually for their efforts in supporting gliding today, but special thanks to Sally Hender for spending the day in the greenhouse that is Launch Control, while the rest of us enjoyed the sun outdoors, and Oscar Leeson who, in the absence of any immediately available winch drivers, volunteered to help out with winching duties ‘for an hour’ but in the end, stayed on for the full afternoon. - Andy and Josh Batchelor
