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Flat
tyre Sunday |
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06-Jun-15
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Today's Duty crew consisted of
Tony Sorensen (Duty Instructor), Dan Kershaw (Tug
Pilot), Kevin Rodda (Air Experience Instructor) and Garrett
Russell (Duty Pilot). Along with David Tan (Student
Pilot) and Dan's friend Jasmine, we readied GYK and
headed for RWY12 where the sky was blue and the wind
was fairly strong and
cool.
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Garrett,
Tony, David, Dan and Jasmine.
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Soon after we were joined by a
lovely family group who accompanied Jordan Hale and
John Remington-Garney to the airfield today to share
the fun of their Air Experience Flights. Alan Graham
arrived just at the right time to assist with the
ferrying of the crowd and IKW to the flight
line.
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New member David Tan continued
his training under Tony's instruction with three
flights in GYK today (14 minutes from 3000ft,
12minutes from 2000ft and 14 minutes from 200ft
respectively).
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I flew the two 3500ft Air
Experience flights in IKW with passengers Jordan Hale
and John Remington-Garney (both 26 minutes from 3500
ft). It was Jordan's first gliding experience while
John had been a gliding instructor in the UK but had
not piloted a glider for over twenty years. They say its
like "getting back on a horse" and John
proved this by doing most of the flying between
release from the tug and joining circuit for landing.
The family "rent-a-crowd" had a great time
with none more excited that John's young grandson who
was a delight to have as our guest and looked like he
was heading home for about a four hour nap after all
the
excitement.
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Jordan's
wife and son shared the ground retrieve with him after
his flight..
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John
and Jordan after their flights.
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Operations were dormant from
1:00 pm to 2:30pm as a result of the tyre deflating on
the Blanik's main wheel. It was eventually retrieved
from RWY12 and tied down by taking the compressor to
the Blanik to pump up the troublesome leaking tyre
several times during the long tow back to the tie-down
area.
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David
Tan gets a close-up view of the troublesome tyre on
the Blanik's main wheel. .
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The sea-breeze had well and
truly rolled in by the time gliding activities were resumed at
RWY12 at around 2.30 pm ... where the sixth and last
flight of the day was shared by Alan Graham and
Garrett Russell in IKW (12 minutes from 2500ft). Many
thanks to Alan and Garrett for doing a "hangar
flight" ... another long tow back from RW12
wasn't being looked forward to after the Blanik
saga!
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Alan,
Garrett and Tony.
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Today's
statistics:
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GYK =
40 minutes from 3 flights
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IKW =
64 minutes from 3 flights
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TOTAL =
104 minutes from 6 flights
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As we
were packing up for the day we were pleased to be able
to view a large number of Mustang cars that were being
photographed with the Mustang aircraft on the taxiway
in front of the Warplane Museum's
hangar.
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Please
remember ... we are flying again tomorrow (Monday
Public Holiday).
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Tony,
Dan and I should have camped at the airfield overnight
tonight as we are all back on duty again tomorrow morning!
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Kevin
Rodda
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for the Sunday Crew
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