The
10 flights we achieved on Saturday could so
easily have been a no-flight non-event.
Late on
Friday, rostered
tuggie Karl Bodi hurt his back and advised
that he was unable to fly. A flurry of phone
calls and emails that night and Saturday
morning,
unseen and unheard by most members, resulted
in a two tuggie solution, but one that could
only be confirmed after duty instructor
Garrett Russell had already left for the
airfield. Imagine my relief when Kevin Rodda
called with the good news that Steve Bowtell
could definitely fly for the morning and
John Knox could do the afternoon.
This
was not just two tuggies with some idle time
on their hands: Steve was available only
until 1100 hrs (and after working Friday
night),
when he had to go and take command of a Tilt
Train to a distant destination; Knoxy came
straight to the airfield from a speaking
commitment at Caboolture’s major meeting
venue. We all owe a big-hearted THANK YOU to
these two fine pilots and gentlemen.
After
another flurry of phone calls to ask our
three booked passengers if they could come
to the airfield earlier than planned, the
day was quickly organised into two sessions:
the morning, before Steve had to go at 1100
hrs;
and the afternoon, after Knoxy finished his
other engagement at 1300 hrs.
Duty Pilot Rupert Perry got busy and the
first flight launched off RWY06 at 0946 hrs.
Duty
Pilot Rupert Perry looking busy
That
flight was the first of three training
circuits for Theo Mus with instructor
Garrett Russell, who gave him an impediment
which he overcame with élan.
Garrett
Russell impeding Theo Mus - fortunately it was
his
instruments, not his eyes, that he covered
All
was going well until we discovered that one
of the AEF passengers was a hefty 109kg -
not a good fit in the IS-28 with duty AEI
Kevin Rodda! Fortunately Bert Persson was
able to be prised out of his favourite
second-breakfast seat at the other end of
Aerodrome Road (those aren’t golden arches
- they’re highly stylised wings) and all
pax flew within safe limits.
Bert
Persson and AEF passenger Ivan Wall - yin and yang
Bert
was actually at the field to help Alex
Horvath and Speedy rig Alex’s Ka-6 for its
post-Form 2 check flight, and this was the
fifth and last launch of the morning session
at 1107 hrs (thanks
again to Steve for squeezing your departure
time to the limit).
Bernard
Gonsalves (centre) shows XOF's new tail
feather tape to Peter Pretorius and Alex
Horvath (owner).
Speedy
must be a very slow checker of flying
characteristics, because that evaluation
flight took him two hours and thirty-five
minutes. Actually, he came back towards the
circuit much earlier than that, but a call
from the Pie Cart sent him off again as
there was no point in landing until a new
tuggie was available to launch Alex.
The
five launches with Knoxy in charge of SPA
were more Blanik training for Theo, a Ka-6
launch for Alex which missed the lift Speedy
swears he left up there, and hangar flights
which also became flights-of-the-day for the
two club gliders.
Rupert
and Speedy frolicked in CQC for 1hr 45mns under
the dark line of a cloud street sweeping in
from the east, later joined for 37 minutes
by Garrett Russell and Theo’s papa (French
for dad) in GYK.
Stats
for the day:
GYK
5 flights 1:30
CQC
3 flights 2:36
XOF
2 flights 2:49
And
in the gap between sessions, the crew had
plenty of time to disable the air
conditioning and radios in the Magna and
Falcon, as previously advised by Kevin
Rodda, and to marvel at his new watch/wrist
PC which makes this kind of superior time
management possible:
Rupert
was keen to test whether Kevin's watch did
actually receive SMS messages that could be
read easily in direct sunlight!
