The
fifth crew member missing from this photo (Kevin
was the photographer) is Alan Graham, who was
helping Bert Persson try to fix the Blanik’s
flat tyre while Tony, Dan and I prepared for our
two AEF passengers.
Joy
Edmistone celebrated her 80th birthday with her
son Stu McKneil by booking both of them for
their first ever glider flights. And fittingly,
Joy launched into that beautiful sky developing
in the background to score the flight of the day
- 49 minutes of Kevin worrying how she’d
handle the vigorous thermalling and Joy just
yelling for more!
Meanwhile
Bert had given up on the Blanik wheel, which
will require some mid-week work, and launched
his motor glider for what he planned to be a
three hour flight. Alan Graham had to leave
before his own chance to fly. And Simon and
Carlo Brodie agreed that waiting for the Blanik
would be better than attempting mid-training
conversions to the Twin.
So
with no training flights, how did two passengers
turn into four flights for the AEI?
Power
pilot David le Francke called to see if he could
fit in a flight, and ended up talking
enthusiastically about becoming a soaring pilot
as well. And that wasn’t the end of it.
Aero
club president Troy Smith brought his friend
Ceri Owen out to our RWY12 flight line - and
this post-landing smile shows we just might have
another convert to the light side!
But
by early afternoon the thermals and AEF
passengers were all through for the day, leaving
Tony and me with the task of flying IKW back to
the tie downs. In the air we crossed paths with
Bert, and gave him a gift of ten minutes extra
flying while he waited for us to clear RWY06
before he could land back adjacent to his
hangar!
So
the day ended with five flights and 2:44 for the
Twin and 3:10 for Bert’s Atlas.
Not
a bad way to close four days of long weekend
flying!
