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DRB&B
Saturday |
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10-May-14 |
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Michael
and Dave prepare GYK for the first of their four
training flights. |
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| The
photo above (which was emailed to members by me from
YCAB at 10:13 am this morning with the comment
..."we are at RWY12 and Mike Burnett has at
present got his own instructor, ground crew, tug
pilot, glider and tug!) told the story of today's
gliding operations. Maybe I was being a bit too
subtle, it was actually meant to be an invitation
for other student pilots to join
us! |
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| We
operated from RWY12 all day and, despite us only
having the one glider at the flight line, we
experienced lengthy delays several times where we
had to wait for landing aircraft (three downwind at
the same time on several occasions) as well as
multiple aircraft lining up in readiness for
take-off. |
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| Dave
Donald put Michael Burnett through the hoops with a
series of four training flights that included boxing the
stream, flying with instruments covered, etc. |
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| I
have always thought that Yankee Kilo flies the best
of any Blanik that I have been in. So I eagerly
grabbed the
opportunity to take a flight in her at 11:40 to give
Mike and Dave a break and to satisfy my curiosity as
to whether there was any lift under the relatively
low cloud base just to the west of the airfield
where some cumulus clouds had started to
form. |
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| Before
departing, I
made sure that Mike and Dave had agreed to radio me
should I be "up
for too long" and they felt that I was
"outstaying my welcome". |
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| Famous last words
however ... I was back on deck 15 minutes later from a 2400
feet launch. Somehow, sharing the longest flight of the
day with one of Mike's training flights (taken by
him with instruments covered and from a 2000 feet
launch) did not provide me with much consolation! |
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| Peter
John visited us at the flight line, as did Bernard
Gonsalves (Speedy) who self-launched in
his K14 motorglider for some local
soaring just before
noon. |
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| When
Dave and Mike were behind the tug during the last
launch of the day (12:40 pm) they could see rain
coming in from Moreton Island so it became a hangar
flight to allow us to pack up early. |
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| Speedy
commented at the Macca's afternoon tea
"de-briefing" that what lift that he had
found had disappeared instantly at the same time as
our last Blanik launch. He had however managed to clock up a
one hour flight (a bit further to the west than we
could get to in the Blanik). |
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| There was a total of 5 flights for 1:07 in GYK
for the second day in a row ... (today it was two
flights at 15 minutes, two at 13 minutes and one at
11 minutes = 67 minutes). |
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| And
why was it a DRB&B Day? |
| That
comes from a text message exchange between Garrett
Russell and me at around 8:50 am ... |
| GJR
- "Many
people there?" |
| KJR
- "Donald,
Rodda, Bodi and Burnett" |
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|
We
could have done with more than a little help from
some very clever people and/or experienced
"charades" players when our tug pilot
Karl Bodi was giving us this signal from the
cockpit of SPA during yet another delay in
launching.
Karl
later explained that he was shaping
his hands like a "meatball" to signify
that there were parachutes descending above the
airfield.
Would anyone have worked that
out?
Dave thought it resembled a form of European
insult!
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| Kevin
Rodda
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