I imagine most members would have had a drop of rain overnight and will be aware that the weather has not been too sunny? We, the hardy Friday crew, hoped for the best today and turned up in whatever sun emerged before the bank of cloud to the east to prepare for what flying we could wring from the day. ‘We’ in this case being our instructor, Barry McCarthy and his offsider, Garrett Russell (sporting a horrid cold); tuggie Karl Bodi; and ‘the rest of us’ ... John Nestor, Ken Mitchell, Bob Hainsworth, Shane Tuck, Arthur Mailey and his friend Ray Griffiths.

 

It appears we caught Karl napping so while he caught up with us, we organised gliders GYK, CQC and GJY nicely on runway 12 and sat down to wait for Karl to join us. 

 

John, Ken and Bob took initial launches in each of the gliders mentioned – in respective order – before Barry and Shane went off for a check flight. At that point, none of the flight times raised great hopes though Bob eventually returned with the day’s best effort of 30 minutes. Even Arthur and his friend, Ray, could not improve on that time as strengthening winds ripped any thermal activity to pieces.  

 

All this time we kept a careful eye on the cloud and showers developing to the east under some rather dark clouds for fear of incurring Tony’s wrath for letting SPA get a drop of rain in its precious skin. 

 

Eventually, we were forced to give in after our seventh flight landed, ie, Barry and me trying to improve on our 17 minutes last week. We succeeded but I won’t say by how much! 

 

Once rain had forced us to retire, approaching too quickly for us to hangar fly any of the gliders,  we faced the drudgery of walking our aircraft back home for drying off and swaddling in their pyjamas yet again. At least a few of us got some exercise.

 

Weather gods please note that we are getting tired of this interruption to our flying days. Putting damp covers on damp gliders is not fun but we completed final checks of the site before we settled down to a drink and a review of the day before heading home. 

 

Barry took care to ensure Kevin’s ‘lost’ receipt was used when I issued a receipt during the closing stages of the day so all was well there, too. 

 

We departed before the next showers reached us leaving very satisfied kangaroos in charge of 06 for the night.

 

Best wishes to all hoping to fly over the weekend. 

 

Stay safe,