With the Friday flying duly cancelled due
to gusty conditions and their expected return
on Saturday, the crew of David Higgs, Lindsay
Mitchell, Steve Chapman as tuggie, myself
as Duty Pilot and Ashton Grieve as DP2 did
not really expect much flying. Regardless,
we had two AEF's booked and so, once
it was confirmed that CQC was remain on the
ground, we DI'ed and towed GYK to runway
24. The first of the guests were early and
so without a cloud in the
sky and the breeze picking up we sent
Lindsay and AEF passenger Sue Curtis on the
first mission.
By the time they returned, which was, 'not
really long enough for an AEF' later, a small
crowd of family and friends had gathered
around the gazebo. The second flight
departed barely 45 minutes after the first
but Lindsay this time managed to work the very
low lift conditions to provide a 37
minute flight for Bret Bulfin. We decided
that to ensure we sent all the guests away
happy, Lindsay would then take Sue for a
second, longer flight which she appreciated
greatly.
Once these were complete, David Higgs and Ashton
had two fairly short refresher training flights
which should hopefully be the start of more
frequent visits by Ashton, now that he also has
his drivers licence and car. I must also thank
Ashton as he is the first assistant duty pilot I
have ever had and I certainly took full
advantage of it. He did a lot of the work for
the day including running of the
passengers onlookers to and from the flight line
making full use of his new licence.
From there I decided to take the hanger flight.
While I improved my hanger flight final resting
place by about 100m on my last attempt, I
was still so short of the mark that I received
some interesting constructive criticism and shouted
a round from the fridge. Have to love some
friendly Club banter don't you.
We would have been all wrapped up and one our
way home by about 4:30 had it not been for our
old friend the fuel bowser which would not allow
Steve to refuel SPA at the end of the day. As
such, Steve got to take his bi annual, overseas
navigation mission to Redcliffe and back to
ensure the Sunday crew could operate.
Stats for the day tell the story:
GYK 6 flights for 2 hours, 18 mins at an
average of 23 mins each.
Still a very relaxing and enjoyable at YCAB in
what was really nice winter weather.
