The theme for the club’s flying on Saturday 21
June would have to be happy passengers:
Of the seven flights made in club gliders, no
fewer than five had a guest of some sort in the
front seat. And all five left the airfield feeling
very happy and satisfied.
This, plus some unexpectedly good lift in the
middle of the day, also resulted in high
satisfaction levels for the small crew responsible
for the flying: AEI Mike McCluskey, duty pilot
Nick Sheahon, tuggie Tony Esler and myself as duty
instructor with no instructing to do.
The day got off to a very relaxed start as, before
any flying was to take place, Bert and Speedy
performed some delicate maintenance on the tug.
While they were engaged in that the rest of us
made a leisurely set up on RWY12 with the pie cart
and CQC.
Getting more than one glider out seemed a waste of
effort as we had just four passenger flights
booked from11:00, the only other club member
around was Rupert Perry, plunging even deeper into
the dark side of powered aviation strapped to the
front of a perambulating beach umbrella otherwise
known as a Drifter, and the sky looked none too
promising. In fact Bert announced on completion of
the tug repair that he was going home rather than
"hang around under that crap.”
And the first flight seemed to prove Bert right:
15 minutes for Nick Sheahon embarking on
conversion to the IS-28 (No, not solo - and I
suppose I should correct my previous statement
that I had no instructing to do) and we did not
find a scrap of lift. But by the time the first
passengers arrived there was a change in the air:
This was just as well because the couple who were
our AEF customers had made at least four failed
bookings over recent months, foiled by weather and
mechanical problems (their own as well as ours) so
we felt they deserved a good break. And they got
it!
A total of two hours for the pair of them, flying
in beautifully photogenic conditions, as Mike
exploited some great lift which also lured Speedy
out in his K-14* for his own two hours of air
time.
It also inspired Rupert, returned from the dark
side, to double the number of club gliders by
bringing GYK out. But the fickle conditions, so
variable that we moved operations from 12 to 30 to
06 within a very few hours, meant that the Blanik
flew for only 38 minutes.
The rest of the day went to relatively short
family/friend flights, with a total of five
flights for CQC at 2:54. And a whole lot of smiles
from our happy passengers.
*And an extra big smile from Speedy when he
realised that his flight made this June the first
month in which he had flown all three of his
gliders - Kookaburra, K-6 and K-14!
