After the sorry story last Friday, we were cheered by early forecasts of a fine day today. What we got was more of the same with cloud base settling in little above circuit height at times.

 

Light traffic gave way as we prepared to set off so we headed for 06 where the activity commenced. Maybe I’m overdoing it calling it activity. Barry McCarthy and John Knox had only Arthur Mailey, Bob Hainsworth, Charles Hoch and Ken Mitchell to supervise and assist. The appearance of Alan Graham who wanted a check and then John Nestor ready to continue training gave us a more respectable sized group of nine members by mid-day and also gave us an incentive to move from our seats beside the van.

 

The appearance of Karl Bodi with his boss, Kevin, meant Knoxy could collect Pat and leave SPA in Karl’s hands - once Karl and Kevin had taken CQC for as good a flight as the cloud allowed, that is. We became positively excited when a nice patch of blue appeared over the field but the cloud covered it over before we got too carried away. Best flight of the day was the hangar flight by Arthur Mailey and me in CQC at 20 mins and shortest was John Nestor in the hangar flight for GYK at 10 mins. Nothing there to rave about.

 

Steve Bowtell popped in to see if we were okay and eventually left us to it. Thanks for checking Steve. Actually, Arthur and Bob were out looking for a new battery; and a detour via ‘Bert’s repair shop’ when GYK was being retrieved saw others making excuses for heading off to see what the matter was. Humidity had let tape on the rudder come loose so it provided a ‘tail’ for the Blanik when it landed with Barry and John. Thanks go to Bert for the repair.

 

Not only that, the radios were a problem today. The Blanik needed a hand held and the base radio was there for decoration so we also used a hand held. They are both on charge as usual for tomorrow’s flying day.

 

Since we had plenty of time to contemplate things, we wondered about the possibility of flying next Thursday instead of Good Friday. Keep an eye out for any requests for expressions of interest. We seem to have a possible L2 and a tuggie to look after SPA.

 

Stay safe