It was a day of absurdly silly humour, exasperating frustrations and much camaraderie at the pie-cart as the Friday crew was joined by some members we haven’t seen for a while. Therefore, you will have to ask someone who was there for a verbatim account of our day on 06 if you wish to get further details.  I can supply only an inadequate summary.

 

John and Anne Nestor.

 

 

First, the weather.  It provided some good flying for some like Bob Turner who brought his Libelle over and, once launched, promptly disappeared for nearly three hours. Most of us settled for much less though Kevin Rodda renewed his acquaintance with QA and they came back after 1:03.

 

Visitor from DDSC ,,, David Gliddon.

 

 

Next, our visitors:  As mentioned by Garrett Russell, David Gliddon joined us and took a flight with Tony Sorensen before departing. John Nestor and Anne came back for the day to continue John’s training and joined in the early activity focused on getting GYK, CQC and QA ready for a flying day under the supervision of Barry McCarthy.

 

Brothers Greg and Russell delivered their father's white Ford to YCAB.

 

 

Then, we took possession of two new vehicles, a white Falcon sourced by John Ashford and a blue Magna delivered to us by Ray Jonkers, thanks to John Knox’s good efforts. Ray was promptly enticed into a glider by Lindsay Mitchell. As for those of us at the pie-cart, we were delighted: not just one new car but a spare as well!! Before Lindsay could open a book on when the first mishap would occur, we lost the key to the Magna so cannot get into the boot. That set the scene for the end-of-day drama. Could everyone there today please check their pockets, please… By the way, the key is still missing despite careful checks of our own pockets, etc. We have a key that let us put it away behind a gate between containers but we would really like to have access to the boot.

 

Ray Jonkers presented the (now missing) main set of Magna keys to Lindsay Mitchell.

 

 

The flying of course involved our usual tuggy, John Knox, who went off in CQC instead of SPA; Karl Bodi who has a busy weekend ahead of him and Steve Bowtell who turned up with Nathan while I was distracted early in the afternoon. Thanks must go to our tuggies for their contribution to the day.

 

 

John Knox, Jo Wooler and Barry McCarthy.

 

 

John and Lindsay were not the only members in gliders though as Jo Wooler came back for checks with Barry, Arthur Mailey took Barry off for a bit of air time in QA; Charles Hock and I tried our hardest to catch up with Bob Turner but failed and Kevin Rodda took Anne for a ‘hangar’ flight in CQC as we packed up. Fifteen flights in a busy and enthusiastic day of activity with a few frustrating moments thrown in.

 

Some early festive spirit - Kevin Rodda in QA.

 

 

To keep his mind off the silence of the airfield now Sandora is no longer operating, Bert joined us after lunch to catch up on our progress. ‘They’d wreck a cannon ball’, he told us as he inspected the new Magna. It looks so lovely and tidy so please look after it and the Falcon so Bert’s prophecy doesn’t come true.

 

Finally we got to pack-up time. Aircraft were put to bed one-by-one until tomorrow, when a new group will start the process all over again. We are really looking forward to news of our new hangar.

 

Kevin has put the key for each vehicle on its own ring with the key for each of the car-locks and made us witness they were correct. That’s when the keys got complicated. As Steve said, ‘You couldn’t write a skit like it’, it was so truly pythonesque. You had to be there - but it kept us busy for an hour or more. Why do keys in particular have a predilection for getting lost? Suffice to say, Nathan and I went looking around gliders, cars, etc for keys Kevin hadn’t lost after all.

 

Members flying tomorrow will  have new cars in which to shuttle back and forth if you don’t lose the key. 

 

Good flying everyone and stay safe