After a sleep in a little longer than I had planned and a quick phone call to Duty Pilot Alan Graham confirming that operations were going to happen, I drove through some decent showers all the way to YCAB on Saturday morning. I got there just in time to hitch a lift with L2 David Higgs who was towing the IS-30 with Mick Moloney supervising Air Cadet Tyler Morrison walking the wing. We took the 30 down to Runway 30 where the Blanik, pie-cart and SPA in the hands of stand in tuggie Tony Elser were all waiting. The sky did not really look too inviting but we all shared great optimism in believing that the cloud would burn off to provide a nice flying day.  
 
The first flight of the day was a solo taken by Jason Humrich (also an Air Cadet pilot) and was completed with a lovely touchdown, albeit only 15 minutes later, confirming that the overcast sky was not really going to provide much lift. From there Tyler was introduced to gliding at YCAB in GYK with Mick in the back seat. They took two flights in succession at a little over 20 mins each.
 
Following these flights, David Higgs put me through my paces with an annual flight review which included boxing the slipstream, a number of spins, and a simulated airbrake malfunction which lead to one of the most interesting (not) circuits I have ever done at YCAB. Good to be kept on your toes every now and then by our instructors as these simulations provide invaluable experience and training in decision making under pressure. Again, not a long flight at only 12 minutes regardless of the tow to 3500 feet, but at no stage did thermals enter my mind. 
 
There was another solo flight for Jason and then Tyler and Mick made good use of some very light thermals in GYK, while David and Alan got flight of the day in the IS-30's only flight, landing on 06 after 47 minutes. I took GYK on a rather more relaxing and solo tie down flight for 25 minutes at the end of the day.
 
Stats were as follows:
 
GYK  7 flights for 2 hours and 42 minutes.
QA    1 flight for 47 minutes.
 
I did not take any photos today I'm sorry 'and as such' I can only share a couple of grabs from my video footage of my flight late in the day. The first was during one of the more challenging glider takes offs I have had, late in the day on runway 30 with the tug right in the sun for some time ...