30-Nov-12 Month-end Friday

Month-end Friday

30-Nov-12

Could this be the latest addition to our retrieve car collection?

There was quite a big turnout at the airfield today with two L2's (Bob Turner and Barry McCarthy), an L1 (Garrett Russell), two Tuggies (John Knox and Karl Bodi), an AEI (me), and a Duty Pilot (Judith Smith with a little help from others) making up the Duty Crew.

We were joined by Friday regulars Arthur Mailey, Ken Mitchell and Charles Hoch as well as new member Peter Jacobs and what turned out to be four punters for passenger flights (more on that later) and Brian Allerby (a member at Kingaroy who is a partner with Bob Turner in the white and green Libelle VH-GOP).

We set up on Runway 06 where we operated from for the entire day. The powered pilots however had Knoxy and I scratching our heads when they persisted using Runway 12 for a major part of the morning despite the brisk breeze coming as close as possible to what you would ever see as straight down the middle of 06. They did however eventually join us on 06 as the day progressed with no change in wind direction.

Bernard "Speedy" Gonsalves and Bert Persson also self-launched in their ASK14 and Tst 10 Atlas motor-gliders. Speedy was heard to comment sheepishly as he readied his K14 near the flight line ... "after all, it is a Saturday isn't it?" ... possibly a rather futile attempt to convince himself that it really was OK to go flying on a Friday as opposed to working!

New member ... Perter Jacobs.

Judith Smith and Arthur Mailey took advantage of the good early morning lift by flying the first aero-tow of the day at 0932 hours ... to record the longest flight of the day (1:39 in the IS-28) ... that is except for visitor Brian Allerby who got away not long after 1100 hours for an aero-tow flight that would have exceeded 3 hours!

I am not sure as to the exact time of Speedy's or Bert's long flights ... however Speedy did mention (when he returned to the pie cart for a chat in the afternoon) that, as he flew over the Woodford Music Festival site on his way back, he had his last radio contact with Bert who had said that he was about to head back from Gympie!

Speedy relaxing at the pie-cart after his flight.

The Blanik was kept busy with Barry McCarthy taking three training flights with Ken Mitchell, and Garrett Russell taking two training flights with new member Peter Jacobs as well as a "passenger" flight with Jeff Simpkins (who is an uncle of Warwick member and well known vintage glider enthusiast Laurie Simpkins).

To elaborate, Jeff was a "visiting" current RAAus pilot and former gliding instructor who last flew a glider in 1978 and is considering getting back into gliding ... he learnt to fly gliders at Mt Isa under the instruction of Queensland's first GFA Instructor number holder Gary Winsor (who Bill "Bushy" Wheatley claims as a brother-in-law).

Jeff also knew John Clayton well when they were both members of Mt Isa's Leichhardt Gliding Club.

It's a small world, isn't it?

Link to Article: http://www.glidingcaboolture.org.au/Sailplane Champ Tony.htm

Link to Video: http://www.vimeo.com/7773787

The IS-30 had only one flight for the day ... however it was a good one from another early morning aero-tow (1033 hours) that saw Karl Bodi and Charles Hoch record 1:09.

I took AEF passenger Bruce Malcomson for a 3,500 feet flight in the IS-28 after the early morning lift had been KO'd by the early entry of the sea breeze into our playground immediately around the airfield.

The flight was a Christmas present from his wife Carolyn, and when back on ground, Bruce commented to me that he would like Carolyn to experience gliding flight "but there would be no way that she would overcome her fear of flight to give it a try". Challenge accepted!

It took us about an hour to have Carolyn in the front seat and in the air. Despite a little nausea at one stage, she thoroughly enjoyed the experience and, when back on the ground, raved about it to anyone who would listen.

Bruce's sister Trici Fittler happened to be visiting him at present and was at the airfield "strictly as an observer". She had earlier claimed to be even more frightened (and absolutely against taking a flight in a glider) than Carolyn was. Again, challenge accepted!

After seeing Carolyn come back to earth very excited (and perhaps more importantly unharmed), and with lotss of encouragement and reassurance, we had Trici in the front seat and in the air exactly an hour after Carolyn.

Bob Turner didn't fly .... he took the opportunity during the middle of the day to attend to some matters at home (to free up his schedule for tomorrow where he is the rostered Duty Instructor).

All up it was a busy day with 12 aero-tows and 2 self-launches.

Keep flying safe speeds and maintaining good lookout,

Kevin Rodda

for the Friday Crew