Not So Weekly Winglet #261
I will try & keep this brief tonight.
We have been quite active since I last wrote.
The winch has continued to get plenty of use by the club and by ATC cadets. We have logged over 200 launches with one rope break & one weak link break to my knowledge. The new brake shoes fitted have been working well. The Tractor also has a new starter switch that should save having to hot-wire it all the time.
On the flying scene we have had some challenging days with mixed results. I had a landout near Te Poi a couple of weeks ago after leaving home with the words “please don’t land out today” ringing in my ear I did just that. Fortunately Bill came & retrieved me and I was only an hour and a half late leaving for Auckland for the night (rather a quiet drive too). A review of my trace revealed a loss of over 1000’ in under 30 seconds.
More recently this weekend saw some high cloud threaten to spoil the flying but in spite of that there were several flights of over an hour, although conditions were quite weak at times. I had firsthand experience of the weak conditions having taken a 2000’ tow & then spending almost an hour at or below release height (character building indeed). The day was cut short by the reluctance of BZA to start. Despite the best efforts of all in attendance she just refused to go. Tracy even climbed on the bonnet to “check the sparkplugs” to no avail. So we packed up & towed her back by the tail to the pump & fuelled her up before trying once more to start her. This time to add to everyone’s frustration BZA decided to fire up! Who knows....
Anyway this week is the fly fast course followed by the Northern Regional Competition starting on Sunday with casual towing available throughout both weeks. I also want to remind you all about the National Competition in December/January followed by our Raglan camp, you won’t want to miss out on any of the action at either of these.
Tracy assured us she was checking the sparkplugs.
