Welcome all, and thanks to Tim for filling in with news while I took leave!
The week that was ………
Another wet Wednesday – followed by an eventually cancelled Saturday – just about situation normal this winter! However, Saturday did produce enthusiastic glider riggers that turned out to de-trailer and rig PC and de-rig and trailer PK – if you haven’t got that ticked off on your ‘B’ cert you missed a golden opportunity! Neil, Roger, David Muckle, Julian, Paul Knight myself and a guy who stopped in to ask about the next course was the roll call, as I remember. I had arrived with a friend but he never got past the clubhouse having spotted someone he knew at Middle Earth FS. By the time I was holding up PC’s left wing for 15 minutes while the fuse team debated why the wings wouldn’t fit, he was waving to me from a taxiing Tecnam twin!
Saturday was about keeping the best part to the end – and 35 or so turned out for the Annual Awards dinner and seemed to enjoy themselves – either that or they were making a lot of noise complaining to each other. Hopefully the volume of talk equates to the volume of the cash take at the bar – the bottle sacks certainly were bulging at the end of the night!
Our guest speaker (Barry Murray) is certainly passionate about his subject (the soon to be here 787) and the level of interest seemed to be pretty good given the audience participation. Man can those wings bend before breaking!! And how do all those fuselage bits fit and stay together once they do arrive from a surprising number of places around the world? You won’t be able to call yourself a pilot soon – a flight information & systems management officer (FISMO?) would seem more appropriate!
Awards were awarded and prizes carried off by their worthy recipients – I won’t detail them here because I don’t have a proper list with me and I am not entirely certain Roger & Bob giving out the prizes were 100% sure either – (note to self – perhaps prize-giving should take place before the bar opens?). A fit and proper list will be published asap, I promise.
A decorous but rapid exit occurred in, what was later realised to be, time for the rugby on Sky. Your intrepid Winglet editor and his guest who were over-nighting in the Soaring Centre Acomm rapidly completed the task of loading a couple of dishwashers and passing the time until the free version of the game started close to midnight! The number of topics debated seemed directly proportionate to the ongoing contributions to the bar fund which were increasing exponentially on a per capita basis. In the end we had to change from beer to rum due to the froth coming out our ears (beer and Allan Rollande don’t mix). Fortuitously the game ended with enough forward motion remaining in both of us to find our way to the other side of the carpark, after a beautifully executed sprint from the alarm panel to the light switches near the bathrooms then the airside exit door, sidestepping chairs in the dark a la Dan Carter!
Sunday for those of us not flying, delivered a day that seemed like another NFD, at least, that was how it looked from Julian’s lounge, but how wrong you can be when there are ATC scouts around. We got to the airfield at about 2:30 to find 3 2-seaters (PC, GS and YL) on station and taking 3000 foot tows. I recollect that Tracey never left BZA’s cockpit except when Steve Care had to redo a rope splice sitting in YL’s rear seat! Rob Owens, Jamie Pirrit and Dennis Crequer were all kept busy as well but had good help from the scouts and their leaders. We couldn’t stay too long due to the ‘towing PK to Auckland’ duty we had, so at this stage no report on the number of flights achieved is available, but suffice to say they did a reasonable number, and avoided disappointing the youngsters by cancelling the day.
I would like to thank all those who did support the Awards function and who helped make it possible especially Bill & Jan Mace, Dave Reed, Roger & Bob, and Joan for the support and encouragement, and, of course my guest Barry for giving his time and expertise to address us. Plus anyone I may have forgotten and not to exclude Julian and Caroline Mason for providing us with breakfast and lunch on Sunday!
I would also like to give a special thank you to Norm Duke and his buddies at Auckland Gliding Club who helped us out sheltering PK in their hangar when we arrived there at 6:00pm in pouring rain on Sunday evening. You certainly realize what spirit there is in the gliding community when the call for help goes out!
PC
