Forget baby-boomers – they were big this weekend, well Saturday at least. It was all about thermals and some mighty flights were had – Alan Belworthy showed his iron constitution again with 5hrs 19mins at the helm of RY and Julian Mason had a lengthy 4Hrs & 15 mins in UL (on 6 minutes of engine time – thats a whole lot of flying for a baked bean cans worth of two-stroke!!). Neil Raymond slipped around in XP for 3Hrs 11 mins, Bill Mace close behind with 3hrs 4 mins, followed by Will Kamp, Godfrey Larsen, David Muckle & visitor Steve Ansell, all clocking over 2 hours. Great flying guys!
Having just as much fun, without nappies, were instructors Tim Bromhead & Tony Davies who got through 5 trial flights and Rainer Kunnemeyer who has new member Claudio Sala under his training wing. Remaining members Dave Dennison, Jamie Pirrit with daughter Gina, Carl Henderson, Phil Smith, Yvonne Belworthy, Steven Care and Jonathan Pote all took advantage of the conditions – all up a busy day.
Made a bit busier for poor Jonathan the Duty Pilot who found that too much information can cause the computer to stop calculating – as did Bill Mace last Wednesday. They both made the mistake of being too diligent and entered all their glider id’s with a G in front (GPC, GRR etc. The end reult was they calculated every thing manually, thinking the programme had a bug!. If only they knew! Actually Jonathan stayed on Sunday night and reviewed his Saturday with me as I edited all the glider data - which was much appreciated by moi – and made sure it all worked out perfectly. Thats great dedication.
COMPUTER HINT FOR DUTY PILOTS – ONLY ENTER THE LAST 2 LETTERS FOR AIRCRAFT ID’S TUGS & GLIDERS – IE PC, PK, NI otherwise the programme lookup formulas will not detect the glider fees and calculate the hire rates.
Sunday did not deliver the same conditions in terms of cloud development, but it was still going off. I have never viewed the airfield from 6266 feet directly overhead before! Flying on the day in addition to Julian and me, were Pieter Bronkhorst, Bob Gray and guest Darryl, Jonathan Pote, Steven Care, Phil Smith and new member Felipe Bonfanti de Barros all the way from Brazil where he trained as a QGP. He is looking forward to meeting other members especially those from Hamilton as he has only just arrived and is yet to acquire a car. His contact details should be posted later in the week, so you can give him a call and arrange a ride if you are a citizen of Tron.
Thanks to Morris Beale for a fearless day on the laptop – closely watched by an attentive Mrs B, he went from zero knowledge to hero status doing a great job.
I can’t finish without a word of praise for the valiant efforts of Ian Finlayson, Bob Gray and Tim Bromhead at the recent Taupo contest – lots of flying and lots of eventful outlandings it seems, but a good time was had by all accounts.
In response to a number of requests, well one actually, there is a manual available for the operation of the laptop and timekeeping programme which I will post somewhere on the website in the next day or so and print for the caravan by next weekend.
Finally,
1. I thank Pres. Roger Brown for his words of wisdom and leadership as emailed to us all yesterday. May the club be with you!
2. A huge welcome to our new members Claudio & Felipe, and not forgetting Rob Shuttleworth who also came aboard officially this week. Aren't we are on a roll!
PC
