After a very long bout of no flying due to rain and the unusable wet strip, we expect to be flying again this Sunday 30th October as the strip should have dried out sufficiently for use with caution.
We managed to do four test flights on Thursday. though conditions were not very good and the strip still very wet in places.
The Vintage Glider Network got off to a good start last weekend with more than 10 people joining the group after attending a session at our club last Sunday. You will see that there is a Bocian in the workshop being refurbished and the Nymph is also in our hangar at the moment. This is expected to be of good benefit to the club providing more people to be coming, more gliders to fly (when restored), and including some people who may be able to help us with our maintenance from time to time.
The PW6, PW5 and Dimona Annual Form 2 inspections were all completed last week, all good to go. The PW6 was test flown. So we now have all of our aircraft operational except GKD which has to wait for it's 10 year survey and refabric of one wing. Thanks to all who got this all to work - Grant Nelson from Lake Keepit, Peter Rundle from Hunter Valley, Rob Moffat, Colin Lee and myself.
There was a little rain on Thusday afternoon but Friday and Saturday have both been sunny and breezy. I am confident that we will be able to fly - though will need to be cautious about where we drive and land gliders.
Just about everybody is going to have to do check flights as we have had so little opportunity for flying lately. Quite a few will be needing to do their Flight Reviews as well. We are not likely to get those done for each person in one day of flying at once as it will take a minimum of 3 short flights each to do those if we don't get a longer thermal flight.
We will all be a bit rusty on procedures after a long time of very little flying - so all must take particular care with ground handling, retrieving, winch driving and operational management.
Regards
Graeme
CFI