There are the rare occasions when I’m not in the back seat
The lack of blog posts is not indicative of the flying days. We have been flying but there have just over double the number of days that we have lost (i.e. no flying on Saturday, Sunday or Wednesday) over this period. Plus there have been no flying evenings. On the positive side though, there have been some cracking days and instruction and check flights have been restarted. From my observations club members have been very diligent in maintaining social distancing, wearing masks where appropriate and cleaning. Fingers crossed that we are able to continue to make more progress with more members getting to fly despite the current backing-off of the lockdown easing.
The Shalbourne measure for social distancing
One way to ensure a socially distanced retrieve
The more observant member will have noticed the change of types of strops. A planned change that was accelerated after the Duo Discuss failed to leave the ground when a strop broke. We then discovered hidden rust.
Discovery of rust problems lurking inside to blue tubes
Of the “cracking” days Wednesday 22nd July stands out with 34 launches (which included 3 launch failures – deliberate or otherwise) clocking up 30 hours of flying with 8 private gliders rigged. When the comment “I thought some people had work to do” Jim C pulled his phone away from his ear to retort “some of us are working”. He then went to his office (aka EFF) for four and a half hours. Lots of reports from folks exceeding climbs to 5,000′ (QFE). The following Wednesday was pretty good with the same number of launches but cloudbase of 3,600′ and half the total flying time.
Busy launch point on the 29th
Looking through the stats, the weekend of 11th/12th July was our best weekend over the period with 56 launches and 45 hours of flying.
Not a great day on 20th June – until we packed the hangar
Kelvin-Helmholz clouds over Newbury on 30th July
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