Another first (and second) solo flight today. Congratulations to Peter Robinson. I can't take full credit for this one, as Peter started his training in England on the winch, but managed to double his airtime in his first four flights in Australia. He also flew with Vic Hatfield and Peter Shiels over the weekend.
Arrived back at LKSC by Jabiru at about 9.15 am. The forecast again was terrible, but the view out of the window was not too bad. Ian Barraclough arrived in MIE, and Josef Strassl, a visitor form Austria, Harry Potts and Graham Holland were here as well as Peter Robinson, this week's student visiting from England
We got the gliders out - Puchatek was first to launch. I told Boris that I would do a hook up procedure with Peter and then he would try it. This was Boris' first flight in E-tug since the engine failure. Imagine my consternation after the second "hook-up" when he waved us off! I wasn't expecting this and thought it was another real emergency. However it was just a misunderstanding, and we had a good laugh about it afterwards. We managed to soar on this flight so were able to practice stalls and spins.
The single seaters launched, trying to ignore a large black rain cloud at the end of the runway. It looked OK towards Gunnedah. Josef thought better of it and put the LS6 away again without flying, but spent the rest of the day running the wing and retrieving the Puchatek.
By the time we launched the Puchatek again, the rain had reached the airfield, so we just did a circuit and landed back at the hangars, and had lunch.
After the rain shower, there was no more lift, but conditions were ideal for training. We got the Puchatek out again, and did heaps of circuits, emergencies, aerotow exercises etc, culminating in Peter's first solo flight in the evening, closely followed by his second!
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