Tuesday had a rather poor forecast and was windy and cloudy. Nearly everyone left!
Ian Sawell and Jim Thompson wanted to get winch endorsed, so we got the winch out and Gerhard did a launch with each of them. They were able to soar on each flight, but landed fairly quickly as that was not the object of the exercise. Vic took a launch in the cirrus and had about an hour, before the approaching storms looked to fierce.
It looked like continuous rain was going to set in, so we put the winch and the gliders away. The weather did not get quite as bad as we expected and there was very little rain, but we kept busy with other jobs around the place.
On Wednesday we had 15 winch launches culminating in Ian Sawell going solo on the winch at the end of the day. He and Jim Thompson flew with Gerhard in the Puchatek and I drove the winch. We had no real rope breaks, but I noticed a frayed bit of rope go through the rollers just before Ian's solo flight. Gerhard checked it out, and respliced it luckily for Ian!
Unfortunately on of the cracks in the Puchatek canopy spread past the stop drilling, and became very long. Gerhard spent ages grinding it out and filling it with acrifix the next day, so now the glider is servicable again. Thanks Gerhard. No-one flew on Thursday, we had a day of maintenance!
On Friday I towed Ian Sawell in the Junior with CUR - he was having another go at getting his five hours - but it was a rough blue day, and it wasn't to be. Jay Anderson came in his Saratoga, and I launched him in his LS6. He was a bit eager getting off the tow, and came down for another go, but then had a good two hour soaring flight. That was the first towing I'd done since November!
Sadly I heard that my very good friend Paul Haines passed away on Friday morning from a brain tumour. The funeral will be on Monday 7th April at 1200 at Bulli. His family are coming from England to attend.
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