Spent most of the day with Dave and Sam doing the form 2 on the Junior. Sam arrived at the crack of dawn, and as no-one was about, set to and fixed Geoff's electric fence to try and make it more cattle proof! However they are very resourceful cattle, and they were in again the next day. However the fence was still intact, more or less. It seems that the battery powering the fence is stuffed, so at the moment the trusty statesman is doing the job.
On Saturday it was more form 2 work. Vic ran the day, and got the winch out. Both Geoff Neely and I were available to fly the tug, but no-one seemed to want to aerotow. Christian and Vic drove the winch between them.
On Sunday we had a group of kids from the Australian Air League Tamworth Boys and Girls squadrons. We had the gliders out early, and the winch inspected and ready to go - but they didn't turn up. Just when we thought they were not going to show, they arrived! It seems I had misunderstood their time of arrival. Sam Clift drove the winch all day, Geoff Neely looked after the paperwork and glider times, Kurt Wiesman (new member) ran wings and did the radio calls, Graham Holland retrieved the rope with the dune buggy and I retrieved gliders and did the odd splice. Dave Shorter, John Hoye and Garry Speight did the flying. We got a couple of the kids to hook the rope onto the gliders, as we OFITTHs preferred not to grovel about on the ground. That has to be the worst aspect of winch launching.
There was a brisk easterly breeze, and good soaring conditions. It was sunny all day. Many of the flights were soaring flights, so the youngsters had a good time. First and last launches had rope breaks, and there was one frayed splice that Sam spotted before it caused trouble that we had to fix. All the breaks occurred at splices, so we need to inspect all the splices carefully before we use the winch again. The rope itself still seems OK.
Phil Anderton came out to fly the tug, and did 3 launches. Harry and Wendy Medlicott flew their gliders and David Seib flew the Jantar Standard. We had aerotow and winch ops at the same time.
2o flights in all during the day including the two cable breaks. We packed up quite early and I for one was quite tired. Harry Medlicott came back at dusk, and those darn cattle had got in again! We scared them back into Geoff's so Harry could land.
I have not seen them on the strip since then - so I hope they are learning to fear the fence again.
Thanks to everyone who helped out with the air league cadets. They all had a great time, and perhaps we may have planted a seed that will grow into a new glider pilot in years to come.
Monday was overcast all day, and with a brisk easterly wind. Kurt Wiesman is my post solo student for the week. He has his A certificate now, and wants to work on the B and C. We had problem with the water supply again - but the State Park managed to fix it by about lunchtime.
I had three flights with Kurt - he was a bit rusty since his last visit, but the conditions were quite challenging.
Today (Tuesday) and during the night we have had a lot of rain - the green tank is almost full again! The black one does not seem to fill up as fast - I must look into that. No flying today, but we are hopeful for some more training tomorrow.
The Callair is ready to return to Keepit, but I unable to fetch it until the weather clears up.
We struck a slight snag with the Junior form 2 - the trim spring broke. Good job it happened on the ground rather than in the air! It will take about 10 days to get a new one made, but other than that it is OK.
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