30 September

Sorry about the lack of communication! What has been happening here?

Well last week with John Hoye's (paddock rated tuggie) help we managed to achieve outlanding checks for both Alan Monroe, a visiting pilot from central coast, and David Seib, now living in Manilla. Gerhard was at the club and helped out with Alan's paddock landing, and I flew with Dave Sieb into the paddock. I'm always quite relieved when we get out again and back to Keepit! I am now trying to encourage David to tick the boxes and get his silver badge, but he may just skip that and go straight for a 300 km.  For any that don't know, Dave is a very successful hang glider pilot. Phil De Joux continued his progress and was transitioned into the Jantar Standard. He is planning to return in November to do some more flying.

After two days of rain, and a lot of mowing of runway 14 to make it safe, we had some quite good flying conditions, with reasonable soaring opportunities, however cross country was still a bit of a challenge.

Flew home last weekend, back on Monday morning - nice easy trip with brilliant sunshine. Beautiful power flying weather.

Geoff Sim has taken to the air again, arriving last week in his Lancair after having his cast removed. He is still sporting a limp, but he is on the mend after breaking his leg riding a motorbike in the outback.

Long weekend coming up, and I will be standing in for Vic on Saturday, and flying the tug on Sunday.  Hoping to get the AFRs etc out of the way early in the morning, so we can all fly a task later on. Anyone want to go XC with me in the Grob on Saturday? There is an air experience flight booked in for Saturday, so would appreciate it if one of our AEIS could do the honours.

Don't get left behind, the good soaring weather is only just around the corner!

19 September

Another excellent day today.

Started off overcast, with an indifferent forecast. Dennis Stacey took off in his Citabria to fly to Port Macquarie, but came back because of cloud over the ranges. We took a drive to the outlanding paddock, and Denis said he thought it was OK.

By the time we got back to the club, the overcast had broken up and there was good cumulus, although it was not all that high. Phil De Joux took to the air with me in the Puchatek to do the dreaded outlanding check!. All went well, and Dennis retrieved us without incident. We did some thermalling practice and spins to get back down, as Dennis left again for PM and I was needed to fly the tug.

Hartmut Lautenschlager took two launches in the Junior, I managed to find him a thermal on the second one! Both Phil and Hartmut need to practice their thermalling skills - bank up more steeply! However they are in the best place to do it!

John Hoye and Geoff Neely will be the crew for tomorrow, and Garry Speight and Andrew Brumby on Sunday. Its warming up, and the thermals are good - time for all you early solo pilots to tick a few more boxes before the XC season kicks in.

Jenny

18th September

Hello All
Fantastic weather today and yesterday, and the Callair is back again, although the powers that be seem to think it needs to have navigation lights - just in case we go towing at night!

Phil de Joux our new member from New Zealand has adapted to the Junior very successfully, so much so that we are thinking of throwing him into the Jantar Standard! Denis Stacey has had his towing permit revalidated by Phil, but has been helping me with instructing while I have been flying the tug since it came back on Tuesday evening. On Monday and Tuesday we winch launched, and good soaring flights were had. Robin did about 350km yesterday in his Ventus.

Hartmut Lautenschlager can come out to fly for a week or so, and passed his AFR today no problem after a year not flying! Well done Hartmut. Good to see you back in the air.

This afternoon Phil landed the Junior at the end of the runway, but decided not to fly again - what could I do but fly it back to the hangar! Dennis obliged with a tow, and I climbed out to about 4000ft, then made my way to the north toward Rangarai where the clouds were better. 6 kt thermals, and max height of 5500ft. Felt a bit guilty being up there in work time, so flew back to the field and made the hangar landing.

The bugs on the wings of all the aircraft are terrible. Really have to wash them off in the evening before they set hard.

The plan is to drive home this weekend and pick up the LS7 from Temora, so then all our fleet will be flying except for the LS6, which I can't get back to working on because everyone keeps flying!

The weather has been beautiful this week - no better place to be than here! So all of you had better get those AFRs done and out of the way, because you are already missing great soaring weather!

11 September

A busy day at the airfield today. Firstly I needed to have an AFR to be legal to do anything else, so Garry kindly came out to do that, and Geoff Neely came out and drove the winch. Its always really good value flying with Garry, there's such a lot to be learned. Whenever you get the opportunity, take advantage of it!

We got about 1300 ft on the launch, and picked up a themal somewhere near the rock wall, and were able to climb to 4500 ft where we could do stalls and spins - as far as you can in the Grob. The sky was completely overcast, so the thermals were surprising.

After that I had an air experience flight to do, and once again was able to soar. The visitor was so happy I got a big hug after the landing!

After that I flew with Phil de Joux, a visitor from New Zealand, who has elected to join the club as a full member. Phil will be flying with us for a few weeks at a time - please make him welcome. Also John Trezise, who hasn't flown for a while. John did his first solo on the winch today. Phil needed to revise launch signals and emergencies as he hadn't winched for some time.

11 launches in all for the day. Many thanks to Geoff Neely for driving the winch, and Robin for driving the buggy all day.

More of the same tomorrow weather permitting!

9th September

Harry had a good flight off the winch yesterday - 6 kt thermals and a cloudbase of 7000ft apparently. He flew from Keepit to Kaputah, Mullaley, Manilla, Gunnedah and back to Keepit. No one else flew.

Today I launched him again on the winch, straight into a 3 kt thermal. He was up for about 21/2 hours, but said the conditions were not as good as the day before. There is quite a bit of water lying on the ground on the plateau near Rangerai. Again he was the only one to fly.

Lots of people coming out for the weekend - Tuggies ball, and AGM. Accommodation is all full up, apart from the couch in Room 6, unless you can persuade somebody to share!

Time to get those AFRs done, ready for the soaring season - which has already started! We can also help those who are not winch current become so - it is a valuable skill. Aerotowing seems excessively slow by comparison.

Jenny

8th September

Llong time between blogs!

Our maintenance week went very well, we all had a good time, and got quite a bit of glider maintenance done at the same time. If we do it again next year I am sure we will be better at it! We need to include the trailers, winch and buggy in the program for maintenance week too - also the club cars

The Grob and the Puchatek now have fresh form 2s, and Ian Sawell has manufactured a new wing walker for the Jantar, and also welded up one of the luggage racks on a bike. The wheel brake now works properly on the Grob - but save it for outlandings!The LS7's form 2 was completed, but a major defect was noticed, which means it has had to go to Temora to have the bearing on the inboard left airbrake arm replaced. We prepared the underside of the fuselage which was badly scored for repainting, and also found a leak in one of the pitot sources.

One of the things that made the week so successful was the catering done by Wendy Medlicott and Marga Tilley. Those of us doing maintenance didn't have to worry about cooking at the end of the day, and eating together made it very social. No fights over kitchen space either! Thanks to everyone that attended.

Tom Gilbert has replaced the bearing, closed up the hole, and fixed the leak in the pitot source (inside the fin) but the painting is not yet complete - takes a while to cure in winter. However he said it should be ready to return to service next weekend - however I won't be able to collect it next weekend as we have the Tuggies Ball and AGM going on. It should be ready to fly when it comes back.

Todd Clark has been doing work on the Tug at Tamworth with Vic as his offsider, and we are hoping it will be back here sometime this week. The old generator has been replaced with an alternator, which has involved changes to the electrical wiring.

4 private gliders got their form 2 done as well as the club ones, and I managed to get the Mosquito rigged and installed in its new hangar. Not test flown yet though.

We have been flying on the winch from time to time, but it has been fairly quiet at the club. The LS6 is out of the air at present - I am working on on it as best I can, with telephone assistance from Ray Tilley. Two very rainy days enabled me to finish the Puchatek canopy cover, and make a new one for the LS6. Please look after them!

Robin has been at the club wielding the lawnmower and whipper snipper - the clover is really starting to get going. We need to spray some roundup along the edges of the bitumen runway to kill the weeds that are springing up there.

Just about to go and launch Harry on the winch today - cus are popping at its looking good!

Jenny