Cross Country Weekend Part 2, by Robin Walker

Hello again everyone,

Sorry but I forgot to mention others that flew on the weekend.

Steven Black came up to Lake Keepit with Tim Carr and both flew two
days, Dave Turner also got to fly the Hornet a couple of times, Bob
Emery got in a couple of hours in the cirrus and Phil Anderton got to
fly a glider again for a while.

Jeff Cornfoot from Kingaroy spent the week here flying and leaves
Tuesday. He went from Grob, to Junior to Jantar Standard during his stay - a very quick learner for a 737 pilot. However he tells us he used to fly tiger moths and other real aeroplanes years ago!

Peter Shiels also flew sunday, so all in all it was good to see lots
of flying at the club this weekend and everyone had good flights.

With the rain we have had lately the grass is looking greeen again
but also been growing too. A special thanks to Tim for getting on
his mower and mowing around the hangars making the place look
better instead of flying the nice looking Nimbus in the hangar.

The airfield is getting mown today so will be be nice for everyone
who wants to come and enjoy some good flying weather for the next
week.

I am expecting there to be at least one 750km day.

SEE YOU ALL SOON

Robin

Feb Cross Country Weekend by Robin Walker

Hello People,
 
For all those that thought the weather was not going to be any good, sorry you made a mistake. Christian Flew 350km on friday along with Sam Clift 323km, Mathew Minter over 300km. Heights to 11,000 ft  at Coonabarabran.
 
There was quite a lot of flying on friday with a couple of visitors retraining and two post solo pilots flying in the Jantar and Grob.
 
Saturday was not quite as good but Christian came back again to do another 323km in the Cirrus. Christian  is trying something new, he is flying back to the airfield so he can enjoy a beer with the rest of the pilots.  Good on you Christian.
 
Sunday saw the same type of weather forecast, with a late start, I launched at 1.30 pm after about six others. Stewart Welsby  in a pw5 from Central coast - Welcome back to the the club.
John Stewart in the LS7, Greg Smith in the LS6 Steve Hedley and John Hoye in the Nimbus, Gerhard in his Jantar and also Ray Tilley in the ASW27. Heights to over 8,000ft.
 
No outlandings today, must have been a good day, but some did get close - LS6 at Narrabri.
 
All in all a good cross country weekend , where were you?
 
There is still plenty of good weather  this year for 300km/ 500km and even 750 flights.
 
For all those who want to do 1000km still plenty of time to practice for next year.
 
Robin

Wednseday 18 Feb

Wow its been a long time since I last blogged! It has been very busy at the club and I have been doing lots of training. Long days, and no time to blog!

Since the last one Lauren Goddard and Bart Helleman have gone solo, Flyn Gryseels got his silver C and so did Paul Roche. Juho has become addicted to gliding again, and grabs the chance to soar if anyone else will fly the tug!

Mark Jones and Ken Williams from Newcastle Uni joined as full members, and brought along another couple of guys from their department to learn gliding.

Ray Whittaker from the UK did a couple of 300 km flights in the Junior - eat your heart out LS6 and LS7 pilots!  John Clark has been flying his now no longer invisible glider.

Jaques Graels and Brian Kranze from Camden came back and did some more solo flying both now solo in the Grob.

Matthew Atkinson rejoined the club, and has done some flights in excess of 300 km - look on the OLC.

Greg Jensen from Sawtell on the coast came last week, and re-soloed too. He was a glider pilot at 18, 25 years or so ago! 1 week with Garry 3 years ago got him going again, and he only really needed an AFR this time around.  Hoping to see him back again this week, but he's flooded in! Greg is keen to get into cross country flying now, and have a go at some competitions in the future.

There has been some really hot weather - late starts but climbs to 12000 ft late in the afternoon, followed by some rather cool weather and quite a bit of wind and rain.

I did my BFR for aeroplanes at Camden with Curtis aviation. This was a full on flying weekend as I had to fly from Lake Keepit to Camden by Jabiru, do the BFR, then fly to Cowra to go home, dodging storms to make it interesting. Then fly back to LKSC on the Monday morning.  BFR was rather fun as I did it in a Citabria and got to do loops! 

So far this week there has been quite a lot of rain and strong winds, so no flying until today. Today was very humid, but quite good lift. Overdeveloped in the afternoon with storms so we packed up about 4.30pm. Two "students" here this week - Cristy Rowe, getting back into it after a bread of 2 or 3 years, and Jeff Cornfoot, from Kingaroy, also getting back into gliding after a bit of a break. Jeff resoloed in the Grob today and completed an AFR, and then went "storm surfing".  Showers and storms curtailed Cristy's training today, but roll on tomorrow!

We are now getting quite a number of pilots who are at the B and C certificate stage, and we really need to nurture them and get them through to cross country flying.  Our first cross country weekend was a bit of a wash out due to bad weather, but we have another coming up this weekend, so I hope there is a good turn-out.