Thursday & Friday last week (15, 16 May)

The usual suspects came out to the airfield on Thursday to help test Harry's winch. Present were John Hoye, Vic Hatfield, Harry Medlicott, Peter Shiels, Ken Flower, Trevor West, Geoff Sim and Bob Dircks.

Geoff and Bob were working on Geoff's White Lightning, but we managed to rope them in - no pun intended. John Hoye took the first launch on the winch in the Grob - but still the engine coughed and spluttered. We all stood around and scratched our heads. There was a fuel leak from the carburettor, and the fan was a bit close to the radiator, but neither of those problems where the cause of the rough running. We thought of the air cleaner - but it was clean as a whistle. 

After another fiddle, John tried another launch - he got high enough but still not quite running right. Enter Bob Dirks - the man who can fix (almost) anything. After more fiddling about Bob found the problem - plug leads in the wrong order! After putting them in the right order and adjusting the timing the engine is now purring along.

They loaded John Hoye and Peter Shiels into the Grob - I'm sure they won't mind me saying that neither require ballast - and took another launch. The wind had turned dead cross about 10kts so they had to lay off quite a bit. None the less they achieved about 1550 feet  from the launch. Everyone happy.

Meanwhile Ken Flower was endorsing Vic on his Grob 109 - naturally Vic had no problem and was soon flying it solo.

The day was sunny but windy - thermals not especially good - Friday was better

On Friday we had another fairly windy day dead cross the runway. I launched Ray Tilley in his ASW 27 and Harry in his Ventus 2. They went south west to about spring ridge or there abouts I think. 

In the evening we were invited to  Bob Dircks' place for a game of croquet. Bob has invented his own version of the rules to make it a bit more interesting. The most interesting local rule is that you play from where the dogs leave the balls. As the dogs are frustrated sheep dogs and love to round up the balls, they join in the game with gusto. Luckily they don't take sides. Harry had never played before but proved to be a dab hand at it - make sure he's on your team if you ever play! It was another really enjoyable evening - thanks to the Dircks'.