Wednesday 28th October

Monday was wet all day, lots of rain - just what we needed to fill the tanks and lay the dust on the airfield a bit. Sam spent some time on Sunday spraying weeds - he was looking particularly for Kahki weed but found very little. I think he did a pretty good job on the weeds last year quietly, and as the spring has been so dry, few have germinated so far this year.

Tuesday was a bit miserable looking with strong wind - Todd has been working tirelessly on watering and pumps - Juho has been rolling the strip while there is still moisture in the soil. Trevor came out to install taps for the tie down area and mark the positions for gliders to park in -Juho helping.

Today was blue and sunny with excellent cumulus and very little wind - however no flying as all the local members are busying themselves with competition preparations. The tie down wires were repaired by Ken Flower and others and Todd continued with plumbing operations. Ken and I flew his Grob 109 with two objectives - one was for me to get a motor glider endorsement, and the other was to check out some of the airfields on our turnpoint list.

To start with I was very much in aeroplane mode with the Grob, and just could not make it go up without the engine, but once we got the first good climb, I started getting used to it. We thermalled out to Boggabri, checked out the strip and came back via Rangarai. I practised starting and stopping the engine several times, as you do in a motor glider, but I think we didn't really need it. We were getting climbs of 8 kts at times - it was a good day. You really do need to allow more height in the circuit than you do with the Grob Twin ll.

Hopefully before too long I will be up to speed in the Grob and will be able to use it for teaching paddock selection for outlandings. In the meantime, its hard work, but someone's got to do it ;-)