Flew up to Lake Keepit in my new Brumby on Thursday morning, just in time to get to my aviation medical with Dr Henderson in Manilla. Fortunately he was happy with my state of health, so I am legal for another two years.
Grey overcast weather, great for power flying, but pretty ordinary for gliding, and Friday was much the same. Spent a relaxing day at the club, just walking, sleeping and drinking cups of tea. Delightful!
On Saturday I was rostered instructor - not many were present at briefing - only Harry Medlicott, Ian Downes, Juho, Geoff Sim and Peter Kemp - a visitor who's wife was attending a sewing session at the Sport and Rec along with Wendy Medlicott. Peter is ex-airforce, and flew Carribous in Vietnam. He was also involved with the RAAF Richmond gliding club for some years and did some towing there in an Auster.
Later on Christian Linnet, Bob Dircks and Greg Smith (Tuggie) and Justin Smith turned up. Phil Anderton came out to work on his plane, which is now looking like a real aeroplane, with wings and an engine!!
The weather was looking reasonable, a high pressure but with a small wiggle in the isobars near Keepit which looked as if it might give us some instability. 4000ft scattered was forecast at Gunnedah. Not expectimg much we called a task Manilla, Boggabri Gunnedah and back, with 20km circles and a 2 hr time.
Ian and Justin got the Grob 109 out and did some circuits in it then I took the first aerotow launch in the Grob with Peter at about 12.30 pm, although there had been clouds about for quite a while earlier. We only managed a grovel for about half an hour, despite the good looking sky. However Peter had no problem taking off and landing the glider. Harry took off after me and got away much more easily than I - and went around the task twice.
On a second attempt, Peter and I did much better, and were able to fly out beyond the Carrols, and got to cloudbase at about 5000ft. After an hour or so, Peter was not feeling too well as he has a nasty cold, so we came back to the field, and he landed quite safely.
Meanwhile Geoff Sim and Justin took of in the ASH GSI, and had a nice flight out beyond Boggabri. You had see it on the OLC, because I showed Geoff how to post to it later in the afternoon. While we were at it, we posted a flight of Ian Barraclough's on 19th May, and it turns out it was the only one posted in Australia that day!
Christian had a decent flight in the PIK UMC., and I was able to talk Greg Smith into going for a flight in the Grob with Phil Anderton - which gave me the opportunity to do a tow. Greg and Phil had about an hour burning up and down a cloudstreet (convergence?) which parked itself right over the airfield.
Ian organised a Barbecue and salad meal in the evening which was well attended. The idea was for Jan Dircks not to have to do any cooking, but she couldn't help making a dessert!
All in all a really nice day for the time of year, good gliding and good company.
Jenny
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