My partner John is back in Aus for 6 months :-) and we travelled up to Lake Keepit on Saturday afternoon by car, towing the Mosquito trailer. Arrived at about 10 pm and found I had left my gate pass in the other car in the hangar at Keepit! However a phone call to the Park Manager sorted things out and he came to the gate to let us in. The emergency code wouldn't work for some reason.
On Sunday morning I was duty instructor but after consulting the weather forecast no one thought it would be much of a day. We were supposed to get 20 - 25 kt north westerlys followed by thunderstorms at 1600. Jay and Mary elected to fly back to Bankstown while they still could. Tomas towed. There was no one who required instruction, so I rigged the Mozzie assisted by numerous club members (thanks very much) taped up the joins and went flying.
Jacques flew the Junior, Attila flew his recently acquired Cirrus, I flew the Mosquito and that was about it I think. However there was activity over at Kentucky and the duo flew back from there, and the Grob was aerotowed most of the way back. I think I heard Harry Medlicott on the radio, Ian Downes was in the Grob and Todd Clark was in something!
Despite the sky being mostly overcast, there was good lift about though I found it a little hard to centre. Probably out of practice. Cloudbase was about 6000ft, though it went up to 6500 later.
There was a nice line of cu going down the Melville ranges and I considered gettng a clearance to fly along it, but with the forecast 20kt winds in mind I thought I'd go upwind first. Headed along the clouds up to Mt Kaputar, no trouble making progress against the wind - looking at my stats afterward the wind was no stronger than 11 kts even at cloudbase. Met Attila going the same way, but much more efficiently than I!!
Not much clearance between the aerials and the ground, and on my second attempt to get around them I got flushed down the gully behind in some of the worst sink I have ever experienced. I thought I would not make it out from the trees. However I got to a landing paddock at about 1000ft AGL and found some zeros, which eventually turned into about 4-6 kts so I was out of trouble.
Back to Keepit, mooched about over Carrol but was getting lower so back to the airfield. It started working again as I got to the Caravan Park and there was still a nice line of clouds over the Melville ranges so I called up the Tower. Got an automated response "Tamworth Aerodrome 119.4". Apparently the tower is closed on Sunday afternoons now. Called Brisbane centre and they confirmed that it was allowed to go gliding in the control zone but asked me to make a broadcast call on 119.4, so I did!
I didn't go far down the ranges - in hindsight I wish I had gone further, but the outlanding scare made me a bit cautious.
Turned back and flew to Keepit again all in a straight line climbing at 6 kts without turning all the way back to Mt Surprise. It was apparently raining at Keepit. Started worrying about weather at aerodrome so came back and landed. Needn't have worried at all, because Attila stayed up for about another couple of hours!!
All in all a much better day than the forecast would have led one to believe and a much needed fix for me!!
Spent a very convivial evening with the Newcastle contingent and UK visitor Andy - an excellent break!
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