Adelaide University Gliding Club

Flying Sunday 25 October 2009

The day started overcast, but eventually the sun shone through and fired up some good thermals. Allan and Derek placed some white tyres up RWY 16/34 before we were visited by four friends looking for a good time... Derek certainly had a good time when one of the girls decided it would be fun to fly in her underwear. Lots of video was taken of this particular activity as well as some air to air stuff of the Blanik from the 'falke. We should hopefully see this footage sometime soon.

Allan had a good 23 mins in the Blanik with Derek, and our trainee Steve got to fly two new aircraft types. All in all a different and enjoyable day.

Flying Saturday 24 October 2009

Saturday was pretty much as forecast except there was very obvious thunderstorms building up to the north with some impressive wave over the top. The low thermal height (~3,000 ft) around Stonefield made it challenging with fickle thermals. John Dunstall flew MI and Derek Spencer flew WVA. Both had saves from circuit height on occasion.

Meanwhile Mark Newton and Redmond Quinn took FQW for a fly across to Waikerie and back.

GZQ and WVA were both derigged ready for the Khancoban trip next weekend. Other stuff got done:

Runway 16/34 was slashed in its entirety by Redmond.
Some of the cut and painted tyre side walls now decorate the edges of 16/34. We were somewhat sparing till we slash the other runways and see how many tyre side walls are left over.
The passenger side brake drum on the winch had its master cylinder replaced and the brakes adjusted
New swivels were added to the ends of both cables.

Flying Sunday 11 October 2009

It wasn’t a very good day. The longest flight was 10 minutes followed by a number of 6 minute flights. The wind was reasonably strong from the NNE and the cloud cover meant that thermals weren’t there. A small patch of blue sky went through in the afternoon (which is when the 10 minute flight occurred), but the flight only went to around 2000’. Everyone packed up early at around 5:00pm I think, as Derek and Allan were getting tired.

Unfortunately, Allan and Derek were the only experienced people on field (and winch drivers) which meant that Allan missed out on flying. He did a great job driving the winch for everyone!

The decision to pack up was made at the right time as a number of bands of rain came past after that and the first lot of rain had some serious bolts of lightning in it. Impressive stuff!

Before the rain hit, a wave cloud had set up slightly east of the airfield up quite high. The wind was still NNE on the ground, but the wind was obviously more westerly up high.

Flying Saturday 10 October 2009

Thermals capped were with cu at 9500. We rejected anything with less than 6kts on the averager. Alternatively, we just dolphined along the streets.

Thanks to BVGC for the loan of the Blanik. We had some impressed students yesterday.