May 29th 2011

A productive day on Sunday saw Brendan Pittwood have three good long instructional flights with John Tullett, who then took his son Sam for his first formal lesson in the art of flying gliders.  He must have taught him well for Sam had the longest flight of all.  And a lot of it in good lift.   Peter Cook & I headed for the same area, gained some in rotor type lift, headed for a patch of stuff that we found was going down faster than we had gone up a few moments earlier.  All over.  Not fair.

Earlier, Peter Cook & I had spent some time sweeping the hangar, clearing the place of general grit and grot and shifting a few things out of the way.  Peter Williams got to work and cleaned the door tracks of chunks of concrete.  Glyn Jackson attended to the PW5 tyre which was softer than desired and Steve Barham put the wing tips back on his Nimbus and wheeled it into the new extension.  The floor area of the building is impressive and great to behold.  There are two large brooms that only need willing hands to keep the hangar floor as clean as a hangar floor should be.  No need to be told, people.

Next Saturday looks like it may be OK, just ahead of some wet weather rolling down from the north.  Peter Williams down for instructing and Jim McKay either towing again, or one or another of his team.

The photo below was taken early January 1992 at the end of a Christmas camp at Matamata.  We were in the process of de-rigging the Blanik and we hit on the idea of an alternative way of getting home.  The photo, published in the March/April issue of the Gliding Kiwi showed the team in action, saying ….”No, they haven’t blown their fuse …”

Angela Rowe, Ian Hayton & Matthew Connor went solo during the camp, and John Spence & I had an epic trip home when my car, with the Blanik & its trailer on behind, died on the forecourt of a Te Kuiti petrol station and we had to stay overnight and get the car repaired the next day.
             

                        
               From front:  Angela Rowe, John Spence, Bob Struthers, Peter Miller,
                                  Ian Hayton and Allan Thatcher.