This was our first Ad-Hoc day of the year.
Unfortunately despite many pilots having not flown for months, and the fact that Wednesday was abandoned due to high wind, there were only a few members on site today, disappointing.
We were pleased to greet the senior regional examiner today Graham Morris, he, alongside Simon Minson were working with two candidates from our friends at Brentor.
It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, the birds were singing and the wind was light and straight down the runway, truly uplifting after such a hideous winter and early spring.
I arrived at 8 from Plymouth and was delighted to see that Dave Perriam had ALL the ground equipment out and readied when I drove in the gate! Paul Medlock was already cutting grass, early birds indeed!
Shaun Dayman had volunteered to be the duty instructor and he quickly set about unpacking the hangar.
We just had enough members to be able to winch and aerotow, Mike Horwood just needed cable breaks to complete his annual card review.
It was nice to see Chris Mew on site after a winter layoff, he enjoyed being only one of two pilots needing an instructor and consequently filled his boots with lots of flights!
It was one of those days where you could choose your aircraft, stay airborne as long as you wanted and launch as many times as your wallet allowed!
Stuart Proctor popped in after work and took over the tug from me to finish the day. All the gliders were flown home by about 5 :30.
I mentioned we were short of numbers which made operations very difficult at times.
One person needs a special mention, our very own living, walking, talking fossil, Graham Barden!
Graham “popped in” for an hour for a coffee, 8 hours later he left for home!
We thank you Graham, at times without you we could not have operated!
Big thanks is to Vicky for coming up and keeping us fed and watered.
So a very successful day for those who attended, we hope to operate on a more flexible basis during the summer, wet on Wednesday or Thursday? No problem fly on Friday, it’s just a mind set.
Here’s to many more days like this. – Mark Courtney
