What the heck ... a cross post to both Aus-Soaring and our Club e-mail list (apologies in advance to those who are subscribed to both lists) Southern Cross Gliding Club enjoyed extremely pleasant Easter weather conditions with plenty of flying done by all. Easter Friday was a bit quiet, with plenty of instructors and AEIs, but not too many students or TIFs. However, we were blessed with nice blue conditions that gave most people flights of over an hour and some great view of Warragamba Dam. Visiting UK pilot, Chris Harris, who had just finished the Centenary London to Sydney Air Race a few days earlier, came along and did some flying with us (the foot and mouth saga has prevented most UK clubs from doing any flight at all, let alone cross country due to the risk of spreading the infection). In the race, Chris flew in a Malibu which came 2nd in class and 3rd overall, and there is a web site (www.g-goto.com) which has more details of some of the flyers including his aircraft G-CREW. Chris added an IS-28 to his 70-odd different glider types that he's flown In the UK there are very few Is28s and the last club he was in left theirs in the back of the hangar and made bad remarks about it - having actually flown the IS-28, Chris was rather complimentary about it !. Recent solo pilot Trevor Firth managed 68 minutes in one of the IS-28s for a personal best flight. Several instructors, with no students of their own to fly, took to the skies for pleasant solo flights ... Easter Saturday was busy, with all 6 Club aircraft (except the Jantar which was at Warkworth) out on the field and plenty of eager fliers. Andrew Shaw went solo after forty-something flights and shouted us to some delectable non-liquer chocolates in celebration (which suits me better than the traditional shout at the bar, since I'm not a beer drinker !) I took a flight in the Astir, which after weeks of not being able to turn the B50 vario audio down fully (bad potentiometer we suspect), the darn thing got in the air and promptly went dead silent for the whole flight. Undeterred I managed a respectable 95 minutes in the blue, and I must admit I have a far greater appreciation of the audio cues the B50 gives when it's working properly. A character building flight flying by the seat of my pants and listening to the changing air noises past the canopy vent (in preference to gluing my eyes to the instruments), as the sky was completely blue over Camden. Ken Horlock had the longest flight of the day at 3 hrs and 4 minutes in his Jantar 2 with winglets VH-UKU. Two of our fearless AEIs, David Callahan and Kevin Weston worked with Ken McCracken on upgrading their rating to Level 1 (I say "fearless" because some of their takeoffs and landings were "interesting" simulations ...) Total number of flights was somewhere around the 40 mark. Easter Sunday was reportedly a good day too, with the Cus lining up in streets. I was at Church doing my bit to get to heaven while the Club fliers were trying to get there by thermals ! Easter Monday saw another blue day, a bit quieter than the Saturday/Sunday, and we left the K-13 in the hangar and flew the remaining 5 Club aircraft. Chris Harris was back again (what ELSE is there to do in Sydney !!!), and got over an hour in the Astir, as did Duty Pilot (no relation) Trevor Harris who got his longest Astir flight to day of 70 minutes. Seeing as the Astir was being well used, I decided to take the Junior for a fly and got 1 hour 32 minutes for my scratching around as the day started to die. 3 TIFs today and plenty of interested people who we showed the Club fleet off too. Ian Shepherd went solo after an extremely well handled rope break. New solo pilot Gideon Van Rensburg also enjoyed some pleasant flying. A total of 29 flights and smiles all around. This is YSCN signing out ... Regards Jason Armistead Club Membership Secretary & Webmaster Southern Cross Gliding Club Camden, NSW, Australia http://www.ozemail.com.au/~gliding/ -- * You are subscribed to the aus-soaring mailing list. * To Unsubscribe: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * with "unsubscribe aus-soaring" in the body of the message * or with "help" in the body of the message for more information.
