Flying Report Sun 31 Oct 21

For those brave souls who put their clocks back (yes, there were some who forgot!) and pitched up at Shawbury it was, looking at the forecast and the skies, more in hope than good judgement, the hope lying in Mike O’s tantalising vision of Wave at over 8,600 feet!

With a brief window of opportunity, the brave took to the launch point to make the most of the conditions – some weak Wave around but also high winds and turbulence.  It was deffo not a day for our pre-solo pilots to hone their skills.  Norm Potts and Colin Haynes were first away for a check flight in R22 following the completion of its annual.

Whilst some obviously enjoyed the conditions………………

………..after 7 launches, and with a substantial increase in wind strength, it was decided to call it a day and repair to Hangar 4. In Hangar 4 a non-flying team had been working on the annual for R66 and amongst the tasks was the removal of the name from the side, a name that we presume it had born since its days as a German registered aircraft.  Who was Liesel Marklin – the name must have been on the aircraft for 40 years or so?

The second task was the 100 hour ritual of taking the wings off the motor glider and putting them back on again.  It is a jolly good thing to do we are told.  Anyways Norm Potts managed to put the pin on with chopping off his little finger – a known risk when trying to line up two metal surfaces.

Finally, the immensely talented Nigel R gave us all a super non-Zoom demonstration of how to sweep the floor of Hangar 4.   If you haven’t paid your annual subs, cough up – give John Luke a call.