In addition to Phil G s` blog, we all had a great day yesterday with many thanks to Phil for volunteering to instruct, our merry band of midweek winchers and Stuart for flying a visitor from the Long Mynd on business in this area whom called in on the off chance of an areo-tow. Our visitor from the Mynd was a BI and an ex tug pilot – well he was very interesting to talk to about how his club is performing with a similar membership volume to ours, but they are a 7 day a week club and have professional staff from catering to CFI and instructors, accommodation the works. They operate on the flying list system, intend to keep it that way and encourage members to engage in many social meals and gatherings to enhance the club income and social cohesion which as he said was an important part of their club. As they don`t own a tug, he had not aero-towed for about 6 years he said, so he thoroughly enjoyed his aero-tow with Stuart to 3500ft.
Graham H held the record for the longest flight of the day from a winch launch of 15minutes in broken, bumpy thermal activity of some sort, with other members averaging about 9/10 minutes a flight.
17 winch launches and tow aero-tows and cups of tea for Phil G!
Chris