The club has been doing fine this month. Quite a few great soaring days.
In-between those great days, there have been a good number of excellent training days, especially early morning. The three Hong cadets went solo after 2 weeks with us, and completed their glider licenses within 3 weeks. 2 of them additionally passed their Radio exam. Many thanks to those who contributed to the instruction, towing, ground handling and ground school and examination supervision. Not least, collection from airport and other ferrying around by members. The annual intake of HK students is an important aspect of club finances.
Additionally, several new members have progressed in starting their glider training from scratch or renewing their skills after some years of no gliding, or power pilots wishing to add gliding to their aviation skill set. Calvin (now licensed), Rod, Edge, young Rob all solo; Dana, Anton, Luke, Ariel all progressing well. More recently Marc (power pilot with a handful of glider solos) has joined us to complete his glider license.
Acrobatic training has taken off this month, with several training flights for Ed and Keith. Additionally a handful of aerobatic flights for intros.
We have a new cleaner, Olivia, for this month only doing the 4 washrooms near the workshop. September she will probably do the clubhouse also.
The old, derelict, Erin trailer has finally left us! Thanks to all who helped with the gradual process over several months.
AME: Paul Lamont is in his final months with us, he is retiring from AME work. John de Jong has agreed to take the roll, for at least 2025. John is a certified AME and will support our club fleet and aircraft of members. Thanks, it is a big advantage to have our aircraft serviced on site,
The AvGas crisis was averted with a few days to spare, we should be good for the rest of the season.
Dinners: Successful pig roast dinner earlier this month. The next club dinner will be Yorksgiving October 5th. Meanwhile a casual flyin arranged for Friday 30th of August, with burgers/sausages.
DG500 has just had its annual and will most likely go down to Florida again in October.
Tow Pilots: we have had some bad luck with tow pilot availability (in particular Barry and Doug temporarily grounded with medical issues). Luckily we have been saved by Tom covering a lot of days, Juan (a recent addition) and Mike Collier & Paul Moggach occasionally coming out to help us in the mid week.
Many thanks to all who have been performing the many maintenance/cleaning work around the club.
A word (yet again) on flight sheets. Still many errors that could be averted by EVERY pilot checking their flight entries before going home. It is difficult to spot some errors when the flight sheet is processed a few days later than the date of flying. Errors found when being entered from flight sheet to computer cause issues because we enter 5 flights at a time, meaning wasted time; a week later other errors crop up when the journey log is being filled out for an aircraft when weird flight time (negative or high positive) mean having to check that days sheet again, then at the end of the month the Treasurer will encounter errors slowing the production of end of month reports. SO THE OFFICE WILL COMMENCE in SEPTEMBER to deduct a Donation(tax free) of $1 to the club from any member with a flight entry with wrong flight times, wrong payment codes, wrong INTRO entry etc. Next year, it will be put to the board that this raises to $5. PLEASE check your own flights EVERY day you fly. Whilst their are many pay codes (primarily used by the office) the ones you should be using on the flight sheet are: F(Front pays); R(Rear pays); S(share costs between front and rear pilot); P(Prepaid student package). Intros should have INTRO as front pilot, their name and method of payment in the comments including certificate or order number, pay code P if paid before coming to the club, F if paid on the day.