My Flying

Bloemfontein Camp - Day 3

This morning the sky did not look so great, in fact, it looked pretty shitty as it was mostly overcast with high mucky looking light grey cloud. At the briefing we were informed that this was due to huge amounts of moist air moving in from Mozambique and that poor thermals, if any, were predicted for the day. To make things even worse, it was predicted that this moist air might spoil the rest of the gliding weather for the week.

Nobody at the briefing looked particularly eager to tackle this poor weather and I think that this was due to it being a serious anti-climax after yesterday's awesome weather, and also perhaps that the people needed a rest. Most of the pilots, including myself, opted not to fly. Three however did decide to fly and as we found out the following morning, they actually did pretty well. Oh well, that's what you get for following the herd.

The break was actually rather good as it gave me a chance to rest and to spend some time with the family. We visited the Bloemfontein Zoo and I was very impressed; if you ignore the obvious moral aspects of keeping wild animals in captivity. The Zoo is very well maintained, the animals looked well cared for and there is much to see and do there.

Here's hoping for better weather tomorrow!

On day one (Sunday) I mentioned that I was late to arrive at the launch point as I needed to rig my glider and that I held up a launch. I also mentioned that during the morning briefings there is a section on House Keeping which is essentially a "nice" "uit kak" (for my non-Afrikaans speaking readers: "uit kak" is basically a rather pointed method of shitting someone out for doing something wrong).

So anyways, during Monday morning's meeting I needed to hear how people must not hold up the launch by driving down the runway and how they must be ready for when the tug comes to collect them. This "uit kak" is not directed at anyone specific, though I am sure that everyone knows, as it was normally rather obvious whom the guilty party was. My problem with this method is that no one comes to speak to you privately to explain the problem and also to hear your side of the story; it is rather brought out in a more public manner. Later on during the week I was speaking to one of the other pilots (from Britain) and he was also pretty upset as he was also subjected to what he thought an unfair "uit kak".

Never-the-less, so we learn and I didn't allow this to upset me or to distract me from the all important task of flying.

As a bonus for the day, I helped to rig a brand new all shiny JS1. This was the first official production model with the serial number of 003 and may I say, what an amazing looking aircraft.