Sunday, 21 July 2013

Days 1, 2, 3 from the crew dude

Finally arrived over here on 19 July, where Eric picked me up from the airport.

The trip over was as uneventful as it could be, and also as good as it could be in cattle class with a 6½-hour stopover in Singers.  This meant no sleep on the plane, but that’s about par for the course.

Anyway, got to Frankfurt, where I went through customs OK and then for the plane to Leszno.  At Leszno, I assumed I’d get full customs formalities, but no, that was done at Frankfurt and all I had to do was grab the suitcase – which also made it – and get out of there.  To find Eric waiting.  Reckon he hadn’t been there very long as the flight arrived early.

Then to the Polish Gliding School where the comp was being held.  One travels through reasonable country roads, travelling at up to 100 klicks, for seconds at a time before coming to the next town, where you have to slow down to 50.  Eventually we got to Leszno, and, driving through there, I got the impression that there was an air of – well, antiquity I guess, around the place.  Still it all worked OK and so obviously was the gliding operation.

The buildings at the airfield – which is not only the gliding operation but quite a few other operations too – definitely seemed to be from the WW2 era, and I think the whole airfield stemmed from then too.  So a current aviation operation could – and obviously did – move straight in there, and get going successfully.  There’s the gliding club – at least 20 club gliders, three tugs and two most magnificent winches – a paragliding operation, some ultralights, some stinkwings and a wind-tunnel being built for skydivers and public who want to experience 200 km/hr of wind going past them..

The tent was all set up OK; we’ve since moved it to its correct designated position, in the Australian camp.

First day.  Eric got the 28 ready, got airborne after two hours of nothing happening, launching around 4-ish, and landed 12 minutes later.

Second day.  Lousy to start with but it got dramatically better.  We got the machine ready, while I learnt how to spell “crew duties” and then maybe even participate in them, and Eric got away into a great sky in good time, and stayed airborne for 2½ hours, during which I managed to get on with being bored (no, not really, I’ve got a ton of things to do on the laptop).

Third day (today).  Blue to start with, and promising a lot.  Into town first off, to stock up on supplies; so far I’ve managed to get OK into the passenger’s seat of the car without mistaking it for the driver’s seat J.  Then got the glider ready, and he’s now launched around 2:30 into a fantastic sky, and will probably get back no earlier than 5 or 5:30.  No task as such but One can spend some time in a totally unfamiliar place getting used to the weather systems, funny airspace, the unfamiliar glider (thermaling speed very high full of water) and the local procedures.  And a glider whose ASI is in klicks not knots, and altimeter in metres rather than feet.  (What speed does it stall at?  90? 100?? And how high are we?  1000? Is that feet or metres? J )

The weather’s great, and forecast to get better.  I hear Adelaide’s got a bit of a cold snap right now J

It’s quiet now, with the occasional glider launch, and listening to all the other crew people speaking in unfamiliar languages.  It’s going to be interesting; so far we’ve managed quite well with the Polish people.

Oh, it’s still light at 9 pm, and just starting to get light at 4 am! By 6 am, there’s not much point in staying in bed.

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