Tjilpi

A Pedagogical Day at the Strip

  I hadn't had my hands and feet on the controls of a glider since April 2007.

After that, for some reason, I lost my WILL TO DIE ; and hadn't flown a glider since then.  However, I remain Secretary of the Gliding Club.

BUT...last Saturday I was at the strip at 09:02 ready to go.

It was a "To Hell and Back" day for me.  Overconfidence - like "Hey I know how to fly this machine!" Tiredness  (I had been at the Casino until 4am).  Age - I'm nearly 60.  Or, maybe somebody was sticking pins into a Voodoo doll.

Whatever it was, everything seemed to conspire against me.  But who wouldn't think like that if they have a slight tendency to paranoia.

The day began with Simon doing the first take off, finding a nice thermal which took us to 10, 000 feet where we enjoyed the "Cool, Cool, Cool of the Elevation". 

You see you lose about 3C for each 1,000 feet you climb above the ground.  Our strip is at 2,400 Above Sea Level so at 10,000 feet the temp outside the aircraft is 22.8C below that on the ground - and on the ground it was well into the 40s.  17C in High Summer in Centralia is just soooooooo comfortable.  We found the first cool spot at around 8,000 feet and Simon said:

"Your aircraft"

"My aircraft", I replied.

I just wanted to fool around and get used to flying again with no particular task in hand.  However, Simon was intent on pushing me to learn more.  He began gliding after I did, and went solo before I did, and he knows exponentionally more than I do about gliding.

But hey, he is 15 years younger than me!

I managed my first landing with the comment from behind - "Perfect".

Well, something like that can't help but boost ones confidence.

The next flight was a disaster.  I was too low on final and Simon had to take over to allow us to clear the mulga which would have ripped the plane apart, as well removing, at a minimum. both of our rear ends, which are very close to the ground in a glider.

Simon is a brave man.  We went up for a 3rd flight.  I took the launch; but we didn't get much height and didn't find a thermal.  I was forced to turn back to the strip and do what is call an alternative approach. Rather than landing from the western end of the strip I had to turn in early and land on what has been described as "our aircraft carrier" about mid-deck.

I thought I was going to get a rollicking about that flight - but Simon's first words were: "Perfect. You made all the right decisions - you had no height, no thermal, and nowhere else to go, so you chose to do the only sensible thing and land the aircraft with a perfect final turn and a perfect landing."

This gliding business surely does bring some pleasures.

An essential Centralian Item...

Remember this photo on the right?

I published it in a previous post titled "Lake Miserable". 

The photo on the left was taken just after I moved into 5 Burke Street in November 2003. 

However, after some time the Klever Kleener, which came with the pool equipment you can see in the mid background of the photo on the left, ceased to clean the area in the bottom left corner of the photo you see on the left. 

Algae proliferated and the whole pool turned green.  The inner cement rendering of the pool had not been looked after properly before I bought this house and was in need of a repaint.   

So, I stopped watering the Vincas, which you can see flourishing in the left photo, drained the pool and stared at the miserable view which resulted outside the window, which is that which I look through for most of my non-working waking life.  That view lies behind the screen of my computer, at which, for those of you who know me,  I spend many hours.

The photo above, on the right, was taken at the depths of my depression about my swimming pool.  It stayed looking that way for more than 2 years. 

And then, one day, there seemed to be enough money in the Bank for me to call my friend John, The Painter. 

"Would you like to paint my pool", I asked.

"No"

"Why not?"

"Because the paint will fall off and I'll have to do it again in two years time.  Do the job properly, spend the money and get it Pebblecreted."

Well, you can't get better advice than that - so I went ahead and spent the money and had the pool Pebblecreted.  Here are the blokes at work in mid-winter - which is the time to get a pool man to do a job.   They're too busy in summer. 

Winter is also the time to buy a new chlorinator, filter, pump and Pool Shark.  I thought I was going to have to fork out about $2,000 just for the pump, which had seized up through disuse, and a new chlorinator; but I ended up with a new more powerful pump, new filter with the latest material inside, new reverse cycle chlorinator and a Pool Shark which does what the Klever Kleener was not able to do.  All for $1,950.  What a winter bargain!

And the Pool Shark, which is a modification of the Klever Kleener gets into the south east corner and scrubs the white granite impregnated Pebblecrete whiter than white.

Later, my next door neighbour helped me.  Well he did most of the work, I helped him  We built a little shed to shield all the new gear from our sun which rots most everything exposed to it.

Here is Steves shed; covering the filter, pump and chlorinator.  It's hidden by new growth of the Incas and a local plant which I have yet to identify.

But the whole business gave me heart and I've been watering the Incas, tending the pool and jumping into it, bomb style, most mornings.  Steve knows I'm still alive when he hears the splash, although must wonder if I will surface from my rapid sinking.  The Incas are a delight.

Here they are in close up.  There are two variations in my Vin ca patch. The pink/purple variety dominates but the white variation is there as well.

It being 40C  [=104F] in the shade outside at the moment, it might be time to bomb in ans splash out some water out of the pool. 

Fortunately water restrictions in Central Australia are almost nonexistent compared to those in the rest of drought affected Australia.

We pay for water; but it is more a notional cost rather than an impost.

So I think I can afford to splash some water out!

Ready, setty, jump.