I had the pleasure of running the course this week which was for me a unique experience for several reasons. First we flew on five consecutive soarable days and only had flying interrupted briefly on the Tuesday. Second we had 3 enthusiastic visitors, Steve, Alice and Harry (more on them later), Thirdly I learned something about how instructing is carried out in Poland from our new resident instructor, Stan. Some useful ideas we could perhaps adopt. Finally I managed to go through a considerable portion of the solo syllabus in a really concentrated session of flying which I miss with just weekend instructor duties.

Steve was flying his 17m Cirrus and was joined by his syndicate partner Mike early in the week. Steve had a great week completing his first flight in his Cirrus and going on to completing a 1.5 and 3 hour soaring flight later in the week. Understandably he left at the end of the week a happy man. Well done Steve.

Our ab initios on the course were Alice and Harry. Harry returned to CGC, having not been put off from a previous one week course last October. Alice was (almost) new to flying gliders.
Both made great progress during the week flying with both myself and Stan, and Alice was keen to drive every type of vehicle the club had; and by the end of the week could probably qualify as a London bus driver as long as she didn't have to park the bus ! Both Alice and Harry became accomplished at soaring and enjoyed some great views on clear day with birds of prey circling with us in the thermals. By the end of the week they were both doing all the flying so great progress.

Our CFI Gerry and regional examiner Tony were present as some point on each day and it was great to have them as a source of advice and support. Unfortunately Gerry had a cold so could not fly from Tuesday onwards ( the day after he had his flights with Stan - no connection there I think ??). Gerry was certainly under the weather as he did not even recognize( or possibly even know of ) one of his syndicate partners Pat who seemed rather surprised at his apparent anonymity when he turned up to fly on Wednesday!

We all enjoyed a meal at a local pub on Thursday. Thanks to our local members who helped out ( especially Dave and Lesley on Mon/Tues) and our winch driver Dave provided good reliable launches throughout the week.

Andrew Turk