"BAToulson" wrote in message
...
In article , "F.L. Whiteley"
writes:

One thing about the old RAF clubs, 50p launches. Did some 5+ hours
flights
from those;^) Cable mending with the 4/3
wind and a reef knot was nearly as fast as with swaging tools.

Yeah, but the taxpayer was unwillingly co-opted into chipping in another
£5.00
per launch!!!

Barney
UK

Bit unfair to some of the smaller RAF clubs, don't you think? From my
experience, although they had access to vacant hangars, much was cobbled
together. Old 150hp Bedford diesel winches got us to the nose bleed
altitude of 1100agl if the launch was into wind. Learned to scratch away
really well. I think we used the JP4 drained from the Phantom tanks when
they went into maintenance. Some of the gliders were from the Nuffield
Trust IIRC. Gee, think we had an L-13, G-102, and K-4, but don't see those
as launch subsidies. Don't think the taxpayer paid anything like that in
subsidies in 1979. Got some references?

Frank