On Thu, 05 May 2016 11:05:56 -0700, son_of_flubber wrote:

On Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 12:04:26 PM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
Steve is a bald headed, white bearded, tattooed biker who's
pushing 60 years old (if not already there).Â* I like what you
said about bringing up the youngsters through the ranks but, this
time, it was different.

So a 50+ year old 'line boy'?

What's unusual about that? At most UK clubs the ab initios are encouraged
to help out round the launch point regardless of how old or young they
are. The benefits in terms of launch rate, and hence more flying for
students, may be more apparent at a winching operation site: yes, the
winch driver *can* hop out of his cab, pull the cables out, drive back,
climb back in and launch the next two gliders (two drum winch), but even
one extra person driving the cable truck make a huge difference to the
launch rate, especially at times when there's a launch line and someone
is prepared to stay with the truck and chase the second glider up the
field until the line has been launched.

18 launches an hour is quite possible, and fun to achieve, with a
dedicated truck driver, and a good launch marshal. Add a couple more
people to help getting glider on line and running a golf cart or two to
collect landed gliders and you can keep this rate up as long as needed -
very useful for group trial flights evenings.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |