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One of our glider enthusiasts, Stephen MacMahon, represented our club and competed in an AEFA F5J glider event held at Appin on Sunday 23rd September.

There were 27 sailplane enthusiasts coming from as far as Queensland and Victoria to contest this increasingly popular event. Stephen put in a creditable performance and managed 5th position overall in a hotly contested field, flying his virtually untested 4.0 meter Pulsar which was only set up the day before.

In F5J events there is a ceiling limit of 200 meters on motor climb or a 30 second motor run, followed by a 10 minute working time and a spot landing. The whole flight, including ceiling on the motor run, is recorded on a data logger inserted in the plane before the flight. The information on the data logger is than transferred to a computer for the contest director to determined the final score.

Stephen managed a score of 3192.7 points out of a possible 4000. 

For those interested, there will be 2 trial friendly contests at WRCS on Saturday 6th October and Saturday 10th November - between 12:30 and 2:30 both days. Come along and try this new style of glider contest - you'll just need an electric glider with room to insert the datalogger (provided, and very small) between the ESC and receiver.

Ed

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The weekend before last, I attended to a minor injury at the field. To my dismay, a significant number of dressings that were in the SEALED unit had migrated into the first aide tin hanging on the pound door. I waded through the cockie dung, mouse droppings and even the beginnings of a wasp nest to get to the dressings. This is in reality, not very hygienic and this type of contamination may lead to potentially serious infections and who knows, an insurance risk! I took the liberty to dispose of the tin to avoid a repeat of this.

Please remember that any first aide kit in an open environment such as at our field must be in a sealed unit. I will purchase a second sealed container to place all medicaments in and all non sealed units will be discarded.

Last February, I had the bag/mask valve unit autoclaved (fully sterilised), put in a sealed unit and placed in it the bag hanging a hook. I am not sure whether there was an unfortunate incident where it was used or somebody took it out of the sealed bag to inspect it and just replaced it in the bag. I have taken it away to be reautoclaved and returned it also in a sealed container. Please only remove it if it is needed and notify the club secretary so we can get it reautoclaved.

Stephen