HEM

Now for something different: we (my gliding club) are running a "project week" for 6 girls & 5 boys from a nearby grammar school. Objective: to learn the initial steps in the art of flying a sailplane. I'm one of the organisers. Some theory & lots of practical experience. For example we started today with a short talk by one of our members who is also a captain (& instructor/examiner) on A320s. So far we have been able to fly all week - today was fantastic visibility & quite good thermals. This afternoon the parents & elder brother of one of the participants came by. Would they like a flight? Sure they would. Muggins here got to fly them - first the mother, then the brother & finally papa. The family had a sailing boat on the river Elba so they understood a fair amount of what was going on (there are many parallels between sailing on water & sailing through the air). Anyhow - I managed to connect with thermals for all three - battling with our DG-1000 2-seat sailplane up to 3000' (the maximum allowed due to our close location to Hamburg airport).

45 - 40 years ago I used to hire a half-decker from them whilst my parents hired a riverside shack (cottage) either in Repps or Ranworth. Boat was usually Windrush or Jamesea I (or II?). I recall one year after taking over the cottage my parents drove my brother & self to Martham to collect the boat. An elderly rep came to help us - we too the boat to the other bank of the river (lee shore) to rig & the guy turned to my father & said "they know what they are doing" & went back to the office.

When "we" visited the broads several times in the late 1960s / earyl 1970s my parents used to hire a riverside shack at Repps & later Ranworth & I'd hire a half-decker from Matham Boat - usually Windrush. Good fun sailing her.

Not sure if this fits in here but here goes. I finished senior school (Stockport) in 1970 with 4 "A" levels (Maths, Physics, Chemistry & "General Studies"). Best was a "B" in Maths. Until 6 months before leaving I didn't really know what to do until my father (a University lecturer in Chemistry (Crystallography)) suggested "How about Computer Science - & I've got a PDP-8 in my lab you can try out". This was fun & I was soon programming the thing in machine code. Filling out the forms I put Computer Science at Manchester as number 1 on my list & got invited to an interview with Prof Frank Sumner - a Giant of a man. What I didn't know was that he was a pal of my father's & had been primed to put me off staying at school for a 3rd year in 6th form. Anyhow I got my B.Sc & stayed on for an M.Sc which took longer than planned. With my research topic falling apart I looked around for a job & got one as "Computer Programmer" with the Physics department, High Energy Physics group. After a couple of years we got involved with the JADE experiment at DESY in Hamburg; I commuted for several years until in 1982 a German colleague got killed in vacation by falling into the crater of Stromboli & I was the only one who knew what his software did. Thus I moved out to Hamburg area "for a year" & have been here ever since. I'd already started to learn to fly (which was the real reason I was willing to move out) & a couple of years later bumped into a girl from the computer center at DESY who is now my wife. I subsequently worked for a German software house for 11 years or so. In April 1998 I joined a global IT manufacturer staying just short of 20 years. I just made it to "normal" retirement age here (65 1/2 for me) - the parting insult from the company was that they would have made me redundant one month later (experts in Europe were deemed to cost too much). No such thing for me - I was working flat out until the evening of my last day. At least I got my 6 days untaken vacation paid out.

Where in Hamburg? You are more likely to get Labskaus...

I have been a life-member of the Broads Society for most of my err - life... At least going back to the 1970s. I've even been known to write an article for their magazine. 710 as of September 2017.

I have seen Youtube videos from Broadland where the drone is obviously been flown from a cruiser under way. Apparently not for the purpose of looking at possible mooring sites.

I hope it was better than the lemon chicken that we had in a Chinese restaurent in Chester California after a day in Mt. Lassen Volcanic National park. That lemon chicken was horribly sweet & uneatable.

When I lived in the UK for model aircraft that would have been highly illegal so I assume same applies here.

Good video - the drone is obviously fitted with a pretty decent camcorder. I own a drone (Phantom 3 Std) - it was given to me some time back as a birthday present. Before I moved out to Germany I used to be a R/C aeromodeller (even built the planes myself) & so was used to the issues of orientation when controlling the drone. In recent years I've made a video of our club's Summer Camp. Last year I had my drone with me (the airfield was also licensed for use by model aircraft & thus also drones) and was able to include some footage into the video: see from 1:07: The feedback is that drone footage make the video more interesting. BTW my right knee appears at 7:19! At least over here those sort of complaints appeared already years ago. In fact we used to get complaints years ago from those near our airfield claiming that the gilder pilots were able to see the locals sunning themselves in the nude in their gardens - I can tell you we have our hands full enough piloting without studying minute objects on the ground! I'm not so sure it will be easy to make them silent - you need to move a fair volume of air to support the weight & the noise is pretty characteristic. I don't know what the situation is in the UK but the locals technology Supermarkets (Media Markt, Saturn) sell vast quantities. I suspect after a few attempts to fly most people rapidly give up. I cannot say the air is full of them. What is very likely to happen in a big way is commercial usage of drones (Amazon etc.). The following video from January this year made by a guy who used to be a well-known aero-modeller when I lived in the UK & now is also a commercial drone operator (with a TYPHOON H drone). This shows the flooding not far from where I live due to prolongued heavy rainfall. This is not Broadland - normally there is only a small channel through which a canoe might just pass:

Its sedimentary my dear Watson...

We lived in Bramhall (Cheshire) from the late 1950s until 1979. Our next-door neighbours were the Kent family. Knowing that we visited the Broads a few times old Mrs. Kent produced an photo album from the 1930s with several photos of their family holiday on the Broads - IIRC they had hired 3 wherry yachts, one of which was "Olive" (her father had been Lord Mayor of Manchester...). I think one story goes that they went to Ludham village in order to buy meat for the whole troup. The butcher's wife said that she's have to get her husband from the pub but Mrs. Kent's father was also a butcher & offered to cut the meat, have the shopkeeper's wife weigh up & they'd be on their way. Two of Mrs. Kent's sons founded Kents Pies in Manchester and occasionally a packet of pies would appear over the fence...

Do what I do when flying a sailplane for 7+ hours (solo). A small roll of 1 litre freezer bags at the side of the cockpit. Whilst steering a boat is easy - I'm lying almost flat & have to fly the plane at the same time! Those who use 3 litre freezer bags are just bragging...

Woken this morning just after 7am by a louding banging sound. Damned woodpecker (lesser-spotted sort) trying to enlarge the hole in the bird box we have attached to side of house.

Being from Yorkshire (but left at the age of 5 for Northern Cheshire) when I make YPs they go down very well with the Anglo/German members of the family. Anyhow I prefer Ken Dodd's 3 legged chicken:

Runway behind you... ...as this guy found out last year on Sylt (downwind landing, wet runway). No-one hurt, plane undamaged AFAIK.

Anyone read this book? I thoroughly recommend it: Unfortunately I believe its out of print (I have a copy!). Short stories about flying, boating, diving... Basically all accidents have already happened: there has been a collision betweens a cyclist & a submarine, a yachtsman had his bowsprit run over by a train... Some time ago I loaned the book to the CFI of our neighbouring flying club (he was chief pilot of Lufthansa Cityline North) - 4 weeks later he bought it back saying "my (gliding) accident was in there..."

This is not entirely true. You can hire boats "to live on" on the Mecklenburger Seenplatte which is a network of lakes in Northern former East Germany. Here is one example of a boatyard (found at ramdom via Google). As the webpage states, no boating license is required. I / we have not been there although it is a possibility. Well not quite - some years ago I joined my club's Summer Camp at Rechlin-Lärz airfield (was the German equivalent of Farnborough ages ago) & I have some digital photos somewhere of us flying over the lakes.

At our flying club we have "Chinese take-offs": Wun Wing Lo For landings we have the "Lufthansa Landing" (main wheels touchdown but rather fast) and the Beethoven Landing. (Think about his 5th symphony).

The value of salt in the middle ages led to the title of this album:

I partly experienced the 1978/79 "Schneekatastrophe" (Snow Catastrophy) in Northern Germany. This was whilst we were commisioning the JADE High-Energy Physics experiment at DESY. I'd been in the UK over Christmas & New Year, returned early January to Hamburg to find 1metre of snow at the side of the roads. After another spell in UK I was back when in mid February a strongy icy wind (=gale) blew from the East which later added fresh snow (-18 C). The only things that could move on the streets were army tanks! Mid-March there was a third massive snowfall with temperatures around freezing. My future father-in-law (I hadn't yet met my GF at that stage) was the police chief in the town of Husum which was cut-off from the rest of Germany & he had to organise supplies to farmers in Nordfriesland who were totally cut off.

It "warmed up" to minus 6.5 C during the daytime here. We had sunshine & no clouds all day but with a biting easterly wind. There was a report on the TV this morning from the Mittellandkanal with an icebreaker running up & down breaking the frozen surface which was claimed to be up to 10 cm thick.

If its any consolation we had minus 12.5 C this morning (to the North-West of Hamburg). Not much snow (about 1") but nearby there has been considerably more. I have to take the train to the South-West corner of the country tomorrow (Black Forrest area). Could be interesting.

Brings back memories of when I "did" O-Level woodwork at school (and passed).