SIMON’S SERMON - MAY 2021

Please accept my apologies for not providing a regular Simon’s Sermon over recent months. Despite my silence a lot has been going on at the field in recent weeks and it has been hard to keep up. Each of the sermon pages have a lot of photos showing the progress at the field. Just move your mouse over the photos and there will be a caption providing details of what the picture shows. If you find that the photo is not displaying correctly just reduce the size of your browser and the photo should display better.

The fence to the field has been completed and the final gates to our field (gate 3) are now installed and can be closed to keep the cattle off our flying field. There is also a gate halfway down the fence line in case a plane goes down outside the fence to the west of the field. Vince and Ben spent a lot of time getting the gates and the supporting posts, just right. Thanks also goes to the large team that worked on the fence over the weeks. You will see most of the team in the pictures for March and April.

In March, the containers were moved from their temporary location beside the temporary runway to the edge of the service area in preparation for moving them to their final location. The service pad has now been prepared and thanks to the great assistance from Glenn they are now sitting on blocks in their final location.

Around March the hydraulic steering pump failed on the Husky. Brendon found, when searching for parts on the internet, that we were going to have to go overseas for a replacement pump which was going to cost well in excess of $1,000. He was also uncertain if this was going to be the correct pump. Rod also did his research and was able to order the parts needed for the repair of the pump from overseas, for significantly less. The parts have now been received, the pump rebuilt and it is now ready to be installed in the mower.

Whilst the mower has been out of action, Brendon has been spending many hours working on reconditioning the mower. He has found several items that needed repairing including the base plate that needed major repairs. Colin S put his hand up to put his metal working and welding skills into play and has rebuilt and improved the base plate. The mower is slowly being brought back to life through the great work of Colin, Rod and Brendon. This unit is a workhorse around the field, cutting, towing and many other duties and would be greatly missed if not running. There is still some work to be done to complete the work and Brendon can be found under mower on the weekend if his not doing other jobs at the field.

After a lot of discussion by the committee and with businesses specialising in seed and seed spraying, the committee has decided to have the two runways spray seeded. We have been advised that spray seeding will provide us with the best coverage and the best chance of success in getting grass on the runways with minimal seed loss. We have also been told that now is the best time for the seeding to be done as the ground is just right for the spray seeding to be successful. There has been some time between when the runways were completed and for us to start sowing, some of the gorse and weeds have started to come through. To give us the best results we were advised that the soil needed to be loosened up and that we should also use a weed killer prior to the spraying.

Knowing that he likes “the smell of Roundup in the morning”, Brendon jumped at the chance to get his favourite weed killer and get to work. As you will see in the photo below, Brendon is as happy as a pig in ….

With the weeds in hand we also needed to break up the soil to give the seed the best chance of taking root. Ben, and his apprentice Simon, worked on something to break up the soil.

Now we need someone and something to tow the device. And along came Jones (sorry old song), along came Brendon and the Toro. Here is the result.

The seeding is planned to be done the week of the 17th to 21st May and will take two to three days. An update will follow.

For those who need to use the “facilities” we have one of the two toilets operational and a new temporary urinal. The urinal was designed by Colin and built by Colin and Ben. You can see the relief on their faces!

Since posting the latest we have a great update with pictures below and at the top. The runways and the pits have been hydroseeded. We just need to wait for the grass to grow. In the meantime we still have our temporary runway up and running and suitable for all small to medium size planes. We look forward to seeing our members at the field.