SoaringNZ Issue 48

NEW ZEALAND’S PREMIER SOARING MAGAZINE

WORLDS YOUTH GLIDE CAMPS NORTHERN REGIONALS NATIONALS • CLUB NEWS i s s u e 4 8 F e b r u a r y – A p r i l 2 0 17

IMAGES THAT SOAR ABOVE THE ORDINARY

John McCaw – aviation and agricultural photographer

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C OMMIS SIONS A ND S T O CK LIBR A RY SP ECI A LIS T S

contents february–april 2017 features 10 What I did on my holidays – 34th FAI World Gliding Championships

10

21

24

34

37

14

Steve goes to the Worlds in Benalla

17

Youth Soaring Development Camp 2016

21 24 28

Youth Glide 2017 Taupo Mini Camp

30

From ‘das Wasserkuppe’ to the Waikato

32

Rat’s Nest

34

Youth Glide. Where Are They?

37

Audi Soaring Competition 2017

40

OSTIV Congress Report

Northern Regionals The Contest Director's Report – National Open and Racing Class Gliding Championships

regulars 6 Log Book 29 Gliding Book Corner 39 A Question of Safety 42 Coaching Column 43 Airworthiness 44 GNZ Awards & Certificates 45 Gliding New Zealand Club News 50 Classified Advertising

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Editor Jill McCaw soaringnz@mccawmedia.co.nz

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ISSN February–April 1178-4784 2017 3

from the editor february–april 2017

Let me preface my editorial with a reminder that although SoaringNZ is the official journal of GNZ, the editorials are my personal opinion. I have been very circumspect over the years with expressing any opinions that were at all controversial, feeling that my position as editor probably lends my words more import than those of the ‘ordinary’ Jill Blow. Too bad.

Think of the following as a letter to the editor if you wish, but I have some thoughts and I want to express them.

Another World Championships has come and gone. There are a couple of issues from this Worlds that I find worthy of discussion.

World contests, any gliding contest should be about racing, not about the pilots’ abilities to cheat death. Gaggle flying at the level it has reached is dangerous and it cannot be allowed to continue. As most of us are aware by now, there were two mid-air incidents at this Worlds. Karen Morgan and Steve Wallace both discuss it in their reports on the competition on pages 10 and 14.

Gliding related social media has been full of discussion on competition safety in the last few weeks. Sebastian Kawa (Poland, multiple world champion and new 15m champion) lead the charge.

Sebastian said, “The first problem was the fact that such conditions promote gaggle flying and the winner is usually the pilot who leaves the start line last, and not necessarily the pilot who used conditions the best. The second problem was congestion increasing the potential of mid-air collisions. We still don't know how to change rules to allow pilots to successfully leave gaggles, but after the collision there was a discussion which showed that some pilots have no idea about good practice in flight. There are a few points, possibly counted on the fingers of one hand, things obvious to pilots from Europe but possibly a secret to others, unwritten rules relating joining thermals, flying on a ridge, passing and overtaking which are not as clear as we thought.”

The New Zealand team certainly know those rules and fly by them. They also found that general airmanship seemed to disappear as soon as there were trophies on offer, so it may not be that these rules are not known but that pilots are just too focused on winning to apply them.

Regardless, something needs to be done. Different countries’ rules and scoring systems were discussed but it became obvious that something new needs to be introduced and with the technology we have, it is now possible to give penalties for proximity and dangerous flying practices.

Oscar Goudriaan (South Africa, IGC delegate) said, “Very few

A gaggle of gliders at the Worlds. I count 25 gliders visible in this picture.

pilots fly into airspace, because the penalties are severe. Pilot behaviour of flying into airspace has been modified – done.

"With our current technology, log files can be interrogated by an algorithm to show dangerous flying (as was demonstrated in Benalla at the morning briefing after the accident) and generate a report. Penalties can be applied. This WILL stop dangerous flying.”

In response from a query from me as to how long it will take to implement these changes Oscar said, “If we can get it into the scoring program (Seeyou) I am prepared to test it in SA. Alternatively, we need someone with programming skills. Trusting the IGC to come up with this will take too long. It needs to be driven hard by the pilots themselves if we want change fast. It can be implemented as soon as we can have the software.”

In discussing this with a general aviation pilot friend of mine, I realise that this situation has been creeping up for years. I remember the first Worlds I went to, also at Benalla, in 1987. There were prestart gaggles of at least 25 gliders over the field every day.

With contests getting bigger, the gaggles, particularly at ‘blue’ sites, have increased with the size of the field. I am pleased that at last there seems to be a serious move afoot to reduce the risks.

My other issue from the worlds? Certainly not life threatening, but something that I imagine has people out there muttering into their beers. Here was a contest on our doorstep. The Kiwis had had ample chance to practise in the conditions and some of them got to take their own gliders to the event. Why then did they do so

next issue

NEW ZEALAND’S PREMIER SOARING MAGAZINE

Next Issue: Keith Essex’s North Island 1000km flight

magazine deadlines

Profile Martyn Cook WORLDS YOUTH GLIDE CAMPS NORTHERN REGIONALS NATIONALS • CLUB NEWS i s s u e 4 8 F e b r u a r y – A p r i l 2 0 17

4

Mike Oakley and Graham Johnson soar the ASH 25 above the Craigieburns near Springfield.

Photo John McCaw.

February–April 2017

Club Class Nationals Central Districts

Competition Deadline for Club News, articles and pictures is 22 April and 3 May for advertising.

Photo Steve Wallace

subscription form Name:_______________________________________________________________ Address:_____________________________________________________________

poorly? Why aren’t our pilots world class?

In no way do I want to take away from our pilots who gave their best efforts, but we are just not doing well enough. Steve Wallace makes a good point in his report on page 14. He got a very credible 5th place on the final contest day, and may well have scored well on the cancelled day following the mid-air. He says, “I really enjoyed this Worlds as I felt I got a handle on being able to foot it with the best in the world. I think with persistence I could work my way into the top ten but time, age and money may have other ideas.”

So what would it take to get Steve to a higher score in the next Worlds? Obviously, he would have to want to do it. What would be the barriers to that? NZ pilots are amateurs. They have day jobs and families who want them to spend time with them. There is little we can do about their jobs, not without huge injections of funds that would allow them to fly for a living. Money for entry fees, top notch aircraft at events, travel and accommodation and all the extras that go with waging a contest would help.

Age is an interesting comment from Steve. I still think of him as one of the younger pilots out there. I also believe glider pilots improve with age and can be competitive into retirement age and over. I’d be interested to know why Steve said that. Does he feel his window for competitive gliding is closing?

I’d really like some letters to the editor about this. What do you folks think we should be doing about this? Do we care? Do we want to produce world champions or are we happy to keep sending off teams who at least display good airmanship and charm the rest of the world? Should we be aggressively working with emerging talent and creating the development squads of the past? Who? How? Who pays for it? Are my comments fair? There are so many questions and no easy answers. I know the Contest Pilots meetings have been having similar discussions regarding the reduced number of pilots and increasing average age of those flying in NZ contests.

I’ve had my say. Now it’s your turn.

In the meantime, please, stay safe.

Jill McCaw

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logbook february–april 2017

GRANTS

GLIDING NZ UMBRELLA TRUST If you have an upcoming event that may be worthy of Trust funding, check out the Umbrella Trust information on the GNZ website under ‘About’.

There you will find the grant application form, a summary of the various funds and their purposes, and a history of successful applications.

The Trustees are bound by instructions from the donee trusts and the purpose of each fund is specific, although in some cases a fund allows for ‘other purposes’. The Trustees cannot use the original capital for grants, and in some cases only 50% of the income can be used for grants.

The Trustees look favourably on applications that are received before deadline and well in advance of the event as this helps Trustees ascertain the best distribution of available funds. Applications after the event will not be accepted. The Trust doesn’t provide grants for capital items but the Loans Fund may be able to assist with this.

Application deadlines are 31 May and 31 October for twice yearly Trustee meetings in June and November – please get your application in sooner rather than later.

Laurie Kirkham laurie.kirkham@xtra.co.nz Umbrella Trust Secretary/Treasurer

NEWS FAI TO LAUNCH INTERNATIONAL AIR GAMES TOUR IN 2018 The FAI is planning to launch an international multi-discipline Air Games Tour which could start in the 2nd half of 2018.

Touching down in up to five host cities around the world each year, each event will showcase some of the best sporting action from across the world of air sports over four days of intense activity and competition.

FAI President Frits Brink said: “The idea is to initially develop a multi-discipline Air Games Tour, with three to five events a year, leading athletes to the World Air Games every four or five years.”

Many different sports and air sport disciplines come under the umbrella of the FAI, from skydiving to drone racing, and the idea of the Air Games Tour is to showcase several different air sports at the same time at the same venue.

In this way, more people will be reached, the audience will be bigger, and the event will be more commercially viable compared with simply hosting a single-sport competition.

6

February–April 2017

CLUB NEWS OR NOT CLUB NEWS? Do you read the club news? Is it the first thing you read? Do you never read it? Should the club news section remain in SoaringNZ? In and around discussions by the GNZ executive and your editor on communications, the magazine and the GNZ website, the question was raised as to whether SoaringNZ is the best place for club news. Deadlines to send club news for the magazine are, because of the editing process, about a month before the magazine actually reaches members, making any news well out of date. The process is complicated further by club scribes who ignore the deadlines and sometimes send material just as we’re hitting the final layout process. To be frank, the club news section which should be routine and simple, is probably the most annoying piece of the magazine to prepare.

With modern technology and work going into upgrading the website, would the club news be better off there? If clubs became active at updating a Club News section of the GNZ website alongside their own regular website updates and club newsletters the site would be relevant, interesting and carry up to date news that the whole world could see. There could be a way to subscribe to updates so that when something new is posted you’d know to go and check it out.

On the other hand, club news in the magazine ensures that all members and subscribers have a chance, four times a year, to catch up on what other clubs are doing. I’ve heard people living overseas say that it is the first section they turn to when their magazine arrives.

On a completely mercenary note, a magazine without the club news would be at least four pages shorter, therefore cheaper to produce and print which would allow us to retain the current subscription price for longer.

What are your thoughts?

DG LS1-f neo test flown DG announces that they were able to test fly their new LS1-f in February.

All pilots were very satisfied. Flight characteristics and the look are great!

The glider can thermal very slowly with the handling extremely gentle close to stall speed. More tests will follow during the upcoming weeks to certify winglets and the wing-fuselage transition. They are hoping to catch some thermals and really try it out.

The glider will be handed over to a young talented pilot as a sponsorship for the 2017 European season and the pilot will be announced shortly.

Meanwhile the neo winglets have been certified for retrofitting and operation on all LS6 with wing parting and on all LS8 while the 18m neo Winglets are certified for all DG-1000/DG-1001 (Version Club, S and T).

The new winglets reduce stall speed and improve flight characteristics during thermalling. All clubs that want to use the DG-1000S in basic training can now easily modify the glider. See the DG website for more information.

GAVIN WILLS

M O U N TA IN SOARING SCHOOL Learn-to-Fly Post Solo to QGP Mountain Soaring Guest instructors: Uli Schwenk Justin Wills

ADVENTURE SOARING FLIGHTS

Inquiries and Bookings phone +64 3 438 9555 | www.glideomarama.com

Soaring Avionics, Radios and Transponders

AIR GLIDE – A new take on soaring avionics!

We now have a complete system with Vario Display S and Display M coupled with an Air glide TRX 1500 Flarm / ADS-B / Mode C traffic warning system for customers to evaluate here in Masterton.

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NZSoaring Solutions

Paul Buchanan, Hood Aerodrome Masterton www.nzsoaring.solutions info@nzsoaring.solutions

M 021 073 0021 Ph 06 370 8090

February–April 2017

7

logbook february–april 2017 Skilled Helicopter Piloting during Christchurch Fires

Photo John McCaw

BY JILL MCCAW

8

Photo John McCaw

Photo John McCaw

Seventeen of those choppers were using monsoon buckets. Of the remaining two, one small two-man chopper was used for Geo Mapping of the fire and occasional media filming while the other was

February–April 2017

the base for air operations and air attack. Hours flown were huge.

Choppers were on the ground from 6 am and active until it was too dark to fly anymore. This worked out at around 10 flying hours per day.

The helicopters were refuelling and refilling the fire retardant foam that was added to the water in the buckets, every hour.

From the side lines I watched the monsoon bucket filling operation from a duck pond in the Halswell Quarry Park. The park had suddenly become one of the most active airfields in the country. The operation ran like a conveyor belt with a helicopter hovering, dipping to fill its bucket, way below on the end of a strop, lifting off and disappearing over the ridge, only to reappear less than ten minutes later to refill and do it again. There were at least six helicopters working during the time I was observing, heading out and coming back in on a great rotating circuit. Their approach was over power lines and trees and frequently

Photo John McCaw

The recent devastating fires on Christchurch’s Port Hills brought together nineteen helicopters, possibly the largest collection of helicopters seen in the South Island, if not the entire country. And it was a country wide response with choppers from Taranaki, Hawkes Bay, Tekapo and Oamaru scrambling to help. Not all nineteen were in the air at once, but it was still a major gathering. The precision and skills of the pilots, some barely catching their breath after working on the Hawkes Bay fires, were amazing. At first glance, fire-fighting from the air seems the easy option, but as the tragic death of Steve Askin showed, the highly skilled flying in a volatile situation is extremely dangerous.

logbook february–april 2017

It’s only in the event of a

CL A IM

that you really find out who has the best policy!

Drone Racing is the Latest Craze Flying small radio controlled multicopters via video goggles for a first-person view (FPV) is becoming increasingly popular.

FPV devices are nothing new. FPV drone races however are based on a completely different concept. A racer is a multicopter with at least three motors and should weigh no more than one kg including batteries. The agile racers have an optimised weight/power ratio for power plus manoeuvrability, a major consideration when designing a multi-copter for racing which should also be crushproof and able to take a fair amount of punishment.

Contact your broker or ring Arden and talk to the people who specialise in aviation insurance.

“Kiwis providing Glider pilots with aviation insurance for over 30 years”

TELEPHONE 04 473 5593

The video transmission system consists of a small camera, a 5.8 GHz transmitter and a circular antenna used to transmit the video signal from the copter to the video goggles. The goggles include a receiver which is also equipped with a circular antenna. The copter is controlled using a conventional 2.4 GHz radio controller.

The NZ Active Aircraft Register is available through the CAA website. If you have any interest in who owns which glider, or any other type of aircraft, it is worth searching ‘Active Aircraft Register Enquiry’ on the CAA’s website. You can check out a single aircraft, the list of all gliders, or if you so desire, the details of every single aircraft registered in NZ. There are currently 350 gliders (286 gliders, 52 powered gliders, 3 amateur built, 9 microlight gliders ) registered in the country. It doesn’t tell you how many of those are actually airworthy or regularly flying.

The racing circuit is 250 m long, has to fit into an approximate 180 x 100 m rectangle and is marked on the ground. Obstacles must be clearly visible. The racing circuit must include between three and five air gates. Known as RotoCross in NZ, racers have recently held an exhibition race at Te Papa. The Nationals will be held in Geraldine in March. Check out their Facebook page for more information.

Contributions to Logbook are welcome from all of our readers within New Zealand and internationally.

Email your news snippets to: soaringnz@mccawmedia.co.nz.

Please put "logbook" in the subject line.

Tim Murdoch, Christchurch Helicopters’ ground crew at Halswell Quarry, says that fire work is a usual part of Christchurch Helicopters summer work load. As well as having their sling rating, the only legal requirement for using the bucket, their pilots all train with the Selwyn District Council fire crews to learn how to respond, both on the ground and in the air in a fire situation. The pilots who flew over the Christchurch fires are true Kiwi heroes, ordinary Kiwi blokes, using their skills to selflessly do what needed to be done.

Thank you.

Photo John McCaw

there would be three of them simultaneously refilling from the not terribly large pond. To increase payload, no one was flying with a spotter. The pilots’ work load would have been immense. It occurred to me that my observation point was not a particularly safe place to be.

February–April 2017

9

WHAT I DID ON MY H 34th FAI World Gliding Championships

BY KAREN MORGAN

The 34th FAI World Gliding Championships were held in Benalla, Victoria, Australia last month. There were three official practice days from 5 to 7 January and an opening ceremony on 8 January. The competition ran from 9 January to 21 January 2017.

N

ew Zealand sent a full team of pilots and supporters. The Open Class was flown by Brett Hunter and Mark Tingey, both in their 21 metre JS1s which are normally based in Tauranga. John Coutts flew in the 18 metre class in a new, factory supplied, Ventus 3, joined by Tim Bromhead in a rented ASG29. The pilots in the 15 metre class were Steve Wallace in a rented Ventus 2 and Alan Belworthy in Lindsay Stephens’ ASW27, which was shipped from New Zealand for the event. Julian Elder was team captain, and the supporters included the families (wives, children, parents, in-laws, siblings) of the seven listed above and a few non-family crews. These were: Robert Smits (for Tim), Lindsay Stephens (for John) and

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February–April 2017

Terry Jones (for Alan). We also had specialised meteorological support from David Hirst. All up, we made a crowd of over 25 people. All manner of other Kiwis dropped in a for day or so over the period and a few came to take part in the concurrent OSTIV conference.

Most of the team had flown one, two or three competitions in Australia in the past few months. Mark Tingey was the most successful, coming second in the Australian Grand Prix qualifying round at Horsham, Victoria.

Pilots and crew/family arrived over the period after Christmas, with the last arrivals being Brett and Mark who, as they had their own gliders in Australia, needed less ‘fettling’

Photo Tim Bromhead

Y HOLIDAYS

Photo Gerard

Kiwis at the opening ceremony

Photo Gerard

Photo Gerard

Tow pilots scrambling for duty

Winners 18m

time. Some of the rented gliders had technical issues that took up a lot of time pre-competition, such as getting the FLARMs working, water ballast issues, tyre issues, cleaning, loading trackers, screens and sundry equipment – all necessary but time consuming.

Terry and I arrived on 2 January, and set up ‘Kiwi Base’ in a house that I had booked a year ago. It was air-conditioned, sizeable and had pool and barbeque area access from the neighbouring motel. The radios were set up here; a large aerial was erected and Julian was based here to track our gliders and keep the team informed of happenings. We held team meetings here each morning, after the official morning briefing, to discuss

the weather and how to tackle the tasks and team flying.

As team captain, Julian had to go to lots of meetings, receive the tasks, then the new tasks, the changes to the new tasks and the general advice from the organisation. He took an Australian phone package that included unlimited texts, which was handy as block-texting us all had him receiving a text from the provider checking on his usage as he passed 3,000 texts… in the first week. All the interactions between the organisers and pilots are made through the team captains, as many pilots spoke only limited English and this process probably avoided a great many arguments too.

GNZ organised a series of promotional videos to be made February–April 2017

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Photo Tim Bromhead

Photo Tim Bromhead

FAI WORLDS

Alan Belworthy (R) with Neil Dunn from the Kingaroy Gliding Club

Craig Walsh, of Cor Creative producing one of NZ’s viral videos

in the first week and Craig Walsh, of Kor Creative in Auckland, joined us to make these. After a week, Craig went back to work and David Hirst developed his own videoing skills for the second week. If you did not see them at the time on GNZ’s Facebook page, you can watch them through the GNZ website without having to join Facebook. David Hirst, together with a stuffed Kiwi, starred in the videos which outlined the weather, showed lots of people and gliders, a bit about flying tasks and how the days went, and showcased some good New Zealand music. These videos were shared numerous times and watched by many thousands of people around the world. Whether this leads to increased gliding activity remains to be seen; we will let time decide that. If you want to watch videos with the day winners and various other exalted people, many of these are available on the Australian Facebook page.

The opening was entertaining, trying to get the countries in the correct alphabetical order, but otherwise rather hot. The team uniform of black shirts looked great but we dispersed quite quickly because of the 38 degree heat.

So, to the weather, which was variable between 20 and 42 degrees, wet or dry, windy or not. No snow or hail was experienced but we had one rather good thunderstorm. It was usually warm enough to use the pool. Ice cream was needed.

“Blue and low with weak thermals,” was a common comment.

Some days were lost to rain and one to mud when the grass runway was too sticky to use.

The flying – lots was done. The biggest task was 747 km for the open class, north to abeam Sydney and back; they also had a 600 km task. You can see the details on Soaring Spot. Most tasks were regular racing tasks (to fixed points) and a few AAT (assigned area tasks) were set, for one class at a time. Long tasks and AATs were used as an attempt to stop pilots from flying in mega-gaggles.

The gaggles were ferocious. The classes were large with 37 in 15m, 43 in 18m and 35 in Open, so up to 115 gliders were flying. The organisers used different drop zones and start points, and spread the tasks as far as possible to avoid the classes meeting. A comment was made that having two or more classes of gliders in a gaggle made it more difficult, as the shorter wing gliders did smaller circles and the mix of circle sizes was tricky to safely accomplish. There were numerous reports of unsafe and aggressive flying, and two mid-air collisions. The first was in the 18m class in a small gaggle, with only six gliders.

The touch of wing tips led to no damage, although the pilots

followed the rules and landed quickly. No pilot was found to be at fault but it was noted that both were concerned with a primary collision threat which was a third glider between them and therefore overlooked each other.

The second mid-air, in the 15m class, was more serious, with neither glider seeing each other before the impact. One pilot left a thermal and descended on another glider which was skirting (too) close to the thermal. It was a very high speed impact, with the tail broken on one and a wing lost from the other. The gliders were immediately unflyable and both were spinning. Luckily the pilots parachuted out safely however both gliders were destroyed. Lessons on parachutes are noted separately. The organisers did some analysis of tracks flown by all of the pilots in the competition, which showed that the 15m gliders generally flew closer to other gliders than the bigger wings in this event. Lessons were given at morning briefings on how to join a thermal, how to behave in it, how to leave, and general airmanship – including waving at other pilots to confirm that you have seen them. This is all part of the New Zealand syllabus so it was interesting to see it reinforced by the organisers because it appeared ‘the best pilots in the world’ were too keen to win to always display good manners.

Other than these safety messages, much flying was accomplished and much scenery was seen. The social side was pretty successful, especially the International Night.

Each country (27 in all) individually or in a group for the smaller teams, provided food or drink from their nations. New Zealand, led by Lisa Wallace and Janet Elder, made individual pavlovas with kiwifruit and passionfruit, and served these with Marlborough sauvignon blanc. The South African team kept it simple, having shipped dozens of wine bottles with their gliders. We enjoyed German sausages, Japanese sake, English steak and kidney pies, Australian lamb, Finnish cinnamon buns, Canadian sockeye salmon, American margaritas, and Russian caviar and European beer. It was great.

The closing ceremony was brief and to the point, as we all had to rush away to catch flights or ship gliders, but there was a nice aerial display by a glider pilot in an Air Force display plane.

Great Britain won the team trophy.

The highlights from our team performances were: ›› Steve’s 5th on the last day and his ability to complete all the tasks with no landouts for the whole competition ›› Brett’s consistency, and ability to finish tasks, again with no landouts

12

February–April 2017

Photo Tim Bromhead

FAI WORLDS

15m winners

›› Mark flew further than he ever had before (over 600km) and then did it again the next day ›› John had a couple of very good results with two 4th places, flying an unfamiliar glider ›› Tim showed tenacity, but had a couple of landouts, one sadly at the furthest distance from Benalla on the last day ›› Alan flew consistently and professionally and recovered well from witnessing the bailouts.

It has been really interesting to be part of the New Zealand team for this event and great to watch our pilots developing.

While the results might not be all that the pilots anticipated, they have all displayed good airmanship and their flying skills have been practised and enhanced.

Close study of the results show the benefits of team flying, which is not allowed in our competitions and therefore not practised by us or most of the smaller countries. There is also a lot of debate about the tasks and scoring system, which was seen to reward gaggle flying and punish independent flying on the many blue days.

The team would like to thank all their families, crews, supporters, sponsors, employers and the GNZ Umbrella Trust.

The winners and our team results were: OPEN CLASS

1 2 3 20 30

Russell Cheetham Michael Sommer Andrew Davis Brett Hunter Mark Tingey

GBR GER GBR NZL NZL

18M CLASS

1 2 3 33 34

Killian Walbrou Mario Kiessling Mike Young John Coutts Tim Bromhead

FRA GER GBR NZL NZL

15M CLASS

1 2 3 18 29

Sebastian Kawa Makoto Ichikawa Lukasz Grabowski Steve Wallace Alan Belworthy

POL JPN POL NZL NZL

PRACTICAL PARACHUTING At morning briefing on Thursday 19 January, Steve O’Donnell of Australia spoke about the 15m mid-air incident and more specifically about his efforts to survive. He raised several key points about parachutes.

1. Size of the canopy. Do you know how big yours is? Steve said, “I’m 95 kilos, and when I looked up, it looked like a beach umbrella.” Make sure that the canopy is big enough to work safely for you (and for others who fly the glider).

2. Quick release. The most painful injuries Steve sustained were from being dragged along the ground in the estimated 20 knot winds. Although knowing how to collapse the parachute would be good, having a quick release system is important. See your parachute rigger to discuss putting a quick release system in place.

3. Exiting the glider. Steve said it took from 5,000 feet to 1,700 feet to actually get out of the spinning glider. He was quick to release the canopy and straps but it was a real struggle to actually get out of the glider. It was not possible for him to exit using the usual method of levering himself out using his arms as is done on the ground. He had to put a leg out first to get that caught in the wind which pulled his body out of the cockpit to under the wing, (tearing his ligaments and hamstrings). Have a plan, and have a practice too.

SOME OTHER CONSIDERATIONS: Some gliding clubs have particularly good parachute training, including learning to land safely, to minimise broken legs and back injuries. Your local skydive school can help with this training too.

Make sure the harness fits pilots well. It is not one size fits all; a big harness is not safe for a small pilot. Clubs need to have a range to cover their club members. Do the straps up firmly.

Store the parachute in dry conditions, somewhere like your hot water cupboard, rather than leaving them in gliders, hangars or cars.

Lastly, don’t overlook the requirement to get the parachutes inspected and repacked annually at the start of the soaring season (although six monthly would be better). If they get damp, have them opened, dried and repacked before using them again.

February–April 2017

13

ampionships

STEVE GOES TO THE WORLDS IN BENALLA

BY STEVE WALLACE

B

enalla in Victoria, Australia was the location for the 34th FAI World Gliding Championships being contested in the 15m, 18m and Open classes. I was lucky enough to make the team. I was very happy to be part of what was to be a great fun gliding event. Being close to New Zealand made this even better as the logistics are less onerous and the flying is more familiar. Like most of the NZ pilots, I had some Aussie flying already under my belt. NZ had a full team of six pilots, plus a team Captain, met man/talking head, crew and many others. At times, there were up to 30+ kiwis hanging out at the team base.

I arrived in Benalla on Jan 1st and my rented Ventus 2 arrived early the next day in time for me to rig, register and complete the technical inspection formalities. I was up and flying by the beginning of the unofficial practice period but the glider still had a whole range of issues that took me a full five days to get sorted. But this is why there is a practice period, as it gives the organisers and pilots a chance to get their acts together. The weather during the practice period was variable with tasks flown ranging from 150 km at 73 kph to 501 km at 130 kph. This was a reasonable indication of the variable weather to be encountered during the contest period itself. I think most pilots would have agreed the contest weather was not great, especially compared to the potential that Australia can turn on when the weather is good.

The Opening Ceremony was a pleasant, colourful but hot affair and it signalled the last of the good weather. The next day it rained and nobody flew and the day after that, the very high humidity meant the clouds were still under 2,000 feet AGL late in the day. The day was cancelled for the 15m and 18m. The Open Class flew a 2hr AAT with winning speeds up around 130 kph. So it wasn't until the third day, that 15m and 18m got to have a day one. The day started late and low and we went to Task C on the grid, a short 206 km racing task. The conditions were low and blue which was to become a familiar weather set for the rest of the comp. This meant the use of tactical gaggle

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February–April 2017

flying became an essential and I had to learn fast.

Most Kiwis don't get to regularly participate in larger competitions, so flying in large gaggles is something quite foreign. It is also quite thrilling. The gaggle is like a peloton of bike riders, rolling through the sky with every glider contributing to the finding of the best lines of energy in the cruise and then centring the best lift. Towards the end of the cruise when everybody senses a climb is needed, gliders spread out and like schools of fish, groups of gliders dart left and right turning with each other as they search the rising air and look to centre the next climb. Then somebody has it. A glider turns tightly and is going up faster than any others. This glider is quickly joined by two, three then four others. The climb is confirmed by all watching as being better than anything else anybody is working in the area and then all at once, everybody moves to join the climb. Gliders stream into the thermal from further back in the cruise and in no time at all, the thermal is full and marked from top to bottom. Sometimes the sky is quite bubbly and the higher gliders climb quicker and break away, while those at the bottom can find themselves in a much poorer climb, sometimes half that of those only 500 feet above. In this scenario, bottom gliders can very quickly find themselves left behind. It doesn't work the other way around either, because the higher gliders don't stop in poor climbs. Chasing the gaggle from low down can be fruitless and the only way to catch up is to independently find a better climb than the next one or two climbs, the now higher and further away, main gaggle finds.

When alone and without other gliders, this is very hard to do.

This was the environment I found myself in and it seemed some days I was in tune with the sky and the gaggles and some days I wasn't.

On the first day, I flew with the main gaggle all day and towards the end of the short course I found myself in a reasonable position near the front of the pack. Unfortunately, my final glide was a bit undercooked and I had to slow right down to enable me to squeak home for a respectable 14th out of 37 for

FAI WORLDS

Kiwi pilots and crew fly the flag on opening day

the day. The top, and vastly experienced pilots, had started just a bit later than the main gaggle and were able to work their way through the field to be with the leaders as they glided home, ensuring good speeds and victory for them for the day.

The next day (Day two in 15m), I missed starting with the main group when lured to the wrong end of the start line by groups of 18m gliders. I was one of the last three to start. With two pilots from the USA, our mini gaggle did okay but we were not able to catch any of the main gaggles and I ended up 26th out of 37 for the day. On this day, the pre-start gaggles were like being in a knife fight in a phone box, with lots of unnecessarily aggressive flying. Tensions were high by the end of the day with much reporting of the bad flying. There was a mid-air clash of wings which saw one pilot landing out and another returning to Benalla. At briefing the next day, all 15m pilots were asked to stay back for a ‘telling off’ by the contest organisers and for a frank swapping of opinions between competing pilots, where everybody agreed to fly nicer.

We then had a day off due to weather and unfortunately, by flying day three, everybody seemed to have forgotten what they had agreed to a day earlier and the pre-start gaggles were back to their worst. I left early with a small group and was having a good run. I was well in tune with the sky and going into the last leg I still had a 30 km jump on the main gaggle. With 150 km left to run, my little group wasn't going to get caught. Alan Belworthy, my team mate in the 15m, was with the main bunch. He suddenly piped up on the Kiwi team frequency and said he had just seen a mid-air. The tone of his voice conveyed that it was serious. After what seemed like a long pause the sombre call of, ‘no chutes,’ came. Another long pause and a more excited call of, ‘two chutes.’ This was a relieving call for all those listening.

Very shortly afterwards came the advice he had seen the two gliders hit the ground and the chutes land.

Attempts were made to raise Kiwi Base on the radio but everyone was out of range, so Brett phoned in. Unfortunately these days, information travels fast so most teams back at

base were aware of the mid-air long before they knew who was involved and what the outcome was, thus a very worrying time for teams back at the airfield.

As other pilots had landed to render assistance, quality information was getting phoned back to the organisers and a rescue plan quickly swung into action. Both pilots were airlifted to Canberra Hospital with ‘moderate’ injuries. Within what seemed like less than 10 minutes from the incident occurring, the Contest Director came on the radio and advised the day had been cancelled for 15m.

The next day was again a no-fly day due to weather. Eight days in and we were only on our third scoring day for the 15m.

This day was set as a five hour AAT to try and get our class to start and reduce the amount of time for pre-start gaggle games.

Everybody was now flying super nice. My day went well until coming into the last turn point when I suddenly found myself on the bottom of one of those bubbles and the main gaggle just climbed up and flew away. I tried to catch up but it only made my situation worse. I had been dropped and had to make my way slowly home by myself in the blue, in a dying sky. It wasn’t all bad though, as some big names had gambled and started late and they got caught out by the dying sky at the end of the day, resulting in land outs. So again, I came 26th out of what was now 35 pilots.

The fourth scoring day was a good one for me. I left early with a great group of pilots and we had a great run. Slow initially over the irrigated area to the west, my speed dropped to 85 kph but once clear of this area the thermals went from 4,500 to 9,000 feet and my speed rose to a respectable 131 kph for the day making me 9th. My first top ten finish at a Worlds. I was pleased.

The next day, again, was a non-event due to weather. The fifth scoring day was a 370 km racing task and once again all went well until just short of the last turn point, where the gaggle stretched out in some uncertain air. I followed a line towards higher gliders along a river. The air was bad and I February–April 2017

15

FAI WORLDS

arrived low under a group of climbing gliders. The higher climb was better and I fell behind. I rounded the last turn point low and had to drop water to get back up again in a weak climb.

By this time the main gaggle had flowed through and I was left behind to make my way slowly home in the weakening blue thermals without the assistance of other gliders. Once again, I was amazed by just how quickly you can be dropped from the gaggle. A small run of bad air and a brief period of isolation is all it takes. Those ahead get a bubble and climb away, those behind see your trouble and avoid it. All of a sudden, you’re low and alone. While you may get home, it's all over in the speed department. The gaggle is just so much faster than the individual in blue and weak conditions. 32nd out of the 35 gliders.

Not a good day.

The next day, after very heavy overnight rain (thunder and lightning), the field was too wet for launching and the organisers attempted to launch the 15m class only, from the sealed vector. The 30 knot cross wind proved too much for safe launching. After only 7 very hairy take-offs (one of which was me) the contest director cancelled the day via radio while I was on aero-tow.

So, on the 13th possible competition flying day we launched for our sixth and last scoring day. Again, the day barely made the grade with thermals for the first hour or two after launch barely going above 2,000 feet AGL. To make matters worse, our start gate had been positioned at the head of the southern valley, out of which cold, southerly air was pouring and filling the area immediately around Benalla. Just getting to the start line which was 16 km away was a hour-long struggle. This struggle had the nice effect of breaking up the gaggle, as small groups of 3 or 4 scattered around the sky. After really struggling across the first 30 km or so of low land, mostly by myself,

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February–April 2017

things picked up as I got away from the cold air and into the hills. In the hills, I got high (5,000 feet AGL) and from here my flight was good. I picked off some gliders ahead and was able to catch Alan who had got a good jump on me after starting later.

I was soon with a good group of four before getting on top and pulling away. I was nicely in tune with sky and catching good strong thermals just when needed. It was an AAT task and I was able to run deep across the last circle and run my time delta down to zero before turning for home. It was a 3.5 hour AAT and the day was starting to weaken but luckily, I was able to join with the 18m stream on their way home and fly marked thermals all the way to final glide. I was pretty confident I had had a good day, as I was the first 15m glider home and I knew all the rest would be finding it increasingly slow going as the day was rapidly decaying. In the end, I was 5th for the day, my new, best ever day placing in a worlds. Top three was tantalisingly close! It was great to finish on a high and in the top half overall with my final placing 18th out of the 37 starters.

The Worlds is certainly a great event and while most pilots seem to have a love hate relationship with tactical gaggle flying, it is a very special and thrilling type of flying that is yet another aspect of flight to master in our great sport. Despite the weather, I really enjoyed this Worlds as I felt I got a handle on being able to foot it with the best in the world. I think with persistence I could work my way into the top ten but time, age and money may have other ideas.

I’m just thrilled to have participated and would like to thank all my supporters, both those that came over to help out and those who supported me with either advice, kind words, money, equipment and even offers of gliders!

YOUTH SOARING Development Camp 2016

BY KIM AND ROGER READ

2016 finished on a real high with another very successful YSDC at Omarama.

Despite some challenging weather conditions, similar to those which had wiped out a number of competition days at the South Island Regionals, we managed some great soaring along with the usual basic training.

W

e had thirty ‘students’ attend; more than ever. This stretched our resources, so a huge WELL DONE and thank you to all who contributed so generously to making it the fun-filled success it will be remembered for. There was an increased international component with a young Canadian, a German and two young French pilots flying alongside the YGNZ members; their presence added to the development of the camaraderie amongst all involved and we look forward to having these guests return for more flying here. 341 flights were flown during the nine flyable days of the camp. We did 285 hours gliding of which 84 hours were flown solo.

Congratulations go to the five who made their First Solos and to those who re-soloed and consolidated and extended their skills. Six A Certificates were completed; two achieved their FAI Silver Duration 5 hour, bladder endurance challenge... and a few others got very close but discovered you can’t fly co-ordinated turns with your legs crossed! One FAI Silver Height Gain and one FAI Gold Height Gain were made and others were to be denied similar awards when they discovered their loggers had failed. The elation of doing the flights still kept them smiling and strengthened their resolve to try again at the earliest opportunity. Congratulations to Fraser McDougall and Tim Austen who successfully completed their C Cat Instructor Rating checks and were immediately pressed into back seat service. They join a growing number of young instructors who will help ensure the long-term future of our sport.

They say an Army marches on its stomach...well, Kim

February–April 2017

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YSDC YSDC 2016 AWARDS / PRIZES

and her small team of helpers will attest to this. On top of the catering required to keep the students, instructors and helpers well fed, they raised $2000 by providing extra catering with two fund raising dining events held in the Terminal Building.

We are also indebted to all our many sponsors who provided a range of food supplies and to organisations and businesses like Z Energy, CAA, Air NZ and GNZ Umbrella Trust who donated over $8000 towards the camp flying costs. Many clubs along with Glide Omarama and some private owners provide their aircraft and equipment at heavily discounted rates, all of which make these camps affordable for all involved. An interesting ‘addition’ to this year’s camp was the availability of dual instruction in South Canterbury’s Cub tow plane for a couple of aspiring tow pilots. We hope to continue to offer this flying as we see tow pilots as an important part of our operations. More qualified tow pilots will help ensure our ability to re-generate the sport.

An interesting ‘addition’ to this year’s camp was the availability of dual instruction in South Canterbury’s Cub tow plane for a couple of aspiring tow pilots. We hope to continue to offer this flying as we see tow pilots as an important part of our operations.

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February–April 2017

Glide Omarama. Weekend Mountain Soaring Course

Jake Bevan Canterbury GNZ Umbrella Trust (Dick Georgeson) $500 each

Sam Tullet Taranaki

Jarrod Barton Nelson Lakes

Josh Fergusson Nelson Lakes

Tim Tarbotton Wellington NZAWA Top Female Student (Membership, $250 and Silver Wings Book)

Alexandra Thompson Hawkes Bay NZAWA Runners Up

Laura Wagstaff Tauranga

Terina Wardley Hawkes Bay Air New Zealand Work Experience Day on Domestic Airbus Operations

Alexandra Thompson Hawkes Bay

Rakesh Allen Piako Air Safaris Work Experience Day

Nick Moore Youth Glide Omarama Helicopter Line Work Experience Day

Laura Wagstaff Tauranga Milford Scenic Flights Work Experience Day

Terina Wardley Hawkes Bay Glide Omarama Day Mountain Soaring with Gavin Wills

Sam Patterson Youth Glide Omarama Glide Omarama Day Mountain Soaring with Justin Wills

Daniel Town Canterbury Novus Glass NZ $250 each for club flying account

Uma Tuffnell Auckland

Laetitia Telford Youth Glide Omarama

Rakesh Allen Piako

Connor James Canterbury Ballooning Canterbury Flight Experience

Connor James Canterbury G Dale Book Award

Alexandra Thompson Hawkes Bay

Nolan Cockburn Tauranga

Nick Kelly Hawkes Bay

Ross Brodie Youth Glide Omarama

SPONSORS AND SUPPORTERS Gliding New Zealand Umbrella Trust: $2000 for four awards prizes of $500 Air New Zealand: $2000 towards flying costs NZ Civil Aviation Authority: $2000 towards flying costs Z Energy: 1000 litres Avgas for towing Novus Glass: $1000 for four prizes of $250 Foodstuffs SI Pak’nsave Hornby: $500 for food shopping Meadow Mushrooms: 8 boxes of mushrooms Oakleys Fresh Vegetables: A huge amount of vegetables Tip Top Ice Cream Watties Tinned fruit and vegetables Health Discovery: Nutritious inflight snack bars Omarama Airfield: Limited Discounts on Landing Fees Omarama Soaring Centre: Grants for cleaning facilities Canterbury Gliding Club: Gliders, tow planes, equipment, all at favourably reduced rates Glide Omarama Hawkes Bay Gliding Club Nelson Lakes Gliding Club Omarama Gliding Club South Canterbury Gliding Club Youth Glide Canterbury Youth Glide Omarama TF ASH-25 Syndicate MT LS4 Syndicate Avon Technical Solutions: Battery Chargers

YSDC

7th Annual Youth Soaring Development Camp

Uma and Graham Erikson

BY UMA TUFFNELL

I cannot quite express how awesome these camps really are!

As this was my second camp, I felt I was fairly prepared for what lay in store and packed a suitable supply of jumpers, shoes, socks and biscuits, just in case.

I

find the beauty of gliding to be in it’s variability, and consequently the continuous need to meet every day and flight as unique and different- responding to the conditions, the clouds, the ridge, other gliders and the environment you find around yourself.

No two camps are the same either and it was exciting to see a new group of younger glider pilots learning the ropes and progressing through to solo, filling the gaps created by some of the veterans who weren’t able to attend this year and also expanding the size of the group to thirty. We also had a number of international gliding youth attending from France, Canada and Germany which was exciting and interesting. Many of us had good conversations about gliding overseas and it was easy to bond over Kim’s cooking and our shared love of gliding.

I spent a good deal of time learning the German equivalent of common gliding terms, such as windenschlepp (winch launch), which will no doubt prove most useful!

As far as the gliding was concerned, conditions were variable. We had a few very windy days (which required the alternative activities, ice cream consumption and trips to Lake Benmore, Lake Ohau and the Wrinkley Ram cafe).

We also had some epic wave days (even if a little patchy here and there), and I was lucky enough to fly to Mt Cook four times in Oscar Romeo with Graham Erikson who is an absolutely superb

instructor. It was great to be able to go up for more substantial flights, settle into the glider and become more proficient in reading the sky, the nature of wave formation and soaring as well as planning ahead for possible land out options should we need them. Cross-country soaring has re-inspired my drive to get my licence and do more solo flying as well as turning me into something of a cloud geek (we really ought to start a cloud appreciation club!).

I cannot quite express how awesome these camps really are! We are so lucky that this opportunity is available for youth because it provides great conditions for consolidation and consistency of learning as well as progression which is encouraging and motivates us to continue flying when we return home.

February–April 2017

19

YSDC

YSDC as an Instructor

BY CAMPBELL MCIVER

Laura Wagstaff

Having participated in the 2012 and 2013 Youth Soaring Development Camps, Omarama, I spent the 2014 and 2015 seasons focusing on competition flying. So, I figured it was time to head back and give back to these camps by attending as an instructor. I flew at the South Island Regionals where, despite the poor weather, I had an opportunity to get comfortable in the mountains again and head into the Youth Glide camp confident I could keep myself and others around me safe.

O

nce again, I am pleased to report that we enjoyed a safe and extraordinarily well planned camp, thanks to the intense efforts of Kim and Roger Read and the Youth Glide New Zealand committee. I was pleased to meet the newer pilots coming through and can report they are a great, enthusiastic bunch who have all been bitten by the soaring bug. Over the course of the camp we had numerous achievements, including several first solos, height gains and silver duration flights and many type conversions.

We had a mixture of weather conditions including wave, thermal, convergence and ridge which offered our pilots not only strong, but often challenging conditions. I found the range of conditions fantastic to instruct in and it was very rewarding to see all my students progress to either their first solo or re-solo.

So, what can I say was a new experience for me? Certainly, getting used to teaching in more extreme weather conditions from that of Drury, with stronger winds, wind gradients and wave would have been my biggest hurdle. Initially, I had my concerns but simply talking to more experienced instructors

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and getting advice soon settled those nerves. I was lucky enough to be given a day off to fly in the back of an ASH-25 with Chris Garton, on a thermal and convergence day which was a huge eye opening experience and an opportunity to see how the south easterly air mass affected the Mackenzie basin and the Southern Alps towards the north.

Without the help of Roger and Kim, our sponsors, supporters, associate members and many more, we couldn’t have enjoyed another successful and memorable camp. It is our aim that our members continue to progress their training and get involved with their clubs before heading to the next camp. So please support and encourage them to do so when they are out at your local club next!

Overall, instructing at the Youth Glide camp was a hugely rewarding experience. We had a great bunch of students, instructors and ground crew who all deserve credit for their enthusiasm throughout the camp.

I look forward to heading down again this December!

Youth Glide 2017

TAUPO MINI CAMP

BY CAMPBELL MCIVER L to R: Josh Ferguson, Mat Shields, Campbell McIver, Laura Wagstaff, Terina Wardley, Allie Thompson, Jono Wardman, Sam Tullet, Uma Tuffnell, Rakesh Allen and Akira Peterson

During a successful Youth Soaring Development Camp in Omarama last December, a few North Island friends had an idea to find a way to go flying together in Taupo during January. This idea quickly caught on and with a large amount of interest, it then developed into a Youth Glide Mini-Camp. The camp was limited to 10 students and with Taupo being central to those from the central North Island (mainly from Matamata, Hawkes Bay and Tauranga) and a beautiful holiday spot, we decided to meet there mid-January. Hugh de Lautour, Taupo’s President was delighted to hear of our interest and was very enthusiastic about hosting a Youth Glide Mini-Camp.

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ith an outstanding contribution from Kirstin Thompson from the Hawkes Bay Club who came to supervise, cook and generally mother us to keep us on track, we had what it took for a camp to go ahead.

On arriving at Taupo on Sunday evening, we rigged Auckland’s Duo Discus, set up camp and headed for the Thermal Spa Park. An opportunity for everyone to catch up and meet some new faces. This spot proved to be incredibly popular in the evenings after flying.

DAY 1 Despite day 1 being blue with an inversion at 4500 feet, the south westerly wind allowed Mt Tauhara to provide reliable lift to 4000 feet with weak thermals rising to 4500 feet and later to 5500 feet. It was a good opportunity to give the students area familiarisations at Taupo (Centennial Park) and continue with A, B and QGP syllabus training. It turned out to be a long day with the Duo Discus landing well after 7 pm in the evening.

With everyone buzzing after their first day, we enjoyed a fantastic dinner and headed down to the Lake front for a look around and another visit to the Thermal Spa Park.

DAY 2 Proved to have similar conditions to Day 1 so, to stop those when not flying having a game of pool, we scheduled some lectures for radio, emergency procedures and various other exams. We continued with training students towards QGP and began briefings on single seaters. We managed to get all pilots in the air for at least an hour each and progressed with signing boxes off their syllabus.

DAY 3 Though conditions had barely changed we had several students flying solo which allowed them to get their 30-minute and 60-minute solo soaring flights signed off. There was also lee wave behind Mt Tauhara which allowed both Duo Discus (TT and DX) to climb to over 6500 feet.

DAY 4 Was a write off (apart from a 1 hour gap between 3:30 pm and 4:30 pm) so the morning was dedicated to signing off everyone’s A & B Cert questions while the more advanced students

February–April 2017

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TAUPO MINI CAMP

focused on further exams. Once everyone was tired of the classroom and the weather was still clagged in, we went for a trip out to the Huka Honey Hive and the AC baths to relax.

DAY 5 Proved to be a very interesting final day. We had a light south westerly wind with storm fronts coming in from the east overhead Kaingaroa Forest. DX went out towards Mangakino before heading back towards Kaingaroa and running the storm front.

During the flight, Allie and Campbell got down to 1000 feet AGL twice, once near Mangakino and once at Ohaaki Power Station on the way back from the forest, however they managed to get home. A great exercise in paddock selection and flying in overdeveloped skies. Trev Terry took Sam Tullett nearly to Whakatane however he had to motor up due to over-development and rain.

By the end of this day, we had managed to get all pilots who had previously soloed, re-soloed and all pre-solo pilots to nearly solo level. Rakesh and Laura both completed their 60-minute solo soaring flights as well.

Having a youth run camp was amazing and we have learnt huge amounts to better structure them in the future. This camp couldn’t have happened without the support of the amazing Kirstin Thompson who, with the help of Jana Thorrman, kept us going with amazing meals, three times a day. We truly cannot express how grateful we are for the hard work Kirstin put in behind the scenes, not only with cooking, but with organisation to make the camp such a success.

Also, a big thank you to Hugh and all the members and

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February–April 2017

instructors of the Taupo Gliding Club, including but not limited to, Tom Anderson, Bill Kendall and Trev Terry for the contribution of their aircraft and services towards the camp. Also to the Auckland Gliding Club for the use of the Duo Discus. Another message of thanks to Simon Peterson for his assistance on the ground.

On behalf of Youth Glide New Zealand, we would like to thank all those across New Zealand that make these camps happen. We run these camps to help our members progress towards QGP and beyond, and increase youth involvement in clubs.

We encourage as many people as possible of any age to join Youth Glide New Zealand as a social member. With greater membership numbers, it allows us to present ourselves as a larger organisation with a strong backing and gain fantastic sponsorship for these camps.

To conclude simply, what an amazing week! Bring on the next camp!

TAUPO MINI CAMP

A Great Start to the Year

BY RAKESH ALLEN

T

he 2017 Taupo Mini-camp was a great start to the year. One awesome thing about Youth Glide is that we can experience the best that New Zealand has to offer through gliding with the help of many generous people.

Taupo was no different. I thoroughly enjoyed flying amongst the beautiful scenery of Taupo. During the camp, I was able to achieve a solo in a Twin Astir, a good flight on the ridge therefore further honing my ridge skills. I had an awesome flight with Campbell McIver in the mighty Duo which was generously given to us to use by the Auckland Gliding Club and I got a type rating in the PW-5 which will come in handy back at my home club. The camp’s time was limited so when we didn’t fly, we were involved in ground lessons and were able to complete QGP exams. I was able to get my radio and human factors exams done, which was a pretty solid feeling, getting me that much closer to QGP. Youth glide members all have one thing in common: we all love to fly and have a common passion for aviation. I find it so awesome that I have a group of people that I can talk to about flying and they actually understand what I’m talking about.

They are a great bunch of people and many friendships were made over the course of the camp. I think it’s so awesome how Youth Glide and Gliding in general, brings together people from around the country, from all walks of life, that all have one common passion, a love for the skies. No matter where you come from, or who you are, if you have love for gliding then there is a space for you in Youth Glide. I guarantee it.

My name is Rakesh Allen. I am 16 and a youth glide member from the Piako Gliding Club. I recently went solo and completed my A certificate in Omarama on the YSDC there. I am over ¾ through my B certificate and hope to have achieved my QGP before the end of this year. My long-term goal is to be a commercial pilot. I believe gliding has been a great entry into the marvellous world of aviation. I have met many great people along the way that have helped and supported me with my aviation endeavours.

Through Youth Glide I have gained many great experiences that I would never have dreamed about, if I hadn’t joined up. Youth Glide has given me the opportunity to do some pretty awesome stuff. It has been made possible by the a hardworking group of individuals who spend hours out of their already busy lives gaining funding, support and putting together some pretty sweet camps for us young aviators to enjoy.

I must not forget the people that actually made the Taupo camp possible. The Taupo Gliding Club have been long-time supporters of Youth Glide and we sincerely thank them for letting us teenagers loose in their expensive gliding machines.

We can’t thank the team of great people at TGC enough for providing us with very cheap rates and world class service.

I have so much good to say about TGC and their exceptional group of dedicated instructors, tow pilots and helpers. They truly made the camp that much better, sharing their vast knowledge about gliding with us newbies. Pilots have to eat to survive and every day you would find Kirstin and Yana in the kitchen cooking up a storm; providing meals every day for up to 20 people is not an easy job and we all commend them on their great cooking skills too. Being the first ever youth driven camp, the key person that made it all possible was Campbell McIver, an instructor from Drury.

I would like to say one last thank you to the people that made this camp possible, especially the sponsors which we are always seeking more of, to help with funding. It makes it a lot easier for us younger pilots to pay for flying.

February–April 2017

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NORTHERN REGIONALS 27 November – 3 December 2016

The Northern Regionals had 19 entries, with a few day entries too.

Two classes were set (Open and Racing) which included Std & Club Class gliders.

Photo Tracy Gore

BY JOHN GRIFFIN (CONTEST DIRECTOR)

Sunday 27 November – opening day was wet.

DAY 3

DAY 1

Wednesday. Gridded but called off as thermal development was insufficient around Matamata.

Monday. The wind was south/west onto the ridge, however it was overcast with cloud base to only 3000 feet. A straight ridge task was set. Open class – start Wardville, Te Puru, Tapapa, Thames airfield, Tirohia, Tapapa, Matamata – a total of 401 km. Dave Jensen won the day in GVR (JS1) at a speed of 162 km/hr. When setting the task, in the morning, Tim Bromhead had wondered whether Tapapa would be too far from the ridge, when the likelihood of thermals was low. As it turned out, Tim was the only contestant to land out while trying to make this turn-point and return to the ridge. The racing class was a shorter ridge task of 304 km and was won by Tony Davies GXP, at 159 kph.

DAY 2 Tuesday. The weather was only a slight improvement on Monday, the wind still south/west. The cloud base was still only 3000 feet but with some thermal activity likely. Another ridge task was set, this time as AAT. The racing class flew – start Wardville, Awaiti, Okoroire, Hikutaia, BOP Fert. works, Matamata, an AAT with a minimum distance of 182 km and max 354 km. The day was won by Genny Healey & G Dale in the Piako club’s Puchaz, at of speed of 131 kph. G Dale had to come to Matamata for the cross-country course the previous week with a coaching day for the world contest pilots going to Benalla. Genny Healey had persuaded G to coach her for a week in the Puchaz at the contest. Nigel McPhee won the open class.

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DAY 3 Thursday. Also cancelled

DAY 3 Friday. A thermal task was set – Open class – Walton, Flaxmill, Mokai, Matamata, an AAT, 211/331 km which was won by Steve Wallace in GKT. The racing class, second on the grid that day, AAT task Walton, Awaiti, Tokoroa, Matamata was won by Paul Schofield and Jim Lyver in Auckland’s PW6. The day had weakened off and only three of the racing class reached home.

DAY 4 Saturday. A good thermal day. The day started with a southerly wind direction with the thermals developing to the south first.

However, a northern thermal cloud sheet slowly approached the field during the launch and just before this there was a blue hole in the sky. Genny Healey and G Dale only managed to clear the airfield on their third attempt in the Puchaz. Later as the day weakened, the pair showed real persistence to complete the Racing task, which was Waharoa, Arohena, Waitoa, Maramarua, and Matamata. AAT was set with 166/306 km. Bob Gray won the day in GNV, with Healey and Dale managing second.

The Open class was won by Tim Bromhead in GBA. A very familiar and regular crew of volunteers made the contest run smoothly, with Bill Mace not flying and taking over the administration/land-out role. Marion Moody was our champion volunteer, keeping everyone well nourished.

Photo Tracy Gore

Photo Pam Gore

Tracy Gore

Photo Tracy Gore

Photo Tracy Gore

Genny Healey and G Dale

Tony Davies

Trevor Terry

THE TROPHIES

Photo Tracy Gore

Most meritorious flight: G Healey & G Dale in the Puchaz on day 4.

Open class Champion: Steve Wallace in GKT Racing class champion: Tony Davies in GXP The most improved pilot: Tony Davies who had also won this trophy the previous year. His ability has improved substantially again this year as shown by his Day one ridge task win at 159 kph and the fact that he was the overall champion.

The Bob Conner memorial for the skills and joys of flying: Paul Schofield with Jim Lyver (who had done no cross country flying before this event) and had thoroughly enjoyed his week with Paul’s tuition.

304 Pages 22x28 cm 391 Colour photos and drawings

• A “must have” book. Sailplane & Gliding (UK).

• “The book of the Century… You must buy this book, sell whatever it takes, but buy it.”

Gliding International (NZ).

• Unmissable, alongside Reichmann, Bradbury and Moffat.

L’@éroBibliothèque (France).

• Will remain in the history of the literature, perhaps more so than Reichmann.

Volo a Vela (Italy).

• It reveals to you the invisible treasures of the atmosphere.

Alvaro de Orleans Borbón (FAI Vice President).

Price €50 plus postage. Order to info@topfly.aero

Dancing with the wind

Enjoy and Learn Advanced Flying with the Wind

TopFly

A BIRTHDAY GIFT FOR PILOTS?

Jean-Marie Clément

Tony Davies receives the Racing Class trophy from John Griffin and Dave Moody

Dancing with the wind

Jean-Marie Clément

February–April 2017

25

Holiday soaring over Mt Cook and the Tasman Glacier Photo John McCaw

26

February–April 2017

February–April 2017

27

National Open and Racing Class Gliding Championships

THE CONTEST DIRECTORS REPORT

BY CLIVE GEDDES

Omarama, 2–14 January, 2017 ORGANISATION The contest was organised by the Omarama Soaring Centre Convenor: Max Stevens Contest Director: Clive Geddes Safety Officer: Trevor Mollard Lex McPhail and Neil Allison Scorers: Treasurer: Laurie Kirkham Chief Tow Pilot: Brad Newfield Weatherman: Lemmy Tanner Task setting: Gavin Wills with assistance from Lex, Lemmy, Max and Keith Essex.

This is an extremely experienced team who produced a safe, intense competition in extremely unsettled weather patterns which created demanding and robust soaring conditions.

TOWING AND GROUND OPERATIONS Tows from: Glide Omarama, the Canterbury Gliding Club and MAV, a privately owned tow plane. The grid was managed by the Contest Director with help from non-competing pilots, competitors’ wives and the radios were competently manned by competitors’ wives and the scorers.

AIRSPACE A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), negotiated between Air Traffic Control NZ (ACNZ) and Gliding New Zealand, enabled access to a ‘Roxburgh’ sector. ACNZ Christchurch was provided with the daily tasks and competitors registrations and readily agreed to requests for airspace.

ENTRANTS Open Class: 11 (4 North Island, 2 overseas, 1 withdrawal, 2 day entries only) Racing Class: 12 (4 North Island, 5 overseas, 3 day entries only)

TASKS Tasks were set and completed for six of the 12 competition days.

A number of experienced pilots agreed that on several of the task days the conditions were the most demanding they had ever flown.

SUMMARY The competition was characterised by low entries (whilst it is recognised that a number of potential competitors were in Australia for the Worlds), unseasonable and extremely variable weather leading to six non fly days, demanding flying conditions and close and intense competition. The organisation group worked seamlessly and the task setting group met all of the challenges imposed by the weather to produce tasks that were appropriate for determining a national championship.

RESULTS The trophies were presented at the closing dinner, attended by over 60 people, held at the Countrytime Hotel, after a no fly day, on 14 January.

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Open Class Champion David Speight Trophy Mike and Nicholas Oakley Highest Placed Unhandicapped Wills Trophy Mike and Nicholas Oakley The Highest Placed Open Class was Keith Essex but the trophy was awarded to the Oakley's as the highest placed New Zealand entrants.

Highest Placed FAI 18m Georgeson Trophy Keith Essex Racing Class Champion Bill Walker Trophy Vaughan Ruddick Highest Placed FAI Standard Class Court Trophy Tony van Dyk Highest Placed FAI 15m Broadland Trophy Vaughan Ruddick Most Meritorious Flight Hansell Trophy Mike and Nicholas Oakley Second Placed Glider in Largest Class Swiss Trophy Tony van Dyk Highest Speed Unhandicapped Richardson Trophy Doug Hamilton Winner of the Longest Speed Task Continental Airlines Trophy Doug Hamilton

COMMENTS The no contest days presented ample opportunities to discuss the state of the competition environment in New Zealand. The following are my personal comments which in part repeat some of those matters covered by the contest pilots. ›› The average age of competition pilots has steadily increased.

A number of those who competed in the first nationals held in 1964 competed in the 2017 event. There is a wide range of barriers to competitive flying. Experience, time cost, monetary cost, time of year, location, competition length, which competition where, glider suitability and availability, encouragement and opportunity are but a few. There is an urgent need for a case study to be undertaken so that all of the issues and barriers to competition flying can be understood, addressed and remedied. ›› Recreational and competition soaring from Omarama is rapidly becoming compromised by the continual alienation of airspace to the south of the field. Gliding New Zealand must find the resources to provide professional support for its airspace advocates in order to limit and reverse, where possible, the airspace constraints being imposed south of Omarama. ›› Finding personnel or clubs to undertake contest organisation and management appears to be increasingly difficult. The challenges faced by those who have the experience and willingness to undertake the staging of contests are very much those faced by competitors. Competition organisation and management needs to be addressed in the case study referred to in first comment above.

GLIDING BOOK CORNER The Soaring Engine – Volume 2 by G Dale Reviewed by Alex McCaw “The Soaring Engine” Volume 2 is the second book of three in G Dale’s series. This book follows on from Volume 1 which described the basic theory of soaring, including ridge flying, finding and using thermals and mountain flying. Volume 2 is more advanced than the first book and goes on to describe the more advanced techniques required when flying in convergence or wave systems. Beginners trying to grasp the sport will find this book very useful but this edition will really attract the more experienced pilots who are hoping to get a better understanding of the principles that are needed to be a better soaring pilot.

The first thing I noticed when I started flicking through the book was that the foreword was written by Terry Delore, where he described the book as, “the best written, comprehensive, easy to understand wave manual I have ever read”. For one of the best wave pilots in the world to think so highly of the book, I thought it had to be good. And I wasn’t disappointed. As Terry mentions, the book eliminates a bunch of the confusing maths and replaces it with descriptive explanations of how the air mass behaves in mountain wave systems and how we best use that wave. G himself professes to be a glider pilot not a physicist, and this is evident throughout the whole book where great diagrams are used to explain the processes at play, rather than confusing maths which often bewilder the everyday pilot.

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Soaring a ridge downwind of a wave trigger

Through clear, concise and very simple diagrams, G has done a great job of explaining the processes and phenomena that you often experience when soaring but might not quite understand.

Both convergence and wave flying can be very complicated but G’s simplified, step by step approach breaks it down, so anyone from the beginner to the ace pilot can benefit from it – be it from helping to find your first convergence thermal, to attempting 1000 km plus flights in wave.

Once again, this is a great practical textbook on the art of convergence and wave flying. If you are after a thorough textbook on the complex mathematics and physics involved with boundary layer meteorology then this probably isn’t for you but for a glider pilot hoping to enhance his skills and knowledge then this book is for you.

The book is available in NZ via The Soaring Engine website, www.thesoaringengine.co.uk or the direct email to info@thesoaringengine.co.uk

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February–April 2017

29

From ‘das Wasserkuppe’

TO THE WAIKATO The travels of Schleicher Ka-6BR ZK-GLX

BY JONATHON POTE

Sunday 11 December was a great day for the Coast, the anticipation of which had been building since the ‘high’ first appeared on the charts a week before. The Aviation Sports Clubs' ‘usual suspects’ were there. From around noon, five launched for the coast, Hawkeye in KP, Gary in MP, Tony in VF, myself in LX and Steve W plus Rudolf last as the whippers-in, flying MW.

I

t was the expected wild ride to the coast from Whenuapai, with both tow pilot Graham in RDW and myself being dragged along, wishing we were not there at times. Eventually we reached the coast – it seemed to take forever – and I cast off to run out over the gannets, pristine white dots below, and a very angry sea. My plan was a cautious one: stay high, proceed slowly and backtrack whenever more height was on offer. For much of the flight I was at 2000 feet whenever the airspace allowed, watching the others way below.

Off Muriwai things were not great, and at one point I was even contemplating a beach landing but after I struck south, things improved a lot and I could relax as I learnt which sections of cliff were producing ‘the elevator’ that day. The Manukau crossing still has a pucker factor although you know it will end happily, and that first lift on the far side is a very happy moment.

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The falling tide against the gale made it no place to go for a dip, even with a lifejacket.

The Awhitu section between the rivers is always pretty dependable and thus I relaxed. Auckland Gliding Club was operating a winch at their Douglas Road strip, I think for the first time. It was very nice to see one of their gliders ready for launch, straight into the lift.

With Kariotahi below, I turned back as per plan, again having a brief chat with the AGC crew, and headed for the Waitakere. The cliffs between the Manukau and Kare Kare are spectacular and I have walked the many paths frequently, so it was wonderful to beat back and forward along that stretch looking down at familiar spots. I did perhaps six cycles along that area before heading for Piha and the wartime radar site at which (just after the War) radio astronomy had its first faltering

successes, leading to today’s huge knowledge of the Universe.

Here I climbed into controlled airspace, returning to 134.5 to find that an RNZAF Boeing 757 was about to take off and conflict with me (don’t they know steam gives way to sail?).

When the tower asked me to descend to 1500 feet to deconflict, I demurred as that thousand feet was my life insurance policy for the flight home. Ever helpful ATC allowed me to stay high provided I was north of Muriwai (but still in CAS – transponders are wonderful) and then cleared me for the home run once the 757 was clear. To the experienced competition pilot, ‘The Final Glide’ has a ring of impending success. To me it sounds more like an epitaph.

There was good instability, with some poorly formed cloud streets, so the sky marked the route home with ‘the angle’ improving all the way and I was able to pass west of Whenuapai

to join downwind for 26 Grass with height to spare. Air Traffic informed me it was gusting over thirty knots and offered to give me the cross-wind component. I was quite tense enough to do without that!

The actual final approach was almost vertically down with severe turbulence near ground level and a firm arrival. I could not leave the cockpit immediately as the wing thought it was still flying but The Team appeared, fitted the dolly and pushed me backwards into the relative calm by the fence. Only once Tony had picketed one wing did I climb out, promptly adding a nose picket. Both tore loose after a while (thanks for the prompt action, Lionel).

Just over two and a half hours.

What a flight! And very grateful thanks to those who stayed to watch over the mission.

THE ELDERLY LADY WHO ACCOMPANIED ME FOR A DAY AT THE SEASIDE: A BRIEF HISTORY OF ZK-GLX The Schleicher Ka-6 “Rhönsegler” (The swallow – or sailor – of the Rhön Mountains, where it was built) marked a step forward in gliding design and performance. With the advent of the fifteen metre class soon after, with minimal redesign, the original Ka-6 could conform as the Ka-6BR (factory lengthened wings and replacement of the skid with a wheel, then recently developed in Mesopotamia and just out of patent) or Ka-6CR, entirely factory built from new. It won ‘The Worlds’ in 1960 and 1963, gained the first OSTIV award (google it to learn more) and the world distance record, nearly one thousand kilometres.

Although its stay on the world podium was brief, just look at any gliding trophy; one wonders if the Ka-6 was the only type in use for decades.

ZK-GLX: In 1958 I was making my first model aircraft, which flew after a fashion. However, over in Germany more important construction was afoot: Rhönsegler Werke-nummer 388 was being built at Poppenhausen in the Rhön mountains by the Alexander Schleicher Segelflugzeubau and then registered as D-4055. Fortunately, many of the documents since then are still with the glider although with my limited German, reading them is a slow process. On June 12th, 1959, after work costing 1200 deutschmarks, probably its factory conversion, it was test flown again. A few years later it was back for repairs. The pilot has made a sketch map of the incident which indicates a very low 180 degree turn into wind on a land-out (possibly a ground loop landing downwind) ending in small trees.

Some 1972 documents seem to be the hand-written equivalent of today’s IGC files, and the launch site is at the Wasserkuppe. In the 1920s, the Wassekuppe was the cradle of gliding in the Rhön mountains, with significant military overtones as the Treaty of Versailles banned powered aircraft training in Germany. A smoothly rounded mountain, it allowed fairly easy access to the top (950 m) followed by a launch in any direction as dictated by the wind. It was here that the first known ridge soaring flights occurred in 1922, somewhat fancifully depicted [above], and Artur Martens, the pilot, formed

Drawing, first ridge soaring flights at Wasserkuppe

the world’s first glider pilots’ school. A factory and a research establishment were added to the flugplatz which remains the Mecca of gliding.

In November 1979, w/n 388 was imported into New Zealand and D-4055 was replaced by ZK-GLX. By then it had flown just over 1750 hours, 870 since a major overhaul. It became based at Matamata just over twenty years ago, losing the tail in a 1999 land-out. Repaired and generally rebuilt, she soldiers on with some 4600 launches and 4000 hours so far. Truly a bit of gliding history, an icon, whose custodianship I must one day pass on.

A primary glider (SG38 Schulgleiter) at the Wasserkuppe

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RAT’S NEST Bob Lock, Maintenance engineer Gliding Hutt Valley sends us this cautionary tale.

Diaphragm panel damage

A

t the beginning of November I commenced an annual inspection on our ASK 13 trainer. Whilst operating the control column to produce aileron deflection, a scraping / squeaking noise was evident in the starboard wing. Closer inspection revealed serious rat damage to the root rib diaphragm panels and the rib structure at the aileron/brake rod aperture, plus a substantial hole gnawed through the brake box slot rear panel, around the

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internal view of the brake box panel

inner brake pivot locking stirrup with one of the two stirrup bolts rendered less effective.

More serious investigation was carried out with the use of a CCTV camera on an extending boom, courtesy of our chief tow pilot Tom Clarke, which allowed visual inspection to the outer end of the brake box. The remaining areas were viewed with an endoscope through piercings in the fabric. The results were disturbing.

A rat’s nest was found at the outer end of the brake box containing large amounts of foreign material, including safety notice labels robbed from the cockpit! The fabric at the nest site was severely contaminated and impregnated with urine to the point that the fabric strength had been reduced to almost zero.

To add insult to injury, the vermin had destroyed two of the three aileron felt guide bearings and support structure.

Part of the heavy staining on the fabric

Also, several diaphragm panels through which the aileron and brake operating rods pass were severely chewed. The aileron rod drooping and rubbing on the remaining bearing support structure was responsible for the scraping noise.

Gaining access and carrying out the necessary repairs entailed extensive surgery and two months of every available moment of spare time.

Recommendation to operators and maintenance personnel.

Do not ignore strange/unusual noises in operating systems without thorough investigation. Check any staining that appears and any change of ‘feel’ in control operation no matter how small. They may be the tip of the iceberg.

Shows upper surface access holes, there was also a similar sized hole required in the lower surface below the one in the foreground.

extent of the repair required to the root end double diaphragm No 1 rib structure

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February–April 2017

33

Youth Glide

WHERE ARE THEY?

Wickham

We continue our series on Youth Glide Alumni with two young people following very different careers. Toni Thompson, originally from the South Canterbury Gliding Club may be in the Air Force but she doesn’t think we’ll be interested in her because she doesn’t have a flying job. She doesn’t seem to realise just what a wonderful young woman and role model she is. Adam Priest, (ex-Tauranga Gliding Club and actually pre Youth Glide) on the other hand has had a number of very exciting flying jobs.

Toni's Story Since I was six years old, my father took me to nearly every War Birds Over Wanaka Airshow there was. On one occasion, there was an RAAF F-111 Aardvark doing a display. My interest in aviation began after hearing over the loud speakers that a woman was in the cockpit.

I had no idea what gliding was until

Toni

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2011. My PE teacher at the time knew I had an interest in aviation and advised me to apply for the South Canterbury Gliding Club Scholarship. I received $500 from the club to start gliding.

Shortly after I received the scholarship, I attended the Youth Soaring Development Camp at Omarama. I still had little knowledge of how gliders stayed in the air, and was the only member of the South Canterbury club to attend.

Clueless and alone, I set up my little tent outside the campground kitchen. After only a few days at the camp I had made lifetime friends and had some amazing experiences.

On my first flight at the camp my instructor introduced me to aerobatics.

That was the moment I knew that this was going to be a hobby that I would continue and I attended another two camps after that. I have had some amazing flights in Omarama. On my favourite flight to date we saw climbers making their way to the summit of Mt Cook. I am now a member of the Aviation Sports Club at Whenuapai, working on getting my QGP. I am currently in the RNZAF working in the Mission Support Squadron as an Analyst. I have been doing this for three years and have really enjoyed my experience in the Air Force thus far. Although

Toni Thompson

my position is not in direct line with flying, I have flown on all of the RNZAF’s platforms and been involved on a number of rewarding missions. Recently I was involved in a search and rescue in the P-3 Orion where we found two fishermen lost to the north of Tonga.

I have been lucky enough to travel with the RNZAF. I’ve been around New Zealand, over to Canada and Australia.

I am looking forward to more upcoming trips this year. My career goal is to move into an aircrew position within the RNZAF. For once I am glad I listened to my school teacher as I have met such a great bunch of people. Attending the camps gave me valuable and enjoyable life experiences and it has also helped me on my journey into the RNZAF. Although I am making slow progress through the syllabus due to work commitments, I am still gliding when I can and still intend to tick off the goal of gaining my QGP.

Adam’s Story I had a keen interest in aviation growing up and my first introduction to flying was a night school offered by the Tauranga Gliding Club. It was run over eight weeks, one night per week and a training flight during the weekend at the club. Youth Glide did not exist at this stage but this night school programme was a great introduction as I was 14 at the time and it worked in well with high school.

I continued my gliding with the Tauranga Gliding Club after the night school course was completed. I was taken under the wing of many of the guys at the club – Roy Edwards, Gordon Scholes, Roger Peters and the late Brian Chesterman as well as others. I enjoyed spending my spare time there, often traveling across to Matamata when the competitions were on.

In 2004 I finished school and started towards my Commercial Pilots Licence.

With that I got my type rating on the Piper Cub and soon had my tow rating completed with Gordon. My weekends and Wednesday afternoons were spent towing gliders. I also worked for a local charter company, which meant I was on the airfield most days. I would often get a phone call during the week to see if I was free for a quick tow when conditions were looking favourable during the club’s non-flying days.

Air Niugini Dash 8 Q400 departing Cairns for Port Moresby

Adam in the cockpit of the A320

Towards the end of 2006 I was getting itchy feet and started looking abroad for flying jobs. With limited experience, it looked like I would be going ‘bush’. With my brain ticking over the options it came down to either Botswana or Papua New Guinea. In late January of 2007 I landed in Port Moresby, PNG. It is difficult to obtain a job before arriving in either of these two countries so I had arranged to stay with a friend so that I could go door knocking with my CV in hand. Gareth,

the friend who I was staying with, was out flying one of the bank runs in the Cessna 402 when I arrived. He had given me instructions to hang a left once outside of the International terminal and walk up the road until I saw the Tropicair office where a couple of the lads would be expecting my arrival. This was the most nerve-racking 700 metres I had ever walked. I was 20 years old with my entire possessions in my backpack, in Port Moresby, one of the ‘most dangerous’ cities in the world.

I ended up securing a job with Tropicair within my first week in Port Moresby.

Tropicair operated three Cessna Caravans and had their first King Air on the way from the USA. Our main regions of operation in the Caravans were in the Gulf to the west of Port Moresby, across the Owen Stanley ranges to New Britain and shorter flights to Kokoda and Tapini.

Then there were ad-hoc charters throughout PNG. The King Air was used for a variety of jobs, from executive charter, SAR, medivac, mining crew changes, moving gold bars out of the mines and the bank runs – money transfers for the banks.

One morning during November 2007 I was at home in our compound when the

February–April 2017

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Youth Glide continued WHERE ARE THEY?

phone rang. It was our General Manager, Chris Tewson. ‘Adam’ Chris said, ‘what does 7500 mean?’

‘NO!?!?!’ I said.

Jacksons ATC had called the office to say they had lost contact with the King Air and the last contact they had showed it heading towards Fishermans Island while squawking 7500 to indicate a hijacking. I jumped in the ute and raced through Port Moresby to the airport. On arrival, I had a quick rundown with Chris before beginning an aerial search in one of the Cessna Caravans. Fishermans Island was not far from Port Moresby and I soon had the King Air in sight, sitting there on the old disused WWII airstrip.

The cabin door was open and I could see from overhead that the left propeller had struck one of the ant hills and was bent out of shape. But there was no sight of the pilot or passengers. The aircraft had departed Port Moresby on a bank run to the west for Kiunga and Tabubil.

Along with the five million Kina (about NZ$2.2 million) was one policeman for security and one staff member from the bank to handle the paperwork. Both the passengers were well known to us as they often came along on these runs. But the policeman had decided today was the day and he had put together a plan to steal the money on board. He had two banana boats waiting for their arrival at

Fishermans Island. Soon after take off, passing about 5000 feet, he pulled his pistol on the pilot and told him to turn around for Fishermans Island. Jimbo, the unlucky pilot that day, and the other passenger were used to help carry the boxes of money from the aircraft to the waiting banana boats and then ordered aboard. Once on the mainland and with the money loaded into a waiting van, Jimbo was left at the shoreline, handcuffed to the mangroves.

Here the plan fell apart for the policeman. They had made landfall at Napa Napa, a peninsula outside of Port Moresby. With the alarm being raised in Port Moresby, the not so corrupt police had secured the only road out from Napa Napa. A shootout occurred and the hijacker was shot dead. The money was recovered and Jimbo later found by a helicopter. He was brought back to base, a little shaken but otherwise fine.

Towards the end of 2009 I was asked to take the role of Chief Pilot for Tropicair, which saw me through to the end of 2010 and my time with them. My final highlight with the company was delivering another new King Air from the USA to Port Moresby. It was a four day trip from Camarillo on the east coast of California, to Hawaii, the Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands, Cairns and then up to Port Moresby.

The normal welcoming committee of local village kids swamping us on arrival at an airstrip.

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A traditional welcoming ceremony for VIPs being flown into Emirau Island in the Bismarck Archipelag, Papua new Guinea.

The 10 hour 35 minute flight to Honolulu got a little tight when the headwind jumped from the forecast 20 knots to 75 knots. We found ourselves with not enough fuel to return to California and too much headwind to make Hawaii. We pressed on as we didn’t have any other options and eventually the wind died down again and swung around to a tail wind for our arrival into Hawaii.

2011 saw me moving across to Air Niugini, flying the Dash 8. For two years I flew the 100, 200 and 300 series and then moved across to the Q400 series in 2013. I relocated to Cairns for the new job which provided a great work-life balance.

I still had the adventure of working in PNG, but I was now in the airline environment, and a little bit closer to home.

Air Niugini took on a restructure at the start of 2015, which was not so attractive for a long-term career and it was time to look abroad once again. In June 2015 I arrived in Macau, a country of 30.5 km2. Air Macau operated a fleet of Airbus A319, A320 and A321s. The company network throughout Asia had us bringing in mostly gamblers and tourists to Macau, which is known as the Las Vegas of Asia. 70% of the flights would take us into Mainland China and the remainder had us going to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand.

In July 2016 I interviewed with Air New Zealand and from this I was offered a job. I moved back home in October last year and am now flying the A320.

It has been a great career so far and it started off with the night classes run by the Tauranga Gliding Club. Now I’m back in New Zealand flying domestic and short haul international routes, the future is looking enjoyable too. Hopefully I’ll be back in a tow plane and glider by next summer.

AUDI

Soaring Competition 2017

7–15 January 2017

BY ROSS GADDES

Flying up the Coromandel Peninsula prior to landing back at Thames (just for fun with Maurie in the PW5)

On Sunday 15 January 2017 we packed up and finalised our nine day annual club event (normally called the Drury Comps).

I

n July last year Graham Player and I decided that we would organise another Drury Competition in early January 2017.

This allowed us plenty of time to prepare. The Drury Comps have been held at Drury on and off for several decades.

They have always been aimed at promoting cross country and competition within our local club membership, but had died a little up until January 2011 when we revived the event. Initially I tried to get a few outside the club interested in visiting Drury by convincing them they needed to sample yet another crosscountry site. I don’t think Drury had ever been considered as such (by other clubs) being so near to Auckland and the two coasts.

The 2011 contest (etched firmly in the memory of those that attended) with nine continuous days of not just good, but excellent, soaring weather provided fantastic soaring and racing.

With many days having light or favouring easterly winds we got to fly down the west side of Hamilton and as far as Taupo, regularly racing over 350 km and there was only one land-out during the entire event. This encouraged us to apply for and run the Club Class Nationals in 2015. These also proved very successful but last year we had a break as many were primed up to support the Multi-Class Nationals being held in Taupo 2016. This year I was quite happy to help host a low-key event so I wasn’t panicking about organising too much.

After attending the disastrous South Island Regionals

(weather wise) I was very impressed by the prize giving presentation, given by Justin Wills, who was talking about the different and successful approaches to some competitions being held in the UK. In particular, the Enterprise idea seemed to fit our objectives for our traditional club event. After discussing it with Graham Player (Contest Director) we made a decision to run with this format. It’s fair to say I really only had the basic idea on how the format operates and needed to spend some time on calls with Justin Wills. The key idea (to me at least) is that it’s the not just the competition but about providing lots of fun – in the air and on the ground – for the competitors and the supporters. Justin has attended a huge number of UK Enterprise comps and has brought the idea to Omarama as well. My plan was to use the ideas loosely and not get too excited about exactly emulating the concept, which is actually very simple.

The idea is to encompass a huge range of ability and glider types so that everyone can fly to their own level or better and hopefully provide challenges in a supportive environment. All competitions do this to some extent but the enterprise format focusses on getting the most soaring from the day.

With literally days to run, we were still pretty laid back about the event. It was about then that Simon Gault fired a hand grenade into the room which forced us to quickly get our act together. He approached Audi NZ who were quite excited about helping out and offered up a great 1st Prize – the use of a brand February–April 2017

37

The idea is to remove all those

about normal FAI style competition flyi failed to explain tactics

new, high spec Audi Q7 SUV for one full week. We quickly re-named the event the ‘Audi Soaring Competition’. He then worked on the well-known company Cookie Time who offered to supply great day prizes. Another company interested in coming on board was Pilot Breweries, a Hamilton based craft beer company which is quickly growing in popularity.. Having an obvious leaning towards aviation, they proved to be a very good partner and, as we all know, beer is something most gliding clubs have an intimate relationship with. Simon also offered to design a very high quality meal for the final dinner and have it presented by his company – Sous Chef. This wasn’t going to be cheap and I have to admit I wasn’t quite sure how this would all play out but Graham and I went along with open minds. It also fitted the concept, in that it would hopefully appeal to partners and friends as much, maybe more, than the pilots themselves; an important idea that Justin had also impressed on us as we listened to his after-dinner speech in Omarama.

It was all a bit late to attract those from outside our club, especially with the added spice of the prizes, but I did ring around with personal invites. With only a few days to go and only a handful entered, I had to do some lobbying and counting because I knew quite a few were interested. This lateness was entirely my fault and I guess it was due to the laid back lead up prior to Christmas. As the weather improved and with it some positive thoughts, we eventually had 22 pilots entered and only one that was not from our club, that being Ian O’Keefe from Auckland Aviation Sports Club. This number of participants was actually about as many as we could handle, despite many intending to fly only a few days or in twin seat gliders from the club fleet. We quickly tried to arrange a second tow plane which did not prove to be easy. It was also not easy to get a reliable roster of tow pilots but Graham Cochrane and Dion Manktelow both worked hard to ensure we would at least have CEB online.

We also decided that the winch would be acceptable if only one tow plane was operating.

The Enterprise concept supports a relaxed launch operation but the numbers and the weather proved to be a challenge,

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February–April 2017

something we need to work on next time for sure. Help was also sought from Marion Moody and Paula Wright who took on the task of supplying good quality, home-made morning teas, lunches and some of the dinners. Good value and very nourishing, the food was really appreciated. Another person who put in a fantastic effort was Greg Balle. Greg is a pre QGP pilot with a very valuable knowledge of weather and the various methods of predicting what might happen as the day and the week progressed. He also proved able to relay that information to the punters in a rational, understandable and professional presentation at briefing time.

Somehow we pulled together a pretty good team in time for the first day on the 7th Jan 2017. The first briefing required quite a lot of explaining. Having the concept is one thing but facing the crowd, now with much more ‘skin’ in the game, was daunting. Truth is, I was hoping it would all just fall into place; after all we could make our own rules. To keep everything as simple as possible the scoring was intended to be done by each pilot on their own score sheet. This didn’t really work but thanks to Dion Manktelow we sorted it out and Arnulf put the results on Soaring Spot as well. The idea is that there would be one point per km, divided by the glider handicap (GNZ list), to get the distance points. Extra points could be earned by achieving certain goals, hopefully enterprising ones. These goals can be turnpoints or areas (like AAT areas). Landing at the airfield would usually attract extra points as well. I also appeased those who liked racing by putting a time on the kilometres achieved, so the distance points would stop at a defined time after starting. Starting was not by grid but at the pilot’s choice at any time after the briefing and Controlled Airspace was accessible without penalty. The idea is to remove all those stressful and disappointing things about normal FAI style competition flying. We made a few mistakes and at times failed to explain tactics and strategy to those newer to the game. We also failed to get people in the air in an acceptable time frame which will be better next time I promise. Everyone was entered onto the OLC so that the flights could be loaded into an accessible place

ve all those stressful and disappointing things

a question of safety

competition flying. We made a few mistakes and at times explain tactics and strategy to those newer to the game.

STEVEN CARE National Operationals Officer

for scoring. This made for good advertising as well. It also enlightened many as to how useful and fun the OLC tool is for analysing our own soaring and comparing with other flights.

Normally the weather settles in Drury during this period but this year the westerly winds stayed and were sometimes 15-20 knots. Tasking was made easier by Greg’s accurate predictions but using the Kaimais was normally the best way to get kilometres stacked up. I even made Thames airfield a finish point (because we can make our own rules), just to accommodate the K8 and lower performing gliders so that getting back home was not so crucial. Overall the different ideas were successful, I think, with Rae Kerr and Maurie Honey (K8 & PW5) still getting enough points to challenge the gliders with much higher handicaps. I didn’t get too inventive about the tasking but by the end we were all getting a better idea on how to create a fairly fair playground, yet still challenge the pilots. Another great thing was that some pilots who hadn’t had much chance to leave our airfield recently found themselves having some great flights. Ian O’Keefe from Auckland Aviation Sports Club really enjoyed learning about our area’s varied weather with thermals and convergence flying required in order to get back over the Bombay hills. We didn’t get great cloud bases either, so leaving home base with only 2500 feet and lobbing into the valley to the east was sometimes bloody daunting.

We used one non-flyable afternoon to visit the Warbirds hangars at Ardmore. It was quite an honour to be given a tour for a couple of hours, leisurely inspecting these rare and usable (mostly) aircraft. This organisation is remarkable and the collection amazing. A look at Avspecs hangar was also fantastic as they are quickly (for this sort of thing) restoring (building actually) another Mosquito fighter. Thanks to these enthusiastic people for sharing and showing us their passion.

The wind-up dinner was held on the Saturday night and due to a very poor weather forecast we decided to end after six days of fun. The meal was superb which is not surprising as it was organised by one of NZ’s best chefs. The meal was fully booked and over 60 people enjoyed the quality event at our own club facility. The weather co-operated too and the evening was able to be held out on our decking, facing the beautiful vista of the Drury hills bathed in the setting sunlight. This idea of keeping those associated with the pilots as happy and having as much fun as the competitors is a key thing we will work on for the future. With the support we have, I think we can improve a huge amount. Simon’s help and enthusiasm has been invaluable and he deserves thanks, along with many hard working members, too many to thank individually, so thanks to them as well.

The winner was Patrick Driessen with Ross Gaddes and Maurie Honey in 2nd and 3rd places. We flew 18,137 OLC kilometres over the six days. We had a few land outs but had no damaged gliders and the fun level was about as good as it gets.

Again and lastly – thanks to Audi NZ, Cookie Time and Pilot Brewery – let’s hope they continue support us going forward into the future.

Accidents So far this year we have only had two accidents, which is a significant reduction from previous years. The key has been pilots (particularly instructors) looking carefully at operational threats and mitigating them wherever possible. All I can say is keep up the good work.

2016-17 2 2015-16 3 2014-15 11 2013-14 10 2012-13 9 2011-12 11 2010-11 12

Overseas Visiting Pilots It is really important that we treat visiting pilots well. They bring an added dimension to our sport that we would not get elsewhere; so it is important that we get the paperwork and processes done accurately and efficiently. Try not to second guess their needs or leave the visitor in limbo. Find out and/or ask if you are unsure about anything – their hours and experience, their intentions and expectations.

Winch Ops There has been a recent non-injury winch accident; the first for many decades. It is one that could have happened to anyone, at any of our clubs that winch. This is a good reminder that all winch pilots should be familiar with the BGA Safe Winch Launching presentation from their web site. One of the key points in the presentation is, if a wing touches the ground during acceleration, the launch must be aborted.

This can be counter intuitive because we are all used to successfully picking up a dropped wing on aero tow and I have often seen pilots ‘get away with it’ on a winch launch.

Subconsciously we say to ourselves, ‘give it a second and then release if it doesn’t come right’. However, circumstances can change very rapidly during a fast acceleration. If things don’t work in your favour, that second you thought you had can be gone in an instant, leaving no time to react.

Vision In gliding we are 100% reliant on our vision, yet there is no specific medical minimum standards that must be met. As we age, our eye sight can gradually deteriorate without us being aware of it and it is almost impossible to identify if it has ever been the cause of accidents. Our type ‘A’ gliding personalities can also interfere with judging how much loss of eyesight is acceptably safe. Personally, I get my eyes checked by an optician; generally annually. Even if you feel you have 20/20 vision, it is well worth getting a check done from time to time. It is even better, if you encourage others to do the same.

February–April 2017

39

OSTIV CONGRESS REPORT

The “Future of the Open Class” panel; l to r, Mark Maughmer, Tilo Holighaus, Atti Jonker, Gerhard Waibel, Loek Boermans, Oliver Binder. Rolf Radespiel as moderator.

The XXXIII OSTIV Congress was held in conjunction with the World Gliding Championships at Benalla in January 2017.

While most glider pilots’ knowledge of (and hence interest in) OSTIV is limited, the work of OSTIV has a fundamental influence on the gliding world; interested pilots would benefit from being more aware of it and could equally consider becoming a member.

O

STIV (the Organisation Scientifique et Technique du Vol à Voile) is the scientific and technical part of the gliding world, affiliated member of FAI and recognised

by EASA and the FAA. It advises industry, regulatory authorities and sports organizations on a range of topics, commonly the outputs from one of its three panels (as the working groups are called). These panels are: ›› Sailplane Development ›› Training and Safety ›› Meteorology.

The work of these panels is overseen by the OSTIV Board, which has representatives from around the gliding world.

Current Board members are from the USA, Canada, Germany, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Australasia. President and Vice-President are Professor Rolf Radespiel (Head of the Institute of Fluid Mechanics at Technische Universität Braunschweig) and Professor Mark Maughmer, respectively. Past Presidents and Panel Chairmen have included Gerhard Waibel (the “W” of AS-W, while the current Sailplane Development Chairman is Michael Greiner, the “G” of AS-G sailplanes), Loek Boermans (the Concordia “wing man”, amongst many other

40

February–April 2017

wing sections) and Judah Milgram (translator of the German text “Fundamentals of Sailplane Design”).

The work of the first two panels is commonly linked; for example, the improvements in cockpit crashworthiness result from the work presented at earlier Congresses, which are usually held at the same time as the World Championships.

Extended abstracts of papers presented at OSTIV Congresses are available from the OSTIV website (http://ostiv. org/index.php).

To expand awareness of its activities, OSTIV has held outreach sessions during the World Championships and at the SSA Conference. Three evening sessions were held at Benalla, covering: ›› Front Electric Sustainer (FES) technology development plus the Initiative Prosegelflieger, which looks to advance crashworthiness in gliding to better parallel the advances made in car safety (rather than lagging far behind, as is the case at present) ›› A panel discussion on the future of the Open Class, with the panel comprising Oliver Binder, Loek Boermans, Tilo Holighaus, Uys Jonker, and Gerhard Waibel ›› A presentation by Morgan Sandercock on the “First year in Argentina with the Perlan 2 glider”.

To promote advances in technology and the sharing of knowledge, OSTIV awards a prize for major technical developments. The OSTIV Prize for 2017 was awarded to Stefan Gehrmann, Axel Lange, and Luka Žnidaršič for their pioneering works on electric propulsion in sailplanes. The MacCready Award and the Mertens Award for the best student contributions to the Congress were given to a joint contribution of N. Akataş and S. Yeşilköy, and to Maike Fröhner, respectively. The joint OSTIV-GFA Prize for the best presentation of the Congress went to Stuart Smith and Murray G. Stimson for their statistical analysis of spin accidents.

Mark Maughmer – winglet designer, showing a relaxed Antipodean standard of dress and approach to flying while trying out the Gliding Club of Victoria simulator.

Kiwi team on opening day. The OSTIV Congress is held in in conjunction with the Worlds.

While the full list of papers presented at the Congress is contained in the programme (ostiv.org/index.php/news. html?year=2016), papers of particular interest included: ›› Risk Of Flutter In Aging Sailplanes ›› Influence Of Zigzag‐Tape On Profile Drag At Low Reynolds Numbers ›› Speed‐To‐Fly Theory ›› Use of Computational Fluid Dynamics in Wing-Winglet Design ›› Gust loads of Sailplanes ›› Mountain Wave Flying ›› Climate Change, Aviation And Gliding ›› Design Studies of Motor Gliders ›› The Use Of Simulation In Gliding: Current State And Future Directions ›› Advances in Flight Performance Measurements This list demonstrates the span of activity within OSTIV; the extended abstracts listed in the programme are available on the OSTIV website. As might be expected, many of the papers represent work which is on-going, with updates being presented at future OSTIV Congresses.

One task for which the gliding community’s continued involvement is sought is the study into the use of simulation (the 2nd to last paper listed above). Based on the international survey performed by Gerard Robertson (Australasian OSTIV Board member), the situation can be summarised as: ›› the use of simulation in gliding is patchy and inconsistent, despite being widely accepted in other aviation sectors and safety-critical sectors such as nuclear power and medicine ›› only one country, France, has formally adopted simulation as part of its training programme ›› several clubs have adopted simulation, but generally

through the work of individuals and each has “learnt by doing” ›› in the USA, Scott Manley provides training using a combination of Condor and Skype; his students report that it has helped them learn to fly gliders ›› simulation is used for more than just ab initio training (even making money) ›› the absence of a simulation-specific syllabus is seen as a barrier. ›› While this is only a short summary, OSTIV is keen to continue this work and looks for greater participation by the gliding community, to firstly develop a syllabus and secondly, share knowledge on simulator construction. The French gliding movement (Fédération Française de Vol à Voile) has an excellent syllabus, available on-line. Scott Manley in the USA similarly makes his work available. The goal is to have a consistent approach to the use of simulation across the gliding movement and, by sharing knowledge, facilitate the adoption of simulation by national gliding movements.

One piece of news which surfaced during the survey is that the Condor soaring software, used by about three-quarters of survey respondents, has a new version “about 90% complete and undergoing testing”.

Anyone interested in participating further in this work is invited to contact Gerard via gerard@xtra.co.nz.

Readers interested in receiving continuous information about all OSTIV activities might consider becoming an OSTIV member. OSTIV membership is only 25 Euro for an individual, with membership applications and payment details via the OSTIV website. Membership in OSTIV includes immediate access to all issues of the peer reviewed OSTIV Journal “Technical Soaring”.

February–April 2017

41

coaching column G DALE National Coach

Bio information Gerrard Dale, known simply as G, was born in 1958 in the UK. He trained as a pianist and worked in that field for ten years before ‘retiring’ at 31 to go gliding. At age 20 G learned to fly, and started working at Lasham aged 31. He had one year of ab-initio course instructing before starting as a soaring coach at Lasham. G later became CFI of Nympsfield (the Bristol and Gloucester GC), National Coach for The British Gliding Association (BGA), Deputy CFI and then CFI of Booker GC before returning to Lasham as Deputy CFI and Soaring Coach. He started with Glide Omarama right at the beginning and when he finished with that operation in 2016 he was head coach for the mountain soaring.

G is currently flying for GB team in Club Class, and coaching worldwide – Australia, France, USA and NZ this year. He is the author of the Soaring Engine series of text books.

He holds UK 750, Gliding Federation of Australia (GFA) 750 and NZ 1,000 km diplomas.

Welcome to the coaching column I’ve been lucky enough to be appointed as the National Coach by GNZ. This is a new role, and the principle behind it is quite simple but worth explaining.

It’s quite obvious to all of us who’ve been involved with gliding for any time that the membership – worldwide, not just here – is steadily declining.

There are many reasons – which I don’t want to go into right now. However, one thing is within our control: the quality of our training regime.

It is reasonably straightforward to teach somebody to fly a glider. They are generally easy enough to handle, and if one can drive a car then one should have the ability to learn to fly

42

February–April 2017

an airplane, or a glider, or a balloon... up to a point. Of course, with gliding it doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) end there.

Our sport is soaring – we choose to use sailplanes instead of hang gliders, models or parachutes – and once we’ve learned to fly a glider then we need to learn to soar. This is far more tricky and it’s not generally taught much around the clubs.

The new role of the national coach is to promote the sport of soaring by setting up and maintaining a network of volunteer coaches at club level.

These coaches in turn will work with pilots up and down the country to try to get them across “the hump” – the transition from new solo pilot to seasoned cross country enthusiast.

It’s early days: the new coaching manual is online at the GNZ web site, and I’ve run a couple of weekend courses in the North Island to gather interest and start the coaches off. At present, we’re choosing a couple of volunteers to head up the Northern and Central regions.

This will take some time and the average club member may not see any results from this initiative for a while however, I think we are on the right track so be patient and watch this space.

[Unfortunately G had to return to the UK for family reasons and will not be back in NZ this season so planned coaching sesions for the South Island will not be taking place. – Ed]

airworthiness MARTYN COOK National Airworthiness Officer

actuating linkage. If the linkage deflected further the load on the linkage would keep increasing, leading to a runaway situation and failure of the linkage. See Fig C. Now the wheel would have collapsed.

Why Did the Undercarriage Collapse?

It happened while outlanding on a difficult contest day. The two-seat glider touched down normally, then for a brief moment became airborne as it jumped over a concealed ditch. When the wheel touched for a second time the undercarriage collapsed and the glider slithered to a halt on the long grass. It wasn't a heavy landing.

Back at the hangar the undercarriage parts were laid out on the floor and the helpers gathered around, offering a range of opinions. The undercarriage itself was undamaged. But the actuating linkage was twisted and bent out of shape. How could this happen?

The actuating linkage is designed to move the wheel up and down, but not to carry any load from the glider sitting on its wheel. To understand this, we need to know a little more about over-centre latches. These devices are very common in daily life – google if you don't know what they look like. They can transmit a large load with the application of a very

small closing force. But they have some quirks in certain dynamic situations.

When loaded in compression (the normal state) they do carry very high loads, and if the load increases the latch locks even more firmly. In a glider, even a heavy landing would never transmit any extra load to the actuating linkage. See Fig A. Now consider what happens when tension is applied to the latch. This could happen when the wheel suddenly dangled free, such as during a bumpy ground roll. The latch would now be pulled towards the neutral position, as shown in Fig B. Normally the actuating linkage would push the latch firmly back into its locked position and all would be well. But if the tension was applied as a sharp impulse and there was some flexibility or free play in the actuating linkage, the latch could flick past the 'neutral' point, even if just for a brief moment.

And what if – at the exact moment the latch was on the 'wrong' side of neutral – the wheel touched down firmly? A sudden load would now be applied to the

This mode of failure requires a momentary load reversal at a specific frequency.

Timing is everything! The undercarriage has to be loaded up, unloaded then loaded again. In the above example this 'vibration' happened at a frequency determined by the width of the ditch and the speed the glider was travelling.

How could this be prevented? Firstly, if the amount of over-centre is adjustable, there is no advantage in going too far past the 'neutral' position. Although this will make the connection more stable in compression, it will make it more prone to unlatching under strong vibration, when tension forces also arise.

Secondly, it is important that the actuating linkage holds the over-centre latch firmly in the down-and-locked position. I have seen several instances where this has not been the case and the undercarriage has collapsed on a normal landing. And don't trust the factory settings on a new glider – I know of two new gliders of the same type arriving in NZ, both with sloppily-adjusted undercarriage linkages.

One was picked up by a sharp-eyed engineer before any damage occurred.

The other was discovered the hard way!

February–April 2017

43

GNZ awards & certificates

DECEMBER 2016 – JANUARY 2017

EDOUARD DEVENOGES GNZ Awards Officer

gnzawards@xtra.co.nz 40 Eversham Road, Mt Maunganui 3116.

QGP No 3342 3343 3344 3345 3346 3347 3348 3349 3350 3351

Pilot’s Name Gerrard G. Dale Sabrina Schels Christopher Cobham Gregor Petrovic Andrew Parish Ian Mac Arthur Norbert A. Scarlat Mark Field Llewelyn (Leo) Davies Jan Dielens

Club Piako GC Glide Omarama Glide Omarama Wellington GC Wellington GC Glide Omarama Glide Omarama Taupo GC Glide Omarama Wellington GC

Date 24 11 2016 8 12 2016 8 12 2016 18 12 2016 18 12 2016 7 1 2017 3 1 2017 3 1 2017 23 1 2017 11 1 2017

Glider

SILVER DISTANCE

Keith Essex

Edwin Oude Vrielink

Glide Omarama Canterbury GC

26 11 16 1 1 2017

ASG 29 LS 4b

SILVER DURATION

Keith Essex

Jordan Kerr

Edwin Oude Vrielink

Glide Omarama Wellington GC Canterbury GC

27 11 2016 10 12 2016 1 1 2017

ASG 29 Libelle LS 4b

SILVER HEIGHT

Keith Essex

Edwin Oude Vrielink

Jonathan Pote

Glide Omarama Canterbury GC Auckland ASC

26 11 2016 1 1 2017 5 1 2017

ASG 29 LS 4b Ka 6br

SILVER BADGE Keith Essex 1176 1177 Jordan Kerr 1178 Edwin Oude Vrielink 1179 Jonathan Pote

Glide Omarama Wellington GC Canterbury GC Auckland ASC

4 12 2016 17 12 2016 8 1 2017 5 1 2017

GOLD DURATION

Keith Essex

Jordan Kerr

Edwin Oude Vrielink

Glide Omarama Wellington GC Canterbury GC

27 11 2016 10 12 2016 1 1 2017

ASG 29 Libelle LS 4b

GOLD HEIGHT

Keith Essex

Jordan Kerr

Edwin Oude Vrielink

Glide Omarama Wellington GC Canterbury GC

26 11 2016 10 12 2016 1 1 2017

ASG 29 Libelle LS 4b

GOLD DISTANCE

David Jensen

Keith Essex

Edwin Oude Vrielink

Robert J. Laskey

Piako GC Glide Omarama Canterbury GC Gliding Manawatu

26 11 2016 27 11 2016 1 1 2017 11 1 2017

GOLD BADGE 333 David Jensen 334 Keith Essex 335 Edwin Oude Vrielink 336 Robert J. Laskey

Piako GC Glide Omarama Canterbury GC Gliding Manawatu

4 12 2016 4 12 2016 8 1 2017 22 1 2017

DIAMOND HEIGHT 424 Keith Essex 425 Steven T. Evans 426 Jason Kelly

Glide Omarama 28 11 2016 Omarama GC 1 1 2017 Gliding Hawkes Bay 16 12 2016

44

February–April 2017

JS1 ASG 29 LS 4b LS 3

ASG 29 Discus 2 LS 4

DIAMOND GOAL 339 Keith Essex 340 Edwin Oude Vrielink

Glide Omarama Canterbury GC

4 12 2016 1 1 2017

DIAMOND DISTANCE 151 Keith Essex 152 Nick White

Glide Omarama Omarama GC

28 11 2016 16 12 2016

THREE DIAMONDS 125 Keith Essex 126 Nick White 127 Steven T. Evans

Glide Omarama Omarama GC Omarama GC

4 12 2016 3 1 2017 8 1 2017

750KM DIPLOMA 1 Keith Essex

Glide Omarama

29 11 2016

AIR NZ CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS

Pilot's Name Club Northern Division

Matthew Findlay Auckland GC

David Austin Taupo GC

Michael Cooper Tauranga GC

Dion Manktelow Auckland GC

Neil Harker Auckland GC

Jonathon Cross Auckland GC

Noel Bailey Piako GC

Geoff Gaddes Auckland GC

David Muckle Piako GC

David Dennison Piako GC

Tony Noble Auckland GC

Dougal Wickham Taranaki GC

Stephan Hughson Auckland GC

Dylan Watson Auckland GC

William Kamp Piako GC

Peter Wooley Auckland GC

Glyn Jackson Taranaki GC

Will Hopkirk Taranaki GC

Jason Kelly Hawkes Bay GC

Nathan Graves Auckland ASC

Dave McIver Auckland GC

ASG 29 Discus 2B

ASG 29

Points 1073.55 1033.78 997.35 917.16 792.13 707.76 360.16 264.22 246.7 239.99 239.33 224.69 209.17 192.74 179.94 173.67 139.88 87.63 79.13 76.39 71.42

Southern Division

Jason Kelly

Glyn Jackson

Peter Taylor

Sam Tullett

Colin Winterburn

Hawkes Bay GC Taranaki GC Canterbury GC Taranaki GC Canterbury GC

1410.48 1018.93 919.22 201.34 178.94

Senior Official Observers 09 – 117 Keith Essex 09 – 118 Deborah Essex

Glide Omarama Glide Omarama

5 12 2016 10 12 2016

Official Observers 09 – 120 Daniel E. McCormack

Glide Omarama

14 1 2017

Notes: The large numbers of pilots in the OLC Northern Division is due to the Drury Comps using the OLC for their soaring.

Keith Essex has had the most extraordinary season!

GLIDING NEW ZEALAND CLUB NEWS

CLUB DIRECTORY

Link for club info www.gliding.co.nz/Clubs/Clubs.htm Auckland Aviation Sports Club Club Website www.ascgliding.org Club Contact Peter Thorpe pbthorpe@xtra.co.nz Ph 09 413 8384 Base RNZAF Base Auckland (Whenuapai) 021 146 4288 Flying Weekends, Public Holidays Auckland Gliding Club Club Website www.glidingauckland.co.nz Club Ph (09) 294 8881, 0276 942 942 Club Contact Ed Gray info@glidingauckland.co.nz Base Appleby Rd, Drury Flying Weekends, Wednesdays, Public Holidays Canterbury Gliding Club Club Website www.glidingcanterbury.co.nz Club Contact Kevin Bethwaite kevin.bethwaite@airways.co.nz Ph (03) 318 4758 Base Swamp Road, Springfield Flying Weekends, Public Holidays Central Otago Flying Club (Inc) Club Website www.cofc.co.nz Club Contact Phil Sumser phil.sumser@xtra.co.nz Base Alexandra Airport Flying Sundays, and by arrangement Glide Omarama.com Website www.GlideOmarama.com Contact Gavin Wills gtmwills@xtra.co.nz Base Omarama Airfield Flying October through April 7 days per week Gliding Hawkes Bay and Waipukurau Club Website www.glidinghbw.co.nz Club Contact E-mail: info@glidinghbw.co.nz, Ph 027 2877 522 Base Hastings Airfield (Bridge Pa) and Waipukurau Airfield (December & February) Flying Sundays and other days by arrangement Gliding Hutt Valley (Upper Valley Gliding Club) Club Contact Wayne Fisk wayne_fisk@xtra.co.nz Ph (04) 567-3069 Base Kaitoke Airfield, (04) 526 7336 Flying Weekends, Public Hols., Mid week by arrangement Gliding Manawatu Club Website www.glidingmanawatu.org.nz Club Contact Ron Sanders Resanders@xtra.co.nz Base Feilding Aerodrome Flying Weekends, Public holidays Gliding Wairarapa Club Website http://www.glidingwairarapa.co.nz/ Club Contact Diana Braithwaite Ph (06) 308 9101 Base Papawai Airfield, 5 km east of Greytown Ph (06) 308 8452 or 025 445 701 Flying Weekends, or by arrangement Kaikohe Gliding Club Club Contact Peter Fiske, (09) 407 8454 Email Keith Falla keith@falla.co.nz Base Kaikohe Airfield, Mangakahia Road, Kaikohe Flying Sundays, Thursdays and Public Holidays Marlborough Gliding Club Club Website http://glide_marl.tripod.com Club Contact bmog@paradise.net.nz Base Omaka Airfield, Blenheim Flying Sundays and other days by arrangement Masterton Soaring Club Club Website www.nzsoaring.solutions Club Contact Michael O’Donnell modp@inspire.net.nz Ph (06) 370 4282 or 021 279 4415 Base Hood Aerodrome, Masterton Flying By arrangement Nelson Lakes Gliding Club Club Website www.glidingnelson.co.nz Club Contact Frank Saxton franksaxton@gmail.com Ph (03) 546 6098 Base Lake Station Airfield, St.Arnaud Ph (03) 521 1870

Flying Weekends and Public Holidays Norfolk Aviation Sports Club Club Website http://www.geocities.com/norfolkgliding/ Club Contact Kevin Wisnewski wizzbang@xtra.co.nz Ph (06) 756 8289 Base Norfolk Rd Flying Weekends and by appointment Omarama Gliding Club Club Website http://www.omarama.com Club Contact Bruce Graham bruceandstell@xtra.co.nz Ph (03) 358 3251 Base Omarama Flying 7 days a week by arrangement Piako Gliding Club Club Website www.glidingmatamata.co.nz Club Contact Steve Care s.care@xtra.co.nz Ph (07) 843 7654 or 027 349 1180 Base Matamata Airfield, Ph (07) 888 5972 Flying Weekends, Wednesdays and Public Holidays Rotorua Gliding Club Club Website http://www.rotoruaglidingclub.blogspot.co.nz/ Club Contact Mike Foley roseandmikefoley@clear.net.nz Ph (07) 347 2927 Base Rotorua Airport Flying Sundays South Canterbury Gliding Club Club Website www.glidingsouthcanterbury.co.nz Club Contact John Eggers johneggers@xtra.co.nz 33 Barnes St Timaru Base Levels Timaru & Omarama Wardell Field Flying Weekends, Public Holidays & by arrangement Taranaki Gliding Club Club Website www.glidingtaranaki.com Club Contact Peter Williams peter.williams@xtra.co.nz Ph (06) 278 4292 Base Stratford Flying Weekends and Public Holidays Taupo Gliding Club Club Website www.taupoglidingclub.co.nz Club Contact Tom Anderson Tomolo@xtra.co.nz PO Box 296, Taupo 2730 Ph (07) 378 5506 M 0274 939 272 Base Centennial Park, Taupo Flying 7 days a week Tauranga Gliding Club Club Website www.glidingtauranga.co.nz Club President Adrian Cable adrian.cable@xtra.co.nz Base Tauranga Airport Flying Weekends and Public Holidays, Wednesday afternoons and other times on request Wellington Gliding Club Club Website http://www.soar.co.nz Club President Brian Sharpe bwsharpe@xtra.co.nz Ph 027 248 1780 Base Greytown Soaring Centre, Papawai Airfield, 5 km east of Greytown Bookings Ph 027 618 9845 (operations) Flying Weekends and Public Holidays 7 days a week December through to March

The club news is your chance to share with the rest of the country and abroad, some of what makes your club the best gliding club in the world. Club scribes, please watch the deadlines (but we'll make allowances for special circumstances so contact the editor before you panic) and likewise, the word count is supposed to be 300 words to allow everyone to have a say. If you need more words than that, you probably should write a real article about that special event.

Deadline for club news for the next issue 22 April 2017.

AUCKLAND AVIATION SPORTS CLUB Summer holiday season huh? Windy?

Check. Rain? Check. Grey overcast, no lift?

Check. Sun and a soaring day? A couple but mostly when we are back at work. Not the greatest summer we ever saw. In between the bad days there were some good ones.

One blue day, that predictions suggested had little lift, turned out to be booming. So much so that Jonathan Pote achieved his height gain in his K6. Well done old chap.

A number of our juniors and student pilots have soloed and will soon to be reaching for the canopy latch on our PW5 and Astir as some of our QGP club members look on with dismay at the competition. Some of our members have headed away for Regionals, Nationals and for training courses to equip them to be mentors. Steve Wallace has once again represented NZ at the Worlds in Australia coming a creditable 17th in a class packed field.

Roll on summer with the hope of a much better Feb through March than we have had so far.

Graham

AUCKLAND We have had a busy few months at our club. Our Duo Discus was returned from Omarama, in good order, along with our Norwegian Summer Instructor Arnulf. The trip to Omarama for eight weeks was hugely successful and DX was booked for use every day. It enabled club members to utilise our great glider in one of the best places in the world. Accompanying Arnulf was another visitor, Miklas, who is a student pilot from Germany. Miklas has been a great asset as well, and along with Arnulf has enabled us to provide mid-week flying for students and experienced members. Our Christmas Camp at Matamata was attended by several members who enjoyed the holiday period using the Matamata Soaring Centre facility of which we are members. Back home we had a February–April 2017

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CLUB NEWS few days of soaring as we also kept the home fires burning for those who preferred to stay near Drury.

We held an important meeting in November in the form a club ‘Hui’, where members were encouraged to discuss problems and initiatives in a receptive environment. This worked well and has initiated some changes, many of which will take time, but will be acted upon.

Our annual Drury Competition – Audi Soaring Competition 2017 – was well attended and we had over 20 entries with all except one being AGC members. This competition loosely utilised the ‘Enterprise’ concept to emphasise cross country flying and fun. To make it even more fun and add spice, some very good sponsorship was offered by some great companies. Audi NZ offered the main prize – The top of the range Audi Q7 Luxury SUV. This beautiful vehicle will be available to be used by the winner for a couple of weeks of luxury motoring.

Day prizes from Pilot Breweries (craft beer from Hamilton) and Cookie Time were also well appreciated. Thanks to Simon Gault for helping us gain this fantastic support.

Simon’s company, Sous Chef, also provided a fine quality meal for our final evening which was absolutely superb and enjoyed by over 60 members, partners and friends. Over 18,000 OLC km were flown over the six competition days. This event will be built on and if all goes to plan, will be something for all soaring pilots to look out for in 2018.

While we could always do with more trainees, we are busy with several members, both young and older, who are moving through the training system assisted by the seven day operation. However, we are not standing still and there is a lot of work to be done in order to improve our operation at many levels. We all know that our club can do better and there are initiatives underway that will change and ultimately steer our club towards a very successful future.

The best of the 2016/17 season is yet to come – visitors are always welcome.

RG

Canterbury:

recreational, and record breaking gliding at Omarama, with Edwin Oude Vrielink making both distance and 5 hour duration achievements in one flight, Peter Taylor and Sandy Yong touring the Mt Cook area, Terry Delore making a new and very fast 300km triangle record (to be confirmed), and very chilled Paul Marriott, Rick Millane, and glider returning from an unexpected and reasonably lengthy wave soaring flight overhead at the end of one overcast day.

Back at Springfield winch operators and pilots were trained in the arts at both ends of the wire for most of December and, as it turns out, February, due to a faulty fuel pump in the tug. Some good flights from the winch were had with John McCaw actively working scrappy thermals from straight off the wire to make a good escape, Derek Kraak and guest passenger in Janus PB playing ridge

lift for an hour to eventually climb into wave and explore the Craigieburn basin, and new pilot Tim Hughes finding ridge, convergence, thermal and then wave to make 9500 feet overhead the field. An outstanding day developed mid January giving Wal Bethwaite in CC, Kev Bethwaite and Greg Tucker in PB great soaring: thermal to 7500 then wave to FL180 landing at 7:30pm.

In the last week in February, Kev towed glider PB up to Lakes Station where he, Greg Tucker and Tim Hughes enjoyed the top of the south gliding and socialising with the Nelson club’s gliding week. Finishing February off, Paul Marriott hosted a “pom’s party” spit roast at the club field as a farewell at the end of his summer sojourn with the club. Thanks for your work and wit Paul – and all the best for your next adventure.

CANTERBURY In December, Grob 103 OR , the Libelle, and tug DYT moved south along with resident instructor Paul Marriott for several weeks to serve the Youth Soaring Development Camp and the National Championships in Omarama. The youth development camp was enthusiastically endorsed by participants, several of whom are the second generation in gliding families and building great social bonds as well as flying enthusiam.

Many of the usual suspects enjoyed race,

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February–April 2017

Central Otago: About to launch at Alexandra on the January 20th "drop tools" Friday

CLUB NEWS

Central Otago: Cruising past Mt Aspiring after an early season winch day out of Alexandra

CENTRAL OTAGO We’ve had very poor soaring weather over November, December and early January.

Sure there’s been excellent westerly wave (almost continuously in fact) but we like variety and thermals would be nice for a change. Early spring did see some better soaring such as winching into thermals over Alexandra Airport then flying to Mount Aspiring and other Main Divide locations. We also had a few okay thermal days exploring our eastern playground of the Hawkdun and the Rock and Pillar Ranges. John (KG) did end up needing a trailer sent to Middlemarch on one of those occasions.

Nick and Wills have the club Twin Astir to themselves and both are able to soar away happily on their own when the conditions suit.

They both gained a lot from their experience

at the Youth Soaring Development Camp this year and have even flown in the YG Single Astir.

Summer returned on January 20th which was a real ‘drop tools’ day. Even being a Friday we mustered four singles for what must have been the best thermal day of the year to date. We all flew 4 - 5 hours, reaching the Southern Alps. We all made it back just as the high cloud from the next system blotted out the sun.

JR

GLIDING HAWKES BAY AND WAIPUKURAU Local soaring weather has been less than spectacular in recent times but some good thermals, convergences and wave have occurred occasionally. Overall, when flyable,

conditions have been suitable for trial flights, training and some small cross-country flights.

The first weekend in December was fine, calm, sunny and mild for the local ATC squadron annual gliding day. This saw the club complete 28 flights on the Saturday in conditions that were ideal for introductory lessons. Some convection of up to 6 knots was reported which gave cadets a brief introduction to soaring.

The period leading up to Christmas saw a large volume of trial flight vouchers purchased and hopefully some of these can be converted into members.

Students Allie Thompson and Nicholas Kelly, along with instructors Graham White and Jason Kelly, attended the Omarama Youth Soaring Development Camp. The club’s Grob 103C Twin III SL made the epic road journey with Paul Thompson while Jason Kelly took an LS4 and Graham White his Libelle. These aircraft were all utilised with Graham taking a number of people around Mount Cook in wave while Jason Kelly managed the same trip in the LS4 and a diamond height gain attempt. Allie was let loose in the Libelle and claimed her 5 hour duration and Silver and Gold height gains in the same flight. Nicholas Kelly completed virtually all his A Certificate syllabus and ended the camp very close to his first solo flight.

Jason Price has been undergoing instructor training and will soon be joining the roster to increase the pool of available instructor members.

The Skylux auto tug project continues to progress with the weather causing delays and frustrations. One tow pilot is now rated to fly it with another set to convert. Once the weather and the stars align, towing trials will

Gliding Hawkes Bay and Waipukurau: Omarama

February–April 2017

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CLUB NEWS

Kaikohe: Looking south from the winch

Kaikohe:

Kaikohe: Lake Omapere with Kaikohe behind

Kaikohe: Launch point on runway 17

begin in earnest. Current plans are for these to start in mid-January.

We look forward to some classic Hawkes Bay soaring weather in 2017.

number of cross country flights to Doubtless Bay and beyond in January.

We have had a few introductory flights recently which we hope will result in a few new students for our instructors. Getting new young members is still the biggest problem with us, as it is with many places.

In the meantime, we will be enjoying the remaining summer days.

Keith

KAIKOHE The clouds and rainy days of spring seem a long time ago, now that Northland has gone into drought with day after day of blue skies and hot sun. Our club members have been making the most of it, of course.

Some days have been exceptional with the combination of the southerly wind and strong sea breeze convergence helping to give long flights, but others have been difficult cloudless days with strong winds and skinny, broken thermals.

The club has been changing slowly over past few years. In 2008 there were five club gliders and no private ones. Last year that had changed to four club machines and four private. Since then, the Whangarei District Gliding Club lost the use of their airfield at Puhipuhi and they made the painful decision to wind up the club and transfer their assets to the Kaikohe Club. This added another four privately owned gliders to the fleet. We are still in the process of transferring the assets and won’t be making any decisions regarding the club gliders for a while. It will take some time to work out what is needed and what isn’t. We have agreed to wait several months before making any big financial decisions.

The new members from Whangarei have been making the most of the holiday period with some of them camping at the field, taking advantage of the best conditions whenever they occurred. There were a

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February–April 2017

TARANAKI Nice to report on some flying activity and nearly a whole month of it too. During December we welcomed Lily Upton-Hansen

Taupo: Ivan Booth after his first solo

Kaikohe: HO forced down by rain

who has been awarded an ATC flying scholarship and commenced flying. A welcome also to Jesse Robinson who intends to move up from the Temporary Member list.

Eleanor Gilbert has had a couple of flights already and more to come we hope. We provided a trial flight to a man who, having seen the film ‘Sully’, really wanted to have a glider flight. He enjoyed the experience. And we have a new tow pilot – Alister Berry.

Relinquishing the bridesmaid role, Dennis Green has gone solo. That might be an inglorious mix of metaphors but nonetheless, well done Dennis. It will be nice to have a bunch of trainees following on. Our most

CLUB NEWS recent ‘trainee’, ex CFI John Spence, relished his chance to fly the Janus and has had some long flights, one a three-hour, as has Dougal Wickham in the PW5.

Dougal Wickham had a great experience at the 2016 Matamata Cross-Country course and Glyn Jackson was involved in the crosscountry course down at Omarama and then entered the 2017 Nationals. Les Sharp had a flight in the Nimbus, more to come maybe?

And as an aside, the local Taranaki Daily News runs a column entitled ’Fifty Years Back’. The January 21st edition included a mention of a first solo for Murray Smith aged 16. His dad Harry Smith was the founderchairman of the Taranaki Gliding Club, its secretary, CFI and had had an interesting WWII career. No solos today though, wind, rain and strong wind.

PJM

TAUPO It is the start of another year and summer has arrived! Well, we are not quite sure about that but conditions have improved and so have the happenings around the club.

Since our last club news we have had participants at the Northern Regionals, our Christmas camp, the arrival of Sid and another Youth Glide Mini-camp.

Hugh, Trev, Brian and Trace went to the Northern Regionals in Matamata where they all had a great week of flying and socialising.

It was during this week that Hugh found out that he had achieved his Gold Height from a flight out of Omarama.

Congratulations go to Ivan Booth.

Ivan went solo and has achieved his ‘A’ certificate at the ripe young age of 70.

The club’s Christmas camp was held between 26 December and 08 January. It was a quiet affair compared to previous years however a good time was had by those who attended.

Sid, our UK summer resident, arrived on 2 January and will be with us until March, doing what he loves most – instructing. Denis will have departed back to Switzerland by the time this edition of SoaringNZ is released.

Having both Sid and Denis out here for the summer is a tremendous support to the club during a normally busy period.

Another Youth Glide Mini-camp was held in Taupo between 16-20 January. There was only one non-flying day and that was not wasted as they took the opportunity to go to the hot pools. There were exams, a number of type conversions and our local junior, Akira, re-soloed. So, a fantastic time was had by all with every junior member achieving their set goals. At the end of the week Kirsten cooked a fantastic dinner for all of those involved during the week. The young glider pilots presented the club with a signed photograph.

We are all looking forward to more great flying as the weather conditions continue to improve, so until next time, fly well.

Trace

WELLINGTON Wellington Gliding has thrived, despite the dismal summer weather in many parts of the country. Compared to the previous year, we have doubled our launches for Dec (278) and Jan (316). A good number of these launches comes from the ten new members who have joined since the beginning of December. It

is not entirely clear what we are doing, but 7-day operations, low cost launches via a winch, and friendly folk around the club, must play a big part in the increase.

One of our main priorities for 2017 is the construction of a Training Centre/Clubhouse, which we hope to start by June so that it is ready for next season. This building will include a briefing area as well as an office, committee room, kitchen and ablution block with toilets, showers and laundry facilities.

The projected cost is $200,000 for the closed in shell, which will be fully insulated and include most of the internal facilities mentioned.

To date 40 of our members have each donated $1,000 each to kick-start the project and our fund raising committee (aka, Daryl Hayes) was successful in obtaining a grant of $30,000 from a Hawkes Bay Trust. We have to use the funds this year or lose them, so we have decided to get cracking.

Although we have $70,000 available, we really need more help than ever to raise the remaining $130,000. The new Training Centre will be a tremendous asset for the club and gliding community. Not only can we provide quality training in a classroom environment, but we will also have a hub and social centre for members, visitors and their families.

If you would like to donate, please email Tom Davies (Treasurer) tom.davies@clear.net. nz or Grae Harrison grae@letsgotravel.co.nz and help complete this project.

WD

February–April 2017

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F OR S A L E • WA N T E D • S E R V IC E S • E V E N T S

We take our classifieds list from the GNZ website and from ads detailed with us personally. To update your ad, please go online or advise our webmaster.

Ads notified to SoaringNZ will appear on this page but we are unable to make changes for you on the web page. Please contact the webmaster if your item sells.

GLIDERS SILENT IN • Self Launching Sailplane -$46K. Alisport (Italy) self launching sailplane with retracting Alisport 302efi FADEC 28hp engine driving a monoblade propeller. For full details, Google 'Alisport Silent In' or <alisport.com>.

Airframe 890hrs, engine and propeller less than 4hrs (new 2013) Removeable winglets, tinted canopy, usual instruments plus Trig TT21 transponder (with Mode S). Wing wheel, tail dolly and one man rig gear. Excellent open trailer with current reg. and WOF. Currently registered as Class 1 microlight.

Phone Neville Swan 09 4167125 email: nswan@xtra.co.nz Nimbus 2. ZK-GKV • A well known glider and glider type. Serial Number 124.

Price Reduced. At this price and at an L/D of 49:1 where can you get better L/D for your dollar. 49:1 – best LD for money. Brand new PU paint on the fuselage and wing PU only 5 years old. Double bladed air brakes. New Schempp Hirth canopy, new mylar seals on wing, good road trailer. Price reduced $30,000. Phone Steve Barham 021 642 484, email: barham@xtra.co.nz JS1C TJ • Expressions of interest are invited for my JS1C which will be available when it returns to NZ after the WGC in January 2017. ZK-GVZ is an immaculate competition tuned sailplane landed Dec 2014. All major options with 18m EVO and 21m wingtips. Jet sustainer. Cobra trailer (15m size.)

Very complete instrument panel including LX9070. Custom Gagula leather cockpit interior. LiFePO4 batteries. Ground handling equipment etc. Phone Brett Hunter 021 927 626, email: bhunter@kinect.co.nz Puchacz Two seat, aerobatic trainer • Two seat ab initio trainer with classic spin and recovery. Tauranga is serious about selling both of its Puchacz trainers as we are looking at upgrading out fleet. They have both undergone complete refurbishment of the control systems and linkages as per maintenance schedule. They are un-restricted and operate as per flight manual.

Check our club Facebook page for videos of these gliders in action. Phone Adrian 027 473 8231, email: adrian.cable@xtra.co.nz Nimbus 2b ZK-GIW • Maintenance and Hours updated also Flamview and Flarm. Mouse installed. Next ARA due Nov 2017 updated hours 1881hrs 561 fltsPU Paint, Fixed Tail plane, All Surfaces Sealed and Mylared, Tabulator Tape, Mask Winglets, Double Bladed Airbrakes, Tinted Canopy, Adjustable seat back, L-Nav, GPS-Nav, Oxy, C Mode Transponder, National Parachute, Tow out gear, Trestles, One man electric wing rigging cradle. Trailer refurbished and New Trojan Axles fitted. Glider located at Auckland. $45,000 ono. Phone Marc Morley 027 462 6751, email: morleym27@gmail.com Std Astir CS77 ZK-GMC • 1820 Hours total time. Recent annual and ARA inspection. New nose hook. Becker AR3201 radio Terra TRT 250 transponder. Good trailer. Can be viewed at the Tauranga Gliding club. May consider a syndicate. $22,500. Phone Ben Stimpson 027 555 5485, email: bstimpson@xtra.co.nz Std Cirrus GNC. Winglets, Good condition, Good trailer, Good panel. $25,000. Phone Rob Shuttleworth 021 0814 4937, email: shuttleworthrobjohn@gmail.com LS8a • Amazing glider which handles like a dream. PU paint, cobra trailer, carbon panel, LX9000, leather interior and all the bits you would want and race ready. Contact Hadleigh Bognuda email hadleigh@ezyvet.com

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February–April 2017

DG400 GOI. 15 & 17m tips • Clamshell trailer. Many spare parts, including, prop (DG400 & 800), engine (low hours), many electrical and engine system parts, drive belts, fuses, all sorts of gear. TT 1300hrs, engine 200hrs. NZ from new, currently 3rd Owner. Engine has been maintained by Solo Wings (Tauranga).

The engine has just completed a head overhaul by Solo Wings. Separate Avionics battery. One man rigging tool. A very affordable glider for completely independent soaring. $80,000 plus $5,000 for the engine (will not be sold separately). Phone Mark Arundel 027 453 6007, email: dg400@xtra.co.nz ASW-28 18E • 2013 manufactured. 10hrs in total flying. 18 & 15m wing tips, acrylic paint. Cobra trailer. All tow out gear. Currently in Drury. Phone Demitry Moroz 021 0265 1128, email:zzzpdy@gmail.com Club Libelle & Trailer • Due to excessive fleet size, we have a Club Libelle that is available for purchase. $14,000 Phone Douglas Lovell 021 118 5797, email: doug@waipapaeyecare.co.nz

HANGARS 18m hangar spaces in the Omarama Hangar. $ 30,000 or near offer. Contact Mike Hamilton phone 03 962 1530 email: mike.hamilton@hamjet.co.nz.

Omarama Hangar 20m • west facing site, $1,800pm obo. $36,000. Phone Garry Wakefield 03 357 8995, email: garry@walaw.co.nz Omarama Hangar 15 m • eastern hangar, power now connected. Will sell well below the replacement cost, so make us an offer. Phone Paul Chisnall 021 162 2396, email: pchisnall@xtra.co.nz

OTHER FOR SALE Parachute originally used in a K6 • As far as I'm aware this parachute has never been used. It was repacked about 2012 by a master parachute packer in Masterton and was certified fit for use. It has been stored at home in a linen cupboard so is dry and free from mould etc. Am happy as condition of sale for the chute to be repacked (at purchaser’s cost) and certified as fit for use as a condition of sale. Selling as I no longer have a glider to use it on. All reasonable offers considered. Phone Paul Clarke 027 264 2254, email: paul_clarke@clear.net.nz Cheap trailer • Good project. Herewith one trailer that used to contain a Ventus C but can be easily adapted to other 15/18m gliders - or something smaller! Aluminium cladding on a steel frame and unfortunately some of the bracing steel underneath has reached the end of its life. It will need a complete strip-down to do the repairs properly, or a partial strip to bodge it. I'm not prepared to bodge it but someone else might be. The rest of the trailer is in good nick, weathertight and well-ventilated. WOF and rego both expired in April 2016. I'm open to sensible offers and can easily have my arm twisted if it's going to a worthy cause. Phone David Hirst 021 493 349, email: david.hirst.nz@gmail.com Vario, LX100, complete with flask, tubing and manual • Removed in serviceable condition, replaced with S80. Free freight within NZ, 30 day right of return/refund. $400 ono. Phone Andy Mackay 021 174 4719, email: andymacfly2002@yahoo.com Dittel FSG2T • Due to the junior NZ team flying my libelle at the worlds and wanting dual listening capabilities I have decided to part with my Dittel FSG2T. Fantastic radio, no maintenance issues. Was last inspected in 2013 and hardly flown since. One of the best radios ever made. $750.

Contact Ross Drake email: hcdswiss@gmail.com Serviceable Microair M760 radio, no microphone but requires electret mike • Can be fitted and tested by prospective buyer with money back

GNZ members are eligible for one free non-commercial classified advertisement per issue.

Deadline for receipt of advertising for our May 2017 issue is 22 April 2017.

assurance. $350 or best offer. Phone Andy Mackay 021 174 4719, email: andymacfly2002@yahoo.com Becker Transponder and ACK Altitude Encoder • Becker ATC 3401with CU 5401 control unit and ACK Technologies A-30 Altitude Encoder no longer required. CU 5401 control unit requires repair/renewal. Phone Trace Austin 0220 289 842, email: traceaustin@hotmail.com Cambridge Vario readout • Suit LNAV or SNAV. As new large size readout.

Requires 80mm hole. Never used. $75. Phone Roger Sparks 027 495 6560, email: r.sparks@xtra.co.nz

FOR RENT Chalet Omarama • Our Omarama chalet is currently available for rent from 3rd of March to the end of the season. There is a queen size bed and sofa bed - BBQ and mountain bikes available. Call us to discuss rates. Phone Annie Laylee and G Dale 0044 781 720 3331, email: annlaylee@aol.com

WANTED Club Twin Trainer • Piako Gliding Club is looking for 2 seater glider to purchase for club training operations. Any options considered. Phone Tim Bromhead 021 217 9049, email: tim@pear.co.nz EW MicroRecorder SD • If anyone has one that they no longer need and want to sell please let me know, thanks. Phone Glyn Jackson 021 0250 4646, email: glyn@glynjackson.com Rotax 505 Engine or Crankshaft • I am after a replacement Rotax 505 Engine for my self-launching glider or a new crankshaft assembly Part Number 994570. You might have purchased a spare and no longer require it? If you can help in any way it would be appreciated. Paul Birkett. email: flybirkett@ yahoo.co.uk

FOR SALE ASH26e (GRL)

Serial number 111 Hours 950 Engine 105 hrs (only 6 years old) Cobra trailer, wing walker and tow out gear.

This is a fabulous self-launching motor glider in very good condition with the ever popular and fully supported rotary engine.

For more information call Nigel 03 327 4822 or Dave 027 201 7120

Instructors Wanted, Omarama • Experienced Instructors required at Omarama from October through March in one of the three following categories: 1. BCat Instructor, 1000 hrs, 500 hrs at OA, 2. BCat Instructor, 1000 hrs, tow rating, 200 hrs tail-wheel, 3. BCat Instructor, 1000 hrs, 500 hrs OA, German speaking. Extensive cross-country coaching as well as basic instruction experience is required. Contact Guy@glideomarama.com or phone 03 4389 555

OMARAMA CHALET FOR SALE

On the airfield, one of 27 chalets on land subleased from Omarama Soaring Centre, built 2009 for Dick Georgeson.

Furnished & fully equipped, dishwasher etc., sky tv Enquiries from 10 October 2016: Anna 03 322 8190 email: wilson.georgeson@gmail.com

February–April 2017

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