SoaringNZ Issue 51

NEW ZEALAND’S PREMIER SOARING MAGAZINE

TISSANDIER AWARD SOUTH ISLAND REGIONALS SKYSIGHT HUMAN FACTORS • CLUB NEWS i s s u e 51 N o v e m b e r 2 0 17– J a n u a r y 2 0 18

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contents

november 2017–january 2018

features 12 The Paul Tissandier Diploma Winners – Tom Davies And Gavin Wills

12

20

32

38

42

16

South Island Regionals

20

Central Plateau Gliding Champs

22 24 26

Mü 31

30

Coming back to Gliding

32

Youth Glide Mini-Camp Greytown

34

Youth Glide. Where Are They?

36

North Island Regionals

38

Human Factors: Altitude and its Effects

A Frenchman Abroad Development of a new weather model SkySight

regulars 6 Log Book 41 Gliding Book Corner 42 Obituaries – Stew Cain and Rob Sherlock 44 A Question of Safety 46 Gliding New Zealand News 47 GNZ Awards & Certificates 48 Gliding New Zealand Club News 54 Classified Advertising

UK $100 Europe $109 USA $109

Publisher

Advertising, editorial and subscription enquiries

McCaw Media Ltd

Editor Jill McCaw soaringnz@mccawmedia.co.nz

Annual Subscription Rates New Zealand Australia/South Pacific Asia

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McCaw Media Ltd 430 Halswell Rd Christchurch 8025 New Zealand soaringnz@mccawmedia.co.nz Tel +64 3 322 5222 John – 0272 804 082 Jill – 021 1261 520

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SoaringNZ invites contributions but accepts no responsibility for unsolicited material.

ISSN 1178-4784 November 2017–January 2018 3

from the editor november 2017–january 2018 This issue focuses on people. Gliding clubs, after all, are made up of people. All of them are interesting and some are stranger than others. I’d hazard to say that gliding clubs seem to collect people who are a little odd. If you’re interested in gliding though, you’ll be accepted. One of the things I was delighted to discover, very early on in my gliding career, was that a gliding field was also a very egalitarian society. I needed some convincing to believe that one of the scruffy crew, running around in gumboots and ratty bush shirt, was a high court judge. Indeed, he was.

We also had the full complement of butcher, baker and (if you stretched the point a little to include a craft I’d tried once) candlestick maker. We had plumbers, nurses, chefs in training, teachers, mechanics, airline pilots, dentists, accountants and the full range of engineers. The thing that brought us all together was a shared love of the sport of gliding. Everyone wore airfield appropriate clothing and status was determined by how well you flew. It came as a shock to see these same people, spruced up for a formal occasion.

That was more than thirty years ago and things haven’t changed in that respect. I really like that. Although these days, much more than it was then, the cars that people drive out to the field can be a bit of a giveaway as to earning potential, if not status.

In this issue we acknowledge our two FAI, Tissandier Award winners. One is an accountant, the other a professional glider pilot, but they are both so much more than that. New Zealand gliding has had quite a few Tissandier winners in recent years but we mustn’t get complacent about this. Getting one of these awards is a big deal and the people who receive them have done a great deal to further aviation, and in our case, gliding in this country. Tom Davies has been actively part of the gliding community for around 50 years and Gavin Wills, who took his first glider flight at 7 years of age but didn’t start learning until he was nine, has also been around about that long.

Someone who had been on airfields for around 60 years was Stewart Cain. Stew passed away on October and leaves a huge hole in the fabric of the Canterbury Gliding Club. He was a stalwart of the Canterbury Club and, over the years, he’d created a lot of the stories and legends that are retold today, as well as collecting so many more. After Stew’s death it was discovered that he had kept scrapbooks, going back decades, in which every newspaper mention of the club or a club member was cut

A large collection of glider pilots gathered in the CGC hangar to farewell Stew Cain. They all have their own stories to tell.

out and carefully kept. When the Canterbury Club had their 50 Year anniversary in 1997, Stew wrote up nearly 80 pages of club memories for the anniversary book. He knew everything about the club and it was great to be able to celebrate his life with a service in the hangar where many stories and memories were shared.

Also passing away in October was another Canterbury member, Rob Sherlock. Rob had come to gliding in his retirement and embraced it with enthusiasm, becoming a most valuable member and another of those familiar, friendly faces who will be missed. He was an active member for fifteen years. Rob is a good example of how the age of a new member actually has very little bearing on what type of club member you can expect them to be.

And while we celebrate these gentlemen who have gone, we also look to the opposite end of the spectrum, continuing with our stories of Youth Glide alumni, our young people who are just starting out in their lives in aviation. A Youth Soaring Development Camp at Omarama ignited an aviation passion for Campbell Hall who is now a commercial pilot.

Every member of your club has a story to tell. I’d like to

next issue

NEW ZEALAND’S PREMIER SOARING MAGAZINE

Next Issue: North Island Regionals TISSANDIER AWARD SOUTH ISLAND REGIONALS

Mark Aldridge flies near Lake Coleridge.

Photo John McCaw.

SKYSIGHT HUMAN FACTORS • CLUB NEWS i s s u e 51 N o v e m b e r 2 0 17– J a n u a r y 2 0 18

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November 2017–January 2018

An expensive landout Grand Prix finals

magazine deadlines Competition Deadline for Club News, articles and pictures is 17 January 2018 and 26 January 2018 for advertising.

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n stories to tell.

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challenge you all to take time to find out what they are. Around the campfire or across the bar this Christmas, turn to the pilot beside you and say, “What are you most proud of in your gliding career?”

If you get a real cracker of a story, ask if they’ll let you write it down and share it in the magazine. Let’s keep celebrating the odd, wonderful and just clever people we have in our clubs. Catch the stories and make sure someone is recording and keeping them.

With two fatal gliding accidents in recent months it is a reminder to remember the acronym IMSAFE (illness, medication, stress, alcohol, fatigue, eating) and fly within your capabilities and currency. Our thoughts are with the families and friends of those affected by the latest accidents.

Enjoy your summer’s flying, but come home safely.

Merry Christmas Jill

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logbook november 2017–january 2018

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

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

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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 gliding. co.nz 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

HANDICAPPED ACCESSIBLE CONTROLS FOR DG-1001 In response to customer requests, DG have decided to offer a handicapped accessible control unit for their DG-1001 family from now on.

They say, “This innovation will consequently enlarge our DG-1001 clientele, so that disabled pilots may now enjoy our high performance two-seater.”

As there are extensive modifications necessary to alter the rudder’s control, the mod is only able to be offered for new sailplanes. All DG-1001 Club, S and M can now be ordered with the new kit. The conventional rudder pedal control will be preserved. The glider may therefore be flown as usual by any non-disabled pilots.

The first customer is a Norwegian club who will be receiving their aircraft early next year.

Umbrella Trust Secretary/Treasurer

HELICOPTER RETRIEVE Canterbury Gliding Club member Rob Campbell joins the exclusive and expensive club of those who have had to have a helicopter retrieve.

During the recent Canterbury Club competition, Rob landed his Libelle on a rough strip on Mt White Station near Arthurs Pass. We will cover the full story of his adventure, including the night spent in a remote hut, in the next issue.

Spoiler alert – it all ended well and he was able to fly the last few days of the contest.

Who is on Facebook?

Don’t forget that you can now keep up with all of your gliding buddies and share news of your flights on Facebook. GNZ and Youth Glide NZ have a page and so do the following clubs: Soaring Northland Auckland Piako Tauranga Taupo Taranaki Wellington

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November 2017–January 2018

Nelson Lakes Canterbury GNZ also have a YouTube Channel where you can catch up on the popular videos from the Worlds in Australia and other great gliding stories.

ELECTRIC AIRCRAFT LAUNCHES GLIDER

Siemens has just announced that an electric aerobatic plane powered by its latest motor become the first electric aircraft to launch a glider.

The Extra 330LE aircraft nabbed two world speed records and is now the fastest e-plane under 1,000 kg, and also – after a few mods – the quickest above 1,000 kg, too. The electric test plane also became the first in the world to tow a glider up into the sky. The day after setting the speed record, the Extra 330LE took to the skies again – this time towing a type LS8-neo glider, the first time an electric aircraft has been used for such a task. The electric flyer managed to take the glider up to 1,968 feet in just 76 seconds.

The Extra 330LE aerobatic plane powered by the lightweight electric motor announced by Siemens in 2015 made its first flight in July 2016. The motor tips the scales at 50 kg (110 lb) but is reported to have an electric drive system five times larger than other systems currently on the market. However, it has a duration of only 20 minutes flight on one charge, including only 5 minutes at full power!

There are no current plans to take the test aircraft into series production, but the project collaboration with Airbus that began last April intends to develop hybrid-electric airliners based on scaled up versions of the Siemens electric motor.

Moved house?

Changed email?

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Please update your details on Gliding NZ’s database. http://gliding.co.nz/ - About - Online Membership It’s important we have your correct address to ensure you continue to receive your SoaringNZ magazine.

your email address is correct on the database.

Why not log in now and check your entry; you can also view your ratings and awards.

Any problems, contact membership@gliding.co.nz

Recently Gliding NZ sent out emails to all members, but we had quite a few bounce backs – please check

Laurie Kirkham Central Register Manager

November 2017–January 2018

7

logbook november 2017–january 2018 THE 110TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST HELICOPTER FLIGHT

It was with this machine, known as his “flying bicycle”, that he achieved the first manned helicopter flight on 13 November 1907. (There had been a previous unmanned flight in 1877, when Italian Enrico Forlanini flew an unmanned helicopter weighing 350 kg to a height of 13 metres for 20 seconds.)

Cornu died in 1944, when his home was destroyed during a World War Two Allied bombardment.

CALENDAR

check website for details

JANUARY 2018 January 1 - January 5

MSC Cross Country Course 2017 at Matamata Followed by a few days of Christmas Camp until Tuesday 9 January. More details from Matamata Soaring Centre website.

January 5 - January 13

Club Class Champs + Audi Enterprise Contest 2018 @ Drury. The Matamata Soaring Centre and Auckland Gliding Club are hosting the Club Class Champs this year alongside the Audi Auckland Enterprise Competition for non-club class pilots. , For details: MSC Club Class Champs website and entry form will be set up soon. Audi contest details at glidingauckland.co.nz

January 13 – January 20

Grand Prix Final @ Chile Club de Planeadores at Vitacura, Chile Don’t forget to tune in and watch Kiwi pilot Mark Tingey battling it out against 17 other champion pilots in the race for the GP crown.

January 20 - January 29

Vintage Kiwi Rally 2018 @ Greytown

January 27- February 10

GNZ National Multi-Class Gliding Championships 2018, Matamata Soaring Centre.

On 13 November 1907, French engineer and bicycle maker Paul Cornu made history by becoming the first man to fly in a rotary wing aircraft.

The primitive helicopter – a twin-rotor craft powered by a 24-horsepower engine – only lifted Cornu about 1.5 m off the ground, holding him there for 20 seconds at Coquainvilliers, near Lisieux in France.

But that was enough for Cornu to take his place in the history books as the first man to successfully fly a rotary wing aircraft.

Like the Wright Brothers, Cornu was a bicycle maker who dreamed of flight. His inventive skills first came to the fore when, at the age of 24, he designed and built a working, two-rotor model helicopter weighing 13 kg. The success of this invention, which he demonstrated at the annual agricultural fair in Lisieux on 4 October 1906, encouraged him to build a large-scale version capable of carrying a passenger.

The helicopter he built had two rotors mounted one behind the other, a 24-horsepower Antoinette engine, and movable flat surfaces, or control vanes, mounted under the rotors for steering purposes.

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November 2017–January 2018

FEBRUARY 2018 February 3 - February 10 Omarama Enterprise 2018 @ Omarama February 17 - February 24 Central Districts Regionals 2018 @ Waipukurau Entry form now available. Camping on the airfield at Waipukurau Airfield is available as in previous years.

JULY-2018 July 8 - July 21

World Gliding Championships @ Ostrow, Poland Club Class, Standard Class, 15m Class

Soaring Avionics, Radios and Transponders

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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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November 2017–January 2018

9

logbook november 2017–january 2018 THE ROYAL AERONAUTICAL SOCIETY REWARDS THE SOLAR IMPULSE TEAM Michèle Piccard, on behalf of the Solar Impulse team, received the Royal Aeronautical Society 2017 Team Gold Medal, in recognition of the first solar flight around the world, completed in July 2016.

The Royal Aeronautical Society's Medals and Awards recognise the innovation and excellence for achievements and contributions in all disciplines of the global aerospace industry. In particular, the Team Gold Medal award recognizes the outstanding contributions to aerospace art, science, and engineering.

During the event, Michèle commented:

“I am very honoured to receive this award from the Royal Aeronautical Society on behalf of the Solar Impulse Team. By way of rewarding pioneering spirit and innovation as a contribution to aerospace, it also encourages efforts towards protecting the environment and improving the quality of life on Earth.

Aerospace and aviation have always paved the way for pioneers and innovation and they will surely be at the forefront of implementing new clean and cuttingedge technologies across the globe. Upon the final landing of Solar Impulse in Abu Dhabi, Bertrand said that: ‘within 10 years we will see electric airplanes transporting 50 passengers on short to medium haul flights.’ Today, things are already moving faster than he thought and I know he looks forward to seeing the progress that is being made in this direction.

But completing the first ever round-the-world solar and electric flight, which we did in July 2016 without a single drop of fuel, was not only a first for aviation; it was a first for energy. The technologies developed for our revolutionary airplane, such as electrical motors with 97% efficiency, LED lamps for public/ private lighting systems, extremely efficient insulation foam that can reduce energy consumption for houses, high energy density batteries and ultrathin solar cells, can already today be used on the ground to contribute to a cleaner and more sustainable world.

By demonstrating that change is possible, Solar Impulse opened a new path for people, the planet and the industry. With this award, you give resonance to our message. Our adventure is first and foremost one that we share together. Thank you!”

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November 2017–January 2018

The FAI, World Air Sports Federation, congratulates the winners of this season’s Red Bull Air Race 2017.

The Red Bull Air Race World Championship ended in superb style this year, with three winners celebrating long after the final weekend’s racing had finished in Indianapolis, USA. Japan’s Yoshihide Muroya won the race in Indianapolis, 14-15 October 2017, and the overall title of Red Bull Air Race World Champion 2017. Battling poor conditions and wind in Indianapolis that saw many pilots clipping a pylon and adding time penalties, Muroya flew a fast, final round to seize the trophy.

In the Challenger Class, Germany’s Florian Bergér won the overall Challenger Cup for the 2017 season. It was his second win in a row, having won the Challenger Cup in 2016 too.

Also in the Challenger Class, French pilot Melanie Astles became the first woman ever to win a race in the Red Bull Air Race. She scored the fastest time in Qualifying on the Saturday, and when the Challenger Cup race was cancelled due to bad weather on the Sunday, that meant she took the win.

Afterwards she said: “I am so proud. I have seen a lot of girls out there who dream of becoming a race pilot. When I was a young girl I dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot, but I could not because it was not allowed, so I am very pleased to be opening this door.”

FAI and Red Bull Air Race FAI and Red Bull Air Race World Championship signed an agreement including the provision of FAI medals especially designed for the Red Bull Air Race, the inclusion of all races in the FAI Events Calendar, and the official approval by the FAI of the race Rules & Regulations. Furthermore, the FAI provides a safety delegate who attends all events to supervise safety aspects.

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November 2017–January 2018

11

The Paul Tissandier Diploma Winners

TOM DAVIES AND GAVIN WILLS

Tissandier Award Winner Tom Davies has been gliding for nearly 50 years. He been active in the administration of his club as Treasurer for most of that time – and still is! He has also given valuable service to gliding nationally, having served on the Executive Committee of Gliding New Zealand on and off for several years, in particular the modernising of its constitutional rules and greatly improving the governance and security of various financial trusts established to support gliding.

In addition to his administrative efforts, for many years Tom has been an instructor at his club, one of the largest and most active in New Zealand. His calm, often unseen but enormously knowledgeable influence has served gliding in New Zealand very well.

The above is taken from the award citation and while it gives a brief description of Tom, SoaringNZ decided we needed to know more, so we asked Tom some questions. It turns out Tom can also tell a great story.

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November 2017–January 2018

TOM DAVIES What do you see as some of your greatest achievements within gliding?

At the Club level I think bringing my business experience to bear on the Club’s finances was my best achievement. I learned to stare down much more senior members who were declaring that high flying charges were driving people away, and persuaded them that unless rates were lifted there would be no Club for them to drive away from. By keeping charges at a realistic level, the Wellington Club has never been strapped for cash, and either had the money on hand when needed or alternatively had good cash flows which allowed it to borrow with confidence.

I was inducted (dragooned would be a better description) into admin roles very early in my gliding years. I joined the Wellington Club in March 1965 and can see Alan Rowe, Peter Heginbotham and Dave Wright putting their heads together and collectively saying, “He’s an accountant – don’t let him get away!”

I was invited to lunch with the then secretary, Ian Sandeman, who was looking to return to the UK, and realised as I walked out of the restaurant as the new secretary-elect that there was no such thing as a free lunch. After a couple of years in the UK

Photo Kim Mugan

Tom and wife Amy.

My first flight in the Ventus at Taupo Gliding Club (where I’m also a member).

myself, I was back as secretary and then treasurer as well. I then moved to instructing for 23 years and found the only way out of the back seat was to become treasurer again. I think I’ve been treasurer and secretary at Wellington for well over 20 years and certainly for the last 15 years with a year or so as president in the middle. I discovered too late that treasurer is one of those roles where you have to find your own replacement and while engineers of various categories are over-represented in gliding clubs, not so accountants.

I’ve spent two periods of several years on the National Executive. My main achievements there were writing a new constitution and the initial work on setting up the GNZ Umbrella Trust, which brought together under the one umbrella the several, mostly fairly small funds to get efficiencies of scale and to rescue some from almost dormancy. I’ve also handled the loan applications for many years.

running around in dayglo vests brandishing hand-helds, and no signs proscribing brimstone and damnation for trespassers. Tony Fitchett strolled up and asked if I wanted a fly. “Yes, please!” So, my first flight was in an old Rhonlerche. That was my start of 52 years of gliding.

I was living at home with my parents at that time, and my mother was going around telling her friends that Tom had a new girl at Paraparaumu and was going out with her every Saturday and Sunday. I didn’t dare tell my parents the truth as I knew there would a scene – “You’ll kill yourself, etc, etc.” However, one day my mother discovered a copy of Piggott’s “Gliding” in my bedroom and the awful secret was revealed. Yep, there were tears, and “you’ll kill yourself,” but things settled down. The next crisis arose when I got my passenger rating which I proudly announced to my parents. I can still remember the glum expression on my father’s face when he said, “I suppose I’ve got to be your first passenger.”

The next Saturday he very reluctantly climbed into the front seat of the Rhonlerche and was mightily relieved when I got him back on the ground alive and undamaged.

Tell us about some people you recall over the years When recalling names of yore, you realise that time has marched on and people have fallen off the planet. A friend of mine, now in Australia and who flew with me at Paraparaumu in early days, visited New Zealand recently and asked who was still around. I said, “Sadly, George, it’s only me.” The names of Alan Rowe, Peter Heginbotham and Dave Wright I’ve already mentioned and of course there was also Tony Fitchett and Ian Barber. Ian put the first instructor comments in my log book, “St & level OK, turns fair, circuit OK”. 28 years later when my son joined the Club he had Ian as his first instructor, and the words in Guy’s logbook were, you guessed it, “St & level OK …”. Jim Berkett was another who featured in my gliding career. Jim had his LS3 sitting out on the grass one day as I was passing by, and he called me over. “Just sit in it, Tom.” Just to please him I climbed in and snuggled down in the cockpit. “It’s yours for $43,000”. Damn, hooked again! Lima India became my first glider. It was a lovely glider to fly, even if the undercarriage lever had a tendency to get caught up in the seat straps with predictable results. Later I graduated to my present glider, a Ventus 2cT, Zulu Yankee, which is even nicer to fly.

Why and when did you first take up gliding?

I was driving past Paraparaumu Airport with the current girlfriend in March 1965 and we noticed gliders operating. I’d never seen a glider before, so we motored over to the launch point.

You could do that in those days – no security fences, no little men

Highlights and lowlights?

One that I still recall fondly involved a client. My work team had screwed up and the client had been forced to reprint a stack of computer reports for which we were charged an exorbitant fee over which we were grizzling. A couple of weeks later the client’s financial controller asked if I could give him a glider flight. No problem, and we had a pleasant climb up several thousand feet in thermals when he asked if there was anything more exciting I could show him. Well, why not? After being assured his straps were tight, I raised the nose, dropped a wing and kicked a rudder and away the Blanik went. After a couple of turns I said, “Jack, about that bill?” Jack, who could see that the cows, not to mention the sheep, were getting noticeably larger, decided this was not a time for negotiation, and yelled back, “Consider it cancelled! Just get me out of this.”

The occasion I was really scared was not actually in a glider but in a tow plane. Well, there was another occasion (and another) but that happened so fast there wasn’t time to be scared. More of them later. In the Club’s early days, the chief tow pilot was Howard Jarvie. Howard had given basic training in Tiger Moths to just about every pilot in the New Zealand Air Force in the Second World War and there wasn’t anything concerning Tiger Moths that Howard hadn’t done or knew about. In those times members could go for flights in the front seat of the Club’s Tiger

November 2017–January 2018

13

TISSANDIER AWARD

We just got over the southern fence as a car came round the corner to see a tow plane and glider at about bonnet height crossing the road ahead of him.

We passed under, yes, under the power lines and crawled up the slope on the other side ... When I looked back the car had run off the road into the grass verge and the driver was leaning over the bonnet. (later we had two of them) and this day Howard invited me for a flight to check the Otaki Strip for stock as we were hoping to use it to practise out-landings. As we approached Otaki, Howard said something over the voice pipe about checking that my straps were pinned (Tiger straps are pinned in place and you can’t tighten them by pulling). He then turned the aircraft on its back and we proceeded inverted up the length of the airfield, allowing me the opportunity to examine each blade of grass in exquisite detail. He then flipped it right way up and said, “I didn’t see any stock but that was fun. Shall we do it again?” “No, we bloody well won’t!” He was quite disappointed. Later on, Howard had another escapade with me in the front seat, but it was such a heinous breach of civil aviation law, criminal law, regulations, procedures and best practice that if I repeated it and CAA heard of it, I’m sure they would obtain an exhumation order and place poor old Howard’s bones in the dock and charge him.

Another interesting occasion was on a Wellington Club Christmas Camp at Taupo. While there I took my brother-in-law for his first flight in a glider. We took off on Taupo’s southerly runway, but it took a long time for both aircraft to get airborne and then the Piper hardly climbed. We just got over the southern fence as a car came round the corner to see a tow plane and glider at about bonnet height crossing the road ahead of him.

We passed under, yes, under the power lines and crawled up the slope on the other side. I’m still not sure whether we flew over the roof of the farmhouse or passed by the kitchen window. When I looked back the car had run off the road into the grass verge and the driver was leaning over the bonnet. Things got better after that but nevertheless I made it short flight. Bob Gibbons, the tow pilot, blamed it all on a sudden strong wind shift, but at the time of crisis it was too late to pull off and we just had to hang on tight and hope for the best. My brother-in-law was not fazed by it at all and his only comment was that he thought the farmer might object to the noise of us flying so close to his home. I’ve looked at those power lines in later years and wondered how we got under them, but I’ve now been told that the lines at that time were rather higher above the road and had since been replaced. But even so.

Instructing can often be thankless chore, but every now and then you get a glow. I was giving Kim Mugan, now in Queensland, instruction in spinning, and she later said she felt complete confidence in the instructor as in her first spin he was whistling Danny Boy all the way down. If I was I’m sure I would have been off-key. But a nice thought.

Now for the embarrassing bits. We recently bought a new winch for use at Papawai and of course we all had to be checked out on winch launching. I went up with an instructor whom I won’t name to preserve his reputation (mine’s in tatters). The launch went off perfectly and we topped out straight into a thermal, so

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November 2017–January 2018

we decided to indulge and climbed up several thousand feet. We realised that the DG1000 was probably required for another flight, so I opened the brakes to lose height quickly. The DG1000 is very stable and smooth with full brake, not like some other gliders. We chatted on the way down about this and that when I noticed that we did seem to be in a serious bit of sink and had better head for home quick. This was confirmed by The Instructor, who after another minute or so, opined that we weren’t going to make the airfield and we needed a paddock. Fortunately, there are excellent paddocks in that part of the Wairarapa and we quickly chose one and headed towards it. Then there came some truly regrettable language from The Instructor which, translated roughly, was, “We’ve still got the brakes out!” Well, that explained why we were in the only patch of air with serious sink in an otherwise quite bubbly sky, but even after slamming the brakes shut a paddock was the only option, and a perfect landing followed.

We were only a few hundred metres short of the airfield but unfortunately the Ruamahanga River was between us and the airfield. The Ruamahanga is not a fordable river, and the nearest bridge was a good seven or eight kilometres away. It took me half an hour of walking in the hot sun before I found someone who could drive me to the airfield. And did we get sympathy and concern over our out landing experience. Don’t be daft! There was unconcealed mirth at two senior pilots getting caught out with such a basic oversight. The Club has a trophy called the Cock-up Trophy, and I fully expected to receive it at our recent AGM, but somehow, we never got around to awarding trophies this year. It would have made a great year – the Tissandier Award at one end of the scale followed by the Cock-up Trophy at the other end.

What’s next?

I still have pages to fill in my second log book, so I guess I’ll have to carry on until it’s completely full. I’ve started training as a winch driver; why I’m not quite sure as it’s the loneliest job on the airfield. But it has its compensations, such as when the treasurer/ winch driver knows the next launch is for a member seriously in arrears with their flying account - a sub-optimal launch is almost guaranteed. Or when the cable drops over an electric fence (of which we have lots) and the winch driver casually asks an innocent bystander if they would mind getting the cable off that fence over there. (Heh, heh, heh!)

GAVIN WILLS

TISSANDIER AWARD

Tissandier award recipient Gavin Wills was born into a gliding family. He began his involvement in gliding at the age of nine!

He has since amassed over 10,000 hours as a glider pilot and power pilot, mostly in mountainous areas of the World.

He loves to share his joy of soaring by taking pilots on adventure flights deep into the mountains. So much so, he founded Glide Omarama, now renowned throughout the gliding world for lifting the mountain flying skills of both local and international visiting pilots.

Gavin also has a passion for documentary film making about gliding, producing several memorable titles over the past 20 years or more. Many of them have appeared on TV, giving the sport of gliding a good promotional boost. His “Windborn” and “Champions of the Wave” remain iconic gliding movies.

More recently, Gavin has taken a keen interest in developing young pilots through active involvement as an instructor and providing financial sponsorship. His favourite treat for many a junior pilot is to take them on a flight to Mt Cook and back – giving them an unforgettable shot in the arm that is sure to launch them into an aviation career.

Gavin is also an accomplished competition pilot and tasksetter. He is always willing to mentor less experienced pilots, and even fellow competitors, often explaining the mysteries of particular weather systems in the mountains.

The high profile of gliding in New Zealand is in no small measure due to the efforts of Gavin Wills over many years.

SoaringNZ ran a profile on Gavin in Issue 42 (Aug-Oct 2015) when he was the recipient of the Angus Rose Bowl, presented by GNZ to someone who has given outstanding services to the sport of gliding. The following is taken from that article.

The things Gavin learnt in his mountain guiding business (run for 10 years or so at Mt Cook) run true with Glide Omarama too. “The people you hire, what you expect of them and they of you are crucial. The two situations are completely different from other workplace environments. There is an enormous amount of trust and it runs both ways. The guides can make or break the client’s experience. Everyone needs to have fun, enjoy the experience and be safe.” He says there are three important rules that apply to both: Respect Mother Nature, look after your people, and when everything else goes wrong, the food had better be good.

“I didn’t want a gliding organisation. I’d had a

mountaineering business. I’m not a nuts and bolts manager.

I’m here for the gliding and I’ve tried to maintain that.”

Gavin was instrumental in the founding of Youth Glide with the success of Youth Glide Omarama paving the way for other clubs and snowballing into the nationwide movement we have today. Gavin was on the inaugural Youth Glide NZ National Committee and has assisted clubs and instructors to create their own groups. Glide Omarama is an active supporter of the Youth Soaring Development camps, and as mentioned above, Gavin delights in taking junior pilots on awe inspiring cross country flights.

November 2017–January 2018

15

SOUTH ISLAND Regionals

BY VARIOUS YOUTH GLIDE MEMBERS

Photo Abbey Delore

19 – 25 November 2017

TIM AUSTEN 22 years old

Fledging is an important point a young bird’s life. It is a time where the

young bird has acquired the feathers necessary for flight or independent activity. It involves a leap of faith. A leap of faith that requires the young bird to repose trust and confidence in its parents but more importantly in itself.

Imagine you’re at the head of the Dobson, tracking SouthWest into a 25 km radius cylinder centred on a Makarora turn point. The air is unpredictable and you’re descending. The sky ahead is blue but at least the scenery is stunning. My instructor says: “This isn’t working. Shall we keep on going or try and find another climb?” I confidently reply, “Let’s keep going.” I would not have had the same confidence without Dan McCormack sitting in the other seat.

I was one of five ‘young birds’ to be lucky enough to compete in their first ever gliding contest, the South Island Regional Gliding Championship held at Omarama from 18 – 25 November. Each one of us had access to a high-performance Duo Discus glider and instructor (read friend/coach/supervisor) for the week. We had a mixed week of weather but the days on which we did fly were epic.

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November 2017–January 2018

The thought of participating in a gliding competition is intimidating. Seemingly unattainable tasks, being pushed to the limit, gaggle flying and skinny final glides were my paradigm of a typical gliding competition. Fortunately, with a very competent instructor in the back seat, I proved myself wrong! As it turned out, the flying experience was excellent.

The instructors provided a safe learning environment while the performance of the aircraft and the modest tasking meant the tasks were achievable for first-timers. The flying was much more enjoyable, less competitive and less scary than the soonto-be fledglings expected.

There was also a fun social calendar that kept us entertained after flying and on non-flying days - I still feel robbed of the win in the trailer-backing competition!

I found it humbling to see the camaraderie of the gliding wha-nau at the tragic loss of David Wilson during the competition. I wish to add my condolences to David’s wife, Judith, and the rest of David’s family.

Thank you to Gavin and Glide Omarama for their discounted aircraft, their instructors, and their financial assistance. I also want to thank the Gliding New Zealand Umbrella Trust and Youth Glide New Zealand for their financial assistance. Thank you Dan McCormack, Phil Plane, Nigel Davy and Justin Wills for instructing, mentoring and coaching us. And thank you to the rest of the competitors for their patience, support and encouragement. It is unlikely we would have competed without your collective support.

Photo Jono Wardman

Photo Abbey Delore Photo Abbey Delore

A reward for a "cracking climb."

I hope that the presence of young birds, who are soon to fledge, continues to grow at gliding competitions. The opportunity to learn how to compete safely makes one a better glider pilot in general and a better cross-country pilot in particular. I encourage clubs to follow the 2017 Youth Soaring Development Camp example and have a greater focus on competition and task flying. We will need ‘young birds’ to be involved and engaged in what will be our competitions that we will have to organise, direct, host and compete in, in the future.

I encourage everyone to take the leap and know that you too can feel poised to fledge and compete on your own in contests.

JONO WARDMAN 23 years old I was lucky enough to fly the South Island Regional Competition this year with Phil Plane in DD and Justin Wills in RW. It was fantastic to see how Phil and Justin approached a racing day and learn how much preparation there is to have a successful day. I learnt heaps during the week and this reduced the number of times I heard ‘speed up in the sink!’ or ‘pull back on the stick!’

I also got a good look at the Ohau Downs airstrip. It was such a good look that I was able to get out of the glider and go for a walk on it. I did think Justin was being a bit ambitious aiming to make it back to Omarama when leaving from the Ben Ohaus at 4,000 feet! Flying the regionals in a two-seat glider with such experienced cross-country instructors was a privilege and I would suggest that any other young pilot wanting to begin to

compete in competitions take up the opportunity to fly with them.

SAM PATTERSON 15 years old The 2017 regionals was a great experience and a chance to find out what racing gliders is all about. Over the course of one week Tim, Fraser, Jono, Abbey and I all had the chance to have a couple of days flying in the competition. My overall impression of competition flying was of flying from turn-point to turn-point and trying to go as fast as I could which was an amazing experience for me. I would really recommend that, if you get the experience to try glider racing in a big competition, you should really take it! Even if you're nervous about flying for long distances and over four hours, it's a really good experience.

Thank you to everyone who helped provide me with this opportunity!

FRASER MCDOUGALL 27 years old A stag-do, a wedding, 26 hours of work in two days, hitch to Omarama, nice American girls, hawks soaring in Tarras, an uncomfortable campground bed then the routine of the morning briefing in the terminal at 10 am. That was my last two weeks - it maybe sounds a little too grown up for a fledgling and rightly so; I’m the oldest of the crew but have similar gliding experience to most of them.

November 2017–January 2018

17

Photo Jono Wardman

Photo Abbey Delore

SI REGIONALS

Photo Jono Wardman

Photo Abbey Delore

World Champion Justin Wills happily shared his skills.

Sharing a glider with Tim and Sam, I had arrived late in the week and was straight into the glider the next day. The task was set out; into the mountains, then a 25 km circle over The Neck between Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka, and a run up to the head of the Dobson Valley. I’d calculated a good average speed, timed our distances and we set off. What ensued was one awesome flight over both lakes, in blue conditions and in strong thermals. We had calculated the times right and won the day.

A moment that best sums up the feeling of the competition was on the last turn point of the day - I’d just turned around at the head of the Dobson, blue thermals were kicking off the ridges and we had nailed our timing with 30 minutes to blast to the finish. I kept the glider humming along the ridge and over the low peaks for some extra lift; I could see another glider sitting further out from the valley but we were having the better run. I was catching up and it was like a drag race. I slowed up a little to make a good hot spot on the ridge, and rocketed up watching the other glider fall below. I sped up and lost height.

I could see how the game works. At the next hot spot near the end of the ridge, I made the most of it, popped over the top

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November 2017–January 2018

and I’d got him! I sped up in lifting air and left the other glider behind. The excitement, the tactics and the control – it makes for one hell of a good time.

ABBEY DELORE we know her age, but we don’t think we should say I had the delight of soaring with Nigel Davy for the week in his duo NS and what a hoot it was. Thanks to the fantastic opportunity, both encouraged by Nige and Glide Omarama. It sparked an interest in racing in me. The weather was absolutely cracker and we were exploring terrain from a lower perspective than I usually fly. That elevated my confidence each day. Our approach to competing was unlike any other pilots and we set out to have a bunch of fun, to keep moving and source some cracking climbs. Those would earn ourselves a kiwi classic lolly - Minties. The team atmosphere was great for everyone, as all pilots came together for a great line up of social activities where they shared their flights and learnt from post flight analysis. I've learnt so much through Nige's wisdom over the past week and

Photo Jono Wardman

Photo Abbey Delore

SI REGIONALS

Nigel's thermal seeking glasses.

A FINAL WORD FROM KAREN MORGAN age classified This year the competition was organised by the Omarama Gliding Club, replacing the Canterbury team after a decade of sterling efforts. Clive Geddes was an excellent director and Gavin Wills stepped in to cover Clive’s absence for the first two days very well. The task setting was attractive for the Racing class, a bit more ambitious for the Open class and like always, it was subject to healthy and robust discussion at times. Lex McPhail and Neil Allison kept things together in the scoring/ radio room. Alex Boyes and Nigel Davy also put in place a strong social programme, with welcoming events, regular dinners at the Kahu and a great feed on the last night at the Wrinkly Ram. Roland van der Wal hosted an excellent wine tasting one afternoon (try the Ruru wines from Immigrant’s Vineyard, yummy) and Justin Wills led a series of excellent coaching workshops. It was worth entering the competition just for these two events. The inaugural national trailer backing competition (with complementary Blanik and built-in assault course) was one of the funniest things I have watched for a long time. Suffice it to say, I won’t be lending my trailer to some of the contenders any time soon.

The competition took a very sad note with the loss of David Wilson in XG in the Hunter Valley on Day Two. I am immensely proud of how the organisation handled this awful situation, both with the emergency plan and in showing great compassion to all the affected people in the following days. My thoughts are with David’s family and friends, Glide Omarama and everyone else who was affected by this accident.

As for the flying, I flew with Tom Claffey from Australia, in our ASH25. Our philosophy was pretty much to get high, stay high and we stuck to this. All we needed to do to win, was to fly faster than Keith Essex….. still, there’s always next year.

Congratulations to the winners and all those who took part in the air and on the ground.

Champions OPEN

1 2 3

UC RW CH

Keith Essex Wills & Wardman Grae Harrison

2,925 2,794 2,593

ZA RZ TK

Alex Boyes McCormack & Patterson Terry Jones

2,492 2,463 2,440

RACING

1 2 3

Photo Jono Wardman

really look forward to the next adventure. I can't thank him enough for his calm, yet motivating coaching. Thanks a million Nige and Glide Omarama!

November 2017–January 2018

19

CENTRAL PLATEAU Gliding Champs

BY HUGH DE LAUTOUR

Taupo’s Central Plateau Championship has become the classic way to start the competitive soaring season - a fun, friendly event with just enough of a challenge to sharpen the skills after a long, wet winter - and so it proved. Eighteen gliders were entered, and all pilots reported having fun and enjoying being back in competition mode.

P

ractice day, Saturday the 4th of November was not forecast to be very good in terms of the weather, so most people treated it as a travel day, arriving much more relaxed than if they’d been rushing to fly.

The next day was not looking so good either, so a briefing was held where John Etches, the Contest Director, declared a freeflying day with no task set.

As well as the usual briefing, we had a very well received address from an Air Nelson training captain about flying a scheduled IFR service through uncontrolled airspace such as Taupo. It was a very valuable interaction, both for the gliding community and the airline representative. Both sides went away with a much greater appreciation of each other’s procedures, requirements and expectations about how we can safely share the same airspace. After the briefing, another day was available for rigging, testing and fine tuning of gliders and equipment without the pressure of time. CFI Bill Kendall and his partner Mary Legg set a high standard in the kitchen that night with a great roast dinner.

Monday dawned with more promise, so a task was set and about a dozen gliders set off on a triangular task which was always going to be testing, and in that respect, did not disappoint.

Tuesday was better and held promise for a great day, but storms were forecast to be on the way and the cloud was patchy.

Launch was delayed until the CD was satisfied that there was a reasonable chance of a task being safely completed. Once the “sniffer” had reported that he was getting quite good lift in blue

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November 2017–January 2018

thermals, the launch was underway for a task with 20 km circles around Kaingaroa and Wharepapa South. Conditions were difficult however and only Trev Terry, with a bit of local knowledge, was able to make it to the second turn point and then had to start his sustainer to get home. However, one pilot was quite a bit later getting home! After a successful land out at Waikato River Lodge, he phoned in his location and waited for the retrieve crew. And waited. And waited. To cut a very long story short, it turned out the retrieve crew had been sent to River Road airstrip instead of River Lodge about 20 km away!

By late Tuesday it was obvious that Wednesday was not going to be flyable at all, and in fact the forecast storms were going to be quite severe. All the visiting gliders were packed away, the tow planes were either hangared or anchored down, and a No-Fly day was declared. The precautions paid off and by Wednesday afternoon the weather had gone through, and spirits rose in proportion to the cloud base; rising even more with a delicious barbecue that night organised by Trev Terry.

Thursday was, at last, a great-looking flying day, showing lots of promise. A task was set with quite generous circles around Mangakino and Lake Rotoaira, giving a choice of return via Kaingaroa either back up the western side of the lake or a more adventurous option to continue right around the lake and back up the eastern side. The promise was not quite fulfilled however, and there were quite a few land outs, motor starts and early returns!

Just to show that it was not impossible, however, Tim Bromhead did win the day by getting right around (via the west!).

Friday also dawned with great promise, but was forecast to deteriorate later in the day. It was therefore decided that the task would be an OLC flight and was scheduled to start quite early.

However, the change in the weather came through right in the middle of the launch and the grid had to be repositioned from one end of the runway to the other with three gliders still to go.

Nonetheless, some quite good flights were registered and there were still some points up for grabs which would have a significant effect on the overall competition results.

With it becoming obvious there would be no flying the next day, the prize giving dinner was held that night in the clubrooms, with another superb team effort in the kitchen.

For the record, the gliding competition results were: 1st BA 2nd VR 3rd XT

Tim Bromhead David Jensen Brett Hunter

1507pts 1469pts 995pts

Thanks to all those who entered, and special thanks to all you volunteers who make these events possible.

It’s a great sport to be involved in, and could not be so without people like you. See you all next year!

November 2017–January 2018

21

MÜ 31

Now for something a little different – a glider designed by young enthusiasts has its maiden flight.

INFORMATION FROM AKAFLIEG MUNICH’ WEBSITE.

O

n September 15th 2017 the Mü 31, the latest project by Akaflieg München, successfully performed its maiden flight. Designed for 15 m Racing Class this aircraft features a special fuselage-wing transition which reduces drag in this area significantly.

Akaflieg München is a group of students from Munich universities who share a common interest: the design, construction and flying of sailplanes and aeroplanes. Most students come from the mechanical engineering and aerospace sectors, but physicists, electrical engineers and engineering scientists are also involved.

The only requirement for admission to the Akaflieg is enrolment at a Munich university.

As a rule, young participants are active for about four years.

In this relatively short time, they are trained in aviation, gain craftsmanship skills and independent problem solving. Some may even become a project manager, taking over the coordination of complicated tasks. The involvement and skills learnt in Akaflieg will later be rewarded in the job market.

The projects of Akaflieg München are always ambitious: to explore, build and test something new. Their goal is to produce and apply innovative methods and developments in aircraft construction, especially in glider construction.

Thus, the Mü 27 with its variable in-flight wing area, the Mü 28 – the 380 km/h fastest sailplane in the world, the Mü 30 "Schlacro", a 300HP tow plane that is also aerobatic and the Mü 31, an aerodynamically improved, high performance glider. Their

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November 2017–January 2018

new project, the high-performance glider Mü 32 ‘Reißmeister’. is currently in the design phase.

The idea behind the design of the Mü 31 was to achieve a minimisation of the interference resistance between the fuselage and the wing. The interference resistance is the resistance that occurs when merging two bodies of flow. Constructively, a negative interference resistance is sought, i.e., the composite components fuselage and wings have a lower resistance than the sum of the individual resistances.

Wind tunnel modelling discovered that a high-wing arrangement with a restriction to the fuselage and additionally a turbulent profile in the intersection area between wing and fuselage seemed to work the best and led to further development.

The basic advantages of this configuration are: ›› a continuous wing top ›› only two intersections between the wing and the fuselage (not the conventional four) ›› The turbulence resulting from the intersection between the wing and the hull immediately leaves the aircraft from the pylon-shaped hull ›› Approximately elliptical lift distribution due to restriction and changed profiling The final model of the Mü 31 has a restriction and a modified profiling in the vicinity of the hull, thus achieving an approximately elliptical buoyancy distribution over the entire wing. These changes to the configuration and the profiling gave

Mü 31 Technical specifications measured resistance reductions in several wind tunnel tests.

The disadvantage of this configuration is the small space for the control linkages.

In order to keep the construction costs low, the tail and the front fuselage parts of the production aircraft, the ASW27 were used. The major changes to the aircraft require an overall structural verification.

The team were proud to finally see the Mü 31 in the air and could not have imagined a better maiden flight. Test flown by Johannes Achleitner, who joyfully called, “It flies,” on the radio as it took off; the aircraft was towed to 9,500 feet.

The students on the ground had run through a practice test program several times on an ASW 27. After reaching the initial altitude, the test pilot learned the flight characteristics of the new aircraft, looking for any abnormalities. Everything ran smoothly and the Mü 31 flew just as beautifully as hoped. Achleitner ran through the test program and was able to catch a few thermals before setting up for what would have been a storybook landing, except that he had forgotten that he was flying with extra lead in the nose for the test flight. She nosed down, but there was no harm done.

A second flight went just as well as the first one and the Mü 30 "Schlacro", the team’s tow plane also flew so that some great pictures of their two most recent flying prototypes could be taken.

Congratulations to the entire team for their efforts in creating this innovative glider.

Span Wing area Aspect Ratio Winglet Empty weight Maximum take-off mass

15 m 9 m² 25 0.45 m 275 kg 500 kg

Maximum water ballast Top speed Manoeuvring speed Minimum speed Minimum sink

November 2017–January 2018

150 l 285 km / h 217 km / h 67 km / h 0.5 m / s

23

A Frenchman

ABROAD

BY HUGO CORBILLÉ

Early this season the Canterbury Gliding Club had the pleasure of hosting Hugo Corbillé, a young, enthusiastic and charming French instructor. Hugo helped out for two months, instructing, painting, and building things around the clubrooms before he moved up to Auckland to help out there for the rest of the summer.

The following article was written by Hugo as he prepared to leave Canterbury. He promises to write a follow up story with his Auckland experiences at the end of the summer.

M

y name is Hugo, I am a French gliding instructor. I am 22 and I study aerospace engineering. This year, I had the opportunity to take a year off school, to do either an internship or a personal project. This gave me a nice opportunity to do something that I had been dreaming about for a few years now: GLIDING IN NEW ZEALAND. So, I came to visit you and your beautiful country. I am here, taking part in club life as an instructor, notably to enable midweek flying. I started gliding at the age of 13 and I have been a glider instructor for two years now. I landed in Christchurch on the 15th of September. This was the start of one of the best gliding adventures of my life.

You may ask me, why New Zealand?

I don't know. There are some countries around the world which attract you and you don't know why. Maybe yours is France? I love nature, great views and nice people and that is why New Zealand appealed to me. And so far, that is how it has

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November 2017–January 2018

been. From the ground or the sky, there is no doubt that you have a wonderful country. The gliding here intrigued me too. An island at the middle of the Pacific, with such high mountains - a good recipe for soaring.

I come from Toulouse which is in the South West of France.

My club is settled in the Tarn which is a beautiful area, with great wines and old villages just north east of Toulouse. I also fly in Saint Auban in the French Alps; it is a great soaring place.

I have been instructing in Springfield for two months now, so I can now build up a comparison between gliding in New Zealand and what I am familiar with in France. French clubs work very differently than your clubs. Here, once they have gone solo, people tend to buy their own gliders and fly them. In France it is something we rarely do. Most club members fly club gliders. As a consequence, our clubs have much bigger fleets. To give you an idea, my club owns 14 gliders and two tow planes for about 110 club members. That system enables us to fly many different

gliders relatively cheaply. The inconvenience is that club gliders are generally not high performance or recent, as clubs need to provide gliders accessible to as many people as possible. And, you have to adjust the rudder pedals every time you go flying.

Otherwise gliding in itself is quite the same. The way we launch is different, our signal to tell the tow pilot to start launching is to level the wings. The basic syllabus is different too.

We don't have the A, B, C ratings that you have, but the content is very similar in the end.

The weather in Toulouse is really nice, with a lot of soarable days, but it is difficult to achieve really long flights, because the area is rarely homogenous in terms of weather. In the French Alps, it is not the same. Soaring conditions are amazing, particularly in thermal and ridge flying. The French Alps are really dry, and the ground provides really good thermals. Our wave is not as good as yours, we have weaker winds. For the rest, there are lots of similarities. All over the world, clouds speak the same language!

All over the world, clouds speak the same language!

I have been enjoying my gliding experience in your country a lot and I am happy that it is not the end. Springfield is a wonderful platform, with really good soaring conditions, and it has been really interesting for me to discover the place and its specificities.

It is a place where you only meet nice people and great glider pilots! I had a trip to Omarama too, which of course, as a glider pilot I had to visit! And next week I am heading north to Auckland for a new experience. If we have not met yet we might meet on a gliding airfield sooner or later, either in New Zealand or France.

Fly safe and enjoy your awesome country!

November 2017–January 2018

25

Development of a new weather model

SKYSIGHT

BY MATTHEW SCUTTER

A top down "birds eye" view overlaid with a vertical cross section.

In 2011, having just competed in my first nationals and having had poor results, I started to search for means of improving my performance, perhaps without having to put in too much hard work or time. Upgrading the glider seemed too expensive for very marginal returns and tricking out the instruments was baffling, but there was one inexpensive and low-tech way to improve. I found lots of valuable advice in a few textbooks gifted to me - Moffat’s Winning on the Wind, Brigliadori’s Competing in Gliders, but most critically Wally Wallington’s Meteorology for Glider Pilots.

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November 2017–January 2018

I suspect what drew me to gliding initially was a slight fascination for the weather. I’d gone chasing storms on a few occasions, admiring their raw power (recently discovered to contain nuclear reactions!), and I’d always enjoyed watching clouds evolve in the afternoon sky so it is perhaps not surprising that I took to Wallington’s book best. It struck me that whilst gliding is multi-faceted (perhaps the most faceted sport I can think of) it could fairly easily be described as ‘Applied Meteorology’. Every routing decision we make in the air is based on our read of the sky and the fundamental physics underpinning it. We pick our position under the clouds based on it. We choose when to launch and land, based on it. We are all amateur meteorologists!

At this point I realised there might be an

opportunity to apply some of the skills I did have (making computers do what I want) to mitigate the skills I didn’t have (gliding ability), and I started to experiment with forecasting the weather on my laptop at home, first starting with a number of “off the shelf” solutions such as my own personal RASP, then moving on to writing my own code and improving upon the solution until I had something that seemed to be predicting the weather a bit better than anything else freely available. This all took much longer than I expected and in the meantime, I did end up having to do a fair bit of hard work to learn how to actually use a stick and rudder - but by some combination of the two, I started to win National competitions and get invited to World competitions. In the lead up to the Junior World Championships in Narromine, I started opening up my

By far our most popular feature is our convergence and wave forecasts – our model is able to pick up very subtle orographic and sea breeze convergences ...

A SkewT

software to the Australian team, and it definitely gave us an edge over our competitors and was a key component in our subsequent 1st placing.

I had been enjoying my time spent working on the software, but I was increasingly running into the limits of the computers that I could afford. So as to continue to increase the quality of my forecasts, I made the decision to share my software with fellow Australians in return for a fee, giving away my competitive advantage but allowing me to follow my passion. The service SkySight has evolved from there and now has a team behind it, forecasts for several continents and thousands of users and is working on exciting projects for our customers. We just recently were involved in the Perlan Project, providing wave forecasts used on their new Absolute Altitude world record.

Because the service was initially built for my own use at competitions, I had no hesitation in making it more and more complex in order to extract better results from the model. When I decided to expand the service to the general public though, I realised this wouldn’t do - fundamentally it doesn’t matter how clever or advanced your software is, if your users need to study it for six hours to get anything out of it. While we have kept the modelling up to date and kept making forecasting improvements, our main focus for this past year and into the next has been on making our interface as intuitive and interactive as possible. We’ve built a whole range of tools that we hope will allow users from all different backgrounds and approaches to soaring to understand the information our model provides in a ‘language’ that speaks to them.

Personally, I like to be able to mentally cross section the atmosphere across three ‘planes’ - first with a top-down birds eye view using our forecast plots (Height of Thermals, Cloud base, Wave, Convergence), then by a vertical cross

Airspace overlay

section with our Route forecasts, and finally confirming my understanding by checking some SkewTs at arbitrary points through my task area. I came from a site with very complex airspace where understanding how the weather conflicts with the airspace was essential so we have also integrated Airspace overlays, allowing you to see whether that convergence line is going to clear the airspace in the afternoon!

By far our most popular feature is our convergence and wave forecasts - our model is able to pick up very subtle orographic and sea breeze convergences which unlock a lot of exciting flights that previously were only achievable by luck. Last year I was able to turn a quite ordinary 600 km flight in thermals into a 1,000 km flight with a long glide away from the last thermals of the day onto a sea breeze convergence for another 400 km.

Some other features we’ve developed in the last year include our Start Time Calculator, which for a given task will estimate the task speed you will achieve at all the possible start times through the day. Also popular is our Site forecast, which is ideal for checking how the conditions are likely to unfold in one particular location throughout the day, perhaps at your club or a distant turn point. We also now integrate with SeeYou, allowing you to view forecasts inside SeeYou, and as of next year you will be able to use your LX9000

to view SkySight forecasts inflight.

For this next year we have a few exciting features in planning - we’re adding a single plot that shows all the ‘gotchas’ for the day that would otherwise require clicking through a number of plots to identify, such as high cloud drifting into the task area, patches of overdevelopment and rain, or just low, blue conditions.

One of our most popular requests is to allow users to change the scale to colours and values best suited to their eyesight and local conditions and we are working on this functionality too.

Start time calculator

We’d love for you to give SkySight a try and let us know what you think of it - it is accessible at https://skysight. io/ and you can contact our team at skysight@skysight.io or myself personally at matthew@skysight.io.

Mathew Scutter, recent junior world champion, and author of SkySight software, is joining the Matamata Soaring Centre for the National Gliding Championships in Matamata, starting Sat 27th Jan 2018.

In other news: SkySight weather software http://skysight.io/ is now available in New Zealand. Designed and created by Mathew Scutter, with Tim Bromhead the NZ agent. For one month free, use the coupon code: ONEMONTHFREE

November 2017–January 2018

27

Glide Omarama's Twin Astir and Duo Discus over the Benmore Mountains.

Photo Milan Kmetovics

28

November 2017–January 2018

November 2017–January 2018

29

Coming back to

GLIDING

BY JILL MCCAW

Lots of people take up gliding in their youth, full of enthusiasm and drive but then the usual constraints of adult life: financial, career, family, get in the way and they give up for a while. Later they come back, and naturally are welcomed with open arms. All well and good? But are we giving these people the support they need to be safe as they venture back into the air?

What is the difference in training a brandnew ab-initio and training up someone who already knows how to control the glider?

I

’ve come back to gliding several times over the years. In a way of course, I never left.

I may not have been actively flying for most of the last twenty years, but the gliding club has been my extended family, the sport has remained my passion and I’ve helped in multiple roles at contests and camps, not to mention creating SoaringNZ. I’ve had memorable cross country flights with a range of friends and through all of that, I’ve ended up knowing just about everything there is to know about gliding in New Zealand.

But I haven’t actually been flying. In a way, I am like one of those people who have flown hours on simulators and is convinced that should the pilot become incapacitated they would be able to land the plane. And we all know how well that usually plays out in the movies.

Over the years I have had quite a few flights. I’ve even spent reasonable periods of time flying solo. Somehow, sadly, every time

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November 2017–January 2018

I started to feel half way competent, life events have got in the way and for various reasons I stopped flying. When I have been flying, I’ve always been very pleased that my stick and rudder skills have not failed me. I can still actually fly the glider.

Through lack of practice though, quite a few skills have disappeared. Something that I’ve particularly noted this time around, is that I don’t have the judgement skills needed to make a good circuit and landing. I suspect, that on other occasions that I’ve taken up flying that I’ve had the same problems. I know I’ve had some scary circuits. I also suspect, but have no way of proving it, that because, when they fly with me and I can actually fly, instructors have not spotted this.

Coming back into the sport this time, I’ve been very aware of the things I may not know and it’s not just the flying. I don’t have a QGP. I have a C Certificate which was all that was required back in the ‘80s. Glider flying areas didn’t exist in my early days. We hardly every had to speak to Air Traffic Control (unless you were doing some extraordinary flight) although I do have a RTOL (Radio Telephone Operators Licence). There is a LOT more airspace now.

There are a whole lot of electronic devices in the cockpit – some of which I have no idea what to do with or even what they’re for.

“Aw nah. You’re good. You can fly. Off you go,” doesn’t really cut it anymore.

Thankfully instructor Mark Aldridge and the Canterbury instructors’ panel agreed that some more training was needed, and Mark ran a refresher course for those who have flown before.

I joined two others and a handful of instructors for the full ‘ab-initio’ experience: a week of flying and ground school.

I asked Mark Aldridge to write about what he was aiming to achieve with his ab-initio course for non ab-initio pilots.

In the past I have run two ab-initio courses and one cross

country course. This was to be my first refresher course, and it was causing me some concern. What were we going to cover, how would we scope for the different abilities, experience and currency? After some thought, it became clear that on the flying side we would just adapt and teach at whatever level the student was at, ensuring that all the basics were covered again in as much detail, or time as was required. This dovetailed nicely into the ground lectures which we see as key for the course. In this case we just went through them a bit quicker – I think.

We have always been convinced that the courses give the most consistent training and most effective use of time and resources, both for pupils’ time and money, and instructors’ time. By way of example two instructors, intensively flying and lecturing/interacting with four or five students is far more efficient than one on one in the weekend with a different instructor, perhaps, every two or three weeks.

So, in short, the goals were very similar to previous courses ensure that the basics were well covered.

The thing I wanted to focus on from a flying perspective was how to remove stress during the circuit. The key is – get things done early and leave yourself with very few key tasks to do whilst in the circuit. Hence, we talked about the basic circuit preparation – DAO, (Direction, Area, Obstructions), calculating final approach speed and the pre-landing checks, well before initiation of the circuit. That left AAA (Airmanship, Airspeed, Angle), so within a short period of time after starting the circuit, the pilot only has to focus on angle, airspeed and other traffic. (Before anyone jumps on me, yes, we usually refer to attitude when flying but in the circuit we check that our attitude is correct and hence refer to the ASI.) There you have it – easy as 1-2-3 Unfortunately, for all of Mark’s intentions the weather was against us and we got one afternoon of circuits in an incredibly rainy week. We fitted the ground school lectures into two days, instead of long evenings after busy flying days. It would have been good to have got in some concentrated flying, but it just wasn’t to be.

I asked Sandy and Wayne, my two fellow trainees what they had been hoping for from the course and both of them mentioned the chance to consolidate their flying (which couldn’t be helped) and to consolidate the information that they had received, in dribs and drabs as they had gone through their training over intermittent weekends.

I think there is definitely a place to look at this sort of training.

As Mark says, consistent training and effective use of time and resources makes them very appealing to low hour pilots and people like me returning to the sport. If a course isn’t possible at a particular club, I do urge instructors however to be aware of the needs of returning pilots and that they, and their instructors, may not be aware of what they don’t know, until a mistake is made, or someone gets a scare.

I’m still working on the flying part of my training. I could be solo. I’ve pretty much beaten the circuits into submission, but for the moment, I’m enjoying cross country flying with people who know more about it than I do and have the ability to make the glider actually go places. As the point of the whole exercise is to enjoy flying again, this seems a much better use of my flying funds than struggling to stay aloft on my own. I’ll be ready to stretch out soon, but for the moment dual flying is working for me and I’m enjoying being back in the air.

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

November 2017–January 2018

31

Youth Glide

MINI-CAMP GREYTOWN

– A first time for some and three days of sun!

BY TIM TARBOTTON

There’s a first time for everything and, for many, the recent Youth Glide mini-camp in Greytown was just that. During Labour Weekend, the Greytown Soaring Centre hosted ten students and seven instructors flying three gliders which resulted in 53 flights and 23 hours flying in three days of wave! That’s right, three days of wave and the first wave flights for many of us. It was the first time in months that the Wairarapa region experienced three consecutive days without rain – this in itself was an impressive achievement.

T

he mini-camp officially begun on Friday evening with all ten students settled into the Papawai Marae ahead of what we hoped would be a great weekend with plenty of soaring and fun. We had eight students from the Wellington Gliding Club and two students from Gliding Manawatu. After being welcomed onto the Marae it was a rush

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November 2017–January 2018

to the mattress room to build the most comfortable bed setup, followed by fish and chips and a movie before bed.

The benefits of sleeping in a Marae with ten other students became apparent early Saturday morning with things kicking off nice and early, at 6.25 am, thanks to a student’s alarm waking the entire marae. Breakfast was early and the gliders were promptly pulled from the hangar ready for a busy day ahead. Saturday was a big day for all with plenty of flying (26 winch launches) and everyone having flights. It was great to see youth members taking part in all areas of the Papawai operation, with most experiencing launches from within the winch, launch point control, cable car and glider retrieves.

With the two DG1000s and Gliding Wairarapa's K13 barely spending any time on the ground, Sunday was another busy day in the Wairarapa sky. We completed a total of 20 launches, making good use of both the north-south vector and the new east-west vector. There were plenty of good flights with some experiencing their longest, highest and fastest flights to date.

As the sun set we all gathered around the brazier, enjoyed a BBQ dinner, toasted marshmallows and finished with a movie in the Marae.

Before we knew it, it was the final day of the camp. We managed to get 19 flights in total on Monday, many of which were wave flights. The Papawai operation had become a well-oiled machine after three days of consistent flying. It didn’t take long before both students and instructors were exhausted and the mini-camp drew to an end.

Student highlights from the camp included experiencing their longest flights yet, first time on a winch, first time in wave, first time in a K13, along with making good progress on pre-solo training and soaring pilot status. Driving lessons also formed a significant aspect of the camp with many thinking it was a 'Youth Drive Camp' - not knowing the basics of driving a manual tow retrieve, some students struggled and others provided quality entertainment. The Papawai Marae was also a highlight for many and a first-time experience for some. We are very lucky to have such a fantastic facility on our doorstep and want to thank the Papawai Marae for their support. As the camp came to an end all students left with not only a big smile but a new group of friends.

A big thanks to the Greytown Soaring Centre and everyone else involved.

November 2017–January 2018

33

Youth Glide

WHERE ARE THEY?

Campbell Hall attended the 2012 Youth Soaring Development Camp. In the five years since then he’s gone from a young man with no aviation experience to working as a commercial pilot.

Campbell's Story It all started five years ago on a flight to Rarotonga. I was fortunate enough to meet the flight crew. The First Officer was Roger Read and he easily convinced me to attend the Youth Soaring Development Camp in Omarama during the summer of 2012. In the 10 days down south, I managed to go solo and complete my gliding ‘A’ certificate. I also met a young lady friend in Omarama that summer who I am still with today.

I headed back again in 2013 to fly and have visited and helped out on the camp in the following years. I was also saving up for my ultimate goal, getting a commercial pilots licence. In 2015 I made the decision to move my life from Auckland to Christchurch and what a great decision that was. I got my first job within the Aviation industry, working

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November 2017–January 2018

as an Airport Operations Cadet at Christchurch International Airport Ltd (CIAL). That year I also decided to apply to the International Aviation Academy of NZ, based out of Canterbury Aero Club.

I was fortunate enough to get a position on the course as I finished up my year contract with CIAL and started learning to fly a few days later.

In my spare time that year I worked for Ballooning Canterbury, run by balloon and glider pilot Michael Oakley.

One opportunity led to another and I was again fortunate, making contact with the New Zealand Flying Doctors Service (NZFDS) half way through my flight training. I stayed in touch over the following year and when the time was right I applied for a co-pilot position with them. Successful in my application I have been flying with the NZFDS for just over

three months now and have travelled from Auckland to Invercargill and everywhere in-between, including the Chatham Islands.

I am currently working towards my Glider tow rating, and once that is complete I will be returning to the Youth Soaring Development camps down in Omarama as a tow pilot, helping to give back to the organisation that gave me the head start in my career and hoping to inspire others to chase their dreams.

One opportunity led to another and I was again fortunate, making contact with the New Zealand Flying Doctors Service (NZFDS) half way through my flight training.

PARACHUTE History

INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE FAI

Two-hundred and twenty years ago, on 22 October 1797, pioneering balloonist André-Jacques Garnerin became the modern world's first successful parachutist.

Born on 31 January 1769 in Paris, France, Garnerin reportedly first came up with the concept of a parachute whilst a prisoner in a Hungarian prison during the French Revolution – he was looking for a means of escape. He never got to try it out in prison, but the idea never left him. In fact, his passion for the air and ballooning only increased his desire to experiment. An early adopter and student of ballooning, he worked on many designs and ideas for hot air balloons and was eventually appointed Official Aeronaut of France.

In 1797 he finally got to complete his first parachute jump. However, it was a very different concept from today's idea of a parachute. Instead of a nylon mattress shaped parachute packed in a bag and attached to his back with a harness, he developed a 7 metre-wide parachute that folded up like an umbrella, using rigid ribs in an envelope of silk.

Below the parachute he attached a basket, similar to ballooning baskets of today. Then, he attached the whole lot to a hot air balloon. He rose to an altitude of 3,000 feet above the ground, hanging below the balloon in his wicker basket, the parachute folded like an umbrella above him.

At that height he severed the cord that held them together. Falling, the canopy opened, took his weight, and slowly descended to the ground.

However, there was not that much, if any, control. The parachute reportedly suffered from a severe pendulum effect, caused by air spilling out from beneath it in an uncontrolled

way and his landing was heavy.

However, he was not put off and he went on to complete a further 200 parachute jumps, including one from 8,000 feet in England.

Garnerin's wife, Jeanne Genevieve Garnerin (1775-1847) also became the first woman to make a parachute jump. She jumped from 3,000 feet on 12 October 1799.

Garnerin died early – but not from parachuting. He was killed in a construction accident on 18 August 1823.

It took almost 100 years for parachutes to develop a serious purpose, when they were used in World War I to allow soldiers to escape from observation

balloons, although there are records of many Edwardian stunt acts that used similar parachutes at show grounds and festival gatherings.

After the World War II the sport of parachuting as we know it today began to develop and in 1951 the FAI welcomed Parachuting into its family and the first records were set and World Championships held.

Today, there are an estimated 100,000 active skydivers in the world, and many tens of thousands of one-off solo and tandem jumps are completed safely every year.

November 2017–January 2018

35

North Island Regionals

QUICK NEWS FLASH P

BY HELEN COOK & TIM BROMHEAD

Despite the long range weather forecast (northerlies and grey weather), it proved to be yet another successful contest. With 25 registered pilots over three classes, we flew five out of seven available days (which is not too bad for Matamata) and not a single ridge day in those five days. That is almost unheard of.

S

tatistically speaking we had five full days flying (plus one cancelled day with 10 gliders already launched) with 20 gliders in the contest. That's 100 contest launches. Sadly we had one broken undercarriage (but an unharmed pilot), and one harmed pilot (we hope she gets well as soon as possible) and undamaged glider. So, roughly a 1% accident rate.

I have no idea if this is high but it does put it in some context.

There were land-outs galore with the final day proving to be the most challenging for Contest Director John Etches who had to send retrieve crews far and wide to bring the boys home (and some later than others). Our intrepid scorer Tim landed out 10 km south of the bottom turn point so, after a 1.5 hour trip in the eat/ sleep van for Tony and Malcolm, they got home in time for dinner and scoring, so it can't have been that bad!

Thanks to all the volunteers...too many to mention but the

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November 2017–January 2018

weather forecaster should be singled out for his persistent presentation of the same weather data every day (a cunning plan that no one saw through).

Aside from the champions, well done to the other winners John Etches, who won the outstanding helper award; Malcolm Piggott who won most improved pilot; and Brett Cameron for his most meritorious flight, which was for the final day’s flight in which he was the only racing class pilot to complete the task.

Racing Class proved to be down to the wire with only five points separating Peter Cook and Steve Foreman on the eve of the last day. Especially pleasing was the performance of some of our new contest pilots...great news for future events.

Congrats to everyone and roll on the Nationals.

There will be a full contest report in the next issue.

H POST COMPLETION Champions OPEN

1 2 3

BA GB VR

Tim Bromhead Nigel McPhee David Jensen

4,758 4,423 3,979

KP YT SW

Steve Foreman Peter Cook Hugh de Lautour

2,856 2,757 2,299

NI SN GD

Malcolm Piggott Healey & Shipley Sarel Venter

543 494 125

RACING

1 2 3 NOVICE

1 2 3

Thanks to all the volunteers... too many to mention but the weather

forecaster should be singled out for his persistent presentation of the same weather data every day (a cunning plan that no one saw through).

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November 2017–January 2018

37

HUMAN FACTORS Chapter 5:

ALTITUDE AND ITS EFFECTS

BY JONATHON POTE

We continue our series on Human Factors, based on the document available, in full through the GNZ website: For Pilots/Glider Pilot Training/ Training Syllabus/Additional training material.

We are still discussing ALTITUDE and its effects. In the last issue we looked at the reasons altitude reduces the amount of oxygen available to your tissues. Now we continue with the effects of that reduction.

THE SYMPTOMS OF HYPOXIA The symptoms of hypoxia vary between individuals and are lethally insidious.

They include »» Euphoria »» Personality changes »» Decrease in colour perception »» Task fixation (e.g. checking and rechecking altitude – without realising why) »» Loss of judgement and self-criticism »» Decrease in peripheral vision »» Dimming of vision »» Clumsiness, fine tremor »» Slurred speech »» Forgetfulness »» Increasing sensitivity to cold And as it becomes severe »» Cyanosis (blue colouration, probably not noticed due to reduced colour vision and confusion) »» Confusion »» Slowed movement, hypoxic flap »» Finally unconsciousness and death Note however, that together with these symptoms, there are likely to be some of the symptoms of hyperventilation (see below).

inevitable unless some lucky chance (hitting bad sink, perhaps) saves you. Your ‘Time of Useful Consciousness’ is up. Those who have done a chamber run and experienced hypoxia or even gone unconscious (an extreme rarely reached situation) know that it is not a bad way to die – until ‘rescued’ by their colleagues replacing their mask, all are unaware of a problem and many deny they were ever unconscious. The idea, however, is not to die at all.

See the table on times of useful consciousness.

Stress and hypothermia affect these times. Even then, there is the supposition that you are aware when the emergency starts. You probably will not be aware if a bottle empties or a leak develops. Study your oxygen system and its manual until you can trouble-shoot in your sleep. You may have to one day.

It is helpful (but not necessarily a guarantee) to regularly check your oxygen set when in use. The manual will be more specific, but in general check contents, tubing and the cannula or mask.

TIME OF USEFUL CONSCIOUSNESS

TIME OF USEFUL CONSCIOUSNESS

If the oxygen system fails, or is not used, unconsciousness is not immediate due to the reserves of oxygen in the tissues. It is thus related to altitude. For a while you will be able to think and act fairly rationally and thus be able to sort out the problem either by losing altitude or by solving a problem with your oxygen equipment. After a while, however, even although you are still conscious, the brain is so befuddled that death is

Altitude

Sitting

Moderate Activity

18,000 feet 21,000 feet 25,000 feet 28,000 feet 30,000 feet 35,000 feet 40,000 feet 43,000 feet

20-30 min 10 min 3 min 1.5 min 1.25 min 45 sec 30 sec 15 sec

10-15 min 5 min 2 min 1 min 45 sec 30 sec 18 sec 9 sec

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November 2017–January 2018

If you are high enough to need oxygen, you are cold enough to have very reduced blood flow in fingers, toes, nose and ears, the only bits of your anatomy thin enough for a pulse oximeter to work, giving a zero percentage reading; disconcerting to say the least.

Terry Delore wearing full oxygen face mask

Oxygen systems: Glider pilots regularly use personal oxygen systems and as such are different to pilots flying light powered aircraft who rarely venture above 10,000’ and then only in the few pressurised light aircraft types. Oxygen systems for gliders may use nasal cannulae (small tubes inserted into each nostril) or masks (fitting tightly over both mouth and nose). The full system has a reservoir (pressurised bottle), a regulator to provide a steady supply as a usable pressure, necessary tubing and taps as well as either a mask or nasal cannulae. Well-fitting masks are more efficient, nasal cannulae are more comfortable.

As a rough guide, nasal cannulae can maintain full arterial oxygen saturation only to about 18,000’; above that a mask is required. A perfectly fitting mask and 100% supplemental oxygen maintains sea level arterial oxygen pressures up to 34,000’.

The bottles must be filled with ‘dry aviation oxygen’ as

industrial oxygen sources may contain water vapour (which will form ice and block valves) or even poisonous impurities.

The fact that aviation oxygen has to be entirely free of water vapour means that you will lose an extra 200 mls of water an hour from the body. This adds to the fluid intake required to keep hydrated.

Pulse oximeters: It is in theory easy to measure the oxygen saturation in arterial blood and thus give the pilot an objective measure of the level of hypoxia (if any). This is done by clipping a pulse oximeter, weighing only a few grams, to any part of the body thin enough for the bright light of two specific wavelengths to pass from source via tissue to a receiver. The wavelengths vary in their degree of absorption depending on the ratio of oxyhaemoglobin (oxygen carrying) and carboxyhaemoglobin (carbon dioxide carrying) and a digital percentage saturation is clearly shown on the device.

November 2017–January 2018

39

HUMAN FACTORS

take many hours to diffuse out. If you have smoked in the days before flying high, you will become hypoxic sooner; it is as simple as that.

Chamber training: RNZAF Auckland has the only hypobaric chamber in the southern hemisphere but access by civilians is very limited, if non-existent nowadays. The chambers allow pilots to experience hypoxia under controlled conditions. A chamber run may seem expensive ($200 – 300), but a visit by a Club group would be a very good idea.

A benefit of a chamber run is that some people have hypoxic sensations that, whilst being variable, are constant to that individual. Some ‘smell’ strange smells, some ‘see’ strange things and so on. If you do get an unusual sensation, be very aware if it returns whilst you are flying. Descend immediately and check your oxygen supply. YouTube has several videos illustrating hypoxia with and without rapid decompression.

HYPERVENTILATION

The editor – wearing a cannula in wave.

There are, however, considerable practical limitations. The very real problem for glider pilots is low temperature. If you are high enough to need oxygen, you are cold enough to have very reduced blood flow in fingers, toes, nose and ears, the only bits of your anatomy thin enough for a pulse oximeter to work, giving a zero percentage reading; disconcerting to say the least.

The problems can, however, be solved. It might be possible to install a pulse oximeter on a finger in a modified glove or on the earlobe under a warm hat. You are much better to be being totally familiar with your oxygen equipment and know what altitudes and flow rates with cannulae or masks are safe.

The oxygen paradox: Beware of the oxygen paradox.

This is a phenomenon poorly understood by even experts but not uncommon. If you are already hypoxic when supplemental oxygen is started, your hypoxic symptoms may temporarily worsen and you may feel very unwell, as if being poisoned.

This feeling goes after just a few breaths but has led to people removing their mask again and thus worsening their hypoxia.

Just as you must believe your gyro instruments when you need them, you must believe in your oxygen system even though at first it seems contaminated; the sensation will cease after just a few breaths. If you do suffer from the oxygen paradox, you were significantly hypoxic before you selected supplemental oxygen.

Learn that lesson well and do not get into that situation again.

A few puffs from the system during your pre-take-off rituals, not only checks the system but reassures you that the oxygen is uncontaminated.

Smoking: Smokers inhale small but very significant amounts of carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide binds to the oxygen-carrying haemoglobin with approximately two-hundred times the affinity of oxygen. Thus, tiny concentrations of carbon monoxide displace a lot of oxygen from the arterial blood, and

40

November 2017–January 2018

Hyperventilation is not confined to flying, but is quite common in the flying environment especially in those who are inexperienced. Normally our breathing is regulated by the build-up of CO2 and consequent acidity/alkalinity in our blood.

Such is the normal physiological response, appropriate to the demand. However, sometimes people breathe too fast for their physiological needs. This is called hyperventilation, and it is very unpleasant for the subject. By breathing too fast (the heart also speeds up), no extra oxygen is transported by the blood; the saturation at rest is 97% or better, and there can be no useful increase in that. What does happen with inappropriately fast breathing is that the carbon dioxide level in the blood and tissues falls, making the body fluids too alkaline. Remember that when breathing at rest, only half of the gas in the lungs is vented to the atmosphere; the other half remains in the airway and becomes the first half of the next breath in, the two parcels of air mixing in the lungs. Thus, half of the gaseous carbon dioxide in the lungs is excreted with each breath. If the breathing rate rises, so the amount of carbon dioxide excreted rises and yet no more is being produced in the tissues. The amount of carbon dioxide in the blood falls, the body fluids therefore become more alkaline and the person feels very unwell. Symptoms vary greatly, but include: »» Severe apprehension or panic »» A very rapid pulse or palpitations (irregularity of pulse) »» Light headedness, dizziness, fainting »» Chest tightness or even pain »» Numbness or tingling around the mouth and hands or feet »» Spasm of the forearm and hands »» Nausea, abdominal discomfort Likely causes in vulnerable passengers (it rarely occurs in pilots and almost never in handling pilots) have a common theme – fright. They include severe turbulence, aerobatics, sudden noise (airbrakes deployed), hypoxia, excess solar heat or just being unfamiliar with gliders or small aircraft. The vulnerable person certainly felt apprehensive before starting to hyperventilate and now their fears are ‘confirmed’ – they are convinced they are having a heart attack, a stroke, or just simply dying.

HUMAN FACTORS

GLIDING BOOK CORNER

This unfortunate situation should be avoided by a thorough pre-flight brief and restrained, gentle flying with inexperienced passengers.

For a firsthand account on the effects of hyperventilation as a gliding passenger, see Max Romey’s video “Just Breathe” on YouTube. This was filmed at Omarama in November this year.

Classic Planes: Celebrating New Zealand’s Rich Aviation History

DECOMPRESSION SICKNESS (DCS) AND FLYING AFTER DIVING

The author of this books says, “The main purpose of this project has been not to document every technical detail, nor to record every classic aeroplane flying in New Zealand skies. Rather, it has sought to represent a community of dedicated people and their aeroplanes, to celebrate their passion and tell their stories.”

Ivor Wilkins had written a well-received book called Classic Boats when he was asked if he could follow up with one on classic aircraft, even though he had no knowledge of, or particular interest in planes at the time. He’s done a really good job. This is a well-researched book that focuses on the people behind the flying machines. I like that. The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs taken by the author. We haven’t seen Wilkins in the aviation photography business before, but he’s is very talented with the camera and the photographs are fabulous.

My only quibble with this book is its name. My understanding of a classic plane is this definition from the EAA: An aircraft constructed by the original manufacturer, or his licensee, on or after September 1, 1945, up to and including December 31, 1955. Earlier and it’s vintage, newer and it’s deemed to be contemporary. Replicas are contemporary.

That’s obviously not the definition Wilkin is using although it really doesn’t matter. The book’s sub title would have been a much better title (although it wouldn’t have matched with Classic Boats) as the book also has chapters on people as well as aircraft, some of which don’t fit the definition. Don’t worry, there is a roll call of fascinating aircraft and some wonderful tales about passionate owners, restorers and pilots.

“In every conversation with the owners of these aeroplanes, what shines through is the romance of it,” Wilkin says. And in words and in pictures this gorgeous book captures the romance of flight. This is a beautiful addition to your coffee table.

Enjoy and Learn Advanced Flying with the Wind 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

Jean-Marie Clément

A CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR PILOTS?

Dancing with the wind

In the next issue we look at the Cardiovascular system and its response to altitude.

TopFly

Everyone has heard of ‘The Bends’ (a form of DCS), but normally associate the condition with scuba divers coming to the surface too fast. It can however affect glider pilots, especially if they have done a scuba dive in the preceding day or two.

Nitrogen dissolves throughout the body just as do oxygen and carbon dioxide. In the tissues, its partial pressure matches that of the atmosphere, so there is no net movement of nitrogen in or out, provided we stay at sea level. If, however, the environmental pressure rises, as when scuba diving to 10 metres (which doubles the pressure on our bodies to two atmospheres) the amount of nitrogen in the body (slowly) doubles.

Glider pilots reaching 18,000’ are subject to a pressure reduction of one half of an atmosphere, which is high enough to get decompression sickness especially if ascending rapidly in a good wave. Above that height, the problem steadily increases in frequency, especially if above 25,000’ for prolonged periods.

The risk of decompression sickness with altitude is greatly increased if the pilot has been scuba diving in the previous twenty-four hours as they will have taken off still with some excess nitrogen in their body tissues. In that instance, the decompression sickness may occur at much lower altitudes.

Be aware of the possibility and descend if it happens (joint pains, difficulty and pain breathing, skin sensations, localised muscle weakness etc). You are unlikely to have any serious or permanent effects unless you continue to ascend.

By Ivor Wilkins Reviewed by Jill McCaw

Dancing with the wind

Jean-Marie Clément

November 2017–January 2018

41

OBITUARIES

STEWART CAIN 1929– 2017

No one seems to know exactly when Stew Cain joined the Canterbury Gliding Club, but it had to have been before 1958.

We know he was born in Naseby, on the 3rd November 1929 and he had book stores, in Christchurch and later, in Darfield which many people recall fondly. In the 60 odd years that he was part of the Canterbury Gliding Club, Stew became a landmark in his own right. It’s interesting that different people, of different eras, have entirely different memories of him.

When the club celebrated its 50th anniversary back in 1997, Stew was instrumental in putting together the commemoration booklet, sharing the facts and figures of so many other club characters, but mentioning nothing about himself. He was, by turns and often simultaneously, glider pilot, tow pilot, instructor, cross-country pilot, committee member, ground crew, chief organiser and grumpy old man. He was CFI from 1965 to ’67.

The gliding club was his family and in later years he spent many hours sitting in a deck chair, Kelpie dog at his feet, watching and commenting on the airfield activity. He ran the bar with an iron fist (no IOUs allowed) until only a few weeks ago.

Neal Irwin says, “There is the story about carrying the old Tiger Moth fuselage up to the top of Birch Hill one evening after gliding, and after a few drinks, Stew ‘flew’ / slid down Birch Hill in the fuselage. No Control at all, and only a few broken ribs ...? He told me this himself but I don’t know who else knows anything about it.”

Eric van Notten recalls, In January 1960 the Canterbury Gliding Club had chosen Burnt Hill for their weekend flying.

That’s where I first met Stew (instructor), Dick Georgeson (Club President), Bill Meaclem (secretary) and Henare Te Ua (treasurer).

I was out of touch for a couple of years but I re-joined again in 1962 when the flying was at Wigram, Gebbies Valley and at a variety of camps and farms all over Canterbury and Otago.

Stew was always there, instructing and generally keeping an eye on all activities. I thought that he was a very good instructor.

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November 2017–January 2018

Graham Duder tells a tale from the club’s days at Wigram when it was a working Air Force base.

Stewart and I had just spent a very pleasant hour soaring on the Port Hills in the Slingsby T49 DQ (the Duck). We were committed to a landing and I positioned the aircraft for a downwind leg at 800 feet, happily plodding along, when all hell let loose in the air close by. After a bit of investigation, we spotted a camouflaged Bristol Freighter trundling along against the background of the Port Hills! They were on circuit too! Stewart said “Bugger them, they will have to yield to us. Stick to your circuit, we have no choice.” The Bristol banked gently away, much to our relief. They had spotted us.

The trouble was, a condition of our operation was that we were required to have all of our aircraft on the ground twenty minutes before and after a scheduled Air Movement. As this proved to be rather difficult to achieve when operating a gliding operation, it was largely ignored!

We continued on with our right-hand circuit, in over the ammunition dumps and landed on the grass. At almost the same moment, the Bristol landed on the runway. All done and dusted.

Within minutes an Air Force Blue Morris Minor 1000 van with a flashing light came tearing across the field, stopped and the driver leapt out.

Before he could open his mouth, Stewart puffed out his chest, went red in the face and said “You B*****ds should be grateful that the Japanese didn't invade. You would have had to hangar your aircraft as the sky would have been too crowded for you!”

The Air Force guy never uttered a word. He knew he wasn't going to win! He climbed back into his van and drove off. Stewart muttered about it for the rest of the weekend.

He was a Grumpy Old Bugger, but he was also dedicated. I loved his style. Forthright and straight up to the end.

JILL MCCAW

ROB SHERLOCK

OBITUARIES

1941 – 2017

Canterbury Gliding Club member Dr Robert Alan Sherlock Ph.D., or Rob as we knew him, died on 21 October 2017. He was 75.

Rob joined CGC in the mid-2000s after he and his wife Ann retired from their professions in Waikato and moved to Christchurch to be closer to the bush and tramping opportunities that the Mainland affords. Rob was very active with model gliders and stepped up to the challenges of full scale flying. He quickly became involved in all aspects of our club life and was Treasurer from 2005 to 2007. He took flying courses with Southern Soaring in Omarama and joined trips to Darling Downs in Australia. Frustrated by worn out batteries with little capacity going flat during flight, he designed and built a battery analyser that is still in use. More recently, Rob ceased flying and became a Social member; at that time having been unable to find a buyer for his Libelle "Shrek", ZK-GGK, he very generously donated it to the club.

Rob, as a lecturer and research scientist with University of Waikato and Ag Research, held 2 patents and acted as an expert witness. As a part of his work he developed dairy farm modelling software while at Ruakura and this experience and software engineering background gave him the skills to develop our computer timekeeping system, glideTime. Having grappled with the sometimes illegible incomplete and manual timesheet system as part of his Treasurer tasks, Rob decided there had to be a better way.

A strong proponent of open source software (free as in free speech, not as in free beer, although he was partial to Harrington's Rogue Hop), Rob developed glideTime in Python on his GNU/Linux PC. He released glideTime under an open source licence and made it available to other gliding clubs.

Over a number of years, he worked with several of us to add features, fix bugs and deliver a system that grew in complexity.

As well as the fundamental time keeping for charging pilots, at the end of every session it reports glider launches and times to

the maintenance engineers, tow flights and hours to the Chief Tow Pilot, a summary of flying to the CFI and a costed report to the treasurer. More reports helped us do statistics returns to GNZ to track youth flying and trial flights plus allowed pilots to get a summary of their days flying.

On the flying side, I think Rob would admit some of his out landings lacked a little finesse. One, in the LS4, near Glentunnel, in a rough paddock, collapsed the undercarriage and left him baking under the canopy that he could not open as a result of the bellied position that the glider stopped in.

A late decision to abort a local task and out-land his prized Shrek near Springfield without height for a full circuit caused ‘some damage’.

I always valued Rob's humour and his well-reasoned, succinct but articulate observations about topics - even when I was on the receiving end. My wife TJ, and I enjoyed the few occasions where we had lunch or an evening meal with Rob and Ann. I'll treasure their humour and the tales of their experiences as they moved from the UK to make NZ their home.

Rob delighted us with these stories at the Memorial service for Ann after she lost her battle with cancer 2 years ago. I admired the strength and composure Rob had when he gave her eulogy.

This year Rob was tackling first year law papers at University to stimulate his mind.

I shall miss our mate Rob, a true scholar and a gentleman.

NEIL ALLISON

November 2017–January 2018

43

a question of safety STEVEN CARE National Operationals Officer

FEAR Why do people experience fear? Being afraid helps keep you safe; it’s a legacy from our pre-historic days that stop us from doing something that might harm us. If you follow the Darwinian model, I guess those that didn’t have a sense of fear got killed off and those left are us. It can be both good and bad and sometimes perceived risk does not match actual risk.

Modern life has done a pretty good job of generating lots of extra fears that feel very real but are not life threatening.

How does this affect all of us as glider pilots?

Our trial flight passengers can have a wide range of fears and unless you ask or sense their concerns, you won’t know.

Someone with Aviophobia (fear of flying) is not uncommon but it is possible that it is made up of one or more of the following: Fear of crashing, or the structure not holding together Fear of closed spaces (claustrophobia) Fear of heights (acrophobia) Fear of falling (basophobia) Feeling of not being in control Fear of vomiting and having no control over it Fear of having a panic attack when there is no chance of escape (agoraphobia) Often the reason a low percentage of our trial flight passengers take up the sport, is they have forced themselves to overcome a fear in the very short term for the experience. If the fear is not overpowering (some people openly admit they are very nervous), then they will say they genuinely enjoyed the experience and they did. However, they may not be keen to truly face their fear.

It is possible for new students to be excited, keen and enthusiastic upon taking up the sport but still have some deeper-seated issues that they will never admit to. They may get to the point of solo or even well beyond and luckily most

44

November 2017–January 2018

pilots will overcome it but we need to recognise that some will not. Some pilots have plenty of confidence until an event happens. It could be triggered by doing (or somebody else doing) something that makes them very uncomfortable, some sort of emergency or close call, witnessing an accident or hearing about one or having an accident themselves. Suddenly a fear that wasn’t there before has cropped up.

It can be truly debilitating and extremely unpleasant. Often pilots will just fade out of the club rather than acknowledge anything. It is a significant barrier to our efforts to recruit, retain and regain.

There are a lot of other fears that seem just as real as life threatening ones - fear of failure, fear of success, fear of loss, fear of uncertainty, fear of humiliation, fear of rejection, fear of isolation. Some would rather die than face one of these so they are just as overpowering or in some cases more overpowering than the ones our pre-historic ancestors faced. They are constructed in our imaginations and they won’t kill us. See them for what they are!

How can we overcome it and help others to overcome it? The first thing is to work out if the fear is truly life threatening. If it isn’t, then it is something

The cause of accidents is extremely varied, but frequently it is

because a pilot has taken a step forward beyond where their knowledge is.

that we can deal with. Most are just unfounded psychological barriers. First acknowledge and then face your fear.

Knowledge If you understand how things work, it will go a long way to giving you confidence.

Understanding that a glider is truly a very strong piece of equipment and why, is extremely important. Educate yourself and do research on whatever your concerns are. You don’t know what you don’t know, so find out. The cause of accidents is extremely varied, but frequently it is because a pilot has taken a step forward beyond where their knowledge is. Not fully understanding a risk can leave lingering doubts and then lead to fear. The cure is to build knowledge steadily and progressively.

Currency Some World Champions fly 500+ hours per year. Not only does it give them a huge amount of confidence but a huge amount of skill as well. They can still have concerns but it is most unlikely to progress to fear, phobia or anxiety. I am not suggesting that everyone do 500+ hours per year to overcome fear but there is link between currency and confidence.

Lack of currency is often a symptom of loss of passion or ambition; the root cause could be some sort of unresolved fear.

Accidents or Serious Incidents Understand that a pilot who has given him or herself a big fright needs support from others. The same goes for those that have witnessed an accident. Even becoming aware of an accident can trigger a fear of crashing. No one intentionally flies to have an accident and often it is training, knowledge, risk awareness or organisational influences that are at fault. On some occasions, it can be random misfortune. This really does re-enforce a fear and can be very difficult to overcome. As an organisation, we must acknowledge the impact that this fear has on our ability to recruit, retain and regain. The solutions are within ourselves. Accept that a negative outcome is a possibility but keep it in perspective and do all you can to mitigate it.

Acknowledge your fear Face it head on and conquer it. I was very fortunate to have been able to attend outward bound in the mid ‘70s.

My biggest phobia of the whole course was doing an abseil down a 100 feet cliff (acrophobia). I remember being white with fear clipping my harness in (almost not being able to continue). It didn’t seem like that many years after that, that I was confidently leaping off 2,000 feet cliffs in my hang glider, like it was no bigger deal than driving down the road in a car. It wasn’t a one step process but a stable, steady progression of steps with lots of challenges building on top of others along the way. Overcoming fear can be a life rewarding experience.

Training in stages - Make sure that training is done progressively, building on previous experiences, one step at a time. Have knowledge before doing, practice hard and don’t leap into something too far ahead of your ability. Above all, keep flying.

Use fear to your advantage to keep you safe but don’t let it rob you of a lifetime of rich experiences.

Exclusive Agents Australia & New Zealand Southern Energy Sailplanes John Styles gpglidersausnz@gmail.com

+61 (0) 419 001 769 Web:

www.gpgliders.com November 2017–January 2018

45

gliding new zealand news KAREN MORGAN GNZ President

I am sorry to have to advise you that sadly, our membership has had two fatal gliding accidents in recent weeks.

Our sympathies go to the families and friends of Ricco Legler originally of Italy, but lately living in Russell and the Kaikohe Gliding Club, and David Wilson of Melbourne and the Benalla Gliding Club in Australia. CAA is conducting thorough investigations, so it is likely to be over a year before they will identify the causes and the report will be with us.

In the meantime, please fly safely, keep current and work at improving your skills in the air.

Congratulations to Taupo Gliding Club on your 50th anniversary; it sounds as though your weekend reunion was great fun.

The introduction of coaching is continuing this summer, with a course at Springfield in February with G Dale.

As G is pretty busy in Australia, we are seeking a new national coach – any volunteers? Tim Bromhead has developed an on-line facility for the head coach so that all the coaches and students can easily see their progress.

At GNZ we have been experimenting with holding Zoom meetings instead of travelling to day-long meetings. It seems to be OK for routine matters, however we plan to get together to meet with CAA and do our strategic planning in February.

Have a look at Brian Savage’s new taskPilot system at on the GNZ website under For Pilots/Glider pilot training. GNZ has helped to fund this development, to help newer pilots get started with goal setting. You can start as soon as you like – pre-solo is fine. You can try some things with your instructors. Its aim is to provide motivation and support for emerging cross-country pilots. It will involve task setting in your local area and allow you to learn to make the most of the soaring days (within glider availability).

Good luck to those attending competitions and the Youth Glide Development camp and mini camps this summer. We were lucky enough to have six juniors fly with us in the South Island Regionals. There will be other juniors at other competitions, especially if they get help with gliders and training.

Mark Tingey’s glider has left Tauranga for the Grand Prix final in South America. You can follow his progress in a local Chilean competition at Soaring Spot and the final will be on this site: sgp.aero/finals2017. You should be able to watch live coverage, although with the flying 16 hours behind us, it might require having to get up a bit early.

This column is intended to give readers an ongoing insight into the activities of the GNZ Executive and its Committees. Rather than a detailed report on matters currently under consideration, here are some recent items of significance.

Trevor Mollard has been working on airspace issues lately, and some of us have been to CAA sessions on New Southern Sky (NSS), covering the mandatory introduction of ADS-B OUT (Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast) replacing our older mode A and C transponders in all controlled airspace by the end of 2021. ADS-B IN (receiving signals) is optional, but sounds useful, like FLARM but potentially cheaper. The CAA team is planning to test lower powered and non-certified instruments in the new year and there is some hope that they will determine that something cost effective will meet gliding’s needs. As yet, they have not ruled out financial assistance for equipment, as many years ago Airways provided interest free loans over ten years when transponders were made mandatory. CAA are sending a message of ‘hurry up and install gear’ to the power fraternity, but ‘hurry up and wait’ to us at present. They also warn not to buy US equipment (UAT 987 MHz) as it will not be compatible with New Zealand’s system which will be on 1090 MHz. We will keep you informed.

The summer weather has definitely arrived in the South and I hope that you are getting some great gliding wherever you are.

Karen Morgan

Share the stories and images of the unique soaring conditions of New Zealand with the pilots who fly there.

Stunning photography from renowned gliding photographers John McCaw and Geoff Soper.

In-depth coverage of international events, safety issues, Youth Glide, reader’s stories and more.

The Soaring Magazine for Enthusiasts – subscribe online www.soaringnz.co.nz 46

November 2017–January 2018

GNZ awards & certificates

SEPTEMBER 2017 – NOVEMBER 2017

EDOUARD DEVENOGES GNZ Awards Officer

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

Pilot’s Name Genevieve L. Healey Malcolm J. Piggott Sebastien Dubois-Merce Derek A. Shipley Clare M. Dickson Sarel Venter Paula A. Morgan Dieter Betz Peter Reading David Wilson

Club Piako GC Piako GC Taupo GC Piako GC Auckland ASC Piako GC Omarama GC Glide Omarama Glide Omarama Glide Omarama

Date Glider 1 10 2017 12 10 2017 13 10 2017 6 11 2017 6 11 2017 10 11 2017 13 11 2017 18 11 2017 23 11 2017 23 11 2017

AIR NZ CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS

Pilot’s Name Club Points NORTHERN DIVISION

Sarel Venter Piako GC 918.28

Genevieve Healey Piako GC 894.91

Malcolm Piggott Piako GC 523.94

Glyn Jackson Taranaki GC 399.63

David Dennison Piako GC 310.51

Dylan Watson Auckland GC 270.31

Jason Kelly Hawkes Bay GC 194.69

Neil Harker Taupo GC 189.22

SILVER DISTANCE

Sarel Venter

Malcolm J. Piggott

Genevieve L. Healey

Piako GC Piako GC Piako GC

11 10 2017 ASW 15 11 10 2017 Astir Club 21 10 2017 PW 5

SOUTHERN DIVISION

Jyri Laukkanen

Ken Montgomery

Colin Winterburn

Glide Omarama Nelson GC Canterbury GC

892.80 205.42 117.13

SILVER DURATION

Derek Shipley

Genevieve L. Healey

Piako GC Piako GC

15 10 2017 Astir Club 25 10 2017 PW 5

OFFICIAL OBSERVERS 09 - 124 Abbey Delore 09 - 125 Sarel Venter 09 – 126 Malcolm J. Piggott 09 – 127 Gareth Cartwright 09 - 128 Hamish J. Crequer 09 – 129 Francis A. Davies 09 – 130 Genevieve Healey 09 – 131 Roydon Hooker 09 – 132 Derek A. Shipley 09 – 133 Ian G. Wood 09 – 134 David L. Dennison

Canterbury GC Piako GC Piako GC Piako GC Piako GC Piako GC Piako GC Piako GC Piako GC Piako GC Piako GC

1 10 2017 20 10 2017 20 10 2017 20 10 2017 20 10 2017 20 10 2017 20 10 2017 20 10 2017 20 10 2017 20 10 2017 20 10 2017

SILVER HEIGHT

Genevieve L. Healey Piako GC 18 10 2017

SILVER BADGE 1180 Sarel Venter Piako GC 12 10 2017 1181 Genevieve L. Healey Piako GC 28 10 2017

GOLD DURATION

Derek Shipley Piako GC 15 10 2017

Genevieve Healey Piako GC 25 10 2017

USA RECORD 300 km, Triangle, Speed, D15, General

Keith Essex / Omarama GC ASG 29 8 11 2017

PW 5

Grob Club PW 5

179.64 km/h

GNZ FIRST COMPETITION AWARD 047 Sarel Venter Piako GC 048 Malcolm J. Piggott Piako GC 049 Genevieve L. Healey Piako GC

13 10 2017 13 10 2017 28 10 2017

Photo John McCaw

QGP No 3360 3361 3362 3363 989 3364 3365 3366 3367 3368

November 2017–January 2018

47

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

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November 2017–January 2018

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 17 January 2018.

AUCKLAND AVIATION SPORTS CLUB As I write this update and look out the window, I can see towering cumulus and glorious sunshine. There is more than just a hint that the soaring weather has finally arrived; it’s just a pity that it’s a work day. We, like others, have had a faltering start with the weather and it has mainly been windy, wet and generally miserable. However, the club has rallied around and busied itself with our well attended annual Soaring Safety briefing organised by our CFI and key members.

We also had a landing competition in rather boisterous conditions. Everyone performed very well in front of the judges. Congratulations to Rudolph who won the landing competition trophy, demonstrating a flawless approach over a fake toi toi fence and a short landing.

We had our AGM, which was a rather straight forward affair, with the very nice acknowledgement of members winning various club trophies. Well done to Matt Moran (Best Student), Steve Wallace (Achievement Cup), Isabel Burr (Most meritorious flight in PW5). Our students continue to progress well and our instructors do a great job guiding them.

At Labour Weekend we undertook our annual pilgrimage to Matamata and joined our friends at Piako. We had a great day flying the Kaimai Ridge. Our little FK9 performed flawlessly and handled the cross wind with great ease. Some might say, it performed better than a new flash Pawnee. This may have been mentioned at the evening dinner, perhaps 1 or 6 times. Our thanks to the crew in Piako for their hospitality and the dinner which was wonderful. Regrettably the weather scuppered the remaining days of the weekend and we packed up early and headed home.

Finally, we have just had a terrific weekend soaring, and you know it’s good when gliders have to be called back and deploy air brakes to come down. May this last throughout the season.

Skipperoo

CLUB NEWS

ND

AASC: Ian O’Keefe's ASW28 and, of course, our trusty and cross wind capable tow plane RDW.

AASC: Young lady is Isabel Burr, one of our young budding pilots. In the photo our CFI, Ray Burns, is presenting her with the trophy for the most meritorious flight in a PW5, (she was not at the AGM to get it there).

AUCKLAND Well, thankfully winter has stopped and the switch has flicked over to summer. Over the winter we kept interest up by doing some trips out to the coast. These went well and were lots of fun. The winch launch, off the 600 feet coastal airstrip was quite different and surprisingly easy. We also spent a few days at Matamata enjoying blasting up and down the Kaimais. We hosted Gavin Wills who presented an evening on Omarama which encouraged our members to venture south for some mountain air. Several of our pilots attended the recent XC course and Southern Regional events.

We started the new season with a new president – Dion Manktelow. Thanks also to David Moody (and Marion Moody too) for the huge support they have given over the last few years. Membership is steady and there seems to be quite a lot of enthusiasm for flying. There are several keen new members, some revitalised current members and even a few new glider purchases. We have also had several days with air cadet visits keeping the ground crew on their toes.

Maurice Honey is a huge hero on the mower, tirelessly ensuring the field is in beautiful order for those who venture out for a flight. Somehow Maurice also manages to do some remarkable flights in his PW5. This is such an inspiration to those with much more expensive aircraft. Thanks Maurice!

Our summer instructor program has started with the first of our two invitees busy flying visitors and locals. A recent flight to Taupo and back in the Duo (in average

Auckland: Our president Dion Manktelow and resident instructor Hugo Corbille after their flight.

Auckland: Guyfawkes night.

conditions), showed us how skilled this young Frenchman is. Hugo Corbille has easily fitted into our club lifestyle and made friends.

In a few days our second invitee, Gregor Petrovič, will arrive from Slovenia, which will take the pressure off Hugo and ground crew who have been busy, even mid-week.

I invite all those wanting some FUN, some good flying (weather dependant) and some good company – to come to the 2018 Audi Enterprise Competition & Club Class Nationals 5th – 13th January 2018

In fact, come anytime as we are open 7 days until March.

RG

CANTERBURY Soaring is increasing in Canterbury, with spring weather heralding a change and a return to more soar-able conditions after a poverty stricken year. The airfield and operations support are also looking great with Derek Kraak’s vision for a new control

November 2017–January 2018

49

CLUB NEWS

Canterbury: Spring flying.

room becoming operational, an increasing supply of mid-week tow pilots, several volunteers and a larger mower accelerating the airfield upkeep to a thing of beauty, and on-site instructors enabling through the week operations.

In September we welcomed Hugo Corbillé from France, becoming a resident C cat instructor for six weeks. He was joined at the end of October by Paul Marriot who has made a welcome return for another summer with the club. As a result, many soarable mid-week days saw club members and trainees active.

From Springfield, on days with thermals and ridge lift the local playground typically encompasses Lake Sumner in the north to Mt Hutt in the south, and Bealey or lately, Lake Brunner in the west. Mt Torlesse (6,555 feet) is 10 nm from the airfield and may produce lee wave to get things going nearby.

For an idea of the kind of soaring and the playground on days like this, have a look at Edwin Oude Vrielinik’s video on You Tube.

Search Edwinov GOPR2017. Better still, come and soar here.

Wave conditions open up long distance flights, with the record climb rate so far this season over 2,500 feet per minute and flights of several hundred kilometres recorded. A great experience for Hugo in his last week was 1,000km with Terry Delore in his newly refurbished ASH25. In mid-November Hugo departed for Drury and some summer in the north, but not before entertaining the club, many of whom were decked out in berets

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November 2017–January 2018

Canterbury: Great turn out for Hugo's BBQ.

Canterbury: the next generation.

and faux curly French moustaches, to a full-on French cuisine evening, personally created by Hugo, who worked wonders in

Canterbury: Hugo's BBQ.

the clubhouse kitchen from 11 am, including baking bread. Hugo, come back again!

Kev Bethwaite and the team are preparing

CLUB NEWS

Central Otago: Soaring Nor-east wave over Central Otago.

finishing touches to the facilities and organisation to host the inaugural Canterbury soaring competition in the first week of December. The week aims to give less experienced pilots an educational and skill enhancing introduction to competition flying, as well as delivering a social programme and local adventure activities in a style true to the gliding community.

Tim

CENTRAL OTAGO FLYING CLUB In September, our flying club helped run a very successful Wings and Wheels event at the airfield. Several gliders were on display and we did a demonstration winch launch which proved a crowd favourite. The soaring

Hawke's Bay and Waipukurau: Instruction in MX

season has started quite nicely. Early October saw a rare north-east wave set-up, bouncing 10 or 11 times downwind of the Hawkdun Range all the way to Alexandra.

This was accessible straight off the winch and could be easily followed up stream to its source 70 km away, following the clearlymarked wave at around 10,000 feet.

At the end of October, we winched four days in a row, taking advantage of the unstable airmass to get some nice cross country flights around the district. So far November is looking great, with fine soaring at Jerry’s course and the Regionals just up the road at Omarama. What an improvement on last year!

JR

GLIDING HAWKES BAY AND WAIPUKURAU Club statistics to date show no flying on 55% of Sundays since 01 July. This largely sums up the weather for the last several months. However, it has not all been doom and gloom. A local social club enjoyed trial flights to 3,000 feet with cloud and drizzle but had extremely smooth flights, an ideal introduction to the sport of gliding.

We had some fine and flyable weather in late September with 16 launches one day with training, trial and attempted soaring flights undertaken. The club utilised the Skylux tow plane for the day. The weather did not quite play ball for soaring with the longest flight being less than an hour and Allie Thompson landing the Libelle in a paddock.

Early October saw the AGM held with no changes to the club executive officers.

A Wednesday afternoon in October saw the sky full of energy but hard to work early on. James Foreman flew his LS3 for over two hours south and east of the airfield while Brian Kelly and Graham White completed an OLC flight of over 235 km in the ASH25M. Early November saw a Sunday with thermal and wave lift in a constantly changing sky. Jason and Brian Kelly in the ASH25M flew south to Dannevirke and to 10,000 feet while completing 215 km OLC, including the local triangle at an average ground speed of 177.9 km/h.

Youth membership continues to grow with a number of new youth students taking lessons.

November 2017–January 2018

51

CLUB NEWS

Hawke's Bay and Waipukurau: Wave photo were taken in southern Hawkes Bay early November showing low level lenticulars over the roll clouds.

A number of members are planning trips to Omarama over the next few months starting with the South Island Regionals, followed by the December Youth Soaring Development Camp and post-Christmas to early January.

Planning is underway for the 2018 Central Districts Championships to be held from Waipukurau Aerodrome from Sunday 18th to Saturday 24th February 2018 inclusive with Saturday 17th available as a practice day. The site is well known for its thermals, convergences and wave. If we believe the long-term weather forecast, it is going to be a hot, dry summer here in Hawkes Bay. Good thermals and wave should be the norm. A number of quality daily prizes are being put together. Entry forms are available on the web.

Summer is not far away and we look forward to some further great soaring weather.

TARANAKI Taranaki may be the place where the oil comes from, but it seems to be where the rain comes to. No flying in September, some in October but maybe by comparison we’ve struck oil in November with five flying days. None of them provided a full page of timesheet detail but the agonizing wait has ended. At the AGM, Peter Miller ended his stint as Treasurer and Dennis Green now has that role. No other changes.

Les Sharp has had hour-long flights in his ASW20 on nearly every launch I think and he says he is getting more used to the glider with every flight. Will Hopkirk recounted how, at work on a recent flying day he was briefing a helicopter pilot on the task to be done. They got whacked by a couple of solid thermals at which Will said he would rather be gliding than going back to work. “Go gliding!” said the helicopter pilot. So, Will did just that. He rushed off to Stratford – flew the

Hawke's Bay and Waipukurau: Photo from Allie of her land out in the Libelle.

52

November 2017–January 2018

PW5 all over the place, landed, then rushed home to his daughter’s sixteenth birthday party. Now that is the ‘Right Stuff’ of which legends are made.

A Taranaki group are going down to Omarama in early December taking the Janus G NN with them. This will be the furthest away a club glider has been taken.

We wish them all the best and look forward to reports of some excellent flying. Tough work I know, but someone has to do it!!

PJM

WAIRARAPA We asked for summer, or at least for the rain to stop. Someone heard us. The field has dried out and we've been flying pretty much every weekend, either flying our own students, who have been making good progress, or adding capacity to the Wellington operation. A consequence is two tired but very happy instructors. Jim has ploughed up another section of rough land, with he and Martyn deciding that we needed the country's biggest billiard table; their field levelling efforts have now put the rest of the airstrip to shame. The E-W vector is now in full use. Even the cows look happy AND it's not even proper summer yet.

Now, if we could just stop the grass from growing....

DH

CLUB NEWS

TAUPO

50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS Spring has seen an increase of activity around the Taupo Gliding Club, starting with the club’s 50th anniversary celebrations which happened over the Labour Weekend.

The Saturday was the main event with a fly-in which saw a variety of aircraft, vintage gliders, Tiger Moths and a Harvard along with our own club fleet and private gliders.

The evening get-together was shared with about 80 guests and a special thank you must be given to the Youth Glide members for their hospitality services. Unfortunately, and like most of the year, the weather deteriorated for the Sunday’s planned activities but overall a great time was had by all.

Our tow plane TPO has finally got her

wings and was back in the air in time for the Central Plateau Soaring Competition. TPO’s wing clusters failed inspection and required modification. Parts and plans had to come from the USA and the job turned out to be a long, time consuming process.

The soaring season has kicked off with the Central Plateau Soaring Competition held during the week of the 4th to the 11th November. This year the competition was held a week later than previous years with the anticipation of having better weather.

There was a good turnout of enthusiastic pilots all looking for some decent flights around the Waikato and as it turned out, there were four good flying days.

Congratulations to Tim Bromhead for the

CPSC win.

Summer is now just around the corner and we should see a further improvement in the weather, which can only mean better flying conditions which I am sure we are all looking forward to, so enjoy.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all from the Taupo Gliding Club.

Trace

November 2017–January 2018

53

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.

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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. Neville Swan. Phone 09 416 7125, email: nswan@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 flts. PU 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. $43,000.

Marc Morley. Phone 0274 626 751, 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. Ben Stimpson. Email: bstimpson@xtra. co.nz Phone 027 555 5485 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. Hadleigh Bognuda. Email hadleigh@ezyvet.com

190,000 negotiable. Grant Rookes/Owen Jones. Email grantliz@sekoor.co phone +61 4 0799 8959 +61 8 9332 7382 LS 4 • GMU and Hangar shares (15 metre space). The South Canterbury Gliding Club offers for sale LS 4 and hangar shares in the sunny side of the east hangar at Omarama. MU has a good quality trailer, Oxygen. Top surface of the wings and tailplane have been resurfaced. $65,000. Paul Marshall. Email P_Marshall@xtra.co.nz Phone 021 331 838 GMB Grob 102 Astir CS77, Standard 15m • Under 1,000 hours #1768 Price negotiable to right buyers. Seeking potential keen young light-weight owners for delightful to fly Astir. Cockpit weight limit 88kg incl parachute.

New ARA inspections & instruments done before handover. Maintenance up to date. Great Doug Hay custom built trailer in good condition. Easy rigging system, one person’s assistance required for just six minutes, the rest is a one-man rig. Excellent ground handling tow out gear. No canopy damage.

L/D 37 dry, 38 when ballasted. Borgelt & Winter varios. Terra Transponder + mode C & S mods. Microair 760 VHF Radio. $20,000. Warren Pitcher.

Email warrenpitcher@xtra.co.nz Phone 0274 720 338 Discus 1a. ZK-GYO • Cobra Trailer with spare wheel. 2 sets of winglets.

Cambridge M20 with Winpilot and Ipaq. Flarm system. Becker AR4201 radio. Borgelt B40 varios. Terra transponder. Mountain High oxygen system.

Carbon fibre cylinder. Twin battery system. Gear-up warning. National 360 parachute – rectangular canopy. Tow-out gear (Tail dolly, tow bar, wing wheel, stand). Factory manuals. Location: Upper Hutt / Wellington. $70,000. Tony Flewett. Email tonyflewett@gmail.com, Phone 04 526 7882 or 021 253 3057 DG400 GOI • good condition 1985. Lots of spare parts including prop, electrical bits. Clam shell trailer. This glider has been maintained by Solo Wings here in Tauranga and has recently had the engines top end done. We also have a spare engine for parts to sell for an additional $5k. Fitted engine under 200hrs and airframe about 1800. For more detail please make contact. $75,000 Roger. Email dg400@xtra.co.nz, phone 021 689 592

ASH26e • This is a fabulous self-launching motor glider in very good condition with the ever popular and fully supported rotary engine. Airframe 1000 hrs, Engine 110 hrs, Cobra Trailer, Wing Walker and tow out gear. $180,000 Price reduced. David Tillman. Email david@mfree.co.nz Phone 027 201 7120

Ventus 2cT 15/18m • Immaculate 2002 Ventus 2cT, GRY #95 finished in PU paint. Fully equipped including LX Navigation Zeus with Flarm and AHRS. Remote stick, Eos vario, com, Txpdr and EDS 02. Komet trailer. Full set Jaxida outdoor covers. Motivated seller with genuine reason for sale.

Please present all offers. Alan Belworthy. Email a.belworthy@xtra.co.nz, phone 0274 960 748

Ventus 2cxt, GBZ • Half share. Current owner Patrick Driessen (Drury Club). I will be taking ownership in October 2017. This is a high performance, current technology, aircraft with excellent flight characteristics with a sustainer engine. This is a unique opportunity to own a plane of this type at half the price but still enjoying the benefits of one of the best aircraft in New Zealand. To be based in Matamata. Maurice Weaver. Email project. technologies@gmail.com Phone 021 757 972

PW6-U. ZK-GPK • Constructed 2002. s/n 78-03-01. In very good order cockpit paint re-furbished. Normal instrumentation i.e. 2 x Altimeters and ASI's. Microair 720 Com. Borgelt B40 electric varios front and back seat.

2405 Total Service Hours in service. Full service history with Sailplane Services. Fully hydraulic disc brake Mod. (CAA approved). Currently no transponder or trailer but these can be supplied if required. Ross Gaddes.

Email ross@sailplaneservices.co.nz, phone 0274 789 123

Taurus 503 VH-NUF • 20 month old Taurus M powered by an air cooled two stroke two cylinder 50 hp Rotax 503 engine. Two seat, side by side, spacious self-launching glider. Only 114 Total hours and only 30 Engine hours. Comes with Pipistrel 5 year extended Warranty. Fitted with every possible extra including a Galaxy Ballistic parachute and a full set of instruments including an LX9000 with ProStick control. Even has an E22 Tost nose release. Beautifully finished with acrylic paint and a very high build quality. Spacious cockpit with leather seats and trim and maximum cockpit load is a generous 190 kg. Large blue tinted canopy with excellent visibility. Includes a dedicated Cobra trailer for long distance travel. Price $ AU

ASW 20 cl • in great condition. Piako Gliding Club in pvt Hangar. Price includes new instruments and radio. # 20823, Manf: 1985. TT 1655 hrs with 811 launches. 2 pot finish. Instruments: Ditter KRT2 Com, Terra TXPDR, Flarm. LX Navigation EOS Vario (GPS IGC LOGGER) with Remote Stick Controller. Water bags all good in wings. Mountain High oxygen system. Homebuilt Trailer. Hangar at Piako by negotiation. $60,000 Contact S Griffin. Email oldbuick@hotmail.com, phone 027 595 5191

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November 2017–January 2018

Schleicher KA-6BR ZK-GLX • Historic iconic design, and surely the cheapest and most rewarding entry into ownership. L/D 32:1, won the 1960 - 1963 'Worlds' and innumerable trophies since. 4600 launches,

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

Deadline for receipt of advertising for our February 2018 issue is 22 January 2018.

immaculate condition, no predictable expenses bar annuals. Tinted canopy, Borgelt variometer, Trig transponder, Icom IC-A5 radio, all accessories, good trailer etc. At Whenuapai. See SoaringNZ #48 article. Reluctant sale due to health. Jonathan Pote. Email: jonathanpote47@gmail.com Phone 0210 236 9728 DG 505 MB • Airframe under 400 hours, engine under 100 hours, 20/22m tips, Cambridge LNAV, Jaxida covers, Cobra trailer, some spares. Hangered at Omarama, hanger space may be for sale separately. Excellent condition currently undergoing 100hr/Annual/Bi annual instrument calibration. $200,000. J H Ludgater. Email: ludgater@gmail.com Phone 021 322 330 LS4 Glider • 1/3 Share and Hanger space, based Omarama. Tidy example of this easy to fly glider, always hangered in its own space. Current COA and 3000hr checks recently completed. Good for another 3000 Flarm, spot. O2, paracute, basic avionics and trailer. Well organised syndicate. All you need to get up there. $19,500 Phil Penney. Phone: 021733443 Email: filpenney@yahoo.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.

WANTED Damaged/broken Oudie • Oudie1 (or Oudie2) to use as parts for repair. (cracked screen OK as I have a working screen). Contact Glyn Jackson.

Email glyn@glynjackson.com, phone 021 0250 4646 Used Terra Transponder • Current one is US. Hamish McCaw. Phone 021 558 842. Email: mccawhamish@gmail.com Parachute • I need a replacement chute, ideally less than 10 years old and reasonably thin, needs to be good for 100kg. Jason. Email: Phone 021 977 240. Email: jason.price@tumu.co.nz.

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. Guy@glideomarama.com phone 03 438 9555

ADVERTISE IN

15 metre space Omarama • The easternmost hangar at Omarama. It has a lovely view to the east so you can watch the progress of the sea breeze, and is nice and sheltered when you are putting your glider away during a strong westerly or norwesterly blow. It is the best of both worlds, as you can enjoy the warm sunshine while fettling your glider in the morning, and stay in the shade in the heat of the late afternoon. The price for 15,000 shares is $16,000 but I am open to negotiation. Please contact me at garry@walaw. co.nz or if you want to be shown over the space, contact Karen Morgan.

Email morganjones@xtra.co.nz, Phone 027 299 0301 Omarama hangar space for sale • 15 metre. Located east side of Third Hangar (closet to Kahu Cafe and Terminal Building). Great neighbours. Will sell at cost (well below replacement value). Make an offer. Phone Chris free on 0800 733 228 for further details.

AVIONICS Cambridge Vario readout • Suit LNAV or SNAV. As new large size readout.

Requires 80mm hole. Never used. $75. Roger Sparks. Email: r.sparks@ xtra.co.nz, phone 0274 956 560

Cheapest aviation advertisements in New Zealand

OTHER FOR SALE Tim's Glider Tape, SOLD OUT •Contact to order more. Custom made wide insulation tape, just for us! It has the perfect stretch and stickiness. Available in 24mm ($5) or 32mm ($6). Tim Bromhead. Email tim@pear.co.nz Phone 0212179049 See pics and order online at http://pear.co.nz/tape Tost High Powered Winch •Up for grabs is a high powered winch, on the back of an Izusu truck. Perfect for any club that needs a new winch. Comes with 2 new reels of wire each 1500m long, three new parachute assemblies, cable splices, crimping tool etc. V8 small block engine rated to winch up to 750kg gliders. $45,000 Bruce Drake. Email Drakeaviation@hotmail. com. Phone 03 313 4261

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November 2017–January 2018

55

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