PETER BRUNTON Age: 13 Club: Darling Down Springs Club Hours: 82 I was amazed at how many young people there were at the camp. I am more used to seeing much older pilots in the clubs I have been to so far. It was awesome to have a good laugh and make some new mates that are interested in the same stuff as I am. I particularly loved going solo; I still have to wait another two years to go solo back in Australia – yay for NZ! I will have to convince my Mum and Dad to let me come back so I can fly more by myself and finish off my B certificate. I thoroughly enjoyed learning ridge soaring as where I am from it is all thermal flying. It was great to learn a new skill. I also really enjoyed seeing different types of gliders and each of them had slightly different controls. I’ve become used to seeing the gliders we have at my club, and I saw lots of new sorts of gliders that I hadn’t seen before and it was great asking people what all the controls do. I was particularly impressed with all the different sounds coming out of the varios! Way better than our boring beeping ones. I have never seen 3 tow planes so busy towing all the gliders up. I also loved seeing the small patches of snow on the tops of the mountains. We don’t get snow anywhere near my place. Another highlight for me was doing the out-landing practice down the other end of the runway. It was really weird to be doing these circuits after doing normal circuits for 10 days. The low approach and landing was brilliant. I packed lots of learning and flying into a very short period and I am going to be re-reading my diary over the next few months to remember all the notes I took. The instructors were really fun and knew lots. It was good to have so many instructors all in the one place to help us out. Whenever someone was doing something to the gliders – rigging, cleaning, testing, someone would always take me through it if I asked. That was awesome. I am thankful to Gavin and the other gliding clubs that allowed us to use the gliders and tow planes at reduced rates, although I got so much flying in that I will probably be doing jobs around the house for a long time to repay the ‘Bank of Dad’. Thank you to all the helpers in the kitchen, the cooking was delicious and although Dad said he ate far too much and it will take him a while to lose the weight, I think it’s good as I won’t need ballast in the glider. Thank you to all the sponsors and organisers, especially Roger and Kim Read that made the camp so special for all us kids. I want to continue to improve my flying, so I can enter some competitions and one day maybe represent NZ, although this might take a while. I made lots of new friends who I hope to see around the gliding fields in the future.
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February–April 2018
