As we had been using PNE for the last few weeks Iggy has been busy briefing tow pilots on the differences between PNE and BZA, following is part of the pre & post flight exchange between Iggy & new tow pilot Dion Manktelow.

PNE is a 180hp Pawnee 150.  Differences are two fewer cylinders plus (do I recall correctly?) lower flap speeds.  A tangle of mic/tel leads and the fuselage tank as CEB.  I think that it starts with both mags ON.  Alternator rather than a generator.  Please note the normal bits and pieces such as hobbs time, tow heights and the like.

Cheers,

Iggy

After towing on Sunday, Dion replied:

Morning Iggy,
Looked everywhere for the missing cylinders, deduced they had been removed for C of G reasons. 
Climb attitude remains too low, reccommend removing a further 2 cylinders to allow nose to point higher.
 
Mistook the mirror for a 52" TV, it's huge.
 
Bit worried about effects of heat on the wingtips, appears the've been heated sufficiently to enable gravity assisted
droop groundwards. Likely a couple of days inverted in the sun would correct the defect. 
Suspect root cause to be exposure to the sun, but can't rule out transonic descents as a contributor.
 
She might be due a hip replacement as taxying in straight lines requires more than the full right rudder available. 
Was going to fit a ground adjustable trim tab to the rudder but couldn't find a coke can or cellotape.
 
I did get caught up in her garters dangling from the panel, no problem, i'm rated on garters and the removal thereof.
 
She's my 3rd Pawnee and as with the others she's very different but just the same. Dating sisters concurrently can be enormous fun but not without it's dangers.
 
Mate, you've got a great bunch of guys down there, it's always a pleasure.
Cheers
Dion

We've had some great flying the past week or so. I've heard rumours of some OOs being needed for some badge flights of some sort today in the westerlies.

Last weekend was a good one, with Alan flying down to Tongariro on Saturday, and myself down to Western Bays of Lake Taupo on Sunday.

Sunday also saw an ATC group spending the day winching with great success, over 40 flights done. The Wednesday before that our backup towplane PNE was not available, so winching was the only option. Despite this Ralph was busy all day in the twins, while Fin, Bob and myself went for an afternoon flying off the winch. It's great to see it's getting so much use.

We do need to get more people trained up on both driving and flying the winch, so the same people aren't stuck driving it all the time. I know Steve and Iggy in particular have spent many long hours on it recently, many thanks to them and the others. We'll try and put a note on the booking calendar when winching is happening, so people can get out and get trained up on it.

If you want to see what kind of flights people have been doing, check out the online competition. The latest day of flying for NZ can be seen here:

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/daily.html?df=&sp=2014&rt=olc&st=olc&c=NZ&sc=

Patrick Driesson in particular has been doing some remarkable flights of 400km+ recently from Drury. 6 flights over 400km in the past few months, and 4 over 300. See them here, and click the 'i' info button to see the track. Many have been down the west coast and around Hamilton's airspace.

On Sunday I met up with Patrick down at the Western Bays, in the same time I took to get down there from Matamata and back, he did the same but from Auckland. Inspiring stuff! The goal was to get to National Park, but was hampered by a very slow start around Matamata due to high cloud. By about 2pm the day actually got going properly. We will try again soon.

Tim

Neil helping out with the ATC cadets winch day

Down at the Western Bays

Didn't quite make it to National Park, another day...

As part of the ongoing training for our pilots Julian has asked me to run a session on Thermaling. Apart from teaching the ability to safely land out, this is the most important skill to develop if you are wanting to go cross country in a glider. Once you have mastered this skill, your confidence in your ability will grow and with that your enjoyment of the sport.

I will be conducting the session on Saturday 22nd February at 9.am. (Unfortunately I will not be able to conduct a session on Sunday 23rd as previously indicated.) Everyone is invited.

There is so much to learn and discuss with the art of thermaling that I thought it would be useful to read some material beforehand. That way we can concentrate on aspects that may be of particular concern to yourself.

The Training Module is complements of the Dartmoorland Gliding Club who have acquired it in turn from the Benella Gliding Club of Victoria.

To receive the Material go to the following and register your interest.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1l7Lcv43FB0tNfHe6W2OjoZW7m21VNC7NZKD9sFb2BSk/viewform

From there you will be given a link to the document.

I look forward to seeing you there. 

Cheers
Bill Mace

Summer So Far:

It’s worth commenting more on the Nationals as there really was a lot going on over the two weeks. So many people did so much to make the competition a success. Paul Castle did a sterling job as grid marshall, ably assisted by Nigel Brinkworth and a team of rope runners made up mainly of Youth Glide members (thanks Hamish, Emma,  Scott & others). Joan made sure all the paper work was in order & that everyone paid their bills as well as answering the retrieve phone. The radio was attended by Mavis & Evie while Jan kept everyone fed & watered.

With Ralph as contest director the whole fortnight was a huge success even if the weather was not always playing its part. A big thanks also needs to go to Bill and the Soaring Centre for their part in running a great competition. To all those day winners, class winners & overall winners - well done & congratulations. To those first time competitors I hope that you have had your appetite for soaring competitively well whetted.

I almost forgot the tow pilots, without whom the competition would not have got off the ground, thank you so much for your involvement in the completion. I’m sure I have forgotten to thank someone, its not intentional, there are so many that helped out, if this is you, thank you so much.

As a club we are well back from a much shorter than usual Raglan camp & you may have heard that BZA is having some repairs to the elevator as a result of some corrosion in the framework. This is a perfect opportunity to get that winch rating & have a go at getting away from a winch launch. Rumour has it that one pilot recently took a winch launch, climbed to over 4000’ overhead the field before pushing into wind toward the high point & climbing to near 5000’ in easterly wave! Now that is what I call getting your maximum value from a $15 winch launch! Come on out & see if you can top that as there is still plenty of great soaring weather ahead of us.

DM.

So it seems I have been awol for some time. It’s been a frantic period since I was last here.

A brief run down of my own flying for the last couple of months.

I entered the Northern Regional Competition in SN. Including the practise day we flew 8 days in a row with varying degrees of success and in a wide range of conditions.

We had tasks set in thermal conditions, on the ridge & on one day we had a task set in easterly wave.  It was a great feeling waiting for the start gate to open at 6500 feet with the brakes open in order not to enter airspace!

In terms of success I had one aim for the competition which was to finish at least one task. Which I achieved on the first day, although my time wasn’t spectacular. I also managed to land out 700m from the edge of the finish circle on one day & on another I landed out before reaching the start.

 In all it was a fantastic week of learning & socialising mixed in with some great flying. Overall I came 2^nd in the sports class.

Then came Christmas with its usual mix of family time & over indulgence of food & drink which was closely followed by the Multi Class National Competition and gliding carnival. Due to a shortage of brownie points & a depletion of Fun Tickets it seemed important to spend a week at

Pauanui with friends. I therefore missed the first week of the competition only to come back & enjoy the atmosphere helping with the bar in the evening of the second week. The whole time seemed to be a huge success with a number of pilots going solo, other competing for the first time and everyone enjoying the relaxed atmosphere & Jan’s hospitality.

The end of the competition meant the start of our Raglan Camp. On Friday we gathered at the airfield to start the operation to shift to the west coast. The twins were wheeled to the end of 10 & double towed directly over the Hamilton tower en-route to Raglan. On arrival overhead it was apparent that the caravan hadn’t arrived so Tony & I went in search of a thermal along with Steve and Peter in PK. We spent half an hour or more enjoying the harbour views before landing. The caravan crew arrived shortly after & we got set up for flying. The rest of the day was fairly active with trial flights & I also found time to take Mary for a flight over the harbour which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Anyway that’s almost enough from me, we are well set up at Raglan, NI is over & ready to be flown. Rob Shuttleworth has his glider there so get over & take a flight in an amazing location.

DM.

The regionals is underway, and we've had some interesting flying. A real mix of weather. Thermals earlier in the week, thunderstorms yesterday, easterly wave today, it's been madness.

Due to the crazy weather the past couple of days have been set with big circles north and south. Luckily today's circles included where the wave goes.. nearly. A few pushed too far out into the valley and landed out. I managed to land out also, but inside the finish line, so technically finishing the task successfully. A really fun day.

All the scores are going up on Soaring Spot, see them here:
http://www.soaringspot.com/nznr2013/

- Tim

Our intrepid scorer

Climbing in the wave

Now where to go?! ran out of gap

From yesterday's thunderstorms

Sorry another update :) luck you!

We've started the fly fast course at Matamata, and we're off with a bang. Well, more of a gentle miander up north through the sea breezes as they attacked from all sides.

Although not a contest, we are testing out our new automatic scoring system - so the flights are going onto Soaring Spot as soon as the pilots upload them. See how and where we're going here:

http://www.soaringspot.com/mscff2013/

The course sees Lisa and Peter Trotter bring their coaching talents to New Zealand for the first time. We went through a lot of what we want to acheive at briefing. Flying was about concentrating on climbing well today. We'll be critiqued tomorrow on this aspect.

We should note towing is available during the week for any club members, but note, no instructors are available.

A talented bunch. At something surely.

Not So Weekly Winglet #261

I will try & keep this brief tonight.

We have been quite active since I last wrote.

The winch has continued to get plenty of use by the club and by ATC cadets. We have logged over 200 launches with one rope break & one weak link break to my knowledge. The new brake shoes fitted have been working well. The Tractor also has a new starter switch that should save having to hot-wire it all the time.

On the flying scene we have had some challenging days with mixed results. I had a landout near Te Poi a couple of weeks ago after leaving home with the words “please don’t land out today” ringing in my ear I did just that. Fortunately Bill came & retrieved me and I was only an hour and a half late leaving for Auckland for the night (rather a quiet drive too).  A review of my trace revealed a loss of over 1000’ in under 30 seconds.

More recently this weekend saw some high cloud threaten to spoil the flying but in spite of that there were several flights of over an hour, although conditions were quite weak at times. I had firsthand experience of the weak conditions having taken a 2000’ tow & then spending almost an hour at or below release height (character building indeed). The day was cut short by the reluctance of BZA to start. Despite the best efforts of all in attendance she just refused to go. Tracy even climbed on the bonnet to “check the sparkplugs” to no avail. So we packed up & towed her back by the tail to the pump & fuelled her up before trying once more to start her. This time to add to everyone’s frustration BZA decided to fire up! Who knows....

Anyway this week is the fly fast course followed by the Northern Regional Competition starting on Sunday with casual towing available throughout both weeks. I also want to remind you all about the National Competition in December/January followed by our Raglan camp, you won’t want to miss out on any of the action at either of these.

Tracy assured us she was checking the sparkplugs.