Welcome to the first edition (in a while) of the Piako Gliding Club newsletter, The FlyPaper.

The newsletter can be downloaded by clicking the link below:

flypaper 2016 aug.pdf

Of particular note is:

Our annual awards dinner will be held on Saturday 20 August, starting around 6:00 pm at the club rooms. 

Jan and Joan have agreed to put on the dinner, to be followed by presentation of club trophies and the evening’s entertainment.

Cost will be $25 per person.  You don’t have to purchase tickets ahead of time, but please let Joan know if you are planning to attend by !7 August (to confirm catering arrangements).

Joan’s email is:

 winefamily1062@gmail.com

It's been a busy summer. Tim and 4 other kiwis in Benalla, competing at the Australian national champs. Our annual raglan camp, with some good and not-so-good weather. And next weekend the NZ Nationals down in Taupo.

Results from Benalla

Full results availalbe on soaring spot.

The question is asked, do we know who is in the NZ team for the worlds next year? The selection process is still underway, I suspect we'll find out after the NZ Nationals. It's going to be tricky, as we at no stage have compared all NZ pilots at a single contest.

Back in NZ the club has been over at Raglan, with a few coastal flights happening. Sounds like quite a few rainy days too, with 12 flying days.

At Matamata airfield, the Walsh flying school is well underway. Our second webcam has been installed properly now, so we get a good view looking North from the radio room.

The Walsh Camp flags and portable control tower

This coming weekend we start the NZ Nationals at Taupo. A list of pilots is available on soaring spot. We'll try and post updates when we have time, and check the facebook pages for more frequent updates.

Steve Wallace waiting around on the grid, last day, before the day was cancelled

Some of the fun flying conditions in Austrlia

With the Australian nationals starting in a few days, many pilots from around the world are arriving in time to get ready and practice flying.

The contest is the 'pre-worlds', a practice run for the following year where the worlds will be held in the same location. It's a practice for both pilots and organisers. It's also the Australian national competition.

From New Zealand we have 5 pilots competing:

• Alan Belworthy from Tauranga, ASG 29, 18m class
• Brett Hunter from Tauranga, JS1, Open class
• Mike Strathern from Nelson Lakes, Ventus B, 15m class
• Steve Wallace from Whenuapai, 15m class
• Myself, Tim Bromhead, from Piako, Ventus C, 15m class

Also arriving is Steve's family, Alan's family, Barbara Hunter, Julian Elder (Team captain), Terry Jones and Karen Morgan (Sailplane Racing Committee), so there's lots of Kiwis to keep the aussies off our backs!

Tim and Mike have been here for a few days and had a chance to fly. The first day was blue, so I went off to Tocomuwal and return. The second day Mike, Alan and I flew around lines of rain, and did around 300km, dodging showers and exploring the region.

We're posting small updates on facebook, and will post here as well.

Links to news, photos and results will be on the competition website http://www.ozglide.com

Helping unload a container of 4 ASG 29's. Never again :)

Tim on the first blue day, very few thermal clouds

Some of the rain we flew around.

Photo from Mike of Tim in VTM. Note the lovely weather, actually lots of lift in places at 10,000 feet

It's a wet, humid day in the Waikato, and today is the practice day for the NI Regionals. I don't think there will be much practice going on, however a good chance to sort out GPS equipment and the like. We have 18 competitors entered so far.

The past week we've had the X-Country course, which this year had 9 participants.  They took turns flying cross country with insturctors, and flying on their own. From our club Will Camp and Noel Bailey both flew and had some of their longest solo flights so far.

Marion from Auckland is catering for the contest and is looking for help this week with dinners, if anyone would be willing to give up a few hours even for a day.

The entry form for the Nationals in Taupo is up, and you can find it here:
http://goo.gl/forms/IBxLuqp35D

Starting 23rd Jan 2016. More info can be found on their website: http://www.taupoglidingclub.co.nz/2016-gliding-nz-multiclass-champs.html

For the regionals coming up, tasks and scores as they come in will be going up on Soaring Spot which can be seen here:
http://www.soaringspot.com/en_gb/nznir2015/

Landouts can been seen on soaring track:
http://soaringtrack.com/nir2015/pilots

Tomorrow looks like a good day, we'll try and put updates here and on Facebook when we can, although time is limited when scoring and flying!

New canopy cover for XP! Thanks to Marion from Auckland Gliding Club

The end of a long 400km flight

Some lovely convergence flying recently

Last weekend we had the pleasure of the Whenuapai club visiting us. It was great to see so many gliders, and while the rain kept the first day from us, Sunday and Monday provided some interesting flying.

Thanks yet again to Jan for a wonderful dinner. Sadly, that will be her last at the club for quite a while as she's retiring from the 'catering business'.

It was quite the hive of activity.

The rare gypsy caravan tow vehicle scurrying from it's nest. Not often seen out in the open.

It is with great pleasure I introduce our new webcam. It's been a long time in the making, but it's finally here. See it now on the club's homepage! The old one is there too, but the plan is to replace that one as well.

Now we can check Steve is working on his trailer anytime.

This week I'm down in Taupo scoring and flying in the contest down here. BZA is coming down too, so it's going to be winching at Matamata for a couple of weekends.

Results and details of tasks and pilots are available on Soaring Spot, with scoring updated every fifteen minutes as they roll in. 16 gliders competing so far, in a single class.

http://www.soaringspot.com/en_gb/central-plateau-soaring-competition-2015/results

Todays practice day went well, with a few landouts and good flying. It sounded like Matamata was busy too.

The rare gypsy caravan stalking it's prey

Jeeze I can't believe I have to live in this country

Don't forget start of season briefing tomorrow morning (Sept 26th), 9:30am!

We had a great club dinner last weekend, thanks to Jan, Joan and everyone else who helped out.

This year dinner was more September than June, and for once it wasn't freezing cold!

Congratulations to all prize winners:

• Presidents Pot - Bill Mace for his 500km flight on the ridge
• De Renzy Pot - Noel Bailey
• Tom Martin Trophy - Bill Mace for outstanding friendship to the club.
• Les Riesterer’s Short Course - Dave Dennison
• Ken Bartlett Trophy - Tony Davies for his 300km Gold Distance, 132km/hr on west coast June 2105
• Care 200 - Bill Mace
• Dave Dennison X Country Trophy - Tim Bromhead

Other Achievements:

• QGP Certificates - Dave Dennison, Will Kamp
• Gold Badges - Tony Davies ( 132km/hr on west coast June 2105)
• Diamond Distance - Bill Mace
• 3 Diamonds - Tim Bromhead

Bill and Iggy

Julian and Dave

Tim and Iggy

Joan, Iggy and Jan

Julian & Noel

Julian & Tony

Iggy & Dave

A great day flying last Saturday out on the coast. We organised the tug to tow over to Raglan for some morning tows, and then get it back to Matamata for lunchtime.

For those not on facebook, a few of us made videos of the fun.

Dave in the duo GYL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVefuhHcgFg

Timelapse of the coastal run by Myself in GBA. 40 minutes down to 4!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPGtEn3rKCk

And one from Mark in his JS1
https://youtu.be/yoaYYZbwOgs

It turned out a bit more moisture coming through than expected, so we were all down on the ground again by 3ish after a couple of runs up and down. We should organise such adventures more often :)

A bleak return to Raglan

After a successful ridge weekend 2 weekends ago, we're up for another go at the great MSC Task Weekend this coming Saturday & Sunday (21st & 22nd March).

At this stage the long range forecast is for clear weather Saturday, with a good chance Sunday will be clear too until late evening.

Don't forget we will have the BBQ going Saturday evening, so bring some meat and/or a salad. The bar will be open of course as well.

The turnpoint for your GPS can be found on the MSC website:

http://msc.gliding.co.nz/files/

For Piako club members, contact Tim if you're wanting to have a go x-country in a twin. And book the single seaters on the website.

A task and briefing will be given at 10am both days.

See you out there!

Who doesn't love a good rigging in the morning?!