Our class didn't fly yesterday. The 18m and open classes launched, but struggled to stay up. We then basically ran out of time to fly our classes. Again it was a very strong wind, this time from the south. The good news is temparatures were down to normal levels, with a max of 28 degrees! We were wearing jackets on the grid due to the cold wind.

Today looks like a much better day with temperature up to 32 degrees, and less wind.

Speaking of not flying in cold places, I see the champs in Omarama are having a lot of non flying days, results and info are available here:
http://www.glidingcomps.42.net.nz/nat2013/

From our neck of the woods we have Alan Belworthy flying in the 15m class, Brett Hunter and Dave Jensen. There's also quite a few flying from Drury including Ross Gaddes, Nigel Davy / Nigel McPhee, and Grant Nelson / Geoff Gaddes. Good luck to all!

Sunset from the other night

Day 7. Practice day (yesterday).

We started the day with an opening ceremony of sorts in the auditorium next to the airfield. This new building doubles as a movie theatre. The mayor of Benalla came along, along with the minister for aviation who announced $200,000 of funding will be coming for Benalla airfield.

We then had morning tea followed by a more typical pilots briefing with weather report, and the rules. A few interesting differences between flying in NZ and Aussie:

• This contest is the first they've used start lines instead of start circles.
• No ops normals.
• They don't have SPOTs setup like we do in NZ for contests.
• Thermals go up to 15,000 feet!
• Almost no gliders have transponders, they just don't use airspace, and don't really need to. And because of that, controllers aren't used to gliders at all.

Our task today was a good one. I launched late due to my lateness, so the rest of the 15 meter gliders left without me. The first leg was very difficult, with everyone struggling. Started at 5000 feet, and flew between 1500 and 3000 on track.

Once reaching the first turnpoint we got some good air, and after a lot of slow thermals, climbed up to 10,000 feet. This gave a pretty good glide to the next turnpoint, with one decent climb to get onto finals, and home.

Took about 50 minutes longer than I should have, most of it spent on the first leg and then mucking around to get to 10k. Turned out to be the slowest of the day of ALL classes, but not too worried, that's what practice days are for. It's going to take a while to get used to finding scratchy thermals in blue over unusual countryside.

I forgot to mention yesterday, we finally found out who our Tasman trophy competitor is, a friendly chap Ian McCallum. Flying an identical glider type, the Ventus C. He didn't know until the day before either!

The rather plush auditorium for our briefings. More seats than the clubhouse.

The mighty Ventus C

Day 8. It rained, but then we competed. 

Yes, somehow some sort of small front came through and delayed our launch until 2pm. We were almost not sure if we were going to be flying, but the sky opened up, and the sun came out. It was a touch windy too, with 20-30 knots wind on the ground, crosswind to most of the task.

A 316km racing task was set and can be seen here:
http://www.soaringspot.com/ausmulti13/results/15-meter/task/day1.html

I made a few mistakes for this first competition flight in Aussie:

• Started too late at nearly 4pm! Just too late for a 300km flight. Even though the thermals do keep going later here, 30 knots of wind isn't going to help, and makes final glides that much shorter.
• Didn't keep upwind of the Walbies on the way home. This was critical, so I could ridge soar home. Partly because I was late, the thermals were weaker, and one thermal took me 11km downwind.
• Need to take a damp cloth onto the grid to wipe the dust off the glider after towing it down.

Lessons learned! Overall a very enjoyable day.

Anyway landed at an airfield 30km awa with another glider, after getting stuck behind the hills. An aero-retrieve and landed back at the airfield about 8:30.

Results are here:
http://www.soaringspot.com/ausmulti13/results/15-meter/daily/day1.html 

Until tomorrow...

Organised chaos

Sitting, waiting for the sky to clear

The view of the hills I should be on...

There was a touch of haze today

Tow back in sunset from the nearby airstrip

Day 5. The glider arrives.

Temp for today: 44 degrees. I've never quite experienced such heat. I thought the heatwave in New York in July was bad, but this is another step up.

Ian turned up with the Ventus after briefing. We found an empty hangar to rig it in, as it was already getting pretty hot. We went over the trailer, and rigged the glider. The Ventus C has recently been refinished, so is in immaculate condition. It has a great panel, featuring a large screen LX9000.

One interesting feature is the air extractor mod. This helps with ventilation in the cockpit, and is also meant to give a performance increase. Key point: ventilation.

The cockpit and rigging is very similar to the Discus B, the only major difference being the Flaps. So rigging was easy, it has typical clamshell trailer.

I decided to get the glider weighing done today, as we rigged the glider right next to the weighing station, and it wasn't busy. All gliders have to be weighed to ensure we're not over all up max weight. We're also weighed with the car hitched up and no pilot, so that spot checks can be done during the contest to ensure we haven't loaded up too much. I put 84 litres on each side, and it came up to 1.5Kg under all up max weight.

By the time we were ready to fly it was 3:30. This was my first flight in a flapped glider.

We towed up to 2000 feet and found a thermal over town. Only problem was no vario noise which we soon figured out. It didn't take long to get to 8000 feet, and we headed north.

Being new to flaps, I have to say they are awesome. It's like an effortless turbo boost mode for the glider. Pretty much every time I'd normally have to change the trim, I instead change to a different flap setting eg. entering a thermal. The trim doesn't actually get used a huge amount.

We flew north, then south east to touch the "mountains". It was a lot of firsts. First time I'd flown from 2000 feet to 8000 feet in one thermal. First time thermalling up to 10,000 (No oxygen system setup yet, that comes tomorrow). First time with flaps. 

We landed safetly and enjoyed a restaurant quality meal at the clubhouse.

A rather tidy Ventus C Panel, featuring the LX9000

Getting a good weighing. Ian the owner with the drink bottle.

The trough line I should have jumped into

Flying towards the mountains. It was raining, so didn't get too close.

Day 6. Pre practice day practice day.

Yesterday a number of pilots flew big tasks. Brian Hayhow flew hist first 750km flight. A number of guys starting from nearby Tocumwal flew 1000km. All in a trough line that had setup a line of 12-15,000 feet cloudbase and strong thermals, all in a line. Amazing stuff! Read more here:

soaringcafe.com/2013/01/several-1000-km-flights-and-records-from-tocumwal-what-a-day/

Today we sorted out the Oxygen system on board the aircraft, fixed the water valves to not leak, and bought a container to fill the tail more easily. That's pretty much everything sorted.

I went for a fly with some birds, however it was a local flight between thermals, simply to get used to flying with water on board. Only a few other brave souls flew, as it was just too stable looking.

I have never flown a thermal with a *flock* of birds. We don't get that in NZ.

Tomorrow practice day... (actually already flown, results are here http://www.soaringspot.com/ausmulti13/results/15-meter/daily/day-1.html)

Day 3. Let's go flying

The Ventus C has been confirmed to turn up Saturday morning. So to get familiar with the local area we went for a flight in a syndicated Duo Discus. 30 members in the syndicate. An interesting approach.

To fly I'd have Colin, a syndicate member taking me for a flight. He also happens to be the person in charge of weighing all the aircraft. Today would be completely blue with temperatures around 40. We DI'ed the glider and got it ready in the hangar and the shade.

We started off by leaving the glider in the hangar and helping launch the grid. In 40 degree heat running ropes is a fun exercise in itself. Actually it's mostly walking the ropes.

Finally we launched, and flew north to get a feel for the area. There are some small hills running north from Benalla, and along them the thermals were good, reaching about 7000 feet. On the flat though was a different story with harder to work thermals, not going about 4500 or so. I suspect there was an inversion in place, and only the hills were creating thermals hot enough to punch through it.

Not the best photo in the world, but that's all I got :)

Clouds, bah! Up by the Murray River

'The Wallbies' hills looking back towards Benalla. Note the similarities to the previous photograph.

Day 4. Swimming pool day.

Decided not to fly today. Could have hired a club glider, but it would have cost a few hundred dollars for a few hours. The Ventus would be arriving tomorrow, so instead we found the local swimming pools which were surprisingly devoid of people for a very hot day.

That evening we had a picnic outside the Swanpool Cinema, and 1950's style cinema 30 minutes south of Benalla.
www.swanpoolcinema.com.au

We saw a couple of very interesting musical documentaries including "Searching for Sugar Man" which was great.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searching_for_Sugar_Man

Glider turns up tomorrow...

Ooh curtains for a movie. That's been a while.

Day 1, 1st Jan

Packing up is always fun, especially when you need to carry all equipment to go gliding on top of all the normal paraphernalia for three weeks away. What are the bare essentials? What should I buy over there? Should I take the big bottle of sun screen or the small?

Somehow we found a flight leaving at a reasonable hour of 3pm, which meant leaving Hamilton at 12ish. Arrival time in Melbourne was 5:30 local time.

I visited Delio in Melbourne Royal Hospital, who is recovering well after a gliding accident in Australia. One ankle they had a plan for, with the other waiting for the swelling to go down before they decide what to do. Otherwise he was in good condition, and good spirits.

I was then met by Ian Grant, who is very generously entrusting his Ventus C to me for the contest. They also gave me somewhere to stay in Melbourne, and he delivered some slightly bad news. The glider had a wheel up landing and needed repair. But we didn't really know how much damage there was.

Need a plane with engines to start with

Day 2, 2nd Jan

Today we learned more about the glider condition. Ian's glider partner took it for a fly and had the undercarriage collapse landing on a rough field. His initial concern was he'd ripped the belly hook off completely, as there was now a hole. In fact Ian had removed it deliberately, so that wasn't actually a problem and the only damage was a undercarriage door ripped off, which is being repaired as I write. Glider should be delivered on Saturday, just in time for the 45 degree temperatures.

To get to Benalla, I caught the train from Melbourne. Mobile Internet is so much cheaper here, so I bought a sim card for my phone and browsed facebook while passing the kangaroos and the acres and acres of flat, yellow, airfield like farmland. Arriving at Benalla, I realised I needed to get to the gliding field over the other side of town. They're a friendly bunch, so kindly sent a taxi driving club member to pick me up.

When I arrived, it sounded like slightly crappy conditions. Blue, with an inversion at 4000 feet. Just like Matamata really, except hotter.

We found accommodation in the balloonist hut on the airfield. Pictures of balloons everywhere. A ballooning stained glass window even. We'll see if we can figure out how to replace it with a glider stained glass window as a practical joke. It has one slightly old air conditioning unit, which is a lot better than no air conditioning unit.

The airfield at Benalla is huge. There are 4 main runways, with taxiways big enough to land on. 2 of the runways are primarily for powered aircraft, with one sealed runway. A lot of guys have turned up early to practice for the contest. 76 entries so far. Basically everything about this contest is scaled up.

That night Brian Hayhow, who flew at Matamata in the Tasman trophy last year, took me to a BBQ with some of the guys and girls who are in a 'SpeedFly' course. This course is much like an advanced cross country course, with the primary goal to increase contest flying speed.

Today got up to about 36 degrees, with the next few days forecast 40+.

Melbourne Train Station

Benalla Airfield. Big and hot.

Happy New Winglets - little tipbits from the week that is (1) and other half truths ….

Happy New Year!

After a couple of fine post-Xmas flying days in the company of a dozen or so Auckland visitors, 2012 drew to a close with the over-riding theme that 2013 was going to be a whole lot better. I think thats what we always say – it’s just that we cannot remember (glass half empty) or live in eternal hope ( glass half full). In fact a very enjoyable new years eve was spent with the AGC crew, a number of full glasses and a wonderful meal prepared with the hard labour and the watchful eye of Marion Moody. A quiet Jan 1 followed – why was the flying so challenging?

Celebrating success on the same day (31 Dec) was Neil Raymond who had taken advantage of a great ridge day and completed a 300km task in XP deep into the boonies behind Thames where Julian and me were cruising (out on the coast). A fantastic effort Neil nicely done – stories began to circulate that he had made it into the top turn-point by just 30 metres, however this very fine margin was found not to be the case once the correct quadrant was applied to his track. Relief all round. It was a great note to finish the year on and a fabulous flying day!

Xmas Camp (Edouard was the sole PGC camper – me staying at Julians house doesn’t count as camping), was more of a working bee than a flying camp thanks to the weather, probably just as well there were some bad days as the hangar doors project finally got under way. Thanks to Julian for making up the team and Edouard and others who dropped in and found themselves with a task to do. We can begin accepting memberships from females again as you no longer need to have a spinach and protein diet before attempting to open the hangar!

On that subject, please treat the doors with some respect – avoid smash and bash as the two halves meet up and don’t open them further than needed. The work is on-going and progress will hopefully be impeded by wonderful flying weather! More importantly on the other subject, girls, ladies, we would love to have you flying with us – Google "women in gliding" and help us to grow the numbers of female participants in NZ!

Wednesday 2^nd Jan saw the move to Raglan and a big effort from a dedicated team who achieved the move with great success, the only hitch being Roger becoming lost in Raglan and leading Edouard on a scenic tour down steep hills with the caravan in tow! Will Kamp and Rob Munn did the double tows (immaculately I am told) under the watchful eyes of Julian and Steven with a lot of help from BZA and Tony Davies. We managed 7 trial flights on the day which was a nice comfortable start.

The 3^rd was not so nice, and had to be cancelled due to lousy weather. Steven and me entertained ourselves waterproofing a very leaky caravan!

The situation now is that both PC & PK are at Raglan (with BZA of course) and SN is there as well. NI and XP remain at Matamata where towing will be available behind Aucklands tug until the end of the day Friday 4^th Jan. Please phone the clubhouse and check they are still there before relying on this info!

SO – GET PUT TO RAGLAN AND ENJOY SOME GREAT FLYING!!!!

Reminder: The key dates for the holiday period are:

1.    Xmas Camp Waharoa – 26 Dec – 6 Jan

2.    Raglan Camp – 2 Jan – 20 Jan

3.    Walsh Memorial Flying School Waharoa 8 Jan – 22 Jan – no club flying from Waharoa for these dates

4.    7 Jan Australian Multi-Class Nationals start – Tim defending his Trans-Tasman trophy – deluge him with supportive emails and best wishes!!

PC

Thermalling weather still!

Last Wednesday was a lack-lustre day but 6 flights were notched up by a trial flight, Phil Cox, Carl Henderson, Peter Minor and Ian Finlayson, ably assisted by Iggy Wood in PNE and Ralph Gore – so I am reliably informed.

Saturday started a great summer weekend  and the club activity was pleasing to see, despite the lack of WW (returning this week as SN) and NI being stuck in the corner next to a dead BZA – (shouldn’t decompose and begin smelling too soon, although the signs are there that age is upon her as the vital bones begin to crack under very normal loads). Actually, I feel a rant coming on – its bloody disgusting that proper replacement parts that are clearly poorly engineered and defective, should continue to be sold and legitimized, placing pilots at risk and causing consequential damage to aircraft not retrofitted with an emergency system to prevent damage when the part breaks. Pardon me – could we just have the parts made properly, and not have to pay through the nose for rubbish. The originals lasted 40 odd years the new ones last 2. Maybe the South American drug lords are finding good investments in aircraft part manufacturing, or did the red shed get involved?  

Ahem. Back to Saturday – the numbers shot up to 15 according to the computer, but the last 2 flights were pilotless if the data is to be believed, however someone paid for these drone experiments and I am pleased to advise that PC is none the worse for wear, so all systems must have functioned OK. Truth is I suspect Josh Money was bashing circuits and the repetition might have been too much for Neil. Stop there – a HUGE thank you to Neil who graciously, and very typically, did not remind me that he should not have been on the duty roster at all, due to the fact he is our MO and puts a very large amount of his free time into keeping our fleet shipshape and re-building our winch with the rest of his spare time - I’m sure I heard his cows complaining the other day that they never saw much of him any more. Thanks mate I will see that doesn’t happen again – forget Raglan, someone will volunteer, WON’T THEY!!!!

Next time you rock up after all the gliders are on the grid, fly, and bugger off before its time to put the fleet away, think about Neil, the instructors and club officers, and a few general members, who all willingly give heaps of time to make it possible for the club to function. They pay the same fees as you and often overlook claiming minor expenses just for the love of what they do. If you feel you have nothing special to give, you are wrong, your time would be appreciated and taking the time to contribute and socialize builds a better club spirit – and our beer is very well priced!

Sorry, another rant/distraction, but a worthy one. Other Saturday flyers included Tim, Bill, Chris, Edouard, Will, Julian and Alan, with Dennis and Rainer providing instruction, and a very fine but unrecorded PNE pilot who gets our sincere thanks for his or her toils – all 15 of them.

Sunday was a quiet affair with Jamie at the helm and Tony Davies taking up tow duties depite being on the instructors roster, and me being occasionally at the DP desk, (thanks to those who took over whilst I terrorized the Cambridge hills).  We got a trial flight away first up – Shawn enjoyed his time in PC and promised to be back – he’s the one in the racy looking wheelchair with black & yellow carbon wheels - watch them mate, a few of us are cyclists and could try them out while you are away! Peter, Dave Dennison, Stuart Wilson, Julian and me in UL pretty much made up the numbers but were well supported by a total of 3 trial flights, so it wasn’t a bad day. The Easterly breeze killed off things relatively early however so we had plenty of time for a chat and computer fixes after the day was done. (How many times do I have to be reminded that many laptops have a wifi switch, very often located out of sight and easily switched off during handling????).

Only one weekend until Xmas – Camp that is – are you coming?

Reminder: The key dates for the holiday period are:

1.    Xmas Camp Waharoa – 26 Dec – 6 Jan

2.    Raglan Camp – 2 Jan – 20 Jan (yes there is an overlap – Auckland Club may be there and towing/winching may be available from them – unable to confirm this, but hope to next week)

3.    Walsh Memorial Flying School Waharoa 8 Jan – 22 Jan – no club flying from Waharoa for these dates

Lets make it a long party and enjoy some great flying if the promised stability doesn’t eventuate! I am sure there will be some thermals popping – I hope they have cores I can find the middle of – still I am used to one sided affairs .........

PC

What a month it has been and yet I have caught up with so few members!

Big thanks to Tim and Steve Wallace for keeping you up to date with the contest and subsequent events. Congratulations to both on your results too.

The week prior to the Regionals was the Cross Country course where David Muckle, Neil Raymond (refresher) and me joined 9 others flying alternately with highly experienced instructors and by ourselves, learning the tricks of the trade as far as getting away from our comfort zones and flying a task goes! Just like the contest that followed, every day was a flying day which was simply wonderful and hugely beneficial to all participants in terms of a maximum return on time (and money) invested.

Huge wraps go to Bill, Ralph and all the MSC team and talented Instructors for putting a wonderful week  together, and not for one moment forgetting Jan, Marianne, Joan, Maurice, June and any others I have missed, all volunteering to do the myriad of tasks that made it all possible. I must make a special mention of Joan who battled the odds as we all landed out and tried to advise her where we were! Yes all 5 club gliders landed out on the Thursday, as well as many others, some sort of record, although ignominious, we believe. A typical source of Joan’s frustration was myself, who, having two days earlier, expounded in briefing, the virtues of an app called Outlanding, had cause to use it after doing just that on an airstrip alongside  highway 27 north of Tirau. On phoning in to ensure the text message from the app had indeed worked, I was tersely asked what the hell I was doing in Clevedon. Apparently the computer at the clubhouse took exception to the data provided and there I was telling them I was in Tirau, and we all know that people tell lies, not computers, especially over-excited pilots, still buzzing on adrenalin from making their first outlanding. But seriously, my navigation is not that bad – I was pretty sure I knew where I was, especially since I had just been up close and personal with a giant corrugated iron sheep trying to get some lift over the town.

However, WW and I duly got picked up by Ralph who knew where I was, (a popular spot I was later told by Trev Terry, who has visited it twice in his illustrious carreer of hundreds of outlandings) – how proud was I with my first real paddock choice! The other two PGC outlanding debutantes David and Neil had been shadowing each other, and eventually Neil followed Dave into the same paddock after some hasty re-arrangements to where NI was sitting to allow XP in!

Now back to Joan and going from the highs of my first paddock landing to the lows of facing the wrath of the Retrieves manager – you don’t want to do this! On the mat I was, for causing extra work on a day when the hairdresser was obviously a better place to be than the gliding club. I was advised several times, very loudly and publicly, that I was required for a disciplinary hearing at the retrieves computer after dinner. Imagine my trepidation as I was ordered into a chair (the hard uncomfortable one) alongside Joans (the plush adjustable executive one), to have the evidence of my ill given co-ordinates displayed, in order that I did not at any time thereafter EVER give bum data to the Retrieves desk at any event again! “There” – I was told – “are the co-ordinates that you gave us, and I will show you where they say you were on the map” – click to map – a beautiful sight it was too – there was a large X representing WW smack in position in Totman Rd Tirau. I cannot describe the feeling of utmost vindication that came over me as I stared at the screen and then at the ashen face of Obergruppenfuhrer Wine who was trying to convince me that when it had been done previously, and several times, it had come up with Clevdon. Poor overworked Bill Mace was even dragged into the explanatory evidence that by now was being proffered, but I was not listening – I was silently thanking the unknown developer of the Outlanding app, as I  made my way to the bar to celebrate!

These are the sort of laughs that make memories and that is only when you get together with a collection of such wonderful diverse people that make up our gliding community, that you realise how lucky you are to have a lifetime interest sport such as ours. I heard Ritchie McCaw say something similar as a reason for his ongoing love of gliding in his interview with Kim Hill last Saturday, which is telling when you imagine all the people he must get to meet in a season!

Two special groups, one from Hamilton Boys (Wed 5 Dec), and 23 cadets from 5 Squadron from Rodney (in camp last weekend 8-9 Dec), have been through, so there has been action aplenty. Notable too, talking of action, is the speed with which Bill recovered his day when the undercarriage hydrasorb unit broke again on BZA. You an I might have said “sorry boys we will have to call it a day”  not Bill. He was on the phone whilst Iggy was dismounting the Pawnee and had a replacement tug from over the hill on station in an hour and a half or so. The boys got all their flights in and BZA got safely stashed looking like the wounded warrior, and is now parked in the back corner of the hanger. Brilliant Bill and Iggy for all you did getting that done and arranging PNE on loan from Tauranga, (thanks to again too), ensuring the ATC scouts did not miss out on their two days at the weekend.

Quite a few club members managed flights last weekend slotting in around the youngsters, who were a great bunch. They even pulled up the carpet in the committee room then did the hands and knees job pulling out the tacks for us, as well as assisting with manouvering BZA around the hangar to allow WW and NI to get past. Thanks boys and girls, you are welcome back any time!

A heads up to all that the Raglan Roster has been posted and you will need to do any rearranging of your times if there is a clash. Those who advised me of times they could and couldn’t do have had their times fitted accordingly, so its over to you now.

Raglan is hardly a punishment, its a lot of fun, usually great weather, can be great flying and generally never a dull moment. Happy relaxed people are good fun to spend your holidays around! The food at Raglans eateries also make for pleasant evenings, so be sure to come and enjoy yourself.

Paul