GNZ Newsletter August 2022
From the president
Welcome to the August 2022 GNZ newsletter.
Well we have had some record rain in July.
Might be time to start thinking about fitting floats to your tow plane and gliders.
Something to think about while you canoe out to the club.
To fly though, first you must plan.
So, great time to be hatching cunning plans for the summer.
Awesome to see the first ads for the upcoming season of soaring events already appearing in my inbox.
What ones will you attend?
Steve Wallace
GNZ President
Congratulations
SHIVNEET CHAND
First solo. Well done Shiv!
DAVID McGOWAN
First solo. And for an extra challenge a circuit done in the rain! Nice one David!
NICK OAKLEY
Winner of the Stu Cain Cup (mid winter fun flying comp)
2nd Peter Taylor (I see you Peter, practising those juggling skills)
3rd Rob Campbell
CANTERBURY GLIDING CLUB
The real winners of course were the members of the Canterbury Gliding Club for organising a mid winter fun flying comp and BBQ lunch. What social events has your club got sorted for this winter?
Chef Kraak hard at work.
Look what's coming...
OGC Mountain flying course: Mon 28th Nov - Fri 2nd Dec, 2022
South Island Regionals Competition: Sat 3rd Dec - Sat 10th Dec, 2022
Register your interest here:
South Island Regional flying competition
Talk to us about group/club packages (bring your gliders or use ours)
George Rogers Memorial Camp
Youth Glide New Zealand (YGNZ), alongside the Greytown Soaring Centre, is excited to be hosting The George Rogers Memorial – Greytown Mini Camp 2022 during the Labour weekend holiday at Papawai Airfield.
The camp will begin on Friday the 21st of October at 5pm and finish on Monday the 24th of October (afternoon). Accommodation will be camping onsite utilizing vacant caravans and pitching tents in the clubs camping area. Accommodation and food will also be provided. Open to all experience levels from Solo to XCP. To keep updated about the camp follow the event on facebook. https://fb.me/e/3BkvPI6T0
To register your interest in attending the camp, the link to the google form is below: https://forms.gle/ZxX6QVWUYyb7DW4N7
(Please Note: This does not guarantee acceptance into the camp, confirmation of your acceptance will be sent via email in the coming months.)
Expressions of interest
With 16 FAI World Championship and now 9 European Championship titles to his name, Sebastian Kawa is easily, by a long way, the worlds greatest competition pilot. In 2019, seventeen kiwi pilots, both before and during the Taupo based Nationals were lucky enough to fly with and learn from the worlds best. Now that Covid is done, we are thinking it is the South Islands turn. Note; Sebastian has not yet been asked and nothing has been organised because before we do, we need some idea of numbers. Based on last time around, costs would be in the vicinity of $1,000 per flight. If you are interested in flying with Sebastian at the multi-class Nationals at Omarama in January please email me at [email protected] If sufficient interest is received I will try and make this happen.
Winter sights from around the clubs
Blue skies in Canterbury
Green grass and smooth landings in Tauranga
Vistas of white in Omarama (-20 degrees on this flight says Angus)
Old Man wave in Central Otago on the last day of July (John Robinson)
Overflowing rivers in Piako
CFI's look their best with a rainbow (Whenuapai - Ray Burns)
Bye for now.
Membership Display Panel
Looks like we're getting dumped on the downside of some winter wave! 10 members down for the month but still a gain for the year, just! Here's hoping for a spring member thermal or two. The Membership Vario (left) displays each month whether GNZ is gaining or losing members - The Membership Altimeter (right) displays on a Year to Date basis. Let's all think about what we can do to keep these dials going up!
Sailplane Racing
An update from the SRC
Post AGM feedback the Sailplane Racing Committee (SRC) has undertaken to keep GNZ racing pilots up to date with current activities of the committee. So here you go.
What the SRC has been up to this month.
* Tasman Trophy – are any NZ pilots interested in flying in Australia (including juniors)? If so can they please make themselves known to the selection panel.
* A reminder to pilots that if they are potentially interested in competing in international competition that they should read the GNZ MOAP (including section 1-7) and also make themselves known to the chair of the selection panel.
* SRC has been progressing the various items raised at the GNZ AGM pilots meeting (minutes now available on GNZ website) including:
- Preparing rules for sanctioned GP races.
- Preparing revised rules to address the issue raised with the finish ring.
- Progressing scale purchase.
From the desk of the NAO
Emergency Canopy Ejection
Many of you probably don’t think about jumping out of a glider very often, but if you do have to, you will most certainly want your canopy to eject cleanly and quickly so you can exit without any delay.
Sadly I am seeing an increasing and worrying trend around in New Zealand gliders of avionic and non-avionic electronics being poorly fitted to gliders that are severely restricting the canopy coming off, and in several cases holding it firmly in place!
The glare shield is not the best place to fit your new gliding gizmos.
Why?
Trackers, FLARM, ADSB, Loggers, Flight computers, phones GPS etc all use antennas or power leads or aerials and most have hard wires connecting them for one reason or another. When they are fitted on the ejecting part of a front tilting canopy or a side lifting canopy where the glare shield is part of the canopy (such as a Nimbus 2 or Std Cirrus) these very strong electrical leads will stop the clean ejection of your canopy.
For those of you who think “ that will rip off ok” take a look at this video.
Imagine doin the same test with 3 GPS antennas further holding the front down and then trying to eject the canopy!
In the two example photographs I have recently taken the canopy is firmly restrained from popping up cleanly.
This ASW20 has the ADSB antenna holding it on.
This PW5 has THREE cables!.. A FLARM aerial, a Tracker GPS and the FLARM GPS. All 3 items on the PW5 are fitted at the front of the front ejecting canopy which is supposed to lift away cleanly in the event of an emergency ejection.
Any items fitted onto a canopy must NOT impinge on the canopy ejection in any way or you engineer should fail your gliders annual inspection. Checking the canopy can be cleanly ejected in an emergency is one of the checks they must do as part of the annual inspection.
It’s just plain and simple common sense.
So have a think once you have read this, Will my canopy cleanly eject if I want to jump out?? and if anything is stopping it doing so then please work with your engineer to remove these restraints.
Mike Strathern
NAO.
Tow Upsets
Another excellent safety video from Tim at Pure Glide
ADS-B
Rebate scheme to end 30th June 2023
Despite Covid, supply chain disruptions, CAA's very slow approval of a sub-optimal, very impractical solution for gliders and no movement on the approval of NTC 91.258 v3 that would allow installation and sign off by GNZ engineers, the CAA at this stage is not moving the end date of the ADS-B rebate scheme.
'We've made it very difficult for you but good luck to those trying to acquire and have a system installed before the rebate deadline' is the message.
Time to get a wriggle on if you want that rebate!
GNZ Classifieds
Summers coming. Need a new glider or some gear. Don't forget to check out the classifieds section of the GNZ website
Incident Reports
From the desk of the NOO (National Operations Officer)
Incident reports for June - July 2022
- aborted takeoff in 20 knot cross wind, the into-wind runway was not available - long grass
- near miss with power plane taking off and following unexpected departure route
- launch abandoned by tow pilot on ground after sensing that the glider had released
- airbrakes not locked on takeoff, partly opened during tow, radio call from tug not received
- wheel-up landing on grass after expediting landing to stay ahead of parachute descents
- ASI found to be not working - pitot tube inserted in wrong hole in fin - not labelled
- radio in twin found to be transmitting but not receiving - not checked prior to launch
You can access all back copies of the Ops Team Talking newsletters.
These have been placed on the Gliding NZ web site under News > Safety Bulletins
Do you need to file an OPS-10 as well as CA005? This question comes up a lot. The CAA must be notified immediately by phone after an "accident", along with the relevant CFI (MOAP Ref page 61 & 62). A Form CA005 Occurrence Report must then be filed with CAA within ten days. The view of Gliding NZ is that every incident or accident is also an opportunity to learn something that could prevent a similar occurrence in the future, and for this reason an OPS-10 report should also be filed with the ROO even though this is not explicitly requested in AC 2-08. A link to the GNZ incident reporting form (OPS 10) can be found in the very top menu bar on the GNZ homepage, just to the right of the 'Classified Adverts'. You can now fill this form out on your phone at the airfield so no excuses.
OPS 10 link: http://gliding.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/OPS10v7f.pdf
In the case of an accident, asap please phone: 0508 ACCIDENT (0508 222 433)
Thanks for reading
All contributions, pics, videos and opinions welcome
EMAIL: [email protected]