2025 Youth Soaring Development Camp Report

The 2025 YSDC was notably smaller than previous years with about ten students at any one time. A number of our older youth have left high school in the previous 12 months to start out on their careers with more than a couple moving into the aviation field. We have two from last year's camp who have successfully joined the RNZAF, another who is already a C Cat gliding instructor is through his first year of training to become a LAME and another has recently gained a CPL-A.
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​The upsides of these changes are we were able to welcome a number of new team members this year with the resulting very successful camp. There were two first solos and a couple of other notable achievements and 179 uneventful winch launches. Our congratulations go out to Joel Winter and Hannariina Laukkanen on their first solos, a great result for you both on your respective aviation journeys.
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​Two more successes were Aaron Clapham gaining his winch driver rating and Bradan Foster with his full LPC sign off, both 17 years old. Well done lads! I would urge others to do similar, the future of gliding in NZ depends on it.
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​The ever present Easterly wind unfortunately made soaring flights off the winch a challenge for our aspirant soaring pilots. There were a handful of longer flights on the Buscot Ridge, when the easterly hit 20 plus kts on a couple of the days.
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​But overall, great progress was made by all who attended and I think it will not be too long before we see a few more solos and maybe even a few more C cats in the coming years.
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​As always, a massive thanks to Roger Read as camp CFI and the instructing team of Graham Erikson, John McCallister, Doug Hamilton, Kieran Cassidy, Sondre Langvik-Owen, Wes McIver and the newly minted Captain Clapham (Craig).
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​We were also well supported by our winch driving team of which 3 are Youth Glide members led by the ever supportive Phil Plane; a big thanks to him and the team of Amy Smith, Felix Harper, Aaron Clapham and Peter Turvey. It is worth noting that despite some gusty conditions on a number of days, we had no broken weaklinks.
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​Lastly but probably the most important keeping us all fed was the unstoppable Kim Read and Wendy Foster with Erika Lovell-Colby who drove up from Queenstown twice making sure there was a consistent supply of all things edible; thank you all so very much. These camps are only possible through the support and commitment of these non flying volunteers.
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​The camp finished in the usual way with a well attended dinner in the Omarama airfield terminal on the Saturday night with plenty of tasty food and a few words and acknowledgements of achievements.
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​To end, I would like to express on behalf of the whole YG family our deep and ongoing appreciation to the Read and Tarbotton Families for their farsightedness in bringing the Skylaunch winch to Omarama. Without this awesome bit of kit these camps would not be viable.
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​So what’s next?... Waitangi weekend of course.
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​Happy flying
​Andrew Colby
​Camp Director