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GNZ Newsletter July 2024



From the president


Welcome to the July 2024 GNZ newsletter.

It may now be the middle of winter but there still seems to be plenty of flying happening.

Some winter thermals in the north.

Some wave flights further south.

The wet and fog however has slowed some down.

And some have migrated elsewhere to get their flying fix.

Winter lectures and dinners are underway.

Cunning plans are being hatched for the coming season.

And the days are getting longer...

Steve Wallace

GNZ President

Congratulations

BEN SLY

First solo! Age 14. Well done Ben!


KARL STOL

First solo!

KEITH ESSEX

Keith (centre) 2024 USA Open Class National Champion. Nice one Keith! A great warm up for the World Gliding Champs in Uvalde, Texas later this year where Keith and Marju will represent New Zealand in the two seater class.


GNZ AGM AWARDS

MIKE STRATHERN

Mike (left) post AGM receives GNZ's highest award the Angus Rosebowl for his services to the sport of gliding in NZ. Presented to him by Jim Mace, President of Nelson Lakes Gliding Club.


NIGEL DAVY

Nigel (right) receives the Friendship Cup for his outstanding contributions to the gliding movement.


ALAIN MARCUSE

Air NZ Soaring Award for the most significant improvement in competition or record flying. Well done Alain!


MURRAY WARDELL

CWF Hamilton Trophy for the most meritorious NZ gliding record (100km triangle in a PW5)


DAVID JENSEN

Buckland Soaring Award - highest scoring OLC pilot (North Island) for the season.


Piako has a new tow plane

With the help of the GNZ Umbrella Trust Piako now has a shiny new Light Sport Aircraft as their towplane. It is a Bristell Classic with a 141HP Rotax 915. Some nice added features include...

A rear facing camera beside the tow hook with the display integrated into the main panel. The camera however at the moment is a bit wide angle so will need a zoom lens modification to enable a better view of the glider on tow.


FLARM to provide collision warning / avoidance alerts.


And for worst case scenarios a ballistic recovery parachute.

Kahu Soaring has a new glider

Big news for the Kahu Soaring community. Our family has grown again, by adding this almost brand new DuoDiscus XL to the fleet. May the seas carry her back safe to New Zealand. Since the fleet was "DD" and "EE" she had to be named "FF" (to have at least a little bit of logic in what I do.) A former Glide Omarama instructor (and a good friend )- Dan McCormack is in the works for joining the team for next season, bringing the team to a total number of four, along with G Dale, Kieran Cassidy, and of course myself, Milan.


Up Coming Events





The Matamata Soaring Centre Cross Country Course

If you're a North Island pilot who's at or near the Getting to Cross Country Pilot (XCP) stage in the GNZ training programme and have the agreement of your CFI, this course will benefit you.


​The Matamata Soaring Centre runs this course annually over Labour weekend and the weekdays following, combining lectures with flying instruction. Attendees may also bring a single seater from their club, as there is generally one twin (with instructor) for every two students. In recent years, there has also been field selection training using a motor glider, which has been widely appreciated.
​This course has been run over the last several decades and has helped produce competent, safe cross-country pilots. Many pilots have made their first outlanding during this course, using a pre-selected field close to the airfield.


​Accommodation is available at the airfield and it is hoped that catering may also be available.


​The course will be added to the GNZ Events calendar shortly. In the meantime, please contact Gerard Robertson ([email protected]) if you'd like more information.


From around the clubs


Aviation Sports. Alex and Shiv about to go check out some winter thermals.


Piako Gliding Club - the infamous Waikato fog


Taranaki - waiting for the fog to clear


Tauranga tow plane scares the crap out of the local swans.


Tauranga - more wave...


Wellington Wairarapa wave


A wavy sky in the Hawkes Bay


The NOO and the Awards Officer enjoy some wave flying


Fielding has gliders instead of pots of gold at the end of their rainbows


Air Law lectures


Winter trailer maintenance


Happy Birthday Brian Sharpe - Omarama club development officer

GNZ AGM



GNZ AGM / SYMPOSIUM

A very positive and enjoyable AGM and Symposium weekend in a refreshing new location which added to the good vibes. The view out the window of the conference room was however wonderfully distracting. At the evening function and prize giving the guest speaker from Dawn Aerospace, Shane Glynn, was very well received with many questions from the audience about the 'rocket ship' that they are currently flight testing out of Glentanner.

Bob Henderson reports

Saturday morning AGM

  • A good turnout for the AGM. Absentee clubs Manawatu, Kaikohe, Marlborough, Rotorua
  • Reports - all accepted
  • The remit - that the MOAP be amended to remove the full-time study limitation on the affiliation waiver for members under the age of 26 - passed.
  • Updated Constitution and Registration under the Incorporated Societies Act 2022 - passed
  • Subs (no change) and Budget accepted
  • Elections- Amy Smith re-elected- President- Steve is standing down (6 years in position). No nominations received despite a call being made to all clubs for nominations. Steve has agreed to remain in position until 1 April 2025. An email will be coming out requesting nominations. Expect an email vote to confirm the election of a new President.
  • General Business - 75th anniversary of formation of GNZ next year.
  • Date and Venue of 2025 AGM - to be determined by the Executive.

Key issues discussed on Saturday after the AGM:

  • membership- making ourselves visible / telling the story / engaging with those outside the gliding circle- club culture
  • lack of instructors / engineers / OOs at various clubs

Feedback from the Pilots Meeting on Sunday:

  • Some 20 people in the room.
  • Remits- allowing winch launching - passed
  • Calendar for 2024/2025 -accepted
  • Calendar for 2025/2026
    • Central plateau 1-8 Nov 2025
    • Northern Regionals 29 Nov-6 Dec 2025
    • SI regionals 2-10 Jan 2026
    • Nationals 31 Jan - 8 Feb 2026
    • CDs 14-21 Feb 2026
    • GP 7-15 Mar 2026
    • to be determined - Club Class Nats (maybe @ Nelson Lakes) or Drury.
  • Canopy Flashers - this should be “Strobes” and they are not restricted to the “canopy” - long discussion; general agreement that SRC should come up with a formal proposal.
  • Open Class Handicap Bracket - Grae and Keith proposed (late) that the lower scoring handicap for the Open Class be 1.06. Long discussion, including having Open Class scored twice - as handicapped and unhandicapped. Length of tasks also debated - there seems to be a desire to stretch the long wing aircraft so maybe move back to a ~80% completion rate for them (and Racing class?). Final agreement that SRC should review the 1.06 proposal and, if appropriate, do an email vote in time to allow adoption of any change for the coming season.
  • Pilot Selection Panel - Murray and Warren have stood down; Karen and Sarel accepted as new members on the panel.

Membership


Membership Display Panel

The winter thermals are weak and so to has the number of new members weakened off for the month. A net gain of just one new member this month but like a weak thermal in poor conditions, it is positive so we'll take it. The question is, have we gained enough altitude (new members) to see us through winter and out to the stronger spring thermals on the other side? Many clubs do little flying over winter due to wet fields that are closed, foggy days that last until mid afternoon, rainy weekends and freezing cold temps in the south. This does make it tough to attract new members over winter but not impossible as many clubs get innovative with their winter activities. Working bees, mid-winter dinners, ground training, online e-comps and of course flying when possible. Send me your pics of what positive activities your club is up to this winter.




An interesting story

Our awards officer must be getting bored over winter and has found some interesting reading for you...


Bruno Tagliapietra, Awards Officer

Thoughts from the NAO


Jason Shields

National Airworthiness Officer


Winter - the perfect time for you glider maintenance to be carried out, don't leave your Annual inspection until November, book in early with your engineer, they will appreciate it, also gives time to get those little items requiring attention sorted out as well rather than putting them off again.

For those of you who leave your gliders in trailers over winter, it could be worthwhile putting a couple of containers of Damprid into your trailer to help reduce the amount of moisture covering all the surfaces for the next few months, one in the cockpit could be a good idea in those damp regions. That moisture can cause quite a bit of corrosion and mould to form.

Anyone ever removed their harness set for cleaning? you may be surprised how dirty they are when soaked in a bucket of soapy water.

Wet weekend, nothing to do? spend it polishing..

Jason Shields

National Airworthiness Officer

Education Moment


Frontal Weather

For those that are getting into their basic weather knowledge, below is a very nicely animated video that explains how weather fronts work.

Incident Reports


No incident reports this time around as we are out of cycle with the Ops Team meetings.

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 A link to the GNZ accident & 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)


NOTE: The OPS 10 form has been renamed and amended to include reporting of accidents as well as incidents – previously it was intended for incidents only.
​(A CA005 still needs to be sent to CAA for accidents, but the OPS Team doesn’t require a copy of that now.) Consequential changes have been made to the MOAP and AC 2-08.

GNZ Classifieds

Free Glider!

I am writing on behalf of Upper Valley Gliding Club Inc, we would like to offer our SZD30 Pirat ZK-GJT free to anyone interested, last flown 05/05/2013, Total Hrs 2620, Registration currently on hold, so revival would be easy, it would be available with a sister ship "ZK-GJQ, if desired, (for spares or possible rebuild), there is a full set of documentation including substantial overhaul manual.

email: [email protected]

JT soaring over a work site which is now Kaitoke water reservoir


For gliders and other stuff that is not free to a good home you can check out the GNZ classifieds at the link below.

https://gliding.co.nz/classifieds/

Thanks for reading

All contributions, pics, videos and opinions welcome

EMAIL: [email protected]