In typical spring fashion we have had some cold weather and some hot.
There has been windy days and some beautiful Cu days.
Best of all there has been lots of soaring.
With many achievements and successes.
All that winter planning is paying off.
So much yet to come.
Looking forward to a great summer now.
Enjoy!
Steve Wallace
GNZ President
Congratulations
CHARLIE IRVIN
1st outlanding and on her 21st birthday! Congrats Charlie!
KAZIK JASICA
1st outlanding. Well done Kazik!
KEITH MACY
50km XCP flight and 1st landout!
ALEX MICHAEL
50km XCP flight, 1st landout and a solo ridge flight, Matamata to Thames and back!
IGGY WOOD
Rumour has it Iggy started gliding way back in 1964. Distracted by tow planes Iggy has taken his time to complete his 300km flight in a glider. But now it is done! Nice one Iggy.
Wild Track
Tracking your glider has never been easier
Now that the x-country season is fully underway it is time to make sure that you are being properly tracked on every cross country flight.
With the Btraced app no longer being available for iPhone our very own Tim Bromhead has written a new purpose designed tracking app. Available for just $5 so no excuses.
Here you can check on all that is planned for this season.
Multi-Class Nationals Omarama
Entries now open
Thursday 19th January - Saturday 28th January
Omarama always offers up some of the best high energy competition flying available anywhere in the world. Want to fly a 600km racing task at over 200kph? Omarama is the proven place to do it.
Are you taking your glider to the 'other' island this year? Click on the pic below to get a 10% ferry discount.
Club Class Nationals Matamata
Friday 3rd February - Sunday 12th February
You don't need the latest and greatest to have fun testing your skills against some of the best in this highly competitive class. Indeed you don't even need your own glider as a club glider will do just fine.
From around the clubs
Tristan Harvey-smith, one of two landouts before finally knocking off his 50km flight.
Auckland Gliding Club finally underway after a long and soggy winter
Peter Taylor briefs a student. Clearly still chilly down south.
Snow on Upper Valley's Kaitoke strip in October!
A record number of 6 gliders fly to Port Jackson. Nice day!
Freshly tilled paddocks make for lovely outlandings.
Godley Valley photo by Chris Streat
Club dinner. ASC annual Labour Weekend trip to Matamata.
Want a tour of the Canterbury Club. Check out the FPV drone video below by Alex Hewson
Need a new club twin?
Umbrella Trust Applications deadline.
Club committees and course organisers are reminded that the Umbrella Trust next meets to consider funding applications in December, 2022 so the deadline for receipt of an applications for this round of loans and grants is 15th November, 2022.
The GNZ Umbrella Trust has funds available to help your club purchase a new glider, host a course to train students in competition flying, x-country flying or instructing. Specific funds are also available to assist those pilots selected to represent New Zealand at contests overseas.
The trust does not fund equipment for gliding clubs or trial flight courses for potential new members.
Unsure if what you want to fund will qualify? Before applying you can drop a quick note to the UT secretary Jan Rae and the trustees will endeavour to give feedback in a timely manner.
The Umbrella Trust would like to thank outgoing trustee Roland van der Wal for his time and valued input while a trustee and welcome incoming trustee David Tilman.
Membership
No display panel this month as it is membership renewal time and the stats will be all over the place until the change over with end of year resigns and new memberships filter their way through the system. In the meantime check out what other clubs are doing to attract new members. When did your club last host an open day or advertise a special offer, learn to soar campaign.
Taupo
Canterbury
The Ten Traps
Be Aware
With statistics, recent and not so recent continually showing glider pilots in New Zealand getting caught out, often fatally, while ridge or mountain flying, the Ops team have collaborated and produced the below 'Ten Traps' document that highlights what can catch you out and has caught out many in the past. Read, learn and stay safe!
Click on the picture below to be taken to the document.
Connecting Wederkind / Hotellier control fittings
Worth a watch
If you, your club or a glider you may ever have to rig, uses the older style Wederkind / Hotellier connections, this video is worth a watch because it is possible to get it wrong. With potential disastrous consequences. Thanks Gerard Robertson for the link.
From the NAO (retiring)
Loose control stick grips
In the past 6 months I've seen many loose control stick grips in gliders ☹
This is very dangerous and loose grips need to be repaired without delay (just in case theres is any confusion this means fix it before you next fly it)
A sure tell tale sign of trouble is if any control stick has wing tape ‘holding it on’ It will probably be loose and must be fixed. This one in the photo just fell off once I removed the blue tape!
Also with the increase of the LXNAV style of control grips I have seen a few of these loose as they are just held in place using 3 small threaded screws at the base tightened with a very small allen key. These screws come loose and it slips off easily. Imagine that when you’re just rounding out or soaring close to a rock face….
Most loose plastic grips (ski pole grips most are made from) need simply gluing on with a contact glue such as ADOS F2/F3 contact adhesive. Assemble it wet and leave it to set. Just be careful if the grip has the radio push to transmit (PTT) button at the top with wires inside the stick as care will be needed not to pull the wires out etc. The seat may also need removing to get some slack into the PTT wires. If in doubt ask an engineer.
The stick grip must be firmly bonded onto the control stick and not be loose, twist or come off.
Sadly all the gliders I’ve seen with loose grips have also been passing many Daily Inspections and have not been picked up during the DI. The DI’s are not doing their job properly as this is EXACTLY the sort of defect that should be picked up.
During the DI Just lightly try and move the stick grip (do NOT try and rip it off) and it’s loose, good find and fix it before the next flight. Tape doesn’t work!
Fitting of Phones and PDA's
With PDA’s and telephones becoming cheaper nowadays, most of us now have a small electronic device fitted into our gliders in some way. I have one in my old 1964 dart (some say that’s doubled the gliders value!) and there is no doubt having one makes navigation and airspace so much easier.
But… its also very easy to mount it in a way that they can foul the control stick and sadly I’ve seen many that do exactly that.
Some are stuck on the canopy which is also not a good idea with a replacement canopy being around $20,000 fitted! or mounted on a gooseneck fittings from the panel (as the one in the photo is)
This particular example below would jam the stick absolutely solid against the PTT switch making any forward movement of the stick totally impossible and would be lethal on a winch launch. It did not move and allow forward stick input at all, I tried!
Yes they bend up out of the way but they also easily move downwards on take off if it is bumpy, so they need to withstand a lot of G force/bumps and remain clear of the stick. Does yours?
From the editor
Mike, thank you for all you have done as the NAO over the last several years. You have shaken the tree, raised the standards and highlighted the rubbish that needs fixing. Even your Facebook posts make me smile.
Looking forward to watching you win at the Club Class World Championships in Narromine, Australia, if Aussie ever dries out enough for them to fly again!
For Sale
St Astir II in excellent condition
Just $12,000
GNZ Classifieds
Summers coming. Need a new glider or some gear. Don't forget to check out the classifieds section of the GNZ website
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.
