GNZ Newsletter October 2021
From the president
Welcome to the October GNZ newsletter.
Can we say the soaring season has started?
I think we can.
Daylight savings has kicked in and the usual wild spring weather mix is giving us a bit of everything with lots wind, rain, sun, wave, ridge and thermal.
The GNZ event calendar also springs into life later this month with the MSC Cross Country and Coaching course, Labour Weekend events and the first competition of the season, getting underway in Taupo on October 30th.
Time to give that favourite gliding hat its annual wash and brush up on those home field short landing skills in preparation for this seasons first out landings.
Spare a thought for those in Auckland who are still eagerly awaiting news from Aunty Cindy that they will be allowed out to play.
May the lift be with you.
Steve Wallace
GNZ President
Congratulations
MARC EDGAR
Nelson club CFI for getting his son Ezra off to an early start in gliding.
ANGUS TAPPER
Achieving his first flight to Mt Cook and back only two months after his first solo!
MATT MORAN
Back seat passenger rating, keeping it current.
Double Vax Dilemmas
Can you refuse the non vaccinated?
Vaccine passports are they coming? What rules will surround them? As an instructor can you refuse to fly somebody who is unvaccinated? Two seat gliders by their very nature are close quarter confined spaces and trial flights, students and even fellow club members are people from well outside your bubble. As an instructor, the choice is ultimately yours. You can always of course refuse to fly with anybody you are not personally comfortable with for whatever reason, that is a personal safety choice. But even before this it would be useful if your club had a policy. It is an obligation for any organisation to keep its members safe by identifying potential threats and hazards and mitigating the risks associated with these. This is basic health and safety. At the very least, if somebody is unwell, they should not be at your club. If not already, this is a discussion your club committees should be having and communicating their decided policies with your club members so everyone is aware. Different clubs will have different policies but certainly feel free to ask other clubs what they are doing so that you don't necessarily have to reinvent the wheel.
Pure Glide News
It seems Tim and You Tube just can't get enough of each other and a monthly (no pressure Tim) gliding news round up is Tim's latest innovation. Well done Tim!
History Hustle
NZ's first gliding contest
Did you know that it is coming up 6o years since NZ's first gliding competition, which was the Central Districts Championships held 22-27 October 1962.
The idea of planning and holding a contest in NZ was originally conceived by Tony Elworthy and Peter Higinbotham who were two well-known gliding identities of the day. The NZ Gliding Association were very pleased to give the contest its moral support because for years they had been anxious to somehow start competition flying in this country. No one at that time knew how to organize a gliding contest, let alone run one, or how to choose a competition site that had the ability to ‘perform’. Because of the possibility of using the Masterton Wave, which hopefully would produce some spectacular flights, I believe this might have been one of the main drivers for Masterton being chosen. In 1957 Gordon Hookings had already achieved a flight consisting of three legs, of more than 500 km from Masterton landing at Tutira[ north of Napier] being the first flight in the Commonwealth to achieve such a distance. Being more centrally based than the’ known’ southern sites, deep in the south island, also probably gave Masterton the final ‘ nod’.
Good to see though that in the last 60 years some things haven't changed as the weather for the contest was not good, so some very small conservative tasks were set rather than the far bigger tasks they were perhaps looking for. The better days were in fact the two practice days with rather weak thermals going up to a 4000ft inversion. The last two days the tasks were abandoned because of the very poor conditions. Sound familiar?
Trophies
GNZ is aware that many old trophies have been retired and some have been repurposed and we are looking to find somewhere suitable to display some of these old gems of history but first we need to find them all. If you are aware of any GNZ trophies sitting in the back room of your clubhouse or your bedroom please drop me a line to let me know: [email protected]
Guess who's smile that is?
OLC New Season
Time to sign up for a new season
Last years OLC season has just come to an end so it is time to motivate your club members and get them signed up to see if your club can do better than last year. Piako are this years undisputed club champs clearly using Auckland lock downs to their advantage, which means they are probably off to a head start again this season. Last seasons results are below.
Who is your club club targeting to beat this season?
Early bird rego for the Nationals close this month!
Club Class Nationals
Entries are now open for the National Club Class Championships from 19-26 February to be held in Canterbury at Springfield Airfield, the home of Canterbury Gliding Club. We look forward to welcoming you to the first ever Nationals to be held at our Springfield site on the year that the club turns 75 years old. Well known for its mountain and wave flying it is also a great site for convergence and thermals across the mountains and plains. Late February is a great time of year at Springfield as the weather tends to be more consistent for thermals and mountain convergences which are well suited to the club class gliders.
Club Class is for sailplanes with a handicap of .99 or less. No ballast that may be jettisoned in flight is allowed.
Entry fee TBA
Practice day Sat 19th
7 days racing 20-26 February
Contact organiser Michael Oakley at [email protected]
South Island Regionals
&
OGC Mountain Flying Course
Omarama Mountain Flying Course – Lecture series.
The course is coming together nicely, the daily plan will be as follows:
- Review the previous day’s flying
- Lecture on aspects of mountain flying
- Tasks for the day, task setter Is Keith Essex
The lecture each day will be from a different lecturer, the speakers are as follows and they have been given free reign as to how they cover their subject so we get the best opportunity to gain from their experience:
- Flying safely in the mountains, breaking out of the basin. Brian Savage, Alex Boyes
- Wind and air mass movements in the mountains, how to use them. Justin Wills
- Wave flying. Milan Kmetovics
- Maximising your speed and distance in the mountains, and using the forecast to set your own tasks. Keith Essex
The lectures by Justin, Milan and Keith will be open to anyone, all we ask is a donation to the OGC junior pilot program if you aren’t attending the mountain flying course.
A taskPilot contest will be run in parallel to the course, each day a task for the course and tasks for Racing/Open classes to hone your skills ready for the following weeks regional contest.
Mountain flying course members will be able to fly two seaters with a skilled pilot, and there will be other pilots flying their aircraft to assist with getting round.
Glide Omarama the Club
Glide Omarama The Club, is operating at Omarama for select members who love to fly and who value one-on-one training and coaching. Gavin Wills is the CFI.
Helping make great pilots is what we do.
Angus Tapper (see the congrats section above for photo) went solo in October 2020 with Glide Omarama, The Club. By April 2021, he had progressed into a single seater, flown over 100 hours PIC and completed his Gold C with two Diamonds. Angus is a commercial paraglider pilot and 20 years ago flew aeroplanes commercially. While this background in flying has certainly helped, enthusiasm for his newly discovered sport of soaring has encouraged him to fly regularly and thus he quickly progressed. This season he is planning his 500km and 1000 km badge flights from Omarama.
ADS-B Update
Unfortunately the news is not good on this front. Despite GNZ putting together a very well researched and comprehensive safety case the CAA are refusing to budge when it comes to allowing the fitting of the Trig TA50 compact antenna to gliders. The crazy part is that if your glider is registered as a microlight or experimental category aircraft you can fit the TA50 and fly in controlled airspace but if it is registered as a glider, you cannot. This means the only option will be the much larger external mount TA70 antenna which many gliders will struggle to find a viable mounting location for.
We will be appealing for a common sense decision but are not hopeful.
Trig TA50 pictured below.
Trig TA70 (external mount) pictured below.
Spinning
This month's safety video
With the soaring season upon us and non current pilots getting current in those weak new season thermals this training video is a nice reminder that spinning while thermalling too steep and too slow can happen and is a danger to you and those below you in the thermal.
Incident Reports
As suspected lockdown has meant nothing to report incident wise this month but expect something for next month as your editor is aware of some recent landings gone wrong...
Start of a new season, so let's be careful out there!
You can access all back copies of the Ops Team Talking newsletter. These have been placed on the Gliding NZ web site under News > Safety Bulletins 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]