Spring winds that keep the airfield fresh and alive.
The taste of an early lunch that means you're ready to go.
The first cloud of hope, signalling this will be a good day.
Like early morning bird song, the mid afternoon vario chirps.
Today is a great day.
I am flying
I am free.
Steve Wallace
GNZ President
Congratulations
BEN SLY
Conversion to single seat glider flying. Well done Ben.
CAMERON DURNO
Pawnee type rating done. Another towie for the roster.
SQN LEADER DR. GUS CABRE
Well done to ASC's towie Gus who got his hands on something a bit bigger for some circuits during the week.
MIKE STRATHERN
Well done Mike (right) on placing first equal at the Queensland State Comp. Mike is warming up for the 39th World Gliding Champs in Tabor, Czech Republic in June next year.
JENNY WILKINSON
For becoming the CFI of the Canterbury Gliding Club
CANTERBURY GLIDING CLUB
On taking delivery of their brand new DG 1001s neo.
Currency
It's that time of year
The cross country soaring season is underway and early season land-outs (as pictured above) are already underway. This begs the question, how current are you? What do you do to get yourself current before heading away cross country. Have you practiced some short field landings. How about setting up a toi toi paddock at your home field and get those short landings over a 'fence' really nailed before your head away.
Do you know your clubs currency requirements? GNZ's AC 2-05 (para 8) below spells out advice to clubs on what being current actually is.
From the British Gliding Association
Ray made an app
Ray Burns of the Auckland Aviation Sports Club has even made an app where instructors from their smart phones can check on the currency of every student - this also includes medical and BFR currency. How is your club using its data?
GNZ's Part 149 Certificate Renewed
CAA Part 149 Certificate
Most probably do not know or care but to be able to legally fly a glider in New Zealand you need to be a member of a CAA Certificated organisation and hold a glider pilots rating or certificate issued under delegation by the Director of the CAA. In our case, GNZ is that organisation. GNZ's certificate however does expire every five years and at considerable effort and cost GNZ must reapply to have this certificate renewed. I would like to thank all those GNZ clubs and senior personal who donated their valuable time during the weeks of August to take part in the CAA audit process.
Below is a picture of what $15K of CAA hourly charge out rate and GNZ time looks like.
The annual Matamata YSDC is being held from Monday 16th December through to Friday 20th December 2024. Attendees are required to be at Matamata Airfield on Sunday the 15th of December. This year, we are hosting a Youth Soaring Development Camp at Matamata airfield… the camp uses gliders and tow-planes from other gliding clubs and private owners and has highly experienced volunteer instructors, tow pilots, and ground support staff to make the camp possible, affordable and FUN. Costs are kept to an absolute minimum so more flying can be done! What is the Matamata YSDC? This camp is designed entirely around the students that come! We cater your training personally so that you get the best out of the time you spend here. With our fantastic summer conditions, we are able to offer our students pre-solo training to advanced soaring training. The atmosphere at the camp is an environment where you are able to meet new like-minded glider pilots, and enjoy new friendships, all while doing the best sport in New Zealand! Who can come? The camp is open to any member of Youth Glide New Zealand. We have availability for pre-solo through to advanced soaring pilots. Numbers attending are strictly limited to 16 students, so get in quick! Please note that the completion of this form does not guarantee you a position at the Camp.
Click on the link below to register your interest now!
Enterprise is the perfect way for less experienced glider pilots to start racing gliders
Enterprise allows for 'novel' interpretation of the rules - normally called cheating
Enterprise is where the winner has done the most flying, not the least
Enterprise events are competitive and also fun to compete in
A reminder that ALL participants must fill out a GNZ entry form on the GNZ events site. Whether you are the PIC a second pilot or volunteer helper the acceptance on the form is the acceptance of the event conditions.
Competition Season Venues and Dates as approved at the SRC AGM
Central Plateau – Taupo - 2/11/24 to 9/11/24
South Island Regionals - Omarama - 16/11/2024 to 23/11/2024
Northern Regionals - Matamata - 23/11/2024 to 30/11/2024
Auckland Soaring Competition – Drury - 4/01/25 to 11/01/25
Multiclass Nationals- Omarama - 2/01/2025 to 11/01/2025
Club Class nationals - Taumarunui - 18/01/2025 to 26/01/2025
Central Districts Regionals - Waipukurau 15/02/2025 to 22/02/2025
NZ Grand Prix - Matamata - 1/03/2025 to 09/03/2025
From around the clubs
Those epic Northland summer convergence clouds are already forming...
Meanwhile down South in Omarama they are trimming the campground trees. Good job Rod!
At Whenuapai they are already landing out.
And flying lots of Air Cadets, some of whom will become members.
At a club that shall not be named they have discovered that club caravans and glider wings do not mix very well. A reminder / warning to all to be very careful when ground towing your glider!
Sam, age 11 years gives gliding a go at Taupo
Tom and cat looking after the club admin, Taupo.
Briefing on a fancy new instrument at Springfield.
Remarkable views from Glide Queenstown - a Part 115 operator
Kahu Soaring is underway for the season. Lots of snow still around it seems.
GNZ 75th Anniversary
Gala Dinner
To be held in Auckland - June 2025
GNZ turns 75
I know it is still 9 months away and it is hard to commit but it is also hard for an organiser to know what kind of venue to book without a rough indication of numbers. At this stage it will be a very small venue due to the complete lack of responses! If you think you may wish to attend this anniversary gala dinner this is your last chance to allow us to book a venue worthy of the numbers that will actually decide to attend in June 2025.
Please click on the icon below to register your interest.
I'm sure you have lots of other questions, like what's the exact date and time, etc but no guarantees until we make a firm booking with a provider so we just need rough numbers for now to help us choose a venue. Thank you.
Glider hat fashion from the late 60's
Online Course for Official Observers
The Awards Officer is currently conducting an asynchronous online course aimed at recruiting new Official Observers. The course is mostly self-paced and is already in progress with six, soon to be, new OO's, just in time for the soaring season.
If you are interested in becoming an Official Observer, please let the Awards Officer know (email [email protected], or ring 0226441495, Bruno).
Feel free to catch up on your own in the meantime.
The winter blues are still biting in our membership stats with another net loss of 12 members this month just gone. So we are going to have a bit of work to do this summer just to get back to even for the year with a current year to date net loss of 14 members. Kind of like the economy at present, looks like things will get better soon but at the moment the pain is real. Let's see what some increased summer activity brings.
Membership subs are coming up
A great tip from Grae Harrison at the Wellington Wairarapa gliding club.
People are used to paying their bills monthly - power, phone, internet...
Has your club thought about making your annual subs a monthly payment?
In these tough times it may be just what is needed to retain some members.
Daffodil Day Carterton
What WWGC learned about public promotion
Daffodil Day Carterton 15 September 2024 was a huge success for the Club.
We arrived at 7am in the drizzle to rig GGR on Carterton’s Main Street.
By 3pm we had sold 31 x Greytown Taster Vouchers. Even when the guys were derigging and putting the glider in the trailer there were last minute people wanting to buy a voucher.
What we have learnt is that its much better to have your two-seater trainer on display rather than a single seater as aspiring trial flight buyers can see what they will be flying in.
Special thanks go to David Hirst, Simon, Taylor, Victor , Stewart and particularly Vivienne who was a rock star salesperson. Mark Wilson 1 and Alistair turned up to help us de-rig which was really helpful as we were pretty knackered at the end.
Incident Reports
Out of cycle for a report from the ops Team this month
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.
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.
Engineers do have a sense of humour
The below is a note that was left in a sealed envelope in the cockpit of Dave Johnson's glider following the install of an in-flight relief tube
Air Space
How to make a change to your local air space
Here is the condensed version of just some of what our air space committee does to help improve the air space around your local flying area.
Basically to propose some airspace changes the process is:
1) Establish a working relationship with the local Airways team. 2) Draw up some new airspace design plans as to what will work. We have to take into account all arrival and departure routes, along with holding patterns. From what I've seen what matters is:- If an area uses a holding pattern, airways have to have a valid alternative they can use.- Need to keep 3 mile clearance from boundaries from all arrival/departure routes. 3) Start discussions with the area controller team and share the plans, go back and forwards to make them work. 4) Figure out all other stakeholders who might need consulting, and consult with them. 5) Apply for airspace change with CAA. The legal standards team will then check it all. If everyone already agrees it's fine, then it should fly through! 6) Allow at least a year for the process, so if started now we could have changes ready for the following season.
Note: When Airways staff change go back to Step 1
Competition Survey
Last Chance
This is the last just for those few who haven't yet got around to filling out the SRC survey on competition flying. The response has been great to date! Survey link below.
If you missed Father's Day here is your chance to make amends before Xmas. Note the GNZ promo code in the ads.
About Us
How / When / Why?
The idea of establishing SoaringXX came to the mind of Toni Šibanc after attending the European Gliding Championships for the first time in 2007. His aim was to satisfy the so far unmet needs of pilots for high quality clothes with original design, suitable for flying. The owner, manager and designer behind the company knows well what is the best for pilots. As a flight instructor and competition pilot, with over 1100 hours of experience at the age of 26, Toni has turned a start-up with SoaringXX into a serious player on the market with over 80 products including self-developed ground handling equipment.
SoaringXX is specialised in producing personalised, custom-made clothing especially for national teams and aero clubs.
The company boasts having been working with the French, Slovenian, Hungarian and Serbian national teams, Jonker Sailplanes, Aeroklub Celje, Letalski Center Maribor, LSV Seligenstadt – Zellhausen, Aeroclub Alföldi, Aeroclub Postojna and Aeroclub Ptuj. In the coming years, SoaringXX will expand its product line to offer all-round ground handling equipment and outstanding clothing for glider pilots.
We strive to offer you the best value gliding themed sportswear, functional clothing developed for glider pilots, as well as gliding accessories that make gliding a more enjoyable experience. We live to soar and so we share our passion through our product line. You can find us at all major European gliding events and experience our products firsthand.
Remember, Aviate, Navigate, Communicate!!!
Email
[email protected] for all informations about products, about the shop, orders, returns
GNZ Classifieds
This months feature is a sweet instrument upgrade to your glider for just $2,000 and just in time for Xmas. Click on the pic to be taken to the link.
**LX 8000 ** LX vario ** Stick controller ** speaker.
For more gliders and other gliding stuff you can check out the GNZ classifieds at the link below.
