September/October 2008

         Date        Tow pilot       Instructor      Instructor      Duty Pilot
         Sept. 6    Sharp            Tullett                                Barham
             7         Richmond     Hdw-Smith
           13         Sharp           Hdw-Smith
           14         Sharp           Hdw-Smith    Cook              Arden
           20         Frew            Hdw-Smith    Williams          Hopkirk
           21         Frew            Hdw-Smith    Williams          Hopkirk
           27         Richmond     Williams        Cook              Walker
          28          Connor         Williams        Cook              Walker
       Oct. 4        Richmond     Tullett           Hdw-Smith     Barham
            5          Richmond     Tullett           Hdw-Smith     Barham
          11          Frew            Cook            Williams          Skene
          12          Frew            Cook            Williams          Skene
          18         Connor         Hdw-Smith   Tullett              Hopkirk
          19         Connor         Hdw-Smith   Tullett              Hopkirk
          25         Sharp           Williams        Cook               Walker
          26         Sharp           Williams        Cook               Walker

The roster affected by Les Sharp being away during most of September and October. Matt Connor’s rostered days subject to whether he is back onshore from the oil rig. There is an instructors course at Taupo on the weekend of Sept. 27/28. Hopefully there is someone available. Instructors list for October is unconfirmed. It may be altered. With more training happening, I’ve listed a second instructor for each day, or we’ll have to start each day a lot earlier.

The roster covers each day of the weekends but at the moment we will be flying on the best or the flyable day of the weekend. As usual, info as to which day will go out on the Thursday evening email loop.

It is up to those rostered to arrange their replacement if they can’t be there.

Annual General Meeting:
A small attendance heard our president, Richard, detail an interesting year. One in which we hadn’t built anything, nor bought another glider. James Walker presented his final annual financial statement.
Awards: Normona Cup Peter Miller (316 km at Benalla)
Most Improved Pilot Steve Barham (local X-country flights)
Ranges Cup (best height gained - not awarded)
Normona Junior (not awarded)
President’s Pot (best 100km triangle – not awarded)

Club officers for the ensuing year are:-

President Richard Arden
Vice-President John Tullett
Secretary Peter Williams
Treasurer James Walker (pro tem)
Club Captain Peter Miller
CFI Tim Hardwick-Smith
Chief Tow Pilot Jim McKay
Committee Jim Finer, Peter Cook, Les Sharp

Subsequent to this, Les Sharp has assumed the role of Chief Tow Pilot, Jim McKay standing down for the moment due to family reasons.
Peter Miller has taken on the treasurer’s position as from Tuesday, Sept. 9th. Having that day, set the kitchen toaster on fire and forgotten his wife’s birthday he is unsure whether he is off to a good start or not !!

Glider DN:

This has been returned by the Aviation Sports Club of Hobsonville, who have had the aircraft on hire for the past year. As it is surplus to our requirements it has been advertised for sale.

Glider JB:

JB has been down to Paul Muller Aviation to have various aileron bearings replaced. Not much material cost but a high labour content. That done, the aircraft’s tail fin had an argument with a calf shed on the way home. Back to Brown Road again. It should be back on line for this weekend. If anything good has come out of this, it is that it quells thoughts of self-insuring aircraft. Our cash flow would not meet that challenge.

TE’s trailer suffered some minor damage when a wheel came off whilst the trailer was borrowed for private use.
This is being made good.

Pot Luck Dinner:

As reported elsewhere, this was a most enjoyable evening.

Flying:

Winter was a write-off. Not entirely, if you like alliteration, but NBG for flying. However, we’ve had some better weather recently and the PotLuck Dinner preceded the first and best day’s flying for several weeks. The day ending with a wave flight by Peter Cook and Anna Klauser in WZ. Partly due to the flying hiatus, RWS had flat batteries, necessitating it being jump-started. Because the batteries were well down, the same scenario presented itself on Sunday the 8th Sept. This time though, the starter solenoid terminals welded on, so when the master switch was on, the starter refused to disengage. The underlying problem is that the aircraft is simply not used enough each week to charge the batteries which were “dead, dead flat”. A solution may be to link the aircraft into the trickle charge system from the solar panel that, currently?, keeps the glider batteries on song.

The Discus XC also took to the air. The first of many, but longer flights, I hope!

Undaunted, the Stratford 601 was impressed and the Discus had two flights and the PW5 one. Though the day was better than the previous day, conditions were rather scratchy. Twenty minutes and then a bit over the hour for the Discus and twenty minutes for the PW5.

Stratford Airfield:

The local council firming up plan to sell the farm but retain the airfield. Watch this space. The airfield users certainly will have to.



Tim landing the Discus on 34 after the flight on Sept. 7th.

New Flying Charges:

A long and thoughtful discussion at last night’s committee meeting on club finances. James had presented some costings outlining the pattern over the last three years and Tim followed up with what might restore the situation.

The key to a better financial situation is more hours flown. If every aircraft did 40 hours each per year, the picture would look a lot better. Your committee is concerned that good stewardship means that aircraft charges have to reflect the costs and we cannot resist that logic.

Towing Cost:           $25 per 1000ft
Gliders:                   $1 per minute for the first hour
                                 .50c p/minute thereafter
Bulk Flying:             $600 (ten hours)
RWS:                     $180 per hour
                              $230 ferry
                             $180 p/h retrieve positioning then tow cost of                              $300 p/h. (based on six 2000ft tows p/h)
           Trial flights: $150 2500ft
                             $220 4000ft
                             $350 6000ft
Competition & Badge flying:
                             $60 per hour for the first three hours then no charge.
Membership:          $296.25

Note: Bulk flying applies to solo flying (or where a student has paid in bulk).
There should be strict adherence to trial flight times; e.g. a 2500ft trial flight should last
twenty minutes so that if the flight runs to 25 or 30 minutes, the instructor pays the extra.
Those in the bulk flying scheme, please indicate on the time sheet.
Enter the tow height.
All of the above has made some of the detail in the TGC info sheet redundant so I’ll have to fix that.

This Season:

Now that flying is going to cost you more, how ‘bout really getting into it this year?
Actually it will never be cheaper. Of course it helps to be rather Irish to rationalise it this way.

We hope to resume mid-week flying at some point. Last year was on an ad hoc basis but worked OK and we had some good flying. Ralph Gibson, with adequate notice can, like last season, do the towing honours. Graeme Prankerd has indicated that he will school up as a tow pilot once he is over the dairy farmer springtime blues. Jesse Bartlett, who we thought, was going to tow for us seems to have disappeared northwards.

Tim is keen to take the Discus to the Central Plateau Contest at Taupo and Steve may well take the PW5 there too.

It seems as though we will have several people learning to fly gliders this season. It is for this reason I’ve listed two instructors for each flying day. We may need to manage this well by not starting too late in the morning and ensure that each pupil gets their two or three flights. Those of you learning will find that three flights will be quite enough on the day. Gliding is more a mental process than a physical one and there is a lot to assimilate. Weather permitting, regular flying is the way to go.

Have you done your flight review? Is your medical OK too? If not, Tim has a list and you can expect to be shoulder tapped.

From the CFI.        Circuit Planning:

Joining Overhead

1. If you have been away from the airfield and are heading back to it, give a radio call at 5 miles out, “Stratford traffic, Glider Whisky Zulu, five to the east, one thousand, eight hundred feet, joining.” This should prompt any other aircraft in the area to say where they are.
2. Plan to join overhead the airfield at 1000 ft above the ground (2000ft above sea level at Stratford)
3. If you can see that you are not going to get to the airfield at a safe height, do an out landing now while you are still high enough to choose a good paddock and do a proper circuit. (Not doing this has bent more gliders in Taranaki than anything else.)
4. As you approach the airfield, keep a good lookout for other aircraft – there are usually more aeroplanes near airfields. Look at the wind sock and see which way the wind is going and make a decision about which runway to use. Observe what other traffic are doing in the air and on the ground – get “situationally aware.”
5. When overhead the field give a radio call, ”Stratford Traffic, Glider Whisky Zulu, overhead, two thousand feet.” Stay on the non circuit side of the runway until you are ready to join the downwind leg of the circuit. Also do all turns in the same direction as the circuit direction.
6. Once you are below 1000ft above the ground maintain your speed at yellow triangle speed or stall speed +10 knots + half wind speed. Try and resist chasing any thermals from now on.
7. This is a good time to do the pre landing checks. SUFB - Straps tight (front seat and back), Undercarriage is down and locked, Flaps in the landing position, Brakes working.


Circuit
1. Starting the downwind leg at 800 feet above the ground abreast the far end of the runway you are going to land on is a good starting point. If you are a bit low, join the downwind leg at the halfway point. If you are lower join the base leg. If you are really low go straight to finals of the nearest runway. Don’t get fixated on using the runway everyone else is using.
2. When established on the downwind leg, give a radio call: “Stratford traffic, Glider Whisky Zulu downwind, right hand, two seven.”
3. You should have done your pre landing checks by now. You should also be flying at your Yellow triangle speed + half wind speed.
4. Maintain your position on the downwind leg by looking at the runway. You should be looking down at it, at an angle of 30 to 45 degrees. If there is a crosswind blowing you away from the runway stay a bit closer, or if it is blowing you towards the runway go wider.
5. As you go past the aiming point (see later for explanation of aiming point) start glancing at it regularly. Timing your turn onto the base leg is the tricky bit. If you are going to land into a strong wind, turn early. Not doing this will get your instructors attention really quickly.
6. Once you have turned onto the base leg look at the aiming point. If you are a high, angle the base leg out to give yourself more room and you could also use the air brakes. If you are low angle the base leg in.
7. The turn onto finals must be a good one – well banked, string in the middle maintaining your approach speed. If you must use the airbrakes while turning, be extra certain to maintain your speed.
Approach and Landing
1. If you have got everything right so far you should be flying down finals towards the aiming point with the brakes a third to half out. If you are a high open the airbrakes fully for a bit, or if low leave them closed for a bit.
2. Watch the aiming point. If it starts sliding under the nose open the airbrakes a little. If it starts climbing up the windscreen close them a little. Small adjustments. Control the speed with the stick.

3. As you get closer to the ground be ready for the speed to decrease as you drop through the wind gradient – close the airbrakes a little, or if you find you are mushing into the ground close the airbrakes a lot.
4. As you descend below 15-20 feet look up from the aiming point and look at the other end of the runway so you can judge your height for the round out.
5. Try to land with the brakes set about half open. If you have had to close them, ease them open slowly as you flare. If you bounce the landing try not to check forward with the stick. (This will work OK with the Blanik but will cause pilot induced oscillations with a fiber glass glider). After touch down open the brakes fully and keep it straight and level.
6. After you stopped, exit the glider smartly and check that no other aircraft want to use the runway and move the glider if necessary.

Choosing your aiming point
If you are landing on Stratford airfield your aiming point should be about 50 metres past the boundary fence. Your actual touch down point will be about 30 metres past the aiming point. As you get more competent, this point can be moved closer to the fence so you can practice short landings for future outlandings. Be careful. A lot more people have hit the fence at the approach end rather than the other end and they always hit it going faster.
For an outlanding in a short paddock the aiming point can be the fence itself. Again be careful. Don’t forget, it is best that the tail clears the fence as well.

Tim Hardwick-Smith. CFI


Calf Scheme:

Now underway, is a calf rearing scheme intended to buttress funding for the towplane engine replacement and other heavy maintenance. Briefly it entails sale of beef animals reared through to killable weight.

The proceeds could fund replacement calves and the remainder placed in the Pawnee investment account or the scheme could start anew. Meantime, many thanks to those helping the club in this way.



That’s what they look like as little fellas.

Gliding Was Like This:


The late Ivan Chinnery-Brown seated in the newly completed nacelle fitted to the Auckland Gliding Club Dagling glider, c. 1937. Jim Harkness with his hand on the king post and Phil Chinnery-Brown
holding the tail section up. Training was done solo then, with 30sec. “ground slides” the norm.

All OK Now:
I trailered the Blanik fuselage down to Stratford this morning where Chris Wischnowsky of Muller aviation together with Tim, was well on the way to connecting up the batteries in RWS. It wasn’t long before it was “at noise”, which looks good for the weekend. Chris also produced some lock-screws for the turtle deck. All but one hole now secured.

At Paul Muller’s shed, awaiting final patching. And, back at Stratford.


Chris & Tim at work.

Stats for the Year:

             Aircraft             Hours              Flights

             JB                    26hrs 43min    (71)
             WZ                  36hrs 49min    (70)
             TE                   24hrs 34min    (33)
             RWS               27hrs 34min    (176)


August:                                                                                                                      JB
WZ
TE
RWS
XC
SZ

Lets see if we can bring all the hours up to 40 hours all round for this season.

25 Years Back:

The Auster BDW was satisfactorily tested, running on 83 octane petrol. Confidence expressed that the forthcoming 91 octane would be quite OK.

John Schicker’s Skylark BM undergoing a C. of A.

The high maintenance costs of the Auster was discussed at the AGM. (What’s new?)

Tim Hardwick-Smith leaves the committee and Jim Chaplin comes in. Dr. Louis Trichard joins the club.

Les Sharp and Jim Chaplin leading the pub-crawls (selling raffle tickets !!).

Flying beginning again after the winter lay-off. SW rotor shaking off the dust.



So, that’s it from them and that’s it from me.

Papa Mike.



















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