October, 2011

Apologies for not getting at the keyboard and letting you know what we’ve been up to during the winter.  Not a great deal of gliding but there have been some rather good flights.  Several well over the hour on August 21st.  On the 28th, Glyn Jackson got himself signed off for land-outs by landing and then being towed out from Ganes strip.  Followed that exploit by putting in an hour thermaling over the power station.

                         
                                Glyn Jackson ready for the relight from Ganes strip.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Roster:
No roster available at the moment.  Will advise as soon as it is to hand.

Having the good sense to plan a trip to the UK for the rest of August and most of September, it was with some satisfaction that, while enjoying a mild and fine Autumn there, we heard that NZ was covered in snow.    

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         In front of the SAC Clubhouse looking across to the hangars.
Photo by Peter Williams:

Not many flying opportunities really but people did well with what was available.  That the concept of mid-week flying seems to be firmly in place enables some flying when the weather is cycling the wrong way for the weekend.

  Next was Sept. 25th with a wave flight for Glyn Jackson & Tim Hardwick-Smith in the Twin Astir.  They topped out at 6400ft for a flight time of  72 minutes.  Will Hopkirk in the PW5 was unable to contact the wave.  On Sept 29th, Tim in the Discus and Will in the PW5, were towed by Jim McKay under a cloud street near Eltham and both had good flights.  Will flew out to Lake Rotokare and back to Dawson Falls.  Tim, meanwhile, with the help of the Discus’s longer legs, got out to Te Wera and back to the mountain.  Highest point of his flight was 6500ft off the mountain and the general soaring height for both was in the 4000 to 5000ft band.  Good stuff!

The photo below is of Peter Williams in his K6E, over Midhirst, valiantly working lift.  Having once landed out nearby – when the wind stopped blowing!- he didn’t
make the mistake a second time.  Glyn Jackson gleefully above him, with less of a worry
factor. This flight was on Sept. 3rd.  The previous club day being Aug. 21st, when, during the day, Trevor Pease and young Sam Tullett both had training flights.   Glyn is taking some good flying shots which I’m only too happy to print.

                              

                            

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
The mountain on the morning of the 29th before the thermal activity began.  Clouds showed on the SW side of the mountain.  It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that the cloud-street strung out to the east.

Saturday October 1st: 

  At this point I thought I had the newsletter done and dusted but along came the first day in October.  We might nearly have missed it but for insisting that the club go flying at least one day in a weekend – and not be put off by a languid sort of day that promised to get much more so.  So we flew.  Four flights in wave.

Les Sharp & Glyn Jackson to 12500ft in WZ, Tim Hardwick-Smith in XC to the same height, Steve Barham to 9000ft (no oxygen) in KV and last but not least, Will Hopkirk with his friend from the Manawatu Gliding Club, Patrick Frame, taking WZ to 13500ft.  Christchurch Control was very helpful and a great day had by all.  Here follows Les Sharp’s account of how it was done follows, with a photo or two adding to the story.  The moral of the day and for making your luck in gliding, is that get down to the airfield and go flying, is the key.

As Steve Barham indicated, when I arrived at the field there were lenticulars visible in several locations. Glyn and John Tullett were already there but hadn’t opened the hangar doors.  We pushed RWS and WZ out and got on with the DI’s

John declined the option of being first up and so I asked if Glyn wanted to share a flight. Not only was he keen, he wisely insisted on taking the oxygen.
The tow wasn’t too bad and we released at 5,500’ in wave of about 3 knots which soon became 5 knots. After gaining around 1,000’ Glyn advised that there wasn’t a notch on the GPS trace to mark the end of the tow, so we dived into wind to lose a couple of hundred feet. Not easy when the lift is strong.
We found that it was difficult to establish where the wave was and as one photo shows, we saw the vario’s on the bottom stops as well as the top stops.
Somewhere around 8,000’ Glyn got the oxygen going and I called Christchurch Control for a clearance to operate up to 12,000’. I did this in plenty of time because we were getting up to 10 knot climbs in places.

                       
The mountain emerging, wraith-like from the cloud bunching up against it.  The effect of it acting as a bulwark against the NE airflow clearly seen.  Photo by Glyn Jackson:

After a bit we found more reliable lift and we got a revised clearance to 15,000’ but didn’t utilise it all because Tim had phoned up to say that Will was keen to try his luck (I might switch the phone off next time!!!) so at 12,500’ and in a steady 2 knots up we abandoned the pursuit of height and headed towards Inglewood. Glyn tried to photograph Norfolk Rd from about 10,000’ and we cleared upper airspace as we tracked West of SH3 to Eltham then burnt off height with a high speed run into wind (36 knots) and got down to 4,000’ just as Tim was being towed out in the Discus, XC. From there it was back to the airfield where we used the brakes to get down to circuit height.

Les Sharp.

Now one from Steve Barham:

What a day! Lack of O2 kept me below 10,000’. Bit of a blouse really, as in hind sight I guess I could have gone to 13000’ for a brief spell.
I actually went to Stratford to work on the Jodel and didn’t expect to go flying; in fact I didn’t even take my PDA or any other gliding gear.
As Tim says “you never know what to expect in gliding”.

We should thank Les for the inspiration to get up there; by the time I arrived ‘Glyn and Les were already well established. Someone remarked that when Les arrived he practically leaped out of his van with eyes wide and an exclamation of “its wave, let’s go”, then a moment later sanity returned and in a much softer tone “anyone want to share the tow?”

I was a little hesitant as I don’t have oxygen in the glider but thought hey, I can go to 10,000 ok.  Tim arrived and between us we managed to talk ourselves into solo flights rather than turns in the Astir. This allowed Will and a visiting Manawatu pilot to take the Astir up.  I have some movie files as well but they are 500MB in size.  I will post the links on my Facebook page.

                            
        Photo by Steve Barham:                                                       
  The vertical wall of the wave cloud marking the primary wave with a clear foehn gap between the cloud and the mountain. 

Murray Farr:
  It is with regret that we advise the recent death of Murray Farr, one of our tow-pilots during the eighties.  Murray went on to build a yacht and go blue water sailing to Australia and the Pacific.

Membership:
  Some membership changes.  Welcome to Julie Woods and Trevor Pease who have joined the TGC and are commencing training with us. 

And farewell to Allan Brady – building a yacht, Iain Finer – currently in Australia, David Drummond – now in Papua New Guinea and Josue Hernandez-Mago who is taking a year off to travel/wind surf his way around NZ.  Well, sort of.

Annual Meeting:
  This is set down for October 18th.  Much later this year, mainly due to me being away.  Come and see what gives and goes. We have made a great deal of progress since the 2000 AGM.  Take an interest in and ownership of your club.  It has been several decades in the making and represents some good thinking and a great amount of hard work.  The show goes on and the torch is there to be carried.

Papa Mike.