Recent News. October 17th 2013.

I have a couple of busy winching days to report on which is good and apologies for being late with the first one.
 
The first was on October 6th and seventeen launches ranging from four to seven minutes in length.  Ex-member Grant Jury had a couple, four for Dennis Green, one for Glyn Jackson, four for Les Sharp, including one solo.  Will Hopkirk had two, three for his family group and one for me.  A cloud street to the south beckoned but the winch launch height and position was no help in latching onto it.
 
Last Sunday –the 13th - was different with a cloud street close by and for a while was loitering overhead.
 
Best flights were – twenty-five minutes for Sam Tullett, eighty-four for Dennis Green, thirty-four for Anirudh Tyagi and forty-one for John Tullett.  Four flights for Glyn Jackson including one solo.  All flights for both days were with Tim Hardwick-Smith as P1 unless indicated.
 
I believe some good climbs were made and pilots were able to get away from the airfield and journey around.  Nice when that happens.  When it doesn’t, we need a fall-back position.  If all the drilling waste from all the oil wells in Taranaki was put to good use by constructing a decent ridge just to the SE we would be well served.  (Pun intended, John Spence!)  Not only that, the built in thermal provided by the gas electricity plant giving a house thermal.  What could be better?
 
The winch has performed admirably and members seem to have got the logistics of getting the rope back to the launch-point sorted out now.  The radio problems with the winch radio now rectified too.  We are using the brand new radio we got for the Blanik until some new crystals arrive for the existing winch radio.  The winch at full noise tends to drown out radio transmissions.
 
At a Special Meeting the date of which is yet to be announced, a resolution is to be put - that a micro-light towplane be purchased and another, to the effect that funding be sought.
 
Information relevant to these proposals will be presented and it is essential that mem-
bers clearly understand what is being proposed and the effects, for and against, that flow from it.
 
And, we have two new parachutes by a kind grant from and many thanks to Pub Charity.
 
Papa Mike.
 
                             

Les gets ready for a winch launch and Glyn worries about wire retrieves  The death occurred recently of Dave Avery, an ex-wartime pilot who served with an Australian Mosquito 464 Squadron.  Active with the New Plymouth Aero Club and at the time they ran a gliding section, he was the kindly proprietor of Avery’s bookstore in New Plymouth and that was where I got my copy of Phillip Wills’ book “On being a Bird”.  And I’ve treasured that that ever since.  Dave, Banga Martin and Gordon Parker enjoyed some quiet notoriety by doing aerobatics in Tiger Moths, each tied to the other by a bit of rope.  Which is what you do on a Sunday afternoon.

                      
Another launch on Sunday afternoon.

This edition has caused me some grief for, in trying to edit the sub-page of the Recent News section, I deleted the whole lot.  Not good.  I think I can get help from Zeald to get the material back.   Hence this item is on an unscathed page for the moment.

Papa Mike.
                          
 
                              The power of water.  Damage to a bridge at Uruti on October 15th.
                              The river level got at least two metres above the height of the bridge.