We've just installed a new wifi system at the gliding club for the Matamata Soaring Centre. Disturbingly it looked like an amazing flying day, but never mind. Here's a panorama of the cloudscape from the roof.

Thanks to Bill, Julian and Hadleigh for making it happen.

It should provide much better coverage around the airfield, and even down to the end of the airfield if you've got a good receiver. The camping ground will now have much better reception too.

If you need a password for it, get in touch with Bill, Julian or myself. We'll send out more details once we've finished setting it up properly

Cheers,
Tim

Saturday

A lovely jaunt down to Titraupenga with Bill yesterday. Turned out better than the forecast looked.

Sun?! Who needs sun

More clouds

Looking down on Titraupenga

Sunday

Today was forecast to be the better of the days, with a solid thermal strength on RASP. And indeed it was. Four of us, Bill in RR, Bob in YL, Alan in RY, and myself in XP tootled our way down to Waipunga Falls, almost halfway on the Napier/Taupo highway. We had to use airspace a lot of the way, and this was problem free. Cloudbases up to 6500 feet at the turnpoint and the ride home was definitely easier than the ride down.

I put my flight on the online competition, view the day here:
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/daily.html?sp=2013&c=C0&sc=&rt=olc&st=olc&df=2013-03-24

Heading down to Tokoroa

Mt Tahara, next to Centennial Park

A good looking sky to the turnpoint

On the way back. Things were thickening up nicely, with gaps between getting bigger.

Aah dear readers I am sure I have your undivided attention!!

Firstly the hot news:

This Sunday around 2:30 we will be visited on the airfield by David Marriot of Nelson Pilot Training to demo his Sportstar’s aerotowing prowess. Feel free to spectate or take a tow, and give some feedback on how things looked to you.

Sportstar Tour Flyer - MT.pdf

EV97_Aerotow_tests_results.pdf

Secondly – a correction to last winglets.

Apparently I am showing true prowess at journalism – first jump at the news, then twist it to suit what creates readership – don’t worry about the facts, or careful and thorough checking of how the events unfolded, and for heavens sake don’t check with another source to see if what you have is factual. Yep – I score 10/10.

It seems that my announcement of Gina Pirrits’s solo was a little exuberant - there was ballast in the glider in the form of her dad Jamie. Now if he hadn’t been ther it would have been a solo – he was virtually not there but ......... Seems I got so caught up in the handshakes and high fives – I missed a tiny weeney detail.

I should have realized something was wrong when I was not presented with the drink I demanded in the bar later, but I put that down to me just being ignored again.......

Back into the kennel....

PC

Brief tonight – phew I hear you sigh ........ I hate to think I am cluttering your inbox, but if yours looks like mine then you just don’t have time for a book when a paragragh will do.

Other reason for brevity is that the automatic upload of  the flying sheets to Skydrive failed on Sunday night. As a result I have no idea who flew what and for how long especially on Saturday as I wasn’t there! I did hear there were around 20 launches and the day was a good one so – well done to all who partook (doesn’t look right – sounds like something from a Malaysian jungle...)

Sunday I know roughly what went on because I helped Bryan O’Brien start off his first session on the computer, and then we did it all over again after it all disappeared – I marvel at the creativity of every one of us who all seem to use a computer in completely different ways, yet still manage to create things we can send to each other!!! All good fun, and Bryan had it all balanced to a tee at days end, in fact scored a modest profit by not having change to give a cash flush customer – gets them every time – we love keeping the change - $5.00 went in the bar till Bill.

I will relate a little tale of learning that happened for me whilst flying NI on Sunday – and it carries a couple of messages. After some radio difficulties on the ground I took off and got away nicely and spent ¾ of an hour never below 5000’. All good. Then as I was steaming around near the southern threshold of the airfield, the vario went really nuts in spasms that I couldn’t stand so I turned it off – realising that it was probably a battery issue. I then spent another 1.25 hours flying by the seat of my pants and the mechanical vario – and I will swear blind I flew and thermalled better. During this time I realised that whilst I could still hear some radio transmissions, I was unable to transmit so now I had to land safely in condition NORDO. Again this seemed to really heighten my awareness and I stayed high whilst making plans for a safe arrival without causing grief to others.

During my descent down the non-traffic side I tried unsuccessfully, to contact Bryan by cellphone – he answered but could not hear me, so I gave that away and just kept looking out for all I was worth. I spotted and heard UL joining and had heard a Katana vacating, so took up position at no 2 preserving height in the circuit until base leg. With relief and a certain satisfaction I landed safely.

My personal satisfaction came from not panicking and making what I believed to be good/safe decisions when things went wrong. My big message is to the lovely person, who in October 2010 wrote on the battery I took off the charger on Feb 2013, “Battery tested and found NOT OK” – and left it on the bench with all the other batteries. @#$%^& picture steam out of ears when I saw this very faint faded scrawl on a piece of tape on the battery case. For heavens sake – if a battery is in that condition, don’t leave it on the bench next to the charger. Put it in the clubhouse with a note for Neil that it should be tested and/or replaced. ONLY HEALTHY USABLE BATTERIES SHOULD BE ON THE BENCH.

Sorry to write about me, but its about sharing experiences from which we can all learn, especially newer members. Incidentally, I am not professing to have done everything right and stand ready to be straightened out. If in doubt, ask an instructor.

Others who enjoyed the day on duty were Phil Smith on the instructors roster and Tracey in BZA. Flying were Robin Britton in NV, Julian  and Chris in UL, Will in SN, Dave Dennison also in SN, and new member Felipe who flew one of the 2 seaters, plus a trial flight to kick the day off. If I have missed you out its my memory to blame, my apologies.

But it was a great flying weekend.

Cheers

PC

Forget baby-boomers – they were big this weekend, well Saturday at least. It was all about thermals and some mighty flights were had – Alan Belworthy showed his iron constitution again with 5hrs 19mins at the helm of RY and Julian Mason had a lengthy 4Hrs & 15 mins in UL (on 6 minutes of engine time – thats a whole lot of flying for a baked bean cans worth of two-stroke!!). Neil Raymond slipped around in XP for 3Hrs 11 mins, Bill Mace close behind with 3hrs 4 mins, followed by Will Kamp, Godfrey Larsen, David Muckle & visitor Steve Ansell, all clocking over 2 hours. Great flying guys!

Having just as much fun, without nappies, were instructors Tim Bromhead & Tony Davies who got through 5 trial flights and Rainer Kunnemeyer who has new member Claudio Sala under his training wing. Remaining members Dave Dennison, Jamie Pirrit with daughter Gina, Carl Henderson, Phil Smith, Yvonne Belworthy, Steven Care and Jonathan Pote all took advantage of the conditions – all up a busy day.

Made a bit busier for poor Jonathan the Duty Pilot who found that too much information can cause the computer to stop calculating – as did Bill Mace last Wednesday. They both made the mistake of being too diligent and entered all their glider id’s with a G in front (GPC, GRR etc. The end reult was they calculated every thing manually, thinking the programme had a bug!. If only they knew! Actually Jonathan stayed on Sunday night and reviewed his Saturday with me as I edited all the glider data - which was much appreciated by moi – and made sure it all worked out perfectly. Thats great dedication.

COMPUTER HINT FOR DUTY PILOTS – ONLY ENTER THE LAST 2 LETTERS FOR AIRCRAFT ID’S TUGS & GLIDERS – IE PC, PK, NI otherwise the programme lookup formulas will not detect the glider fees and calculate the hire rates.

Sunday did not deliver the same conditions in terms of cloud development, but it was still going off. I have never viewed the airfield from 6266 feet directly overhead before! Flying on the day in addition to Julian and me, were Pieter Bronkhorst, Bob Gray and guest Darryl, Jonathan Pote, Steven Care, Phil Smith and new member Felipe Bonfanti de Barros all the way from Brazil where he trained as a QGP. He is looking forward to meeting other members especially those from Hamilton as he has only just arrived and is yet to acquire a car. His contact details should be posted later in the week, so you can give him a call and arrange a ride if you are a citizen of Tron.

Thanks to Morris Beale for a fearless day on the laptop – closely watched by an attentive Mrs B, he went from zero knowledge  to hero status doing a great job.

I can’t finish without a word of praise for the valiant efforts of  Ian Finlayson, Bob Gray and Tim Bromhead at the recent Taupo contest – lots of flying and lots of eventful outlandings it seems, but a good time was had by all accounts.

In response to a number of requests, well one actually, there is a manual available for the operation of the laptop and timekeeping programme which I will post somewhere on the website in the next day or so and print for the caravan by next weekend.

Finally,

1. I thank Pres. Roger Brown for his words of wisdom and leadership as emailed to us all yesterday. May the club be with you!

2. A huge welcome to our new members Claudio & Felipe, and not forgetting Rob Shuttleworth who also came aboard officially this week. Aren't we are on a roll!

PC

Well, it's all over again. Somehow we managed to fly 11 days of 12. 

Day 8 was good, with a tricky part up north. Doug and I ended up landing out while eveyone else made it home. I was in an airstrip, but forgot the golden rule of "the bin marks the top of the strip" and ended up landing a slight downhill. We managed to stop the glider before the end of the strip by putting a wing down and skidding to a halt, which I was very pleased about because it really was a big drop.

As I put the glider in the trailer I realised the wing had scrapped over something in the field, and caused a big scratch. That night we had the glider checked by engineers for a heavy landing check and confirm the scratch was OK to fly when tapped up. It'll be up to be fixed this week.

The lesson is always land up to the bin when landing at a strip. I wrongly assumemd the strip went up the same as the rest of the hills, but it was actually the other way around. Luckily it was flat top and bottom, just the middle had a slope, and without any flat references I didn't even realise until I was stopped at the bottom.

Day 9 was a tricky day, but somehow I had more trouble than most. I made several attempts to leave the Mangakino region without luck. The task took 4 hours 20, compared to most others 2 to 3 hours.

A standing ovation when I arrived home was nice at 6pm, as everyone was expecting a landout.

Day 10 was a good day. Nice and fast, good cloud bases, and we flew out east over the forests and farmland.

Day 11 was very tricky. A strong south easterly put the airfield in the lee of Tahara. A lot of pilots including myself never got started, or gave up soon after starting. A couple managed to find the wave off Tahara and started the task at 6500 feet which was impressive.

Special congratulations to Bob for being the only person, out of both classes, to make it back home to win the day. Very impressive!

I went to retreive Fin, which turned out to be quite a trip, leaving at 5, arriving back at 10pm. The tradition of people landing out a long way away on the last day continues!

Day by day places:
http://www.soaringspot.com/nzclub2013/results/club/day-by-day.html 

Final scores:
http://www.soaringspot.com/nzclub2013/results/club/total/day11.html

Congrats to Steve Wallace, Mike Stathern and Mark Wilson, for 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

For the Matamata Soaring Contest, here are the day by day results:
http://www.soaringspot.com/msc2013/results/open/day-by-day.html

 Congratulations to Pat, Tony and Trevor!

Climbing in the blue with Nigel in his ASW27

The glider perched at the top of the cliff, at the bottom of the airstrip.

Helping derig Fin out past Wharepapa on the last day

Broken axel on the Lebelle after going into a rough paddock. This put Mark out for a day

Another day in paradise, with a tricky day, which had a couple of minor casualites.

A could of entrants, Ross and Adam have departed due to other commitments and a pesky cold.

We also had two incidents to aircraft. The first was Taupo's pawnee going into an airstrip for a retrieve, and having an undercarriage collapse (not the same way as our tow plane).

The second was damage to the wheel hub of the Lebelle going into a field.

Both are hoping to be fixed today, with spare parts available from several sources.

Overall we had 4 from the club class get home, with Steve Wallace winning the day. I managed second place, after getting stuck in a hole at Atiamuri (again) for half an hour. When will I learn to stay out of there?! It took three climbs to get out, but the clouds kept disintegrating on me.

Once we were back on track things improved, but it was easy to miss a needed climb and end up in lots of sink. So staying high was the goal.

I'm amazed at the RASP how accurate it was yesterday. For example, those who flew down the ranges on the west of the lake didn't have much luck. There was better lift between the range and the lake. Which is exaclty what the convergence predicitions show.

Today should be better, with much more steady thermal strengths everywhere, although could be blue around here.

Results http://www.soaringspot.com/nzclub2013/results/club/daily/day7.html

3pm convergence lines

It wasn't quite as blue as this picture implies :)