Did anyone not get snowed on today?!

Well, this dinner on Saturday night was a bit of a ripper. Thanks to everyone for coming along, yet again, a huge thanks to Bill, Jan and all those who helped in the kitchen.

The meal this year was a bit special, with a pasta starter, roast duck and chicken for the mains, followed by a range of 4 deserts plus ice cream. For some reason most were full at the end of it.

We had a good number of awards this year, here's a list of acheivements and who got what. Congrats everyone! And if you want to have a look at what you need to do next year to get the trophies, check out our club tasks page.

On Sunday we had a practice run of the Kaimai Speed Challenge with a suprisingly good day of flying. Half of the Auckland club turned up! We've setup a blog on the new Matamata Soaring Website, so we'll post some news and pics about it soon.

TRAINING ACHIEVEMENTS

David Muckle            First Solo and A Certificate                                 May 10

Peter Minor               First Solo

Carl Henderson       B certificate

Murray Connell         Qualified Glider Pilot (at Taupo)                         Nov 10 

Jamie Pirrit               C Cat Instructor Rating

BADGE AWARDS

Steve Care                Diamond Distance and Three Diamonds                      29 Jan 2011

Tim Bromhead         Diamond Distance                                                  29 Jan 2011 

Mark Drayson           Silver Distance and Silver Height                         2 Feb 2011

                                    Silver Badge

NZ RECORDS

Alan Belworthy         100km O&R Speed             172km/hr                  10 Oct 2010

COMPETITION SUCCESS

Alan Belworthy         Winner Open Class            MSC Regional Contest Nov 2010

Bob Gray                   Winner Club Class MSC Regional Contest Nov 2010

CLUB AWARDS

COMMITTEE AWARDS

Tom Martin Trophy

This trophy is awarded in memory of Colonel Tom Martin, and is awarded to the club member who has provided outstanding friendship and service to the club in the past year. Committee’s decision.

Awarded to Tim Bromhead 

PRESIDENT AWARD

President’s Pot

Awarded for most meritorious flight. Only awarded in years where a big flight in the true sense of the word is accomplished. Club President’s decision.

Awarded to Alan Belworthy for his (two) NZ Record flights over 100km O&R. 

CFI’s RECOMMENDATIONS

Ken Bartlett Trophy

This trophy was donated by the family of Ken Bartlett a long time member of the Piako Gliding Club. It is awarded each year to the pilot with the most outstanding Personal Best.

Awarded to Steve Care for his Diamond Distance flight and achieving Three Diamonds 

DeRenzy Pot

This trophy was donated by Peter de Renzy an enthusiastic past pilot and one of the near-original members of the club. Awarded to the “most improved new pilot”.

Awarded to Dave Marcellus for his enthusiasm and general good airmanship.

Les Riesterer Short Course Trophy

Awarded to Neil Raymond for a great flight on 27 February 2011.

Catlin Trophy

This Trophy was donated by the Catlin Family in memory of Harold Catlin who as Chairman of the County Council’s Airport Committee actively encouraged gliding at Matamata Airfield. It is awarded each year for the fastest handicapped time around a course fixed for the season by the CFI.

Not awarded this year

Care 200 Trophy

This trophy was donated by club member Steve Care. It is awarded each year to the pilot with the best handicapped time around a 200km course set by the CFI.

Awarded to Tim Bromhead for flight on 22 August 2010 with a speed of 110.11km/hr

Dave McPherson 1 Diamond Trophy

This trophy was donated by Dave McPherson as the Century 21 trophy, but on his passing away, and with the consent of his family, has been renamed in his memory. It was conceived to promote cross-country soaring and is awarded each year to the pilot with the fastest handicapped speed around a 300km FAI triangle starting at Matamata Airfield or Waharoa Dairy Factory.

Not awarded this year.

It's that time of year, the mid winter annual awards dinner! Not this weekend, but the next.

Presentations, (sur)prizes.
Taking off with free mulled wine or juice at 6.30pm, 13th August
Four (count them 4!) course dinner.
Plus tea/coffee to finish.
$25 per head.

Numbers by 11th August (Thursday night) please to Bill & Jan wajvmace@ihug.co.nz

If we're real lucky, Bob will wear an apron again.

From Julian, thanks for sharing and have fun!

We flew to the Grabs Canyon today. By the time we arrived by 10 seater plane, the thermals were quite vigorous and after our helicopter descent 4000 feet to the Canyon floor, it was booming. I would guess cloudbase was at least 20k and a great convergence set up later in the day, complete with CB's and lightening

Cheers from Sin City

Saturday was a good ridge day and only a few pilots turned up! Steve was in GVC and Julian & Dave Muckel in GPK got to 8,900ft near Te Aroha in very smooth ridge and wave.

Nice one guys, wish I could have been there.

I had been watching the weather for Wednesday for the last 5 days and it looked great for a good ridge task. Even the night before I was hopeful of being able to try for the long awaited 500 ridge task and it looked on. 

However the RASP on the day showed the lower wind starting after noon and the wind north of Te Aroha weakening, the further north you went. Not conducive to 500k flights, however the newly devised Kaimai Speed Challenge begged to be tried. Tim was keen also but he couldn't get out until 2pm. 

I was able to launch well before him and thought that I should be able to complete the course a couple of times. The first, to try the conditions, and the second to improve on that time. 

Heading to the start point I was able to climb at 85 kts. A good time seemed possible.

I headed off with the idea of keeping airspeed over 100kts and basically maintaining height. The cloud base was too low to consider a pass behind Te Aroha so around the face I went. Beyond Te A the lift eased and I sped up to go through the sink, but it kept on all the way to the turn. Heading back I eased up realising that 115kts was going to see me too low on Te A. I actually lost very little on the trip back but now I had time to make up. Oh well this is just the first run so I thought I would only push it moderately. In places it was a little rough and I thought +4 on the G meter occasionally meant I should stay below rough air speed when I anticipated a rough patch. Man those long wings flap.

I finished and thought it was not a bad run.

Back to the golf ball to gain height for the second run. All was good until I was about to round Te A and heard Tim was landing out. Spotted him in the racecourse and wondered how that had happened. I was about to find out. Little lift out to the turn point had me well slowed up. All chance of beating the first time was lost by the time I got back to Te A. Tim’s warning of not getting to low on Te Aroha was heeded and in fact I never got much lift at all until I was back towards the Maori Lady. I finished the course and headed back to retrieve Tim.

It was a very enjoyable afternoon. It was some time since I had flown a serious task and even if it was short it was still interesting on the day. There is enough going on to make it interesting no matter what level your experience. Oh and the speed, 166kph. The NZ record is 172kph. Achievable.

Yesterday was an interesting ridge day. Up top at 5000' there was 20-30 knots all day, but down at ground level, things started off very still, but picked up after lunch. I mentioned to Bill before leaving that today would be a good day to avoid getting too low...

I launched around quarter to 3, and had a 100km task to do, from the Tauranga road, to an airstrip just north of Te Aroha and return (more details about this special task coming soon).

It was all going swimmingly up to Te Aroha, and then it all fell apart quickly. I arrived on Te Aroha at 2700', and did notice there wasn't much up. We'll take it slowly and see how it goes. Carl in GXA passed underneath me the other way, and didn't seem to have any problems. Soon we were at the turnpoint and had only lost 300 feet getting there, so was feeling pretty confident.

As we started tracking towards Te Aroha again we hit some sink in behind the hill. I realised my mistake at the time, and should have kept out of this area. This dropped us down to 1500', and little did I know, the wind at lower level had died to 5 knots and below. I was expecting something on the side of the hill to be working, but alas, the wind has a habit of going around Te Aroha when light, rather than up.

We had trekked around the base of the mountain, and realised our game was up. There was no up, only down, and it didn't take long to get to 1000' with no where else to go.

So we made a prompt decision to put it down at the racecourse, and on turning around we hit a good amount of sink, loosing another 500'. Due to that we didn't have height to do a full circuit, so joined finals and landed safely on a freshly mown piece of track.

Stepping out it was obvious just how light the wind was, nothing more than a gentle breeze, while up higher the clouds were motoring still.

A tip for landing at the racecourse, ensure you land on one of the tracks rather than the paddocks in the middle. The middle is cut in half with a fence, and it's rough and boggy if wet.

A big thanks to Bill and Dave for coming to pick me up, as far as retrieves go it was a very easy one. A fun day, and it was great to have a good flyable day for a change.

It all happened pretty quick

Almost a runway

I think I won, but I was the only entrant

The crowds went wild

A big thanks to Bill for organising a very enjoyable landing contest last weekend. It was suprisingly difficult to touch down accurately, and many first attempts ended up touching down way too early. Honestly I thought we were meant to STOP by the bucket, not touch down there... anyway Things quickly improved however, well done to Steve for pretty much getting it bang on.

The winching was also excellent practice, for any new pilots who haven't done it yet, be sure to come out and give it a go next time. Unusually, the best bit is paying the bill at the end. You really do get a lot of fun for your money.

Here's a few pics from Saturday.

The crowds were a rowdy bunch

The passenger was obviously relaxed enough to be taking pics

Dodging rain, yet again

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN 

OF THE

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

OF THE

MATAMATA SOARING CENTRE INC

TO TAKE PLACE IN THE

TAURANGA GLIDING CLUB, CLUBROOMS

101 DAKOTA WAY

TAURANGA AIRPORT

ON

SUNDAY, 29th MAY 2011

COMMENCING AT 12.30 PM

• NOMINATIONS ARE INVITED FOR POSITIONS ON THE COMMITTEE

• NOMINATIONS AND REMITS FOR DISCUSSION SHOULD BE RECEIVED AT PO BOX 100, MATAMATA OR TO E-MAIL walest@jafa.net.nz  BY FRIDAY 27th MAY 2011

• MEMBER CLUBS ARE ASKED TO ENSURE THEY ARE REPRESENTED

• BE THERE AND HAVE A SAY IN THE FUTURE OF SOARING AT THE MATAMATA SOARING CENTRE, WAHAROA AIRFIELD