Thanks to Chris Scales for this video, made during our winch training day recently.

Full event on Sunday 13 September, with repeat of the pilot briefing on Wednesday 16 Sept for those that can’t make the Sunday.

Start time 10.00am (both days) finish 12.00 for lunch and afternoon flying.

This is a compulsory briefing for all glider pilots (to attend either day). Glider pilots who have not attended the briefing will not be cleared for solo flying and will have to make arrangements for a special session with the CFI.

Agenda –

• Duty Pilot’s daily duties including new timesheet software,
• Airspace and Radio Procedures,
• Gliding Safely,
• Club Tasks,
• and some time for pilot feedback and discussion. 

To be followed by BBQ lunch and flying fun. Club members can make bookings for BFRs or currency checks in the afternoon.

See you there!

Anyone else wish they were out gliding today?! Taken at 12pm looking towards the Kaimais from Hamilton

We've still got a couple of spaces for the learn to fly course starting this coming Saturday - if you're interested, or you know anyone who might be interested get in touch with Anna on 07 888 8782 asap, or see the website homepage for details

www.glidingmatamata.co.nz

We had a great day winching yesterday, thanks to everyone who came along and made it happen. We'll be aiming to make more use of the winch over the coming season. Here are some pics from Keith and Tim.

We're looking for beginners for the next Learn to Fly training course is coming up, starting Saturday 22nd August and running 6 consecutive Saturdays.

The course aims to teach the fundamentals on how to fly, and know to safely take off and land. You'll be flying with experienced gliding instructors in our 2 seat training gliders.

More details and information can be found here, otherwise contact AnnaDoerr on 07 888 8782, or email training@glidingmatamata.co.nz

Instructor Steve care with 2 recent students

Flying over the Waikato

Here are the award winners for 2008/09 - these have been updated on the club awards page.

Club Trophies

DeRenzy Pot - Neil Raymond - Most improved new pilot

Ken Bartlett Trophy - Tim Bromhead - Most outstanding Personal Best for winning Sports Class Nationals 

President’s Pot - Robin Britton -  For an outstanding flight during Sports Class Nationals

Tom Martin Trophy - Joan Wine - for providing outstanding friendship and service to the club in the past year. Joan doesn't fly, but puts a huge amount of work and effort into the club as committee member and secretary of the club.

Wooden C - Not awarded this year. Almost awarded to Jamie for setting his altimeter to 1182 feet instead of 182 feet, and wondering why releasing at 2000' AGL felt 'a little low'. Well done for dealing with the situation properly.

Club Task Trophies

Care 200 Trophy - Bill Mace - fastest time around the Care 200 course

Catlin Trophy - Unawarded!

Les Riesterer Short Course Trophy - Unawarded!

Dave McPherson 1 Diamond Trophy - Unawarded!

Well done Bill for being the only person to complete a club trophy task this year!

This is an open challenge to all Piako pilots to compete for these trophies this year. 

The Les Riestererer short course in particular is great for newer pilots, and is great practice for using GPS's and preparing for a task.

The task details are available on the website here.

Other Achievements

Tim Bromhead - C Cat Instructors Ratings
Dom Stevens - C Cat Instructors Ratings

Brian OBrien Regionals Contest 1st Club Class
Bob Gray Regionals Contest 2nd Club Class
Tim Bromhead 3rd Sports Class

Carl Henderson – first solo and A cert
Neil Raymond - first solo and A cert
Josh Money - first solo and A cert
Aimee Dawson - first solo and A cert
Manda Connor - first solo and A cert
John Krukerink - first solo and A cert
Robb Munn – first solo

Well done everyone!

The Care 200 Trophy

The webcam is back! We had a chance to play with it in the weekend, and it's been working since. Fingers crossed it will keep going happily.

Some pics from today

The reason it's a bit temperamental is because we're using a standard digital camera, which is not really designed to be running constantly, but does provide wonderful quality images. Sometimes it turns itself off, and then it has to be turned back on manually.

Also it's computer controlled and unfortunately there's no special software to do what we want, so it's hacked together with some trickery (Automator on the Mac for those interested).

Anyway, we'll try to keep it going as reliably as possible, and perhaps set up another lower quality, more reliable camera as a backup.

Another year, another prize giving, and this year's was a cracker. Thanks to everyone who came along, the clubhouse was full to capacity.

Notable events:

• An amazing 4 course feast, with nibble starters, chicken soup entré, beef and veg main course, followed by fly cemetery puddings, custard, fruit and icecream.
• Guest speaker for the evening was ex club member and budding water-colour artist Tom Shanks, who brought along a gallery of work for his first ever public showing. He also gave an interesting talk on how to get into water-colour painting. Thanks heaps Tom, and congrats to the lucky owners of new paintings. View Tom's work online at tomshanks.co.nz.
• Tim gave a presentation of his recently developed project, WentFlying.com pilot logbook system, that lets us glider pilots record our flying history. Check it out at wentflying.com!

Thanks again Jan for a wonderful feast. More details on the award winners coming soon.

Prize winners, Neil Raymoond, Tim Bromhead, Robin Briton and Bill Mace. Absent: Joan Wine,

Jan & Kate cooking up a storm

One of the awards not awarded this year!

Much chatting went on. Grant was pleased.

Jan receiving a bouquet for all her efforts