October 2016

(copied from our Facebook Group)

30th Oct

Excellent soaring yesterday. It was great to tow behind ERW again, it makes getting away so much easier, especially with water ballast on board the gliders.

Gary towed Pete, John and Phil into the light southerly. The air was unstable so we all headed off. Pete flew up the Hopkins Valley and met up with John at Mt Brewster (Haast Pass) where we both found a 10kt thermal to 10,000'. Phil flew 2.5hrs in lift in the Dunstans etc.Here's a pic of the Hunter valley yesterday...

29th Oct

Some training today for Wills, Ami and Nick, prior to sending Mark off to Omarama for a week in JW.

17th 

Oct

We had good flying yesterday. Phil drove the winch (thanks!). John flew a trial-flighter (Tim), then flew KG. Doug back-seated long wave flights with Wills, Nick and Ami. There was strong wave about in the 50kt westerly, with over 2000 fpm average climb rates recorded. A couple of Omarama gliders came down our way and kept us company...here's Graham Erikson, who used to own my yellow glider many years ago. He's flying the Omarama Club's Duo Discus and we met up over Ida Valley.

Gliding 9th Oct 2016

Great gliding today. The local showers cleared as the day progressed and it was nice and unstable. Phil was back from the UK so he had a check flight with John off the winch (soaring, spins and stalls!). Roland and John flew out west to the mountains as far as Aspiring, and Nick did his QGP soaring duration flight in JW (actually he flew and hour and fourty mins). Many thanks to Pete for the winches, we were getting 2400' QNH which was really good.

Gliding 18th Sept 2016

A great day's soaring! John flew visiting pilots from the US, Amy and Barry, Both got soaring flights at the start of the day. Nick had 2 solo soaring flights in JW and Masato returned from Japan and had a quick flight with John.
Roland had the best flight, after driving the winch for for the start of the day he launched in VH and flew to Bannockburn and back, reaching 5000'.

We were very short on numbers, so a big thanks to everyone who helped keep us going. Derek drove the winch later in the day and Wills supervised everybody but never got a flight. We ended early to attend the planning meeting for Blossom festival fly-in, and had a pleasant beer and BBQ around 5pm.

Gliding 15th Sept

Roland and John were in need of a thermal fix so tried to fly today. But the day was looking a bit soft and it was hard to get enough hands at such short notice. John launched Roland (slow descent...) then Roland launched John. With Roland's guidence ("the hawks are to your left") John stayed up for a few minutes (but even the hawks were flapping at times). WIth stable air and sub-visable cirrus dulling the sky we decided to go back to work and try another time...

 Anyway, we're up and running for mid week. The winch went well except the radio aerial dropped off and can't be found. Thanks to Nick T for runnng the wings and Pete for a visit between work commitments. cheers JR

Gliding Sunday 4th Sept

Despite the rain early PM we manages some good gliding. Roland drove the winch and John instructed. Wills, Nick S,and Roland's son Michael all flew with John. Nick ended up having 2 solo flights including 15mins soaring when the sun came out.

Gliding Sunday 28th Aug 2016

Another westerly wave day. Roland drove the winch, Doug and Wills had a great wave flight in JW, down to Roxburgh, plus we had gliding friends Karen Morgan and Terry Jones fly with us. Nigel and Sheena (also glider pilots) visited but didn't fly. John had a wee wave flight and then drove the winch for a while so Roland could fly in JW.

Gliding Sunday 21st Aug 2016

Winching under dull skies. There was a decent northerly up top and at times it was gusty on the ground. A wee Jabiru flew in from Taieri, not ideal microlighting weather!

John flew KG for a change, the first flight for well over 2 months! He winched up into the rotor and eventually got into wave. It was cold and lumpy but he flew up to St Bathans and down to Roxburgh, about 200km in the 2 hour flight.

Doug and Nick flew JW. It was pretty rough towards the end and Nick got some good experience handling JW in these conditions. Many thanks to Roland for driving the winch.