Last day of 2009...

Squiggly line graphs are looking better and better... Today as the winds ease expect mid-afternoon thermals to go through to 5500-6000ft. Tomorrow looks even better. Task for today - probably ridge based. Poripori - Flaxmill - Managkino - Home.

Seasons Greetings

Hi all, I been doing the family thing for a few days. Today (Wednesday) looks like a strong wave day. Increasing winds with hieght, 15-20 knots at ground level, 40-50 knots at 5000ft. Inversion at 4000ft which is suppose to be good for wave. Challange will be to climb in the wave and drop onto the kaimai's. Who wants to fly up and down in wave getting cold? Tomorrow the winds are forecast to drop a bit and New Years day looks even better.

Stay at the beach...

While yesterday looked like a good day inland, today not going to be worth the effort. As you can probably see there is a veil of high cloud which will stuff up thermal developement. While metservice are forecasting 26 degrees it'll still be blue in most areas. The forecast westerlies may set up a sea breeze convergence but not much else.

Just for Xmas

Squiggly lines show probably the best day of the season so far...and not a tow pilot to be seen...

More on Westridge

I had to have a look at the strip. Hard to believe we have something so good so close to home.

Strip is 300 meters long and could easily be made longer to 500 meters. It could also be made wider.

Mown area is 10 meters wide (looks to be mown regularly...but by whom??) and the grass on the sides is about 30cm's high and not very dense. Similiar to the grass on the side of 04/22.

The mound of dirty (read hill) is close to the center of the strip but if you were to run your main wheel up again the long grass on the eastern side than you would have 10-11 meters space...wide enough to land a Duo...just.

Owned by the city council. I met the lease holder. He is not sure what the council is planning for the area of ground. I wonder if we should offer to have an input.

Possible Land-out strip

You learn something new everyday...

Like there is a potential back-up outland strip right in the middle of the Route K valley.

So the best land-out options around the city are outlined on the photo. As is the likely layout of the Westridge strip (Maurice has taken photo's and I'll have a wee visit soon).

I'll put something in the Newsletter soon (the Fijian gliding clubs newsletter that is...) but that's not due out until Feb...Thanks to Maurice to alerting us to this strip.

Land-out practise...

The forecast for the Bay was about spot-on. By 4pm cloud base was probably 6000ft. Sea breezes and a solid convergence inland from the racecourse and the Poripori strip.

However the Waikato was a different matter. As we desended into the Waikato cloud base was 3500ft and rose to 4500ft by late afternoon. The thermals were weak and not very consistent.

So we had plenty of land-out practise. GKM got to 900ft over Piako before getting a climb and, again, down to 1200 ft over the Te Aroha Racecourse before finding a thermal.

My tracklog said I got as low as 877ft over the spud patch before blundering into a thermal.

It was good thermal tho with climbs of 5 knots. Right over the top of Ralph Gore's new cowshed...thanks for converting to dairyfarming Gore's.

However the day was no where near good enough for our task - Tga- Maramarua - Te Awa (East of Taupo) - Tga. 510kms.

Thursday Forecast - 500km day

Looks like Thursday should be a goodie...

Cloud bases 6000ft around the Bay and Waikato and higher to the south. Light winds from the south and sea breezes about the coast and Lakes.

At this stage I'm thinking Barkes Corner - Maramarua - Taumarunui - Galatea - Home.

Yeah I know...fairly impossible but i want to get into the area south of Bennydale.

The other option is a 300km out and return from Home to Tauramanui and back.

We'll see in the morning.

Wednesday Wx

NOAA's down again...so...I'm guessing cloud bases of 4500ft around the coast and higher inland. Sea breezes as the winds seem quite light. Some ridge activity but with quite a lot of southerly drift. Good day to go to Taupo I suspect. Not as unstable as yesterday so we shouldn't get as must shower/TStorm activity late in the day.

Listen to how it was done...

Weblink to an interview on National Radio with Terry Delore. He recounts his 2501 kms flight from Omarama to Ward to Clyde to Napier and back to Omarama http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/national/aft/2009/12/15/gliding_record

Thursday...

That's my best guess for the strongest day this week...

Gliding record

Two New Zealanders have smashed a world distance gliding record, beating temperatures as low as minus 35degC to fly 2500km over nearly 15 hours. Christchurch pilot Terry Delore and John Kokshoorn, originally from Christchurch but now living in Australia, touched down in Omarama in Central Otago last night, having glided 2501km. They smashed the previous record by Klaus Ohlmann by about 80km, the Timaru Herald reported. They took off from Omarama, flew to Ward in Marlborough, back to Clyde, near Alexandra, and then back up and level with Taihape in the North Island, before turning around and landing at Omarama. During the trip, the pair hit speeds of up to 200km/h, but a rough patch over the Canterbury plains slowed the glider to about 80km/h. Flying at 28,000 feet, or 8.5km high, for most of the way, the pair's water bags froze solid during the record-breaking flight. They relied on "electric socks, hand warmers, three hats, polyprops, three shirts, gloves and all that sort of thing", Mr Delore said. Mr Delore bought the Ash 25 glider from Steve Fossett, a millionaire adventurer who died in a light plane crash in the Nevada desert two years ago. Together Mr Fossett and Mr Delore set 11 world records between 2002 and 2007. Success followed four failed attempts. With the years of planning now behind him, Mr Delore was not sure what was next. "I don't know, I haven't thought that far ahead. There are still some speed records to do, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it." Stuff.co.nz

Wave afternoon

Not a bad afternoon if you like wave flying Click on the picture watch a timelapse of this afternoon

Sunday 13th Dec

Update  - I just looked outside...high cloud is advancing fast as is the mid level cloud as well...so bugger that I'm off to do other stuff...

Hmmm....let me see.
Westerlies slowly turning to the North west.
Wind increasing in general from 5-10 knots to 20 knots late today. Wind increasing with hieght. 35 knots at 10,000ft at 1pm.
Approaching front...so at some stage mositure will start turning up...usually some high cloud precedes a front but not much is forecast from the squiggly lines.
Squiggly lines suggest convection to 5-5500 ft later today if the forecast ground temps are correct. Forecast 21 degrees in Tga and 20 degrees in Taupo.
Probably a ridge/thermal/wave day. Expect wave later in the day...it will probably be well marked after 5pm. It will depend how far North the wind goes.

Would I be using up brownie points today??? Especially this close to Xmas?? Only if you have nothing better to do...
Task...the usual...Tauranga, struggle over the ridge, north somewhere like Tirohia (and if the swamp is working maybe FlaxMill), south as far as you can get...Tokoroa possibly, home. 250kms.

Brad Pitt sighted at Piako...

Currently secretly filming his latest big budget film, Brad Pitt's stunt double was snapped hanging about the Piako Gliding Club...

The movie is rumoured to be a sequel to "Thelma and Louise" called "Bob and Bart" with the car scenes being filmed in and around Walton...

X-country Kms update

Quick re-cap. I'm recording the X-Country kms Tauranga pilots clock-up during the summer. These are flights that originate from Tauranga rather than elsewhere, and are flights I recieve some verification of the flight log...ie no cheating, made up stories or use of motors/turbo's.

Last year we achieved about 7000kms. So far this summer we are at 6800kms with another 4 months to go. Here's the track of the latest flight I have recieved. Bruce Little and his flight out to Tirohia and back. Well done. Crossing the Kaimai's is always a challange...why just last Tuesday 4 people tried and only one succeeded...

On the leaders board is Brett, Adrian, Mark and myself.

Click on the movie clip below to watch the day blue out...

In fear of getting it wrong twice in a row...

Forecast. Convection hieght of about 5000ft which sounds good but at that hieght it'll be blue. Blue everywhere...here, Matamata, Taupo, Tokoroa etc...but there is some hope...Sea breezes are highly likely. So we may get sound clouds around any convergences which will probably look better than they actually are. If you look at the squiggly line graph...the mixing lines cross on the left of the lapse rate line...a sure sign that clouds will be hard to find. A few clouds may appear where the ground temperature gets temporarily higher than 30 degrees...valleys, logging sites, etc. I'm not game to set a task until we see how fast or far the sea breeze develops. It could be possible to cruise the front down to Lake Rotoma and back...but be early as the front will move around later in the day...

Forecast was off the mark.

Cloud base in the Waikato didn't get above 3700ft. I suspect the reason why was cos it never warmed upto the expected temperature required and had been forecast. The 2 online temp gauges up by the farm only peaked at 18 degrees. Oh and piss poor forecasting and a rush of blood to the head. Click on the photos and track to get a better view... Met up with GOI on the ridge...couple of photos included.

Forecast

Looks OK. Cloud base 5500ft. Light westerlies Warm inland. Some suggestion of high cloud developing further to the south. Sea breezes around the coast. I would suggest a 300km out and return...Tga to Taumarunui. Or a triangle of Tga to the Swamp and down to Taupo. See you there...

Better airmass..

After a week of a crappy northerly airmass we have had a change. The showery SW change that went through last night being the prospect of a couple of good days. Today will start a little late, as we wait for the ground to heat up, but should generate cloud bases of 4500-5000 ft later in the afternoon. The SW wind should hold out any sea breeze. Tomorrow looks more promising. Lighter winds so we'll see sea breezes in the afternoon but inland cloud bases should go higher than today. Wednesday should also be do-able depending whether the change to NW arrives early. I'm up for tomorrow.

Not too much to report...

A week of rain...killed the regionals unfortunately. First sunny day...attached is a timelapse of thermals passing overhead. Watch the day slowly fill in and sections of the sky overdevelop.

Why we should tie our trailers down...

A strong thermal swept through the trailer park at Omarama yesterday. I've seen similiar thermals sweep across the Piako Airfield from time to time...

Our Local Hero

Mark Arundel...winner of the Community Service award.

Late Evening Wave

Another Badge Flight...

This time it's Paul and GYR in a 300km/5 hour Gold C Badge flight on the Kaimai ridge.

Another Successful Day

Maurice in Piako's PW6. He had a good day to train a student in ridge flying. Much of the Thames leg was at 800ft or less.

X-Country Course

Keith looking happy (and tired) after his 50km silver C flight on the ridge. Tirohia to Te Papa road-crossing. A good effort especially at the Te Papa end as it had blued out and any thermals were dying.

Watch the Day blue out...

Approaching Front

Don't panic...it's approaching Sydney.

So you are going to land-out at the Racecourse...

It's highly likely because we no longer have many other options around the Barkes Corner end of town. If you not high enough to cross the city...don't. We have had people land at the Boys College...fair enough but you can't see the footy field until you arrive overhead and what do you do if there is a game of rugby on??? There is no where else to land other than try make the airport or land in the harbour... There is Aquinas college (I've landed there...) but you have similiar problems with people on the park. There is the very good Poripori strip...can you get there? Is there cows on the strip? Over the summer there will be every 20 days or so. So back to the racecourse...are the races on? Chances aren't high as they only have 5race meetings per year. What's more likely is a horse event in the center. Usually every Sunday. Can you land on the back straight (next to Cameron Rd)...yes - it's 25 meters wide (probably rules out an ASH25 but all the club gliders will fit...carefully). Photo shows back straight looking towards Greerton (looking North). But beware that if you turn and look to the South there is a very high TV filming tower...bugger, you'll have to fly round it. What about in the middle?? They is one smaller paddock (180 meters tops) which is totally fenced off so there is a chance there will be no horses/people in it. Good surface but you'll have to stop in a hurry. The best paddock, assuming no-one is about, is in the center, approaching from the North and is 250 meters long...plenty of room.

Someone should go gliding...

Cloud base...5500-6000ft inland. Maybe a sea breeze at the coast. Light-ish winds mostly W to SW. If it doesn't get above 20 degrees at might be blue, and if it gets above 24 degrees we might get some heavy showers. Luckily the forecast temp is 22 degrees. So one should go flying...I can't...got a cold.

So what do we want in the Future?

How many and what type of tow fleet do we want? There are lots of options...the current setup, one big beast that keeps out tow pilots safe as they cross the buidlings, a light weight Micro-light that can be used for recreational flying as well...you choose. What fleet of gliders do you want? Old ones or new ones. Only gliders suitable for training whereas any competition/X-country pilots can buy their own, self-launching, no PW5's...you choose. How many members do we want? Do we want to continue our slow decline in numbers or do we want to boost our numbers...you choose. These are the type of things Strategic Plans attempt to answer... Come and have your say...Sunday at 9am.

So what do we want in the Future?

A little bird told me...

That a past CFI is keen on promoting the club buy a self-launching training glider. An ASK21 Mi comes to mind...picture provided. Why would the club invest $250,000 in a glider with 34:1 performance (remember a PW5 is 32:1...on a good day, with a tail wind, on the ridge in a 20 knot westerly)??? Come and find out on sunday....

Club Strategic Plan.

Remember we have a club meeting on Sunday to discuss the strategic plan. Have your say or don't expect too much empathy if the club does things you didn't expect. Oh what's this?? The new Duo Discus X...better than the older Duo cos it has landing flaps...one pilot claims it's easier to land than a standard Discus.

Late afternoon wave

Click on the embedded video to watch 2 hours of wave condensed into 10 seconds. It's best to click on the play button, then pause while your computer downloads the video then play it. The blog site degrades the video but if you click the download option it should be better...I hope. By the way...I have a new camera so expect lots of experiments.

Tough Day.

Very hard work getting out of the Tauranga area. Very nearly got myself into a spot of trouble getting low over the city without a land-out option. This is not what we are suppose to do...we should always have options. Cows on both airstrips, the races were on for once at the Racecourse, people on all the parks etc. A 2 knot climb out of the Route K valley saved the day...thank Goodness... Cloud bases were as predicted (maybe a little lower than I thought they might be), wave on the Tauranga side and ridge/thermals on the Waikato side. Was blue to the south as the sqiggly lines had forecast...nice to get it right for a change... One low point on the Waikato side...950ft going into the low hills just north of Paeroa...but otherwise an uneventful 270 kms (if you exclude the first 15 minutes...).

Lets go gliding...I hope

NOAA's back online... So...todays forecast is for 20 degrees in Tauranga and about 17 degrees in Taupo. Light to moderate westerlies...15 knots at ground level and 20-25 knots above 6500ft. There is an inversion in place at about 5000ft above the Bay whereas its not quite as strong further south. However while thermals may go to 6-6500ft around Taupo it may stay blue or at least the thermal markers will be small and shallow. This shouldn't be a problem here in Tauranga. I think there will be wave influence. It should be enough to hold the sea breeze out. But we will need things to heat up past 18 degrees before we can get going. The top graph is for Tauranga at lunchtime and the other is Taupo mid-afternoon.

For he's a jolly good fellow...

Community Spirit Awards Supreme Award goes to...Ta ta... Mark Arundel. Our very own CFI. Well done. And 10 points for those who nominated him. Todays weather??? You'd be better off going to work... NOAA off line again...this could get quite frustrating as it's the best forecast tool we have...Metservice and MetVUW are aimed at a different audience and really only provide little bits of the picture. Metservice can give us expected surface temperatues for various towns and cities. MetVUW gives quite good wind forecasts at different levels. But if you want to forecast thermals, inversions, high cloud etc etc we need to refer to atmospheric soundings. While NOAA's soundings are only a forecast to give you a handle on where the value is...last night I constructed a sounding for the Rotorua area. It forecast high cloud, mid level cloud especially during the morning (4000-6000ft) and things turning to "poo" later in the day. It also forecast westerlies increasing with hieght (as did MetVUW). As I look out the window at 10.30am I see high level cloud, crud at 4-5000ft and some signs of wave. None of it's worth racing out to pull the covers off my glider. And the weekend doesn't look too good. Hopefully I can get some soundings tonight or early in the morning.

Thursday

Unfortunately the NOAA site is down this morning therefore I can't get a handle on stability and likely cloud bases. I'll try it again in a while...interestingly it was down last week as well, that's the first time I've struck problems accessing the data. So what else do we know? The rubbishy front went throuh last night so we would have to expect more unstable air behind the front, therefore reasonable thermal development. The general air flow (winds) is S to SW. It's currently (7.30am) 5-8 knots SSW at the Mount and a bit lighter further inland. I'm picking 5000ft bases with sea breezes starting up by mid-morning. Dew point is round 4-5 degrees and expected highs are 18-20 degrees so the old rough rule of thumb...400ft x the diff between temp and dew point (14) = 5600ft. Should be a good day to task to Taupo.

Tuesday...with the benefit of hindsight

I got it about right. There was a sea breeze although not very well marked at times. The cloud bases were 6000ft and probably higher further inland. It was a 500km thermal day yesterday. Thermals and streets as far as the eye could see...just a bugger no-one was out to use it.

Let's try again..

Tuesday...it'll be soar-able today. Sea breezes at the coast but light westerlies inland. Cloud bases at the coast will be 3500ft but inland and around Taupo should go upto 6000ft. Could overdevelop late in the day.

Well I got that wrong...

Sunday. The sea breeze was much stronger than expected...probably because the SW wind was non-existent. It had sea breezed out by noon at home. Lower cloud bases inland probably due to moist sea air as well as the approaching scrappy front heading up the country. Oh well...next time.

Wx Sunday - 8 November

Looks OK actually. Light West to South West winds and probably sea breezes along the coast. Upper winds are light-ish SW...I'm not sure any wave will set up unlike yesterday. Forcast temperatures are 19 degrees in Tauranga, 20 plus in the Waikato and about 18 in Taupo. Expect inland thermals to go upto 6000ft and maybe higher over higher ground/forestry areas. If it gets much hotter it may blue out...but that seems unlikely. There is some suggestions of a layer of high cloud especially south of Rotorua so watch out for any shading on the ground. Go go go...(I'm mowing the lawns today). Tga - Tokoroa - Bennydale - Tga or Tga - Tokoroa - Reperoa - Galatea - Tga. Have fun in the sun.

Today's wee effort...

About 300km's...not the fastest day. Had a few lucky breaks, low save just as I arrived over farmland coming out of the forest. I had dumped my water, was looking for a paddock and cursing the Landcorp shepards who had set stocked their ewes in every paddock, when I stumbled into a 4-5 knot climb. Earlier I had been saved by a fellow pilot who found a climb near Goudie's. He went off and landed out. Got lucky again over near Tihoi...struggling around at 3500ft (the ground is probably 2000ft) without a real plan when I managed to contact a convergence and climb up to 7000ft, enough to run into the circle and final glide home. 15 minutes later the big Duo Discus missed the same climb and landed out...

A sample of where we get to...

Mark's Wave flight

Mark clocks another 200 kms. So far this summer we have accumulated 4500 X-Country kms out of Tauranga. So well done team. Edging towards 10,000kms.

Photo evidence...

Just to prove it was a blue day...this shot was taken on final glide - 35 kms out from Taupo. Ruapehu looked superb all day...the fact we could see it all day didn't bode well... But it was all action before the launch...

Day One at Taupoooo

Well it looked blue in the morning and continued to be blue most of the day. The task was cancelled by 2pm so we went free flying. A number of pilots completed the task - Taupo - Kaiangaroa - Rangitaiki - Purora - Home. About 250kms. Climbs of about 2-4 knots...cloud base of 6000ft in most places. Tomorrow doesn't look as good...and Tuesday looks worse...we'll see.

Sunday's forecast

The squiggly line graph website is down so I'll have to guess. Forecast high in Tauranga is 22 degrees. Current winds are light Southerly on the upper kaimai/Pyes Pa websites. Low cloud should burn off to give a good soarable day. Expect sea breezes if it gets about 18 degrees...the sea is cold and the land will get warm...classic sea breeze stuff. So with light SW winds (forecast to increase later today) we should get good convergences and higher cloud bases inland. I'd guess it'll be a Taupo return day without a land-out at ataimuri...

Not all land-outs are in dry paddocks...

Saturday Forecast

Inversion in place above 6500ft so that will put a lid on cloudbase. If the temperature gets to the forecasted 20 degrees today and tomorrow then it'll be good soaring conditions. S to W winds forecast so should be a re-run of the last few good days. I'm off to Taupo so no updated forecasts fo a week or so.

Someone should go flying today...

It won't be me as GNM is in its trailer and I'm sorting out wheel alignment stuff. However forecast is for 21 degrees and light westerlies. Should be a goodie... Expect cloud bases above 4000ft and maybe higher inland. Wind won't be strong enough for wave (thank goodness...wave is boring) but the ridge induced thernals will be strong. Tokoroa should be do-able (Maurice) as well a run up to Hikitaia.

At the risk of tempting fate...

We here in Tauranga are doing fairly well with our land-outs. As far as I can recall we have had 8 in the last few weeks. That's more than some years total land-outs by Tga pilots.
Atiamuri, Tokoroa twice, Mamaku twice, Fergueson Park twice, and somewhere else I've forgotten...
What does this mean???
Are we turning into PPP's (piss poor pilots) or are we testing the sky and our abilities?? I'll go for the second option...except maybe in my case...yesterdays landout in Atiamuri probably didn't need to happen if I'd pushed on a bit more into the sun and the hills.

Sunday's forecast. High cloud, 19 degrees, NW winds later today, sea breezes. Not crash hot, in fact mildly lukewarm...
I'm spending the day cleaning GNM, retrieving gear still at the airport and fixing a flat tyre.

Have fun...

The good, the bad and the ugly...

First the ugly...I landed out at Atiamuri. Another companion landed out a Tokoroa and got a aero-retrieve. The bad...we got a flat tyre on the trailer. The good...the thermals/convergence was strong to start with but got weaker as the day wore on. Friendly farmer and a nice-ish paddock. GYR managed a Tga to almost Taupo return flight. Video from on the spot 5 minutes after landing out....

Have a relaxed breakfast...

It's going to take a while to get going...but it should still be soarable. Winds are light S/SE in the back country a present. Metservice are still forecasting 19 degrees and are also forecasting sea breezes near the coast. Both of these are good signs. The T-Graph has lowered cloud bases a little to more like 4500 ft in the hills. Still do-able. The NW winds forecast for Sunday have been delayed a little so Sunday is a possibility but probably still not as good as today. Forget about Monday...Helen Clark still hasn't fronted for a press conference and nor will the weather...

For those in dorkland...

If you are unfortunate enough to be stuck in Auckland then you should think about leaving early Saturday morning for a day out in the sky...Mr Edwards!!! At this stage the forecast is for 19 degrees and enough instability for thermal development but maybe some late showers. Light westerlies so we can expect good thermal development and maybe some re-enforced thermals up against the Kaimai's. No wave (if the wind stays light). No sea breeze except very close to the coast...maybe a few convergences. Another update early in the morning. Sunday doesn't look as good and Monday looks like Helen Clark...

Early Heads up...

Plan to go gliding on Saturday. Sunday looks like a day suitable for trial flights only...and there is rain due on Monday...

GO Go go...struggle...

Well its wasn't quite as good as I expected but still OK. The westerly got up earlier than forecast and was stronger than predicted so we had a thermal, ridge, wave type of day. My best thermal was about 4-5 knots but I heard reports of 8-9 knots over Matamata. The ridge worked although wasn't super fast. An ASW27 was heard to be soaring the tree line at Tokoroa 200ft above the ground, and he wasn't particularly worried... Three pilots crossed into the Waikato from Tauranga, I have the tracks of two...GNM and GKM. 180 and 150kms scoring kms respectively. Total kms so far this season - 3400. Leading - Brett Hunter - 1400kms, next - David Jensen - 610 kms...and a bunch at 300-400 kms.

Go go go...

It's a soarable day... The T Graphs are suggesting cloud bases of 6000ft by mid afternoon (if the ground temp gets to 18 degrees...Metservice forecast for Tga) and light westerly winds. No high cloud and enough westerly to hold any sea breeze at bay. If the westerly fails to appear to very late in the day then maybe some sea air will leech inland...so don't be late. Expect cloud to build up from later in the day so it'll get a bit grey in the Waikato/Taupo...probably after 4pm...ish. Quite similiar to the last time I crossed the Kaimai's...good lift but lots of clouds. The graphs suggest it'll be blue until lunch-time then get going quite fast and end the day very cloudy... Poosible task...Tga - Tokoroa or Bennydale - Thames or Hikutaia - Tga. watch for the sea breeze off the Hauraki Gulf and overdevelopment around Tokoroa. Have fun...

What do u call 2 Gliders in a Park?

Lucky I guess...rumour has it our two club trainers landed out trying to get back from the ridge. Well done guys... What did we learn? That we can get more than 1 glider into Fergueson Park at any one time, that you need more hieght in a Puchcaz (than a high peformance single) to get back from the ridge... Landing out...its got to be encouraged...wouldn't it be great if every soarable day at least 1 glider landed out...it would mean we were testing the boundaries...

The old cliche...

Fail to plan...plan to fail. Yes it's Strategic Plan time again. I know some people struggle to understand the value of a strategic plan and instead focus on the "today" and an annual plan but as a club we need a broad outline of what we want and/or can achieve over the next 3-5 years. Things like changing the accounting software or deciding not to do much with the tow fleet, while important decisions on the day, are not strategic in nature. Having read the excellent document put together by Paul I have a few suggestions to start the process. Small things first...why do we roster on two instructors each day? The current arguement seems to be "we can not be assured that either will turn up, so roster two to reduce the risk that no-one turns up...". Hardly very positive, especially given that many instructors have a busy work load as it is and probably don't want to be rostered on every 3-4 weeks. And if two instructors do indeed turn up they end up being underwhelmed with the workload...especially from April to October. Lets try one instructor over the winter months but strenghten up the mentor scheme so that newbies have the option of plenty of instruction. Larger things...we need to constantly consider upgrading our fleet. The Janus is very old, GEO is now quite old and we have two under-utelised PW5's. As a target I would suggest we upgrade the Janus to a Duo-Discus, look to change a PW5 to a higher peformance single seater (club-class or similiar...LS4, Discus, ASW20 etc), and we should consider the long term replacement of the trainers GEO, GPZ. Tow-planes...it's time to review the tow fleet. I recognise that the Cub and Pawnee are adequate on most days but using 04 on light wind days is not comfortable for either the tow pilot or those people on the ground around the parachute hanger or Bunnings. This is primarily as a result of the Airport Board allowing Bunnings to be built (thankfully we haven't got other hangers to deal with...) but we do need to think this through. What type of towplane do we want?? Not fabric, water cooled engine if possible, more Horsepower (or at least a better climb rate), and maybe not Avgas powered. About 5 years ago I asked a team of three to go out and consider whats available, it is probably time to do this again... Membership...the really really large issue. Firstly, I need to twist the arm of my partner in crime and get the Youth glide program up and running. Realistically that will happen after the summer contest season... But we also need to target other groups as well... We need a Marketing Plan...or at the very least an agreed program to get people through the door...and keep them in the room. Night classes, Scholarships, Youth Glide, advertising, Press releases etc all form part of a marketing plan. Those are my thoughts...if anybody reads this far...

Sunday 18th.

Don't bother getting out of bed...

Improved Tow plane performance...

Distinctive modifications to the wings of Air New Zealand's fleet of Boeing 767-300ER jets are providing fuel savings 19 percent greater than expected. Four of the five planes, used on Tasman and South Pacific routes, have been fitted with the 3.4 metre high blended winglets since July. The fifth aircraft will return to service next month after the $4 million refit in Hong Kong. The winglets were expected to improve fuel burn by 4 percent by reducing wing tip drag and increasing lift, allowing the plane to climb to cruise altitude faster. The fleet had been forecast to save a total of six million litres of fuel a year. Air New Zealand spent $1.7 billion on fuel in the last financial year, its biggest single cost, chief executive Rob Fyfe said.

Club Newsletter...

I'm told it's on the way to a letterbox near you...however it is quite late. One of the hold ups has been trouble getting the existing software that handles your accounts up and running. In my limited experience with software upgrades (or extensions) at any level, the Software promises much and delivers considerably less...and takes 4 times as long to get understand than its supporters thought. I feel some empathy for our treasurer who is, no doubt, under pressure to get the job completed this month.

What defines a plonker???

The map shows the tracks of two gliders getting established over the Papamoa hills before heading off to the SE. The airspace in question is the small slice that runs up from Te Puke at 2500ft. When Area Alpha is open you have the illogical situation of the airspace dropping from 4500ft to 2500ft and then back to 3500ft. Both gliders received clearances into the Rotora Class D above 3500ft. The width of the slice where the gliders crossed Class 251 is 900 meters for one track and 3200 meters for the other. One could be fairly certain no IFR traffic would be vectored into that space while gliders were about and none would want to desend to 2500ft over the Papamoa Hills with rise to 2000plus ft in that area. Further the gliders were still under control from Tauranga. Interestingly, when one of the gliders recieved a clearance it was for 4500ft to 6000ft which required a climb of 1000ft to get into that band. Maybe we should send Airways a picture of a glider so that they can appriecate the lack of an engine... So whats the problem Airways...