Yuk...

Three people killed in this glider accident...3 people????
It appears there was a 3 month old baby in with the passenger...unbelievable...
Not only that...the dolly wheel was still on...

The World Multi-Class Champs start very soon in Uvalde Texas (a small state somewhere in the south of the US of A)...I suspect given the propensity of US based contests not to post their results on SoaringSpot, we will need either to go directly to the contest website or to the SSA website. We'll see...

No Kiwi's at the World's this year...cost, lack of current NZ world class pilots with spare time, distance, motivation, security overload...take your pick.

Not much happening locally...cold, rain, easterlies, etc etc.
I had a look through the club's budget for this coming season and the one after that. With the lunacy that is Part 115 the resultant hole in the revenue figures for 2013/14 looks slightly disturbing.
Change will be required...and quite substantial change at that. Youth glide (no idea where that is at a present) won't fix the problem, asking local members to fly more seems a big leap of faith (and for one with little if any "faith" I'm not crossing any parts of my anatomy..), and reducing costs is almost an impossibility with aircraft. And and and we have one and maybe two tow-plane engines to replace in the next 3 years...yikes...

What's the solution...more normal members would help...but that's against a background of diminishing membership over the last 10 years.
Selling surplus aircraft...that's a start...what's next...

Something to sleep on...