Oh bugger...

Picture says it all really...

Some of you might notice it's the Cirrus Brian and Brian used to own.

Failed to get back from the ridge to Paraparaumu airport. Dangers of flying in built-up areas...there by the grace of god (or some such deity) goes us???

What spring???

Photo is from the farm in southland...5 minutes outsde Inver's. Whereas up here in sunny Tauranga we had a small tornado on Friday night. Lifted the kids trampoline 200 meters down the orchard and deposited it in the top of a shelter belt. No signs it had touched the ground between take-off and landing. We have a heap of trees down but otherwise not much damage. The neighbours through the hedge lost a heap more. As we look across the gully to a pine plantation there is a strip 100 meters wide where all the trees have lost their tops. Biggest wind I've experienced...

No power yesteday til 5pm so the cows were very very uncomfortable.

Wave anybody??

10,000ft winds are forecast to be 90-100knots over parts of Godzone tomorrow morning. I expect to see some huge distance record set by a Sth Is pilot.

Failing that, anybody keen on going surfing in the Catlins??? I once remember hearing the Navy had called off surveying parts of the Fjordland Coast one spring because the waves were higher than 9 meters...

Huge storm heading our way...

Or so say the NZ Herald and stuff websites. So it'll be another super weekend. We recorded 420mm of rain in August and 200mm so far this month. Welcome to La Nina. At least it's not cold...until Sunday. The lucky ones are getting out...I see we have 4 Kiwi's entered in the Oz Nationals to be held in Dalby - Queensland. I'm almost tempted...warm temperatures, sun, no rain...oh and thermals...remember those???

Oh...before I forget...

The weekend weather...crap. Building Northerlies on saturday, followed by rain, rain on sunday clearing late in the day.

iGlide...for your iPhone

It was only a matter of time until some-one found a way to utilise that expensive bit of fluff (otherwised called an iPhone) for gliding.

There is also this link

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/glidepath/id383714417?mt=8

I must admit the screen on these iPhones are fairly cool...however our nieghbours brought 2 iPhones last year and so far both have failed...

A club with more towplanes than gliders...

Or so it seems...I guess sh%t happens. At least it's been a totally unfly-able spring. We're not missing much. However the word from "on high" is we are to inspect every glider after every out landing. That's interesting. Whilst there is some anecdotal heresay that more damage is happening where gliders are landed somewhere other than at "home", the statistic's would suggest otherwise...if 95% of the gliders landing are at the airfield and the accident rate is 2-3% that still trumps a 20% heavy landing rate off field for the other 5%. In other words the apparent damage from a previous heavy landing is twice as likely to have occurred in front of our very eyes on 04/22. So thinking ahead...if some-one enters GKM or GXT in a contest and land-out...what happens then?? I wonder if training, education and an understanding of what is a heavy landing and what can happen, would be a better appraoch than a "new rule"...

A sister town for Omarama??

Minden - Nevada...in the US of A. I've been there...although we were passing through, in a huge snow storm, on our way to Tahoe. At least a meter of snow fell in 6 hours...and we had a old 2WD car...real fun...not. But Minden has mountain ranges, snow, irrigation, sheep and cows, wave and thermals and gliders. What benefit is a sister town???...I have absolutely no idea...would we get cheap glider hire and tows...I doubt it...would we get US citizenship...no thankyou... However it does show thinking out of the box...good stuff. And we might even get to meet Sarah Palin...now there's a scary thought...

Make sense of this photo...

Wave/ridge tomorrow???

Sadly I don't think so. With most forecasts picking the rough weather going up the east coast late today and tomorrow morning I think the wind will be to far south for much to happen. Mind you it would only take a 5 degrees change in wind direction to chnage that...however it hasn't been a winter/spring for SW winds. Blame it on the building La Nina.

New Tow Plane

Finally a tow plane that's not made of fabric, runs on Jet A1, a tow seater, plenty of NZ experience, doesn't use Lycoming engines, and can tow to 35,000ft...into wave.

Available for just $148,000NZ. cheaper than a supercub.

Go Trademe for more details...

747 gets a paint job...

Quite a cool timelapse...thank god repainting a glider doesn't this many people or paint...http://www.wimp.com/boeingpaint/

Cheap parachute

I see Bruce Bartley is selling his parachute from his gliding days. He moved onto helicopters apparently because they are safer... On Trademe...a bargain at $250 assuming it still works...http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motors/Aircraft/Other/auction-312926754.htm

Where in the world is Roy???

Here he is...lucky bugger...at the Swiss Gliding GP. In the mountains, sun is shining, warm temperatures...

Oh dear, how sad, never mind...

Brings back memories of the state GKM was in when Maurice flew it in a contest in Matamata. a real worm burner...

By Popular Request...

or at the very least...as I promised. NOAA Air Resources Lab...aka...squiggly lines http://ready.arl.noaa.gov/READYcmet.php Enter your desired Lat and Long...remember to account for the Sthern Hemisphere ie use a negative. Choose sounding - 0-192h Global. Choose the latest cycle (not forgetting that everything is in Zulu time - GMT - UTC etc). Pick you time (I'd suggest 12 and 3pm...which is 00 and 03 UTC). Enter the code and hey presto you're ready for your 300km. RASP forecasts - http://zakalwe.com/ - don't be put off by the cat...a gun might help.

First ridge flight of the season...

That I'm aware of...admittedly it started from Matamata

So - will there be wave on Sunday??

Saturday will be a write off. Sunday...maybe. Looks like it will be a little too northerly but the wind is increasing with hieght and the things look a little more stable than the last few days. I'm sure some-one will have a go...

Things are getting slightly ludicrous...

How many people do you need on the Committee of a Club to manage 50 members of which maybe 30 are actively involved? Maybe 5? or how about 7, just to spread it around a little. No one in their right mind would suggest 13, would they!!! Much to my disappointment that's exactly what seems to have happened at the local Gliding Club. I'm only surmising that someone thought you had to fill all the possible vacancies. No you don't. I guess I should be thankful that the wise people who attended the AGM didn't start appointing people to the committee who weren't even at the meeting...like me. Without doubt it time to prune the rules. A President, maybe a vice President but that role is becoming redundant, a CFI, a chief tow person, and three others. From there you can delegate or co-opt as required. I tried this once about 10 years ago...was shot down by the oldies...change is hard. Big committee just allow people to duck any responsibilities and very little gets done. Of course we could appoint every member to the committee and sit back as nothing happens...

Come one, come all...

Your's truely is giving a short disemination of the verity of atmospheric predictions from computational algorithms and it's influence on enthusiastic aeronauts participating in extraordinary activities. Or - Going X-country from Tauranga. The weather, a task, a badge claim and the bragging rights. Sunday morning - 9am

A retrospective...

From a distance it looked OK for a while today. The graph predicted thermals to 5000ft and high cloud tops - good thermal markers. It looked like it cooled and died a bit after 3pm. So it would have been a short day...however I was getting cows and calves in...so it was all rather academic really...still not good enough to get GNM out of it's box yet. Maybe next month.

Now see here you lot...

It's time to get enthused...even Madam President said so...albeit for other reasons...The X-country season is almost upon us. How could that possibly be true I hear you ask??? It's all grey and gloomy, and that's inside the clubhouse, outside it's even worse...Well consider this, below is graph of the X-country kms clocked up by pilots over the last 2 seasons. My first 200km flight was on the 4th August last year...for those who need glasses click on the graph - it's get a little easier to read...

JS1's...maybe they are OK afterall...

John Coutts won yesterday at the WGC in a 18 meter JS1. The 15 meter class had yesterday scrubbed because too many of them landed out in Serbia...Coutts is a Kiwi...even tho he lives in Africa and flies a South Africian designed and built glider...of course he's a Kiwi.

The numbers are in...

Well, some of them anyhow. Tow times. Surprise surprise PNE is slower than BKJ. Over the 323 trial flights over the last 12 months PNE is 8% slower to 2000ft and a huge 18% slower to 3000ft. Should we care??? Where the tow charges per minute are the same for both tow-planes you bet we should care. If you average the tow results it means a difference of 73 cents per minute. So anyone wanting to tow to 3000ft using PNE it's going to cost you an extra $7-8 compared to dragging out BKJ. Could I suggest a number of things. Firstly, remove the insurance cover on BKJ...the reason we have shops and 2 tow planes was to provide insurance. How much insurance is too much? Secondly, spread the tow charges to $4 per minute for PNE and $4.70 per minute for BKJ. And lastly, from the flight times for the last 2 years, the Puchcaz's are averaging 111 hrs each per year whereas the Janus averaged 80 hrs. With the arrival of the Duo I expect the Janus hours to sink even further...sell it. Take the money and reduce the debt.

Here's some useful advice..

A useful advise: if your pilot landed in Serbia, it is better to cross the border at Tompa (see the map below). A little bit longer way, but you don't have to wait hours at Röszke.

From the WGC in Hungary.

So a possible long retrieve from Atiamuri is no reason not to go X-country from Tauranga. Last time I looked there is no border control, to get into the waikato...