Jan 24 to Feb 5 - Waipukurau & Kawhatau

For the past two weeks the Wellington Gliding Club participated in two gliding camps which I was invited to join in.  The first was an air cadet camp in Waipukurau.  We towed two DG1000's up from Paraparaumu, one in a trailer and one behind a towplane piloted by me.  Waipukurau is to the north-east of the north island and is shielded from rain by the mountain ranges making the weather much warmer and drier. On the Monday however, it did rain and we were forced to start Tuesday instead.  From then on the weather cooperated and my four students managed to fly around 9 times each; not enough to solo but enough to give them a good grasp of the basics.  Immediately after the camp I headed up to Kawhatau.  Kawhatau is just north of Palmerston North on the Ruahine ranges.  The camp is hosted by the Manawatu Gliding Club and we stayed in one of the member's family's farm house.  Named 'Te One' it is made of ancient native timber.  The airstrip is on the side of a hill and the runway has a slight downslope making landing interesting at times.  The Manawatu members were short of instructors so I was used in the backseat of their Twin Astir on occasion.  The club also had a nice looking Ka6CR that I had my eye on.  Both of my parents owned a Ka6CR and I have been interested in flying one of them for a long time.  I first had a quick flight at the end of a day in it and was the only one who managed to soar.  The light wing loading helped me squeeze the last of the dying thermals from the mountain tops.  The next day I rigged it in the morning and was invited to join a group of pilots down to the south end of the Ruahine range, a turnpoint named Wharite.  The group I went with consisted of a DG-200, 2x ASW-20 and an ASW-15 so I was quickly left behind.  The cloudbase got lower as the ridge got lower and the lift was not working as well after I turned the turnpoint.  I got a bit nervous at one stage but then connected with the Umutoi ridge and was back up to a comfortable height.  The Manawatu club was happy to see their Ka6CR flying cross-country as it has not done so much recently.  The camp ended with lots of rain but I really enjoyed the experience and the camaraderie after the flying.
Ka6CR flight on OLC

Soaring in New Zealand

Dec 24 - Christmas Eve Flight

In the morning of Christmas Eve the sky was dark and there looked like little hope of flying.  The weather had been much the same for the past two weeks.  I rode into town on my bike to get some groceries and the traffic was back to back as you would expect on Christmas Eve.  My ride home to the airfield was tough as I had to dodge traffic and fight a 30 knot gusting 50 knot headwind.  One of the gates at the airport had lost a panel from the strong winds.  At 3pm I was contemplating watching a movie when I heard a knock at the door.  Vaughan Ruddick was there saying "let's go flying".  At first I thought he was joking but had a look up at the sky and saw it had brightened up.  We had to search for a tow pilot and thankfully Laurie came out for us.  We got going just after 4pm and the ridge was booming.  We had an easy run up north to the edge of the Palmerston control zone.  The controller asked us to hold as he had approaching heavy traffic.  The line of traffic got bigger and we had to stay in the same spot for 20 minutes.  Passing through the zone the ridge gets lower and unusable and the wind picks up.  You have to use bits of thermals and compression waves to get by.  I was happy to have Vaughan, a three time New Zealand champ flying as it was very difficult.  There are a lot of windmill farms along that stretch and we had a close look at all of them.  When we made it to the next main ridge the cloud base was lowering.  Soon Vaughan made the decision to turn around.  We had to scrape through the Palmerston control zone again but after that it was clear sailing.  We got back to the club and were going to head south towards Wellington but Vaughan noticed the wind changing off the ridges to the south.  After testing the ridge to the south Vaughan decided to call it a day.  In all it was a good flight and a nice early Christmas present.  The OLC distance was 257km and speed was 112km/h.  The speed would have been much better had we not been stopped for 20 minutes at Palmerston.
OLC Flight Info

Christmas Eve Flight

Coming to New Zealand

This winter I will be flying at the Wellington Gliding Club at Paraparaumu, New Zealand.  On my flight over I went through Vancouver and Bangkok each having a half day to look around.  On my arrival in New Zealand I had a quick stop at the Wellington Gliding Club then went down to Omarama, one of the meccas of gliding.  On my way I stopped in Blenheim to meet up with my friend Luke who I had met during Joey Glide in Australia a couple of years ago.  He works at the vineyards his parents own.  He gave me a tour around and I ended up helping him out with some of the work so we could take off and visit the aviation museum in town.  After that I traveled down to Omarama.  There was a regional contest going on there.  I ran into a few gliding friends I had previously met at different contests.  Wilson, another friend I met during Joey Glide a couple of years ago and Devin who I met in Finland during the JWGC in Finland.  I had a quick flight in one of the Twin Astirs.  It is not cheap flying in Omarama so I kept it at that.  I may go down later with some of the fellows at the Wellington club.  Afterward I went to Queenstown.  It really is a beautiful town but the downtown is extremely touristy.  I rented a bike and had a nice ride around the mountains.  Next it was back to Paraparaumu to get my power pilot license validation.  The Kapiti Aero Club which is on the same airfield as the gliding club has a Super Cub with the original 95hp Continental C-90 engine.  It was good fun to fly and I had a nice look around the area.  The paperwork for that is in the mail and my glider instructor rating is now valid.  Now the work begins.

Coming To New Zealand

May 29 & 30 - Saiplane Racing Series SOSA Edition

This past weekend The SOSA Gliding Club hosted the third installment of the new Sailplane Racing Series.  We had 15 entries ranging from beginners to the current Canadian champion and Canadian Team.  The contest began with a 10am meeting in the clubhouse on Saturday morning.  Pilots decided whether they would fly with water or not.  I decided to go without to avoid the hassle.  We were assigned a 3.5 hour modified assigned task consisting of 4 mandatory turnpoints and then we could choose where to go afterward.  I flew the assigned part at close to 100km/h but perhaps made a bad choice in the next turnpoint, Woodstock and had to scrape out of a hole.  I headed back towards the gliding club with 15 minutes of time to play with.  I looked for lift but could not find anything strong enough.  I eventually landed back at the club and finished 10 minutes under time.  Jerzy smoked everyone at 112km/h.  Despite my mistakes at the end I still finished 7th.
Day 2 started with another meeting at 10am.  The sky was going to be blue with a chance of clouds to the north.  When we launched it was very weak and I was contemplating scrapping the day.  The top of the lift picked up and it became more promising.  Later in the day we got clouds and they worked well.  I flew a very good flight without any real trouble spots.  I finished first for the day and moved up to 3rd overall.  My average climb was 4.3kts which was probably the biggest difference.
We were lucky to get two nice days of weather for the contest and all pilots seemed to enjoy themselves.  There was a lot of experience flying in the contest with the top seven pilots having represented Canada at the international level.  I would like to thank Derek Mackie and Luke Szczepaniak for organizing the Sailplane Racing Series and Luke again for scoring and CDing this weekend.
Sailplane Racing Series Website

Day 2 Route

Feb 16 - Black Swan

Yesterday I was biking around Lake Benalla and saw these Black Swans.  I had seen some last year but did not get a picture.  I later heard of the "Black Swan Theory" and have wanted some photos since.  Here is a quote from Wikipedia:

The term black swan was a Latin expression — its oldest reference is in the poet Juvenal expression that "a good person is as rare as a black swan" ("rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno", 6.165).  It was a common expression in 16th century London as a statement that describes impossibility, deriving from the old world presumption that 'all swans must be white', because all historical records of swans reported that they had white feathers. In that context, a black swan was something that was impossible, or near impossible and could not exist. After the discovery of black swans in Western Australia during the 18th century, the term metamorphosed to connote that a perceived impossibility may later be found to exist. Taleb notes that, writing in the 19th century, John Stuart Mill used the black swan logical fallacy as a new term to identify falsification, but only drawing on a London expression.

I also saw an interesting lizard but could not get my camera out before it slithered away.  One of the nice things about Benalla is the proximity of the town.  There is a nice walking/biking trail around the main lake, a golf course and bowls club, and the supermarkets are all within a 10 minute walk of the airport.

Black Swan