This weekend did not look good on the forecast.  Cold southerly winds were forecast to blow hard all weekend, but not quite hard enough for wave.    Saturday was Damian’s first day on the instructors roster and there was only one student press-ganged in at the last minute.  The weather turned out to be very good.  The cold air meant that it only needed a small amount of solar heating to kick off some very good thermals.

Sunday was Akko’s first day on the roster and the breifing room was looking even more deserted at 9:29.  Two minutes later, the crowd arrived from the hangar.  There were enough keen pilots to get the gliders out of the hangar before the breifing.  We started launching early and kept launching until sunset.  In total, we had 16 hours flying and it seemed that most of it was done by Akko in the Puchacz.

Ian is still working on the minor repairs on the Puchacz wings.  There were a few dramas with the wrong paint.  Who knew that “Alaskan White” was different to “Alaskan Essex White”?  As soon as it was sprayed onto the wing, it was obviously the wrong colour.  Thanks to Jeff who stopped work on his own glider to go and get the correct paint.

Mark and Cameron Rowe both had their first solos on the same day.  Here they are congratulating each other…

Special thanks to Dave for organising the full day of instructing for them and staying until last light to get them airborne.

Ahhh… the joys of winter gliding.  Pure blue sky, light winds, nil turbulence and the passenger in the front has paid for a high launch.  “What’s that beeping noise?” asks the passenger.

Now this is one of those times that the instructor is supposed to reassure the passenger that everything’s under control.  Absolutely nothing is going to happen that isn’t anticipated and the beeping noise is perfectly normal.  “Holy crap we’re going up!”  This is then followed by several minutes of silence because the tongue is held tightly while willpower alone forces the vario needle from half a knot up to a whole knot of lift.

Most of the club pilots who launched found the wave and explored its mysterious extents.  There were three wave bars found, with the main one starting at 3000ft right above the circuit joining area.  Silvano obtained the best height of 6700ft.  (Well, I know he was above me when I was at 5k, so he isn’t giving us a big pork pie.)

Other activities on the airfield on the weekend included starting the Form 2 inspection of XQY.  Ian is going to need assistance to polish the wings either next weekend or the following.

Those of you who get the Flight Safety magazine may have noticed that they are running a competition for a photo of Australia’s worst windsock.  While our windsock is pretty ragged, I don’t think it’s going to win.

If we could have some volunteers to paint some rust on the pole or perhaps lean on it a bit with the tractor, we would have a better chance.

Seriously though, we have ordered replacements and will be changing both socks very soon.

At long last our beloved Charlie Papa Victor is back in the air. It has taken over two and a half years of painstaking work by many individuals, but particularly Lawrie Keegan and Jeff Hunt. The end result is a magnificent aeroplane which will see he club well into the future. It is probably the best Pawnee in the southern hemisphere! It is certainly the yellowist…

The total cost of the restoration is difficult to calculate given that we had to cross hire other tugs before we purchased the Scout, but it is without question the biggest investment the club has ever made to my knowledge. Fortunately we have a buyer for the Scout which will put the club finances back into the black (just).

Whilst I was re-acquainting myself with the Pawnee as Tug Pilot a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to test the newly installed FLARM device. The Pawnee is fitted with a visual display and an audible unit which provides a clear warning message through the headsets. I had planned to do some trials of the FLARM by flying a series of pre-planned exercises with the Puchacz. Whilst on tow in a gentle turn at around 1200ft I noticed the club Jantar on a reciprocal heading at the same height! Within about 3 seconds the FLARM announced “Whoop Whoop 12 o’ clock same level”…..  I continued my turn, and the Jantar passed by at a safe distance (also turning). I am pleased that I had visual with the Jantar, and no avoiding action was required. The Pawnee is a very powerful aeroplane and can tow with a very impressive climb rate and angle of climb. The forward visibility is not the best whilst on tow. That is why the tug pilot will frequently change direction. Straight ahead and below is a potential blind spot for the tug pilot (the same as any aeroplane climbing steeply).

The FLARM is no replacement for a good lookout and visual scan, but it is a very impressive tool for alerting the tug pilot to the one he didn’t see…. after all, it is the one you don’t see that might kill you!

Another good thing about the FLARM is the voice. Keep pressing the grey button….

What we need now is for members to come and take lots of launches behind CPV, buy some Gift Vouchers, introduce more friends and family members to gliding, and encourage more cadet flying weekends. HVGC needs the income!!!

Nick Wills

President

Saturday was “Opposite Day.”  The lift was everywhere it wasn’t supposed to be.  It was completely overcast with cirrus cloud so we didn’t expect to find thermals - we found good thermals averaging 4 knots or more.  There was a strong wind blowing straight onto the ridges - but there was no ridge lift.  There were lenticular wave clouds at our height - but no wave lift.  The cumulus clouds were bent over by the wind and parts of them were descending - that’s where we found the best lift.  It was like flying upside-down; everything that should be down was up.

The most unbelieveable moment was looking at the final-glide calculation at 9000ft, 13km out.  The computer said we weren’t going to make it home.  If we were to attempt to fly home at best-glide speed, we would have ended up being blown backwards and could not make it home, from any height.  The computer was absolutely right: when I turned back for Warkworth, the headwind was so strong that we were making no headway at all.  Fortunately that high speed wind was only in a narrow layer so we were able to descend out of it and fly home with no trouble.

Edit: I just realised that the photo above was probably taken during the time that we were nominally out of glide range.  The Warkworth airstrip can be seen as a bright stripe in between the two clouds, partially underneath the smaller cloud.  It doesn’t look very far away, does it?

CPV towed its first glider in nearly two years.

See the “Other” photo gallery for more photos of CPV.

Anzac day (Friday) saw a lot of rain fall at Warkworth.  Saturday seemed to have dried out enough to launch but it was hard work to stay up and all flights were less than an hour.  Sunday promised warmer temperatures and stronger thermals.  Just before we launched, the wind came.  It was about 15 knots on the ground, getting stronger with height, reaching more than 40 knots at 10,000 feet.  Unfortunately the upper-atmosphere instability wasn’t forming any usable wave. 

The wind direction was relatively consistent with height, about 320 degrees.  This meant that the ridges on the southern side of the valley were working nicely, up to about 5000 feet.  After many attempts, we managed to transition into the thermals going above this level but the strong wind made our climb angle equal to our glide angle. (IGC flie available via the OLC.)

CPV has returned to Warkworth, restored to flying condition.

Lawrie and Jeff inspect the empenage…

Warwick isn’t sure if the exhausts are new…

The weather did’t co-operate, with continuous thunderstorms provided…

This weekend’s conditions were rather tricky.  Saturday promised more than it delivered.  Three pilots (and one passenger, in the Duo) were caught out and outlanded on airstrips.  JP had fun touring around the countryside picking them up.  We still made them pay for beers at the Jerry’s Plains pub.  Al Giles, who usually flies his syndicate Jantar at Lake Keepit, came along to see how HVGC operates and had a couple of flights in the club’s Jantar.

Sunday promised somewhat less brilliant soaring conditions with a cool change predicted.  The early part of the day took a lot of scratching in zero knots just to stay airborne.  Then later on, while just cruising between the thunderstorms, I took this photo of my vario:

 No, it’s not showing 1 knot sink.  The needle has wrapped all the way around and is actually indicating a brief gust of 19 knots!  The digital average, just below the needle, is showing an average of 11.3 knots.

I was only cruising because I was trying to take a photo of the rainbows forming where the sun was shining on the thunderstorms.  Unfortunately I only had my phone with me and I didn’t realise it had been set to its lowest possible quality setting.  The best photo I got doesn’t do justice to the rainbow.

It was quite interesting watching the thunderstorms develop over a couple of hours.  The lightning bolts were starting near the top of the clouds, not far above my height and then arcing down through the central column of rain; right through the rainbows.  I tried to stay a couple of kilometers away from the active centres of the storms.  I did see one power plane whiz past very close to the storms - I’m not sure he was looking out the window.

Cloudbase was absolutely all over the place, from ground-level fog forming after the thunderstorms passed, to scud coud, to shelf cloud, to the main cloud base at 9000′.  The lift was everywhere too, so long as you didn’t mind long periods of zero.  If you look at my flight trace on the OLC, you will see one period of 20 minutes where I did not rise or fall more than 50 feet.