We had a good turnout for the BBQ organised this weekend by Mark and Mick. Mark cooked some fantastic chicken and Paul’s prawns were absolutely delicious. I believe Mick was responsible for the salad and Aali provided something that had hot chillies and tasted very good. Once the translation service catches up, we’ll find out what it was called.
Scott contributed some bottles of his own wine and some good stories on how to make wine. Even the cheese and crackers was excellent but I arrived too late to get anything more than a taste of them.
Dave wants to know if this is your beer. Ian isn’t so sure.

It seems every year that “official” christmas parties like the office christmas party get organised earlier and earlier to ovoid the rush of christmas.  I predict we’ll be having the HVGC christmas party in October next year.  But that just leaves nothing to do on the last weekend before christmas.  Until Mick decided that he’d like to organise an evening barbeque. 

 Well! Nearly everybody turned up!

Aa Li and Mick were our chefs for the evening.

There was an enormous amount of food provided by Aa Li.  Have a look at the picture below.  This is how much food was left over after everyone had had enough! 

Some of the younger club members helped with the washing up.  The Vice President had to be shown that it was possible for men to survive the detergent without permanent scarring.

Matt Hall approached us last week with an unusual request: the Discovery Channel is featuring him in a series and could they film him flying his Giles at Warkworth?  Matt had all the paperwork from CASA sorted out but he still needed a venue.

The filming took 2 days with many flights and interviews.  They have already filmed the gliding segment of the show in New Zealand, so they didn’t need to shoot any of our gliders.  The programme will go to air later this year - probably around October.  We can’t show you the photos we took until after it has been shown, so here’s a few photos from Matt’s practice session last year.

In addition to instructing on Gliders, James “Akko” Atkinson has a day-job instructing on F-18 Hornets.  He organised a tour for the HVGC club members and their families to see the base and get up close to some of the real military hardware.

We had more than 30 club members and family members turn up for the day.  Some unkind observers said that we would never get that many at Warkworth on one day.

Akko was a wonderful host for the day, making sure that everyone was looked after, organising the activities and answering a thousand questions.  Not only does he know all of the technical details about the plane, but he also knows which details are classified “secret” so he can’t tell us.  Once the questions started getting specific: “In this configuration, in a single seater, how far can you fly?” Then the answers became less precise.

The simulator sessions were probably the most fun.  Everyone who wanted a go was able to get a good chance to try out anything they wanted.  I buzzed Nobby’s beach at Mach 1.  A few glider pilots tried to land the plane (Hint: don’t flare.)  Even the wives had a go and enjoyed the simulator sessions.  There are two simulators next to each other so that the RAAF can practice cooperative missions and dogfights.  Some of the more bloodthirsty pilots tried to shoot down the other simulator.  One succeeded - there will be a small Hornet “kill” symbol appearing on the side of a glider soon.

 Akko points out some of the details on the jet.

 Ian and Hunter inspect the landing gear

 David Stuart studies the cockpit, in anticipation?

On the 17th of February 2008 we are planning a Fly In to Warkworth by the Royal Newcastle Aero Club. At this stage we have no indication of numbers but we are offering the pilots of RNAC an opportunity to take a flight in a glider for some local soaring or aerobatics. We might just attract some new members! RNAC have recently diversified into RAA and acquired a brand new Jabiru for training and private hire. This was a move that I initiated when I was on the board of RNAC 2 years ago and has proven to be an extremely popular direction. Pilots of RAA aircraft do not require Aviation Medicals and can fly at significantly less cost than GA.

We plan to have a BBQ on the day of the fly in, and we will have the local RV team on display, and hopefully the Dimona will be flying too!

I would like to invite members to come along and help out on the day and make the RNAC pilots welcome. I am sure they will also be keen to show off their aeroplanes and it is a good opportunity for anyone interested in RAA or GA to come along. 

We could do with some volunteers on the day to ensure everything runs smoothly, including Duty Pilot, Instructors, back up tug pilot, ground crew, BBQ drivers, aircraft marshallers etc.

Nick Wills

Another Narromine cup week has come and gone.  Even though the weather was not perfect and a couple of days were lost due to rain, there were some big flights done during the week.  Only two HVGC members, Phil Eldridge and I went, although there were more than 60 pilots overall, from as far away as California.

Flights were scored for distance on the On Line Competition (OLC) which is quite generous in finding “turnpoints” that maximise your distance, compared to the old pre-declared type of flying task.

Daily results: (each link opens the OLC in a new window)
Sunday 18th
Monday 19th (I won the day with 555km)
Tuesday 20th
Wednesday 21st (no flying)
Thursday 22nd (no flying)
Friday 23rd (Terry Bellair, the overall winner did 532km on a very difficult day)

My biggest flight was out to Cobar and back.  The last 100km of the route to Cobar is over completely unlandable territory.  There is literally only one farmer’s arifield halfway.  This route can only be attempted on days when you can get very high and glide a long long way.

Photos: (click for larger versions in our photo gallery - use “back” to get back here)

 Phil Eldridge with his new glider

 Phil about to launch in his new ASW20

 Phil and Ian discuss a storm aproaching Narromine

 The same storm ten minutes later, with some electricity!

Saturday the tenth arrived cold and wet.  Only a few foolish souls turned up for the morning briefing and there was no flying.  However the evening barbeque and cross-country briefing went well.

Sunday turned out to be the day.  Mick and Rohan flew over 400km in the Duo Discus.  Dave achieved his first outlanding of the season.  Akko and Jeff narrowly avoided landing in a horse-flu quarantine area.

Every year, the Bunyan wave camp is held by the Canberra Gliding Club at their airfield near Bunyan. The Hunter Valley members in atendance were Ian Steventon and Morgan Sandercock. There wasn’t much wave lift found, despite the appearance of the clouds photographed above.  The best flight achieved 11,000 feet in shear wave.

The skiing was better than the flying.  Here’s Ian Steventon and Canberra club captain Stuart Ferguson practicing their “wave.”

The tug fuselage has had all of its fabric applied and is now back at the HVGC workshop to have instruments and other items bolted back in before it goes to Scone for final assembly and inspection.

Sunday November 5th was the day that the club’s new tug arrived with the syndicate Duo Discus in tow.  Morgan, Rohan, Lawrie and Mick took three days to fetch them back from Tocumwal.  It was originally supposed to be a two-day trip but bad weather forced an overnight stop in Cowra.

This is the first time that Ian has seen his glider.  His son Phoenix, in the back seat, can’t believe his eyes either.