Latest Club News and Overview of Changes on this Site

13 November 2010

A good Annual Dinner at the Royal Hotel in Balaklava.  Sam Lacey was guest speaker and gave a great account of his life at his place of employment, and all the trials it involved.  John Hudson was presented with Life Membership of the club, for all his hard work over the years.  As he said, “I do it because I like doing it”, which pretty well sums it up.  Wings were presented to Lou Railz (who had started with the club some 24 years ago but had a 23-year break!) and Ian Johnston.

6 November 2010

Congratulations to Colin Stauss who, at the age of 22, has passed his accreditation for Level-2 Instructor!  He has already done quite a few instructional flights from air-experience to annual check flights. With ever more students joining the club in recent months, he’s bound to get a good workout.

15 August 2010

The AGM on Saturday resulted in a few changes to club positions. John Bradbury retired as secretary and from the committee. Peter Oldfield took over this very important role and Andrew Horton filled the vacancy on the committee. And after about 9 years as webmaster I think it is time that someone else runs this web page with new enthusiasm, perhaps some fresh ideas and maybe a facelift. After all it is our showcase to the world and should not become stale. Andrew Horton is taking on the challenge and I am sure he will do a fine job. Ulrich Stauss

16 July 2010

Another Whisper is available for download from our newsletter page.

23 May 2010

Saturday's unusually good flying weather for this season surprised us yet again. There were a good number of local soaring flights and training operations were in full swing. During the week we hosted students from Mercedes College. Good weather and 26 air experience flights in the space of a few hours put smiles on everyone's faces. Many thanks to the club members who helped make this event another great success. Finally, as a result of the recent committee meeting there are also a few more dates in our Events Calendar.

10 May 2010

The flying weather was absolutely superb over the weekend for this time of year and all who attended, including several visitors, had memorable flights. Our Events Calendar has been updated with the SAGA Lecture Series.

7 April 2010

The latest Whisper is available for download from our newsletter page.

25 March 2010

The last few weekends were good for local soaring flights but also for a few excursions further afield despite the waning soaring season and hopefully it will hold for our Pylon Race on the coming weekend.
Notable was also our attendance at the Maitland show last week with the Glider Simulator being a major attraction. Many thanks to Anne Philcox, the GFA Regional Development Officer and member of the Adelaide Uni Gliding Club, who brought the simulator trailer, directed the setup of the stand, helped running it all day and then took the gear back again. Thanks must also go to the BGC members who helped organised the event at our end and manned the stand, handing out brochures and informing the show-goers about what gliding has to offer. It is sad to see how little the general public knows about our sport and the myths about it that are out there. This event certainly went some way to change that.
If you check our Events Calendar you will see that despite the coming off-season there are a fair few things on and within another week or so the SAGA Winter Lectures are going to be added as well.

21 February 2010

The high wind made things a bit difficult for the die-hard regulars on Saturday but everyone got a flight or two out of it including the three people who turned up for an air experience flight. Lou Railz with Colin Stauss in the back seat had the longest flight before we packed up as it was getting harder to manage the gliders on the ground.
Congratulations to Roger Cox who received his Air Experience Instructor Rating! Well done mate. Many thanks to John Wheatcroft for his effort in brining Roger to this next level.

15 February 2010

Just like the last few weekends Saturday 13 Feb turned out to be an excellent soaring day, with Leigh Bunting chilling out for four hours to 8000 feet in his Baby, Roger Cox enjoyed his first excursion down Yorke Peninsula turning Arthurton via a classic convergence line in the Mini and the K21s clocked up 6 hours local flying. In all 12 hours of fantastic flying.

15 January 2010

Andrew Horton has this to say about yesterday's race:
Hefty inversion at 5000 ft, which wasn't going to be broken by anything at all. Even so, the task was still 300 km AAT or so, enough to daunt any novice. Many thermals were going to be worked. Today I was at the back of the grid instead of the front, where I was yesterday. Then 4200, and I set off a little while after the start gate opened. First leg to Bakara, up to 4800. The task-setters set an AAT to try to reduce gaggling in the tricky conditions, but even so I ended up in a gaggle of 9 or 10, which stayed together until at least halfway through the second leg. Also not for the faint-hearted! The Flarm showed more red than anything else, with the alarm blaring every so often... Conditions remained much the same throughout the race, but for me they tapered off a little towards the end, and I wondered if I was going to hit the deck just after Wunkar. Not so - I was with one other (couldn't make out who) and each of us helped the other by finding better thermals, and I managed to find something usable after achieving my lowest point of 2200 ft on that leg (Wunkar - Woolpunda). Then had final glide. Now, it's an AAT. Therefore I have to fly for at least the designated time, in this case 3 hours. Time to optimise the task presentation in XCSoar on the PDA. This now sets me to the far extremity of the circle around Woolpunda, and it isn't too hard to see why. I had 24 minutes to run, and cruising per the Garmin GPS I had 11 minutes to run before the finish. Oops. So I went well deep at Woolpunda, and ended up with final glide with a minute to spare.
Andrew came 6^th, beating a number of impressive names all ranked higher in the overall standings, which puts him 9^th in the total score so far.

13 January 2010

More reports from Andrew Horton's from the Internode Australian Multi Class National Gliding Championships:

Day 7, or 9, depending on how you like to number the days (especially since on one of the days only the 15m class flew; which I guess means Day 6 for the others!). Not one of my best flights - pretty well everything that could go wrong did so. You know - things like selecting the wrong gear for cruising - several times I tried to go fast using 0 flap instead of -2; once tried thermalling for 1/2 a turn in -2 instead of +2, not recognising that the lift had topped out soon enough... and then there was the PDA. XCSoar stopped 1/4 of the way into the flight, so I restarted it OK. Shortly afterwards the entire PDA crashed, so horrendously that no buttons worked and the only way I could restore order was to remove it from the cradle, and remove and replace the battery. After which, of course XCSoar had no idea of preceding conditions and could only guess at how the rest of the flight should proceed. (Which was complete rubbish to what I actually wanted, so I had to guess the rest of the flight.) Of course, it was during one of these crashes that I found a reasonable thermal and an eagle, but wasn't fully able to utilise either courtesy of the PDA saga. So I pressed on and found massive extended sink, leaving me no option but to backtrack to where I thought that last thermal was and working it. On the up-side, though, I did manage to find a couple of beauties, and turned the right way the first time, so no further centring was needed. I just wished all thermals could be like that! BTW the day started with beautiful CU but then dried up. It ended up a blue day in fact. Highest I got was 5750 ft; lowest about 1550 or so.

Day 6. Task for 15m was Pinnaroo - Hattah, for 497 km. The forecast was for very good conditions but the anticipated early start didn't eventuate, and in fact the start was actually delayed due to more heating being needed. A nice launch, followed immediately by a climb to 8500 ft, then to 12000, and through the start gate, then the run to Pinnaroo. By now the Cu's were going very nicely, and so were the thermals. Another good one or two around Alawoona (seems a good place to find thermals, I've had good results there before!), then to Pinnaroo. But I'd wanted to stay high and in the cold air (makes a change from hot air!) as I'd had next to no sleep the previous night in the stifling conditions, and cold air would keep me awake. Turned Pinnaroo OK at 12000 ft, then sank to 10000 ft, then found a real ripper to 14500 ft, and for the run to Hattah stayed between 12000 and 14500 ft! Oxygen comes in real handy at times... Meantime I'd wound the McCready up to 9 or 10, and the speed director was telling me to fly at up to VNE, which at these heights is a bit lower than indicated VNE, which I had to allow for. First time I've ever been asked to fly at that speed between thermals! Unfortunately the Mozzie isn't the world's fastest glider... Then thing went soft. After turning Hattah, I ended up at 5500 ft over the remains of a large whirly, which didn't deliver what it should have, and thereafter I worked rubbish (7-8 kts) just to keep going. Finally, back in SA, I managed to find something worth having, and then had final glide from past Renmark. This flight was the highest I'd ever been, in just about the strongest thermals I'd ever been in, and it also turned out to be the fastest flight I'd ever had, around 145 km/hr.

Day 5. Best day so far by heaps. Task was shorter than yesterday as there was some concern about an early sea breeze, which so far hasn't eventuated. Task was Meribah - Karawinna - Morgan - Maggea. Started OK (around 6000 ft) then found a great thermal which got me to 9000, followed by a leisurely cruise to Meribah, working some reasonable stuff in-between. Turned Meribah and wondered what was to come, then found out. Worked great thermal one to 10000, followed shortly thereafter to 11000. Then things quietened down a bit, and I was never more than 9000 ft to the border, then things went real quiet. Finally I was down to 4000 ft and working lesser junk just to stay alive. Renmark wasn't generating much. Maybe Renmark is better late in the day... Then things went REAL quiet. I finally ended up diverting slightly towards Waikerie in case an outlanding was imminent, and that was likely as I ended up at 2500 ft, and it was hot. Real hot. Eventually I found 10 kts and stayed with it all the way to the top at 12500 ft. Which means a 10000 ft gain, which I've never done in one thermal before! And that was the last thermal I worked. Still 45k's to go to Morgan, so I was looking at one more thermal. But the trough line moved across, generating heaps of lift, so all I had to do was slow down for the good stuff, and no need to work any more thermals. The final glide meter showed I needed 4500 more ft at Morgan - McCready at 7 - and that was achieved merely by slowing down as required. Which meant I had final glide over around 120 km. Finally turned Maggea and screamed home. Speed 130 km/hr, my best ever! It was a great day!

Day 4. Hot. Early start and forecast thermals to 11000 ft. 514 km or so for Std and 15m. I was last off the grid for 15m, and started immediately the start gate opened. Reasonably good lift to Peebinga, but not all that high. Found a few thermal markers, which helped. Took a substantial deviation because there was a good dusty there. And that gave good lift, just when I needed it. The run from Peebinga to Paringa was also good, getting up to 6500 or so, and in the process seeing someone waaaay low struggling to stay up. I took another deviation, running along the scrub-line. Then everything went pear-shaped. It got real soft (well, for me, anyway) and Renmark airport didn't deliver its usual thermals, just some insubstantial rubbish. Found a good dusty near Lake Bonney, so charged over there (and finding nothing reasonable on the way there either!) and worked it. Thereafter, nothing, not even anything worth yelling at. And I was starting to get a bit desperate, to the extent of working some junk just to be able to proceed a bit further. I looked like landing at the Tele-track, but proceeded on, and got lower (ultimately down to about 2000 ft) and had got the phone out and was phoning Colin up when I hit a monster thermal, which just proves my theory - if you're about to outland, radio or contact someone to say you're going in, and you'll find good lift. 10 kts to the top, although it petered off a bit near the top. Then charged off to Mt Mary. Spotted some others much lower, so didn't worry about them a lot. Turned Mt Mary, and headed to Wanbi. Then the Flarm lit up like the Victoria Square Christmas tree, and suddenly I was 13 more gliders a bit below me. Shortly after that, we were all in one gaggle working something reasonable. Later on during that leg, the 13 turned into 19, and there we were, 20 of us in one gaggle, with about 500 ft from top to bottom, mostly open and 18m, who are out to win at all costs, and it's damned hard thermalling with them. Meantime the Flarm's screaming louder than the vario and all I can do is keep my head out of the cockpit. Eventually I split off from them in a long glide on the way to Wanbi, and found something worth using, and without the hassle of coping with 19 others. Then another good thermal or two, followed by Wanbi and the run home. Another good thermal just after Wanbi got me final glide. The rest was an anti-climax. Meantime I'd been hearing on the radio that some others were struggling at Renmark, and I was hoping for a good score. But people like Terry Cubbly are experts at these conditions, and I was well beaten, and so far around 13th of 16 on the day. But I'm also 8th overall from the total scores... BTW, I beat Grant again...

8 January 2010

Andrew Horton reports on yesterday's task:
A good day really, after a better start than yesterday. Interestingly, I got towed up by the same sort of underpowered plane that Colin had some problems with at Benalla, a Scout (or American Champion it's shown as in the aviation register), and had no real problems with it. Got off tow at 1600 ft in strong lift (and to give the tug a chance) and rocketed up to 7000 ft, then 7500 ft, then started. Reasonable lift to Swan Reach, then turned and found a ripper which whizzed me up to 8500 ft, the highest I got all day. Found another ripper after turning Wentworth with Grant, then we separated with him going lower. Then between 4000 and 6500 for the rest of the flight, with the thermals getting softer later on in the day.
Andrew came 8th for the day and Grant 11th which puts them at 10th and 8th in the overall current ranking respectively. Could we see two Balaklava Pilots in the top 10 this year?
A bit of media coverage is here: http://www.abc.net.au/local/videos/2010/01/08/2788388.htm?site=riverland. WIN TV and various papers also had segments and stories about the competition.

6 January 2010

Our two contest pilots Grant Hudson and Andrew Horton are doing quite well at the Internode Australian Multi Class National Gliding Championships. You can follow their progress online via the following links:
- Waikerie Gliding Club News Blog
- Official Competition News Blog
- Official Results Page.
They are both competing in 15m class and would be very happy to receive some fan emails. Come on, let's cheer them on!

3 January 2010

Happy 20 10 !!!Our participants at the Coaching Week in Waikerie have done well and had excellent flights. Roger Cox was lucky enough to be coached by 4-times World Champion Ingo Renner and has tales to tell of his own flying in the Mini Nimbus. For Andy Horton and Grant Hudson the real fun starts tomorrow with the practice day for the Internode Australian Multi Class National Gliding Championships 2010. Colin and Jessica Stauss are crewing and generally lending a helping hand where necessary. It will be an exciting 2 weeks for us as Grant and Andy are the first Balaklava pilots to have entered in a national competition for many years.