On Tuesday, September 8, 2015 at 10:19:16 PM UTC+3, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Tue, 08 Sep 2015 08:33:02 -0700, Bruce Hoult wrote:

My gliding club, which I was writing about above, is in New Zealand.

I know your current field - visited in 2003 and met you briefly - but was
in Wgton for about 7 years (VUW then work) back in the 60s & 70s, mostly
flying models on the Trentham rifle range for my aviation fix, so I'm
curious about where the club is likely to move to. Is the plot to stay W
of the ranges and just go a few km north, or would a move to the
Wairarapa make more sense?

Unfortunately, staying west of the ranges would require either developing a new airfield a minimum of 20 - 30 km further north (somewhere between extremely expensive and time consuming, and impossible, due mostly to planning procedures, objections from "neighbours" etc), or going to existing airfields at Fielding, Foxton or the like. Foxton is 60 km more from Wellington, and is too far from the ranges. Fielding is 110 km more from Wellington.

Joining the Upper Valley club at Kaitoke would be a possibility, but there is limited space and a lot of improvements would be needed. Definitely aerotow only.

Masterton would be a possibility. Very nice large WW2 airfield (as was Paraparaumu), and we use it for an away weekend most years (and sometimes contests). But it runs the same future risk as Paraparaumu, and is far too busy with warbirds, parachuting etc to be able to operate a winch.

The best option appears to be joining a small existing club at Greytown. They've been operating for several decades on a nice long strip (2 km of winch run on the main vector) on a dairy farm owned by the club president. He is now elderly and recently sold the farm to the local council who want it in future to spread treated waste water instead of discharging it into the river. The council is encouraging multiple recreational uses of the land, and are willing to give a very long term lease and other security of tenure provisions.

For anyone in the Hutt Valley it's the same travel time or less as Paraparaumu. For Wellington it's about 20 minutes more (60 min vs 40 min). From Porirua is the same travel time as from Wellington (but Paraparaumu was 15 min closer from Porirua). And of course it gets progressively worse for people living further up the west coast from Porirua.

This video gives a nice idea of the location (and the freedom to do what we want):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p7i85rvMG8