How do we inspire pilots to truly take up cross country soaring ?

On Tuesday, September 8, 2015 at 6:03:21 PM UTC+3, Dan Marotta wrote:
Where are you?




On 9/8/2015 1:09 AM, Bruce Hoult wrote:



On Tuesday, September 8, 2015 at 3:39:08 AM UTC+3, David Hirst wrote:



If numbers are increasing then why on earth would you train in 2-33's? Hell, I don't know why you do it NOW -- most of the rest of the world has been training in glass for several decades.


In a lot of the world, including clubs in NZ, numbers are static or declining. This means that the fixed costs per head are increasing; a big lump of that is insurance and maintenance. Clubs with older non-glass gliders (i.e. Puchatek, ASK13, Ka7, 2-33) have much lower insurance costs and the gliders are (relatively) cheap to repair. This keeps the smaller clubs in the black - THAT's why clubs keep training in older gliders.


Looking at the annual accounts, insurance on the DG1000s isn't even close to being a major factor.

It's the tow plane that eats all the money. And next is the rent for the land our clubhouse and hangars sit on and the landing fees and control tower fees. Those are 10x bigger than the glider insurance.

We're in the process of moving to an airfield we'll own ourselves -- or at least have a 99 year lease on -- with 2 km of space to play in. And we're getting a brand new european winch. That and new buildings are costing a bit up front, but hopefully will reduce the costs in future.

Wrong question :-)

I've been in Moscow for the last four months and for probably the next couple of years.

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

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?


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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

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

On Wed, 09 Sep 2015 02:35:04 -0700, Bruce Hoult wrote:

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.

Around 1970 we (Wellington MAC) used to fly free flight model comps on
Hood Aerodrome about once a year, but I understand its got quite busy
since, so not going there isn't a surprise.

The best option appears to be joining a small existing club at Greytown.

Is that the club formerly known as Jury Hill? I see the web site now
calls itself Gliding Wairarapa. Being addicted to winching, if I'd moved
back to NZ I'd have considered pitching up somewhere near it. I know the
general area from flying models on Rayner's Farm, which is about 6km east
of Carterton and 9km from where the video was shot (not hard to find on
Google Earth.

It does look good, and well placed for Tararua wave, too.


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



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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Wednesday, September 9, 2015 at 2:48:33 PM UTC+3, Martin Gregorie wrote:
Is that the club formerly known as Jury Hill?

Yes. One of the small wrinkles in the paperwork is that the main runway is divided into two by a paper access road owned by the Jury family (or their successors?).