Adelaide University Gliding Club

Flying Sunday 7 February 2010

A hot day with light variable winds that took a fair while to get going. However, to make up for the late start thermals to 7,000 ft lasted till the end of ops.

Notable events:

Rob Parsonage solo. Second solo flight was for an hour and 20 minutes to 7,000 ft in KRO.
Mark T took WVA to Robertstown and back via lots of other places
Derek went bush bashing in WVA
Nil drogues destroyed & Nil weak links broken

Flying Saturday 6 February 2010

A fine, sunny and busy day on field that started with a host of maintenance action on the Motor Falke and winch drogues. A new drogue type was tested which self-destructed spectacularly on the first launch - fortunately with the aircraft still on the ground.

Thermals were to around 3500' with an inversion that persisted for most of the day. For most of the day we had 3 aircraft in the air; we could have also flown the Pik if there was a Pik-rated pilot on field.

Flight of the day went to Brenton Wait with 71 mins in GMI, closely followed by long flights by Igor and John Dunstall.

Christian Medlow learnt how to winch launch aircraft and conducted 11 launches. This meant that for most of the day it was a father-son effort in the aircraft and winch respectively.

A revised version of the new drogue was trialled later in the day with much better success, although there were a few interesting bugs to iron out.

Thanks to Redmond for instructing in the Falke and showing off in the Puchatek at the end of the day. Thanks to Derek for his winch training and drogue making and to everyone who contributed to a safe and efficient operation.

Flying Saturday 30 January 2010

Congratulations to Hugh Round who went solo.Awesome stuff, well done!

Congratulations also to Anne Philcox who took WVA cross-country and achieved approximately 240 km.

Flying Sunday 17 January 2010

Sunday started a bit blustery with winds 15-20 kts straight down runway 23. There were a number of trainees, annual checks and AEFs to fly so KRO and the Motorfalke were used. There was thermal lift to ~6000' coupled with heavy sink so the trainees had a combination of soaring and very short circuits. The winds were stronger at altitude, 40 knots plus, so final approaches were often high and steep. The strong wind created strong thermal streets topped with nice dark Cu but the day cycled rapidly so they came and went regularly. As thermals developed the wind speed on the ground dropped to around 10 knots.

Ops continued until about 1930 when the lift kind of stopped and everything was packed away. All the AEFs had been flown, all the checks completed and multiple flights for all trainees.

Excellent winch driving was being done by our newer winch drivers and the entire crew is to be congratulated on excellent aircraft handling in the conditions.

Flying Sunday 11 January 2010

The forecast was for the day to start early, go late and go high. Only Derek Spencer and Igor were present on field so Igor suggested they do a cross-country in FQW.

They launched just before 12. There were clouds popping to the north and out to the east as far as the eye could see. The engine was shut down just over 2000’ and FQW climbed away in a nice thermal. Igor and Derek did 428km in FQW over 7 hours. They went north to Peterborough and then south east to the Woolpunda Water Tower and back to Stonefield. Using the maximum of 4 turn points, they got 428km from the trace.

Thermals were strong and going high. There were dust devils all over the place. Derek and Igor flew conservatively and didn’t really push that hard. The low points were 4000’ at Burra and 5000’ at Waikerie on the way home. They were rarely lower than 6000’. On the final glide back to Stonefield, they achieved roughly 3nm/1000’ (on average) at 50 knots. It was an awesome flight.

It looks like Derek and Igor will have dibs on the FQW trophy for January this year. This flight is going to take some beating, but it did show that a 500km flight in FQW is possible given the right day. They landed at 7pm which meant that there was still 1 hour and 30 minutes of daylight left to achieve an even greater distance.