AUGC will be making a stand at the University of Adelaide's Open Day this Sunday 16 August. The potential uni students and parents wandering around uni may number over 5000. We'll be located in front of the physics building just off Hughes Plaza and will have a glider on display. Please come along and visit if you can- it should be a great day!

Saturday got off to a relatively early start with the arrival of Igor and we emptied the private hangar to get GZQ out. Skies were clear and the wind was moderate. The wind got slowly stronger as the morning progressed. It was a warm day, but this was mostly due to the warm wind from the north. Thermals occurred for a short time till cloud built up and the day cooled down.

The wind was gradually picking up and it eventually got too much at around 3:00pm. We effectively ran a minimal operation given the conditions. Igor showed everyone how to do it by briefly getting away in MI (in a near horizontal thermal) before MI was hangared.  Flight of the day was 32 min which was also height of the day with 3200 ft in GZQ with Robert.  Everyone got at least one flight with the exception of Justine and Mark N.  A big thank you goes to Mark N for doing most of the winching.

Redmond and co collected the PIK at around 10:30pm on their way home from the SAGA meeting.

Sunday was cancelled.  It was very, very windy, but with a stack of Cu, often in streets.

Clear blue skies in the morning and a mild WNW wind.  Cu’s were popping in the sky by 10 o’clock but the wind was picking up.  Both KRO and MI climbed away from launch.  A little while later, Mark Tyler announced he was in wave and climbing above the Cu’s (which wasn’t a great surprise as all the Cu’s to the north were arranged in lines across the wind).  Kev Barnes launched in the Astir, but Ted Bowden left the field early with a sore back.  After topping out at 6,900 ft, Tyles landed MI and Anthony jumped in to have a go.

Thermals were a bit ratty and broken and all seemed to stop at 3,000 ft.  Anthony struggled to stay up without drifting too far downwind. He made several visits down to circuit joining height before climbing away again.  Finally finding a thermal going through 3,000 ft he pushed up wind from the top and found the smooth lift at about 3,500 ft and 3 km east of the airfield.  After a respectable climb to ~5,000 ft, the wave just stopped dead.  Spying a new line of wispy rotor cloud forming upwind, Anthony pushed forward and found the new wave at 4,000 ft and 3 km west of the airfield.  This worked really well up to 8,500 ft and then it became a scrounge to find the last bits of the wave, finally making 10,000 ft to the NW of the airfield.

By this time the wave was slowly stretching its way to the airfield.  By very late afternoon, the wave was 1 km west of the airfield – almost within reach off launch, with many people trying to work the rotor.  As the sun set the wave finally stretched to the road at the western edge of the airfield and the Blanik and KRO enjoyed a brief flight in the wave as the light faded from the sky.

Cara Bourne and Chris Stokes progressed really well with Derek as they were the only ones to share the Puchatek.

Whilst collecting the Club Libelle from it’s hangar run, Allan managed to puncture both his front and rear left tyre.  Not sure how that happened, but it must of meant a long and slow trip home.  Those who stayed overnight enjoyed a very nice fire.

We have organized a Bobcat, a Vibratory Roller, a Kanga Hammer and 40T of quarry rubble to sort out the new hangar site and to do a bit of work on the strips.

Hopefully before the end of the weekend the hangar site will look like a bowling green!

We will also organize a big BBQ on Saturday night.

Please get your name down on the flying list.  We want to get enough people so we can fly as well.

A late start to the day due to the hanger construction works being undertaken. When flying started around 1300 it was mainly circuits. Kolin and Dahe were able to get a training flight and Brenton was able to get flight of the day with 19 minutes. An AEF (Chris George) was flown and he may return as a trainee. Georgia Tyler was introduced to the joys of launch emergencies and Alexis Tyler was shown how not to do loops by the CFI.

A big thank you to Mark Tyler who once again drove the winch for the day and to Derek who cooked an excellent BBQ burger dinner.

Redmond & Derek spent a lot of time with bobcats, lasers, vibrators (rollers) and jackhammers and as a result the new hanger site is looking more like a new hanger site.