Newsletter December 2013

16 December 2013

Dear fellow pilot

What great skies we have had in the last few weeks. The local newspaper, the HB Today, published the below:

This photo was taken from an ASH 25M two seat glider while flying from Hastings airfield. After launching to 1,800ft, the pilots Brian and Jason Kelly used thermal and wave lift to climb up to almost 15,000ft while flying over Hawkes Bay, reaching to the south of Dannevirke, west into the ranges, east out to Waimarama and north of Hastings before returning to land after covering over 500km in just over four hours of flying.

Last Saturday, a flight of almost 200km along a sea breeze convergence was completed by Jason Kelly and Graham White in a 3,500ft to 4,800ft height band with only a handful of turns all flight. Starting from Hastings, they tracked south to almost Weber before turning around and following a similar track back. Great soaring for sure.

Have you considered coming to the 2014 Central Districts Gliding Competition? As you will have seen in the latest Soaring magazine, this is a very friendly competition with great pilot camaraderie and is ideal for new cross country pilots.

With approximately eight weeks to go, make it your New Year’s resolution to come and fly the Central Districts Competition from Sunday 09^th to Saturday 15th February 2014. Be positive, grab the opportunity and come. An entry form is available at http://www.glidinghbw.co.nz/links.html – complete this and make payment by 12^th January 2014 to secure the early bird entry fee.

If you are not a solo pilot, twist an instructor’s and the club committee to send a two seater.

If you look up the early New Zealand gliding records, you will see that members of our club were the holders of the two seat 100km speed triangle record. This was achieved in an ASK13! Glass fibre sailplanes do fly further but, as we all know, K6s have flown further than 300km distances from Waipukurau.

Further information will be available at http://cdchamps.blogspot.co.nz/ as confirmed. Details of our club flying can be found on www.glidinghbw.co.nz.

Have a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy new year. We will send out a further newsletter in January.