Anzac Day by Jenny Ganderton

Despite the public holiday, Ian carried on as usual, there being no club instructor to relieve him! We had two trainees today, Bill, who flew yesterday as well, and Jim, who "hadn't flown for ages" but who after more severe interrogation admitted to being a Jet pilot.

Bill works for the ABC, and had a camera on his head, videoing his lessons. Ian says under no circumstances to tell John Clark about this! So don't tell him.

The weather was sunny with good cumulus, but rather a brisk westerly wind, and not particularly warm. The thermals had a habit of getting in the way of Ian's lessons on circuits. Both Bill and Jim had soaring flights, and we all brushed up on our cross wind landings.

The only club member who came out to fly was Bob Emery, but he didn't stay long.

There were people camped at the end of the runway by the lake - I wonder if they like airport noise?

12 launches today, a good day's towing and soaring. I am going home tomorrow, and Juho will be towing. Looks like being a good day with less wind than today.

Jenny

Endlich kommt der gross tag!

HA

Forgive me for the espelling. I am in Atlanta Georgia and lost control of my spell czecher. 

Here are some important pictures of the Big Event featuring Trevor "the Gimp" West, Bob "how do yo like my new plane" Dirks and a cast of thousands including the happy couple… one of whom claimed to be starting a long task  (500 km declared triangle).

Note the great lack of reserve in snogging by the happy couple. The happy single was definitely Bob D with his plane. Regrettably the wings did not get eaten.

JC

24th April by Jenny Ganderton

Continuous rain on Monday, but cleared up today. I stayed around to fly the tug for a few days as we have some trainees this week. Juho Rossi is back and will be towing on Thursday and Friday, and during May while Ian and Joy are away.

Interesting conditions this morning - low cloud with some holes up through it.

Got better and better as the day went on, and we managed 8 training flights, and it was soarable in the the middle of the day. Many kangaroos on the runway in the afternoon put a stop to the activies at about 4 pm.

Tomorrow looks as if it will be a good day, and the weather is improving again.

22nd April

Many felt a bit rough in the morning, and the weather was rather overcast so there was no mad rush to go gliding. John Stewart came out to fly, and brought some friends along for a ride in IUR as well.

After listening to Geoff Sim praise the JS1 yesterday, I was lucky enough to be offered a flight in it. To my surprise I was able to stay up for about an hour, the glider is brilliant, and now I want one!! I think its quite the nicest glider I have ever flown, and feels as responsive as a 15m glider, and not to heavy to ground handle either. Now what toys can I sell .......

21st April - by Jenny Ganderton

The BIG DAY!!!!!!
Loads of people at the club as you can imagine, but since the ceremony was not until 5 pm, many of us risked a flight, but nobody dared to land out. We chose a short 2hr task Mullaley 30km, Baan Baa 30 km and Manilla 20 km - similar to the day before.

The soaring conditions were just about the best this year, with total climb averages of about 8 kts and peak vario readings in the order of 13 or 14. Dave Shorter once again averaged 12 kts! He hasn't posted his flight on OLC so there's no way of checking. Geoff Sim flew Todds JS1, I flew the Mosquito, Bob Emery and Chris Bowman in turn flew the LS7, Dave Bull and Matthew Atkinson in Discus 2s, Ian McPhee and Nick Singer in Grob 103 LL, John Clark in his DG808, John McLeod in Cirrus IUZ. Probably others I can't remember,

Cloudbase around 7000ft, and strong predictable thermals under perfect cumulus.

Those of us who attempted the task got round OK and landed back at about 3.00 pm, which gave time to put gliders away and get showered and changed for the wedding.

I have never seen the glider dags at Lake Keepit look so smart. The ceremony was held at the 14 end of the runway, with a view across the Lake, the weather was perfect. The bride arrived in Cessna 180 PDK (Ian and Joy's aeroplane) beautifully taxied by John Wakefield. It was really beautiful, Ian and Joy looked so happy, and as the sun set, the kangaroos came out to watch us celebrate with champagne and nibblies on the runway.

The fun continued in a Marquee in front of the club house, with a whole pig spit roasted all day by Bob Dircks, and a brilliant band.

An absolutely fantastic gliding day, followed by a simply perfect wedding celebration.

20th April - by Jenny Ganderton

Lots of people turned up at the club, in the run up to Ian's Wedding. The forecast looked reasonable, and a task was set - AAT Tambar Springs 40 km Baan Baa 30 Km and Manilla 20 km. I flew the tug again, but  Ian jumped in for the last couple of launches, and I was able to jump into the back of the ASH 25 with Geoff Sim. There was quite a lot of overcast on the first leg of the task, and it was a matter of chasing the sunny spots. The ASH goes a long way before you need to worry about taking a thermal, however we did get down to 3000 ft QNH at one point. We clipped the Tambar Springs circle and headed for Baan Baa. We could hear Dave Shorter boasting about 10 knot themals ahead of us. The conditions improved as the day went on - the threatened overdevelopment cleared up, and the cumulus was good.

I found the ASH climbs a lot better with Geoff flying it. We calculated that it would take 10 minutes to get back to Keepit from Manilla flying at 90kts, but since we flew at 120kts, we got back a bit early.

There was one outlanding at Kennedy's airstrip at Gunnedah, and Ian did the aerotow retrieve. All the wedding plans were going smoothly, and his family arrived and got settled in.

Thursday 19th April 2011 By Jenny Ganderton

Another day in paradise at Lake Keepit. Weather forecast looked good but with the liklihood of overdevelopment later on. However this did not happen, and it was a great day with cumulus all over the sky.Should have taken a few pics just to make you jealous. I flew the Tug again, but only two launches. Allan Munro took to the air in the delightful Junior and flew until the seating became uncomfortable. He tried out the new Collibri 11 logger and took one of the spots with him. Matthew Atkinson flew later on at about 1300, and didn''t come back until four o'clock. Both have posted their flights on OLC. Matthew appears to have gone to the vicinity of Narrabri, and had a fairly low save there - as you do.

John McLeod and Dave Bull busied themselves about the club instead of flying. IUR has now had all the sticky tape residue removed from the wings, rudder and tailplane, had its balls measured L'hotelliers that is) and been retaped. It looks particularly spiffy at the moment.

More of the same tomorrow no doubt.

Regards
Jenny

Wednesday 18th April 2012 - By Jenny Ganderton

Arrived yesterday in JGP (Jenny Ganderton's Plane) in drizzle. It was nice and sunny in Cowra when I left. However my purpose was to get my car and trailer "pink slipped" and I achieved that. Wasn't expecting to fly today, thinking the drizzle would persist, but actually it turned out to be quite a nice day.

Ian asked if I would tow, and since I hadn't flown the tug for some time, I jumped at the chance. I seem to remember how to do it fortunately.

After a check flight in IUR, Allan Munro flew the Junior for an hour and a half. Then I launched Matthew Atkinson in Discus at about 12.30 He flew for 3 and a quarter hours and went over to the edge of the Pillager Scrub somewhere. Hopefully he'll post his flight on the OLC tomorrow, and we'll be able to see. He said the cloudbase was about 5500 ft, and he had a couple of low saves, but he got back OK.

After he landed, the sky went very black, and there was some rain.

The forecast is for showers again for the rest of the week - could mean lots of good lift and cumulus - you've got to be optimistic!

Enjoyed flying the tug again!!
Jenny

Wave Bars at Keepit - by Dave Shorter

Briefing this morning (Monday) took place under a solid cover of cloud, with predictions for clearing and blue. Temperature markedly lower at 24 and winds from the west getting progressively stronger with height.

 “H’mmm” I said to my wife in a quiet voice, “could be wave about” and thought no more about it.

Everyone looking decidedly unenthusiastic, our NZ visitor organising a game of golf, I decided to accompany my wife shopping in Gunnedah. On the way out through the boom gate I noticed signs of wave clouds in the far East over Tamworth on the edge of the receding cloud bank. But too far off to be of interest, and all was turning blue overhead. Good decision to go to Gunnedah!

Then, driving back from Gunnedah we started noticing ahead bands of wave clouds receding away from us, arrayed every 5-10 km in each direction from NW to East. I’ve never seen anything like it – often lenticular wave clouds will show with secondary/tertiary bars of cloud downwind from the source, but this display seemed continuous, repeated wave bars going forever. And where was the source of the waves? It was obviously not the Kelvins.

Back at the club I dashed to the hangar and towed out to have a launch. Jay Anderson was just taking off and Bob Emery lined up in the LS7. No other gliders anywhere. The wave clouds were still there although rapidly diminishing – instead of long bars of cloud stretching off to the NE they were now each maybe a kilometre long, and nowhere near as thick. But still looked very promising. Jay took a long tow across towards the Manilla range and contacted lift at around 3500-4000ft. Bob and I followed suit.

By the time I arrived at that cloud it had stopped working and I flew on to the next cloud, found lift and started climbing. This was at a point just off the Manilla Range, somewhere over Gaineys. Bob joined me below and we worked that cloud, beating back and forth in front of the cloud until we were up at 8000ft and looking down at the most beautiful sight below. The top of the lenticulars was around 6000ft, and they appeared to be triggering off the Kaputar range, with regular wave bars coming all the way from Kaputar, and extending as far as the eye you tell in the opposite direction towards Tamworth. Lift in the smooth laminar flow air was up to 4knots.

After reaching what appeared to be the maximum we could achieve in front of that cloud, around 8200ft, we jumped forward to the next cloud and floated around in front of that one, while watching the system evaporate.

Pity we didn’t get up an hour earlier – it would have been superb then, although I would have to say it was just a magic experience as it was.

By now it was all reverting to blue, and I decided to push upwind to see what I could find. After a few Kms of horrendous sink I contacted another wave, now completely blue running across the range at the Bora hangies’ launch point. Beating back and forth there I regained another 1000ft in 3½ - 4 knts, using the “snail-trail” on  my LXNav display to find the strongest lift each beat. But that too eventually faded. But we’d had over an hour’s thrilling experience flying above the cotton wool.

PS The tell tale info at briefing was the wind forecast – 2000/20, 5000/25, 7000/30, 10000/35. A stable atmosphere (blue conditions to the west) with increasing wind are the pre-existing conditions required for wave.

Dave

Easter at LKSC

The weather has been great so far, with quite a few exceptional flights. Attila almost gained his Cirrus night rating arriving back from Gilgandra on Wednesday after sunset (but before last light). Some today (Good Friday) flew to Moree and back but the verdict was that it was "challenging" at times. Beautiful warm sunny weather anyway.

The committee and office-bearers were locked up in the "Summit" planning meeting for two days, trying to map out a plan for the future of the club, and absorbing the results of the member survey. Thanks to all that participated. The results are to be posted on the club website (members section) for all to peruse once we have figured out how to do it.

I had to get my feet off the ground on such a nice day, so went for a little fly in my pink aeroplane with John McLeod after we were let out.

Don't have much more to add, as was locked up in doors all day.
Jenny

Week Sun 25th to Sat 31st March - By Chris Bowman

What a fantastic week!

Firstly, the weather has been fabulous; almost the best of the year.  Early in the week we woke to mornings that looked less than promising - grey skies and high clouds.  But by midday the sky cleared and the cumulus started to develop nicely.  Then each day the afternoons just got better and better with the result that tasks have been almost without exception under set.  By late in the day it has been common to achieve climbs to 8,000 ft.

And we have been busy!

 Firstly we have hosted a visit by 9 members of the Jakarta Soaring Club led by Bob Gondohusodo, the President.  Most of the team were visiting to achieve their distance tasks for the Silver C.  In Java they have no trouble doing their 5 hours and 1,000m climbs, but the 50km task is a bit challenging because of the dearth of outlanding opportunities.  The average landholding is a bank bound rice paddy of about ¼ acre.  Try getting a glider into that without making a terrible mess of it! 

On hand to show the team of 7 pilots the ropes was Ian Downes, Allan Buttenshaw and Gary Speight.  They had a full on job doing thorough check flights and showing the team our geography and environment.  And what a team it was; all young, including 4 girls and 3 boys ranging in age from 13 to 38.  If only we could have the same strength in young members in our Club.

Nearly all were good English speakers so communications were easy once colloquialisms had been purged.  No “rigi-diges” or “shell-be-right mates” were allowed and John Clark with his “munga” and “wobla” (does anybody know what these words mean?) was banned for the week!

Taqwa, the most experienced member of the team who had 600 hours, easily did a 200kms on his third day in the LS7, beating Chris Bowman home by a comfortable margin.  He received a Club Polo for winning the first annual JSC/LKSC Grand Prix.

Jan Dircks excelled herself by putting on her first ever Indonesian meals on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  After the visitors had passed the food as authentic on Tuesday the entire Club joined them for Wednesdays feast and voted the menu a huge success.  You can expect Rendang and Satay to feature regularly on Jan’s menus from now on along with lots of rice.  And the State Park Kiosk now does a great Nasi Goreng for breakfast – fried rice, sausage and chicken topped by a fried egg and sprinkled with Sambal Olek and Kechap Manis. It did take some time for this cultural transfer to be achieved! 

 Keen to sample true Australian hospitality the team demanded a BBQ on Saturday night which was voted a huge success by the 40 people who attended.

To cap the Indonesian visit, on the weekend the team was joined by Mr Yudi Suyoto, Executive Chairman of KONI, the Indonesian National Sports Committee, and his family.  KONI coordinates all sport in Indonesia and sponsored the visit. 

And then running in conjunction with this has been the Steve Hedley 20m Grand Prix which commenced on Monday.  Six aircraft participates, the ASHs of Brad Edwards, Geoff Sim and Paul Mander, the Nimbuses of Steve Hedley and Shinzo and the Club Duo with Nick Singer at the controls.

Every day was a great success with each including exciting finishes.  What a great racing format the Grand Prix is.  It makes you look forward to our Qualifying Grand Prix in November.  If we get a good rollup it should be fantastic.

And congratulations to Steve Hedley for coming up with the idea, promoting the event and organising it so well.  A great member’s initiative.  There should be more.