Weekend Report: Converting to Wave

Saturday

William Whittaker arrived bright and early to do his duty and we took the K13 down to the 15 launch point and were joined by some enthusiastic singles.

Unfortunately the weather did not amount to much but we did lots of training and check flights. Herbie, Bill, and Otto launched but only Herbie managed to hang in until the convergence eventually arrived. Whoever launched after that had no problem staying up. Ari tugged for 3.5hrs in total and we had a very gratifying and active day’s flying.

The highlight of the day was Jerry converting onto GUC. Well done Jerry! Nicky continued to do conversions of members onto the Rotax Falke.

I must mention that the good, light-hearted banter and fun at the launch point on Saturday was wonderful to be part of - I personally have not had so much fun on the airfield in a long while! (at least not since the course).

Sunday

Sunday was disappointing in that it was very quickly blown out and only one of our four new students present managed to have a flight. Sven, Randy and Cornelius all managed to get into wave, and Quintin and Mike Allen had a wonderful long flight in GOK, after he was told that there would be no more launching. Andre, Jaco and Brian – don’t become despondent - you should have better luck next time.

Alison

Weekend Report: Convergence & Blow-out Wave

Saturday

William Whittaker arrived bright and early to do his duty and we took the K13 down to the 15 launch point and were joined by some enthusiastic singles.

Unfortunately the weather did not amount to much but we did lots of training and check flights. Herbie, Bill, and Otto launched but only Herbie managed to hang in until the convergence eventually arrived. Whoever launched after that had no problem staying up. Ari tugged for 3.5hrs in total and we had a very gratifying and active day’s flying.

The highlight of the day was Jerry converting onto GUC. Well done Jerry! Nicky continued to do conversions of members onto the Rotax Falke.

I must mention that the good, light-hearted banter and fun at the launch point on Saturday was wonderful to be part of - I personally have not had so much fun on the airfield in a long while! (at least not since the course).

Sunday

Sunday was disappointing in that it was very quickly blown out and only one of our four new students present managed to have a flight. Sven, Randy and Cornelius all managed to get into wave, and Quintin and Mike Allen had a wonderful long flight in GOK, after he was told that there would be no more launching. Andre, Jaco and Brian – don’t become despondent - you should have better luck next time.

Alison

Spatz rules!

There we were, all out at the club, but depressed by an inversion and thinking that it wouldn't break until 2:30. Glum faces and a recommendation from Aubrey (hey- thanks - you're a star!) to come back later after fitting in an appointment.

But we did not reckon with the irrepressible Spatz-meister Ari Cotton who wanted to launch anyway - and stayed up! Talk about causing a stampede to launch!

And a very creditable result we had from the day too. Sven & Alan clocked up 500km+ flights (see Sven's flight on OLC by clicking the title of this post) and Sven broke new territory charting a new route to the Cedarberg and then rattling his teeth out with a mega front-ridge run.

Fun flights were enjoyed by Paul ("robber") Troskie, secsy Sarel Oosthuizen and Ari ("goedspah-tz") Cotton.

Join the mid-week fun folks, there is plenty to be had now - both Sven and Alan reckon'd that an 840km was on if they had not been exploring new options (and thanks to Ari for kicking everyone into action!).

Weekend Report: Tanqua again

Saturday

From all accounts - a bit of a disjointed day with some pilots and students having great wave flights and others having a very frustrated time. Remember that if you want to fly any club trainers or other gliders then you must endeavour to get to the field early enough to help get things going for the day.

Unfortunately the duty pilot became ill and had to go home. We hope that you get well soon, June. We would like to thank Horst and Jerry for stepping into the breach and taking over the duty for the day. The arrangements were not without further complications: Boet had swapped instruction duty with Peter Clemence who in turn had swapped with Martin, who fortunately WAS there!

Sunday

When we entered the valley at Tulbach on the way back to Worcester from Tanqua, we were astonished to notice that our indicated speed was 150kph, while on the GPS it was 200kph - a nice tail wind of 50kph at 3500'. When we neared the airfield, the singles were launching and Johan Gericke got into wave off Vic Peak, later to be joined by GOK with Martin and Sven, and Garth in his Cirrus. Peter Farrell joined then in his Ventus and it seemed that everyone had a successful flying day. Unfortunately the wind was too strong for the trainers.

Tanqua was predominetly a motor-glider weekend - Alvin Guntert flew Otto’s DG500 and Dave and Hubert took their own DG, we went in the Grob and Wynand Rademeyer took his Motorfalke. Later we were joined by Adri and Adriaan in their Lambada, plus Rudy and Gerhard in their Tandem Motorfalke. We also had Mike Miller and his son, Greg, also in a Grob, this one from Elgin. Next morning were joined by Andre and Boet in their Sperber. Peter Clemence drove through with his family as well as Mike’s wife Jenny and daughter Megan.

Alewyn Burger gave us a demonstration of how a helicopter should be flown and Augusta stunned the other pilots with her demonstration of flying the helicopter very confidently from the RH seat!

A very enjoyable weekend was had by all, and as usual at Tanqua, Esther's catering was superb. Well done again Ester, Alewyn and Augusta - thanks very much for another wonderful weekend.

Alison

James Gilliland Award for the Most Meritorious Flight

Recently I nominated five of our CGC pilots, Sven Olivier, Martin Grünert, Reinhold Lawrenz, Peter Farrel and Alan O'Regan for the Aeroclub "James Gilliland Award for the Most Meritorious Flight". This I considered deserving in view of the momentous flights these pilots flew on 20th November, 2004:

* Martin Grünert (1001km - DG505M – Open Class),
* Reinhold Lawrenz (997km - DG505M - Open Class),
* Alan O’Regan (1171km - LS8 - Standard Class),
* Sven Olivier (1007 – ASW27 – 15m Class) and
* Peter Farrel (824km - Ventus C – 15m Class).

At an Aeroclub meeting last night, the nomination was accepted and I am very proud to announce that these five pilots are the recipients of this prestigious award.

The award will be presented at the Aeroclub Gala Evening in Mark Beckley's hanger at Rand Airport on the 5th November, 2005.

Well done guys, we are very proud of you!

Alison Navarro

Weekend Report: Murphy trains . .

Saturday

As one person observed on Sunday, Worcester Airfield is Murphy's home address! And here is why:

I intended, and did get going early on Saturday but had a few "glitches" – 1) my duty partner for the day did not pitch up, 2) the VW RV would not start, and 3) later in the day, NIG began having problems.

Excluding the above we had a very successful day with 25 launches in all - the last six on the winch, which we set up after the tug began its problems at 3.00pm. We kept the operation going until 6.47pm.

The conditions were perfect for training and thanks to the Team: Wally T, Mark S, John S, Rob K and Martin G for all their hard work.

I think that the cherry on the top of a very busy day was when Adri Hepburn went solo in the Lambada. Her landing was an absolute "greaser" and the rest of us will have to polish our landings from now on, or be 'shown up'!

Sunday

With the tug down and MIV only back next week, we took the winch out again and managed to give three air experience flights. One of these people joined the club. Wally again helped out with instructions and Sven carried on instructing until late with some incredible launches in excess of 2400ft. The Ka13 stayed up for more that an hour. Wally flew his ASW15 (the one that is for sale!) for over an hour and William J Whittaker flew the Club Astir for over two hours. BUT the most remarkable of all was Ari who flew the L-Spatz for over THREE hours, down the valley and back - ALL OFF THE WINCH!

Thanks again to the guys who saved the day: Sven O, Wally T, Coen M, Maurice C, and most of all Rob Kakebeeke and John Spargo for operating the winch.

The other news of the weekend is that the men from Unterwossen (where we bought the Rotax Falke) arrived to do the conversion of the CFI. She will be technically ready by next week for conversions and training. Nicky says that she handles beautifully. If I may add: there have been some moans and groans about the Falke flying rates. Please guys – we have budgeted on 150 hours per year which is totally optimistic, in order to give you the lowest rates possible. We have paid a lot of money for this aircraft and therefore it is costing a lot in insurance. We also have to budget for a replacement of the Rotax engine.

MIV is having her Mandatory Periodic inspection right now, a new exhaust has been fitted as well as the larger tow rope reel for the longer rope. MIV will be back in action on Saturday.

Regards

Alison

OLC 2005: The fat lady sings!

Hi everyone,

OLC 2005 is done and dusted. All that remains is to consider the results and to thank everyone for their support.

CGC placed 20th worldwide out of 1177 competing clubs, and we were the best club in the south hemisphere. Our 22 pilots flew 99 271 kms in 213 flights (the winning club needed 48 pilots for its 213550 km in 503 flights)

On individual basis worldwide it is noteworthy that we had 3 pilots in the top 20 pilots (out of 8920 pilots!!).
Alan O'Regan placed 11th with 5325 pts, Reinhold Lawrenz 12th with 5313 pts and Martin Grunert 17th with 5101 pts. The contestants included the regular bunch from Argentina.

Alan and Rheinhold placed 2nd and 3rd in Africa, with Martin in 6th place.

We had 1st places in the Southern Hemisphere FAI Centenary Contest by Alan in the Standard Class and Peter Farrell in the 15m class whilst I flew a borrowed Astir to 1st place in the club class (thanks to those who supported me). Not to be forgotten is the second place by Martin in the open class and the 7th place by Adriaan Hepburn in the 18m class.


Thank you everyone and well done to those top pilots (we will be chasing you).

May we have just as good a season in 2006, and keep on posting those claims (16 pts more and we would have been 19th).

Regards
Sven
EY

Weekend Report: Tanqua

Saturday

One aerotow launch with GOK after which the tug was packed away as the day was blown out (AGAIN!)

Sunday

A nice bubbly day with 34 launches and a soaring ceiling of about 3500’ – quite respectable. Quite a lot of flying was done with 17 winch launches and 17 aerotows. See what you missed! Among others airborne was Ari Cotton in the high performance version of the Spatz, the famous L-Spatz. Also reported airborne were Chris Loedolf in his Astir, Craig Fussell in GOK.

William J Whittaker brought a troop of boy scouts which added to the activity – thanks William.

Fun and games at the Tanqua power fly-in included two prop strikes – fly-in but drive-out.

Hope you are all enjoying the KK – I have been pointed to yet another glitch with the second last paragraph on page one – obviously it refers to the Rotax-Motorfalke – apologies once again.

You folk who are straining at the bit to go cross-country for badge flying, remember that the spring weather is usually far better than the mid-summer weather. Come and fly! If you still need to get you cross-country clearance, hopefully the Falke will be ready with Nicky at the controls soon.

Maybe we can finally get to do some of that much talked about but not-yet-tried lead-and-follow training?

Peter

Tough climbs and taking paxes

This weekend did indeed see some unusual activity after a blowout on Saturday - hats off to Sven who, sat in and ready to go, calmly got out when it blew out just before he was due to launch. Its tough climbing out - especially when you are on the verge of launching, but as Sven says "Just proves you've got to get here early in a NWer".

On Sunday though, there was a strong inversion, and Craig also had a tough climb out - this time with a lead-and-follow that showed a slight tendency to gaggle (especially at biscuit time):


Not satisfied with this though, he took 3 paxes to the launch point "to make sure all was working smoothly":


and even retrieved GOK after "it went bump".

Weekend Report: Blast from the past

Saturday

One of those north-westerly days when after the first waltzing landing of the tug, it was wisely decided to pack everything away. Frans du Toit must have been relieved! We were visited by “Bomb” Finney, a veteran glider pilot from Baragwanath days and Charles Paice, another veteran pilot. They will just have to come again when the weather is better for their flights in GOK.

Sunday

The post-frontal weather was enjoyed by all who took the trouble to be there and launch. Among those flying were Dave Starke & Hubert Spaun in their DG500, Rico Suter and Kevin Mitchell in Rico’s DG500, Wally Tamsen in his ASW15 and William Whittaker in the Cirrus GIG. Kim Carter Brown flew GOK and a visitor who came for an intro flight signed up to join the club there and then. The trainers were flown by Gareth Floweday, June Sterling and Helmuth von Michaelis.

I’ve not been informed how many winch launches there were, but at least Marianne Verpraet-Mandix got the one she had been waiting for all week while she acted as Course Duty Pilot – a busy job indeed.

If you are in doubt about the weather at Worcester, you can always phone Alison Navarro who is usually at the airfield between Friday afternoon and Sunday.

The October KK will be in your mail box in a day or two.

Sproing! A weekend report

Saturday

One of those north-westerly days when after the first waltzing landing of the tug, it was wisely decided to pack everything away. Frans du Toit must have been relieved! We were visited by “Bomb” Finney, a veteran glider pilot from Baragwanath days and Charles Paice, another veteran pilot. They will just have to come again when the weather is better for their flights in GOK.

Sunday

The post-frontal weather was enjoyed by all who took the trouble to be there and launch. Among those flying were Dave Starke & Hubert Spaun in their DG500, Rico Suter and Kevin Mitchell in Rico’s DG500, Wally Tamsen in his ASW15 and William Whittaker in the Cirrus GIG. Word also has it that the Stemme saw Ashton and Tulbagh! Kim Carter Brown flew GOK and a visitor who came for an intro flight signed up to join the club there and then. The trainers were flown by Gareth Floweday, June Sterling and Helmuth von Michaelis.

I’ve not been informed how many winch launches there were, but at least Marianne Verpraet-Mandix got the one she had been waiting for all week while she acted as Course Duty Pilot – a busy job indeed.

If you are in doubt about the weather at Worcester, you can always phone Alison Navarro who is usually at the airfield between Friday afternoon and Sunday.

The October KK will be in your mail box in a day or two.

Peter & Alison