Club News

         Geoff Vincent on State Focus - 2nd September 2007

Events and News

• Our new web site is at www.grampianssoaringclub.com/.
• Geoff Vincent reached 33,000 feet in the Grampians wave.
  
• Queens Birthday Wave Weekend.  Geoff Vincent wrote "Saturday was rained off and there was flying late Sunday afternoon when the tug was finally able to make it out of Ararat.  The westerly wind shift Sunday evening produced moderate wave on Monday morning with several climbs to 10-12,000 feet and one to 15,000 ft. However, the cloud mass developing ahead of the cold front chased us out of the wave and we were all on the ground by about 1:00  - most at Noelhurst, one at Ararat A/F and one safely in a paddock at Tatyoon.  I'm sure the story of that event will emerge in due course."
• Our rainwater tanks are full!
  
• Our rainwater system is installed.  Using a grant from the Federal Community Water Grants the Grampians Soaring Club installed two 100,000 litre tanks to collect the water from our main hangar.  This involved digging  trenches along the hangar floor and out to the tanks for the stormwater pipes.  An automatic pump feeds water into the Club reticulation system.  A reticulation system for glider ballast filling was installed along the side of the 04/22 runway.  Taps along the fence line are above ground and those away from the fence line are in recessed boxes.  The overflow from the tanks (if ever??) was piped to the approved drainage area.  See the Publications page for the Ararat Advertiser report and Photographs page for more photos.
  

  Laying the stormwater pipes	The tanks and hangar
• Donald.  The Ararat and Bendigo clubs held their annual Labour Day weekend at Donald.  The weather was warm and mostly sunny although some cirrus cloud partially shaded the Donald area.  Geoff Vincent made available a sheet of tasks and their distances but no formal tasks were set.  Saturday was scratchy with the inversion somehwere near 3,500 ft QFE, Sunday was better with 4,500 ft and most seemed to fly to St Arnaud and back.  Monday seemed scratchy to the south but there was 6,000 ft with good climbs north of Donald.
  
• Horsham Week was run this year by the Grampians Soaring Club with lots of help from other clubs and the Wimmera Flying Club in particular.  We owe a great debt to Simon Hackett at Internode for the generous provision of high speed internet at no cost to us.  This was most valuable for the task setters, enabling them to download the laatest weather maps.  The results of the competition may be found at http://www.printerschoice.com.au/Horsham2009/

• The Wave just keeps on coming.  On Sunday October 5 Tom had an excellent wave flight.  He wrote:  Following up on last weekends wave prediction, Sunday proved to be a great wave day. Initially the wave was only working to the north and south of Mount William, triggered off by the Victoria range to the west of the main range. I used the opportunity to explore the southern ranges and to fly along the valley between the Serra range and the Mount William range whilst staying in lift throughout. It's very strange being on that side of mount william! (see the photo attached). Later in the day the wind speed picked up and sparked up the Mount William wave allowing a climb to 24,000ft. It was a text book wave day - very easy to explore and exploit. Fantastic day.
• Easter Camp.  Friday was not much use, but Saturday was very good with 4 knot to 8 knot thermals to over 7,000 feet.  Ted Gaida found that he could speed ring fly along the Grampians with very little circling and was able to reach each end of the Grampians twice.  Sunday was flyable in the morning, but rain showers and thunderstorms came in during the afternoon.  Monday had a cloud base below the mountain tops so it was an early return to Ararat.  Tom has a nice YouTune video of a glider flight at Mt William.  Look in Links for it.
  
• Indian Summer!   Saturday was hot and useless with a cirrus cloud cover and unbroken inversion at 1,500 ft above ground, but Sunday was very different.  Harold Page flew a Diamond Goal distance, Gary Stevenson flew 574 Km, Ted Gaida flew the Pooch to Halls Gap, Horsham and return and Gerry Elliott achieved 12,000 feet altitude.  The ground temperature was just over 40 degrees.  Unfortunately the heat seemed to deter some members from coming.
  

• TV Appearance for Geoff Vincent SUNDAY 2nd SEPTEMBER 8:30AM STATE FOCUS - Southern Cross Ten Network. Geoff Vincent discussed the grampians record flight he flew on the 9th August. The interview covered details of the flight and provided a good introduction to the theory of wave flying. GFA footage of wave flying was shown throughout the interview, giving the viewers a real perspective of the sport. A copy will be available for viewing at the clubhouse.
  

• New Grampians Soaring Record set by Geoff Vincent. Thursday 9th August 2007. Geoff Vincent has broken the Grampians soaring record (previously 28,400 ft) after soaring to a height of 29,364 ft. At 11am, Geoff entered the primary lee wave approximately 10km East of Mount William and climbed through FL270 and into FL300. Tom Harding achieved a height of 28316 ft in the same primary wave, achieving a personal best and his first diamond height claim.
  Conditions at height were challenging as always, with an outside air temperature of -45°C and one third atmospheric pressure at 29000 ft.
  The australian altitude record currently stands at 33000 ft.
  
• Weekend weather predictions now online. Geoff Vincent will be updating the weather page every Friday to give the weekend soaring forecast.
• The Duty Roster   to 30-03-2008 has been added.
  
• Soaring Australia web site.  Your attention is drawn to www.soaring.org.au
• Glider trailer Regulations.  Extension of the revised regulations for glider trailers until 1/12/2009 has been published.  Click here to download a copy in .rtf format.
  
• Queen's Birthday Wave Camp (June 9 to 11 or 12, 2007) is on again this year with accommodation at Bastin Park.    See the Wave Camp page for more information.  Please note the changes to airspace as shown in the ERC-Low document.and the Wave Booklet (colour)(3.5Mb). or black and white(1.3Mb).  Please let John Anselmi at or (03) 5358 2713 if you are coming.
• Constitution.  The Club's constitution in Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf) format may be downloaded here.  It is currently under revision.
  
• Duty Roster.  Click here for HTML format.