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Club News

Geoff Vincent on State Focus - 2nd September 2007
Events and News
- 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.
- Members
who
missed the Donald weekend missed a top weekend. There were about
13 gliders present and their pilots enjoyed thermals that were up to
13,000 ft. There should be some photos soon.
- Camps
for 2008.
- Labour Day weekend at Donald -
8, to 10 March.
- Easter at Noelhurst, Jaluka -
21 to 24 March (perhaps more if there is wave).
- Queen's Birthday weekend at
Noelhurst, Jaluka - 7 to 9 June.
- Melbourne Cup weekend and week
at Raywood - 1 to 9 November.
- Successful Port
Fairy event. During the first week we had some slack time
and lost 2 days to unfavourable weather. However in the second
week the numbers of customers increased until we were unable to fly all
the applicants in the last 2 days.
- Port Fairy dates
are from Saturday Dec 29th 2007 to Sunday Jan 13th 2008.
- Snakes.
A small tiger snake was removed from the workshop, so take care on the
airfield this year.
- Next Committee
Meeting has been moved from December 1st to December 8th.
- Port Fairy camp
is to be from December 28th to January 13th inclusive. A minimum
crew of 5 is needed, so if you are coming please advise Brian Trotter.
- Another excellent
wave weekend. Saturday September 29th provided excellent
wave. Geoff Vincent reported that there were good climbs back to
the tertiary wave over Ben Nevis. At one stage the holes in the
clouds closed but opened up fully a short time later. Sunday 30th
had rotor over the airfield making it too difficult to operate the tug
after 2 launches. The details are:
- Total flying time close to 15 hours.
- Best climb 24,000 feet (Ben Loxton and Ian Patching in
the
Duo-Discus). The climb was abandoned when climbing at 700 fpm
through 24,000 feet when the Foehn gap below started to close up.
They needed an escape route and so descended to 3000 ft AGL near
Moyston
and flew back to Ararat below the clouds.
- Four climbs above 17,000 feet.
- One Diamond height climb achieved within 15 km of Ararat
A/F.
- 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.
- Grampians wave back
again

Grampians Wave - 28th August 2007 (looking SE from Halls Gap)
Soft
wave conditions provided some pleasant midweek flying on Tuesday 28th
August. Persistence was the word of the day with slow climb rates
eventually topping out at 17000 ft approximately 4 km from Mount
William. The decaying wave system was followed by cloud streets
providing some welcome lift enabling flights over 5 hours. We were
joined by Ben Loxton and Ian Patching of VMFG, who successfully rode
the wave to the top in a Duo Discus. GSC pilots on the day were Geoff
Vincent, Tom Harding, Richard Leschen and Gary Stevenson.
- 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.
- Diamond
Height Flights for Henry Leschen and Geoff Vincent. Wednesday 8th August 2007.
Congratulations to Henry for achieving his first diamond height gain
after flying to 22,700 ft. Geoff Vincent gained clearance to FL270 but
could not beat his personal best. Tony Tidswell happily flew the IS28
in the wave, but was limited to 10000ft as the aircraft was not
equipped with oxygen.
- New
member Tony Tidswell joins GSC. Tony has recently joined the club in
search of the Grampians wave. He has previously flown PW5's and paragliders.
We welcome Tony and his partner Kate to the club.
- 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.
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