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.