29th March 2015

John instructed Dave Pollard and Jacques, while Phil expertly drove the winch. The first flights saw some soaring but later the southerly arrived with rain. Roland had rigged (it did look good early). Once the rain arrived he derigged. After 5 flights we retired to the new Oliver's in Clyde to sample craft beer....

Sunday 22nd March 2015

Just John instructing new member Wills Dobson, with Phil driving the winch and Nigel running the wing. It was a cool southerly, no lift but excellent training conditions.

Thanks for the help!

Sunday 15th March 2015

We had a high turn-out for the working-bee on Saturday. ERW looked great and the hanger/clubrooms got a good clean. Sunday was another pretty good soaring day. Doug again spent quite some time in the back seat of JW as we had numerous trial and instructional flights. Glider pilot Carl visited from the USA, and new member Peter experienced his first soaring flight. Russell did 9 aerotows and we also did 2 winch launches at the end of the day (Roy making excellent progress after a long sabbatical).

The single seaters had 3-4hr flights in pretty good thermals. Roland (LS3 VH) certainly had the most meritorious flight. Along with John (KG) he set off north along the Dunstans but really the hills where not working well (there was 20kts across the tops at this stage). Roland had the wheel down ready to land near Thomson Creek but climbed away and took the flat-land path to Hawkduns where the cloud base reached 10000'. Well done! John turned back and headed south and found better conditions on the Remarkables.

Remarkably good soaring near Queenstown late Sunday

Phil (KJ) had great soaring, again mainly in the valley where thermals went to 9000'. The weather changed (and improved) throughout the day. Roger Sparks said that he flew a long flight out of Omarama and it was all in wave. The westerly finally arrived about 8pm that evening.

Sunday 8th March 2015

It took a while for the low cloud to disperse but we were able to soar within a 2-3hr window that the thermals were active. Later in the afternoon the Southerly rapidly approached and by 5pm all thermal activity had ceased. Doug took local policeman Patrick for an extended trial flight followed by Dave from Balclutha. Phil had an hour or so in KJ and later Doug continued training flights with Roy and Jacques. Cloud base was 5500’ with some good fast climbs in 6-8knots at times. Thanks to Russell for the excellent tows.

Sunday 1st March 2015

We had a busy day on the first day of Autumn with thermals starting around 1pm and increasing as the afternoon went on. Cloud base was around 7000-8000’ but it was hard work getting established low down with plenty of sink in between thermals. First away was Doug with Dave Pollard’s Mum for a 20min flight, then Roland and Phil were away for over three hours with Roland going over to Bannockburn where he found it difficult to go much further. Phil roamed around the basin and ended up in the sun over towards Poolburn for a while as it overdeveloped. In the meantime Allen had an hour with Doug (check flight +) and then it was Jacques turn for an hour. It was still pumping at 6.30pm as the overdevelopment cleared. A very enjoyable day’s flying!