Exadios

Ok, probably not such a big thing.But if you think about it, all the airports, etc, you don't get to see many planes either landing or taking off. Especially the big ones!

 

But!

 

While doing some leg work for the trip to Wanaka, I found a SMALL plane flying - and possibily its shadow on the ground too!

 

Look for Wanaka airport on maps.google, then go slightly south. There is a green-ish field.

 

Just to the EAST there is an empty/dirt field and further to the EAST are trees.

 

Look in the dirt field near the top, zoom in a bit. You will see the plane. Flying WEST.

 

And just near it you will see either its shadow or a funny shaped pond that looks like the plane.

Had the opportunity to spend a few hours in Stanley a couple of years ago. More English than England! The Argentinians are totally wasting there time on "Las Malvinas" as they call the Island group as no British PM could ever give them to Argentina under any circumstance.

Not exactly news, but news to me, the world distance record has been broken. Also at the Schleicher Website.

Not exactly news, but news to me, the world speed record broken.

The Gliding Queensland Easter Comp. pages are here.

Why aren't we flying these now days?

You may or may not not interested in saving old planes but I think this is a worth while quest.Would you help keep this old girl flying, please.

 

A

I think this is it... certainly looks a bit like a banana with those wings bent like that! Nice landing, and nice looking machine....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMxgmR3RFns

They're going for the ASH 25 look.

Perhaps I did'nt make myself clear.The 35 gliders were lined up single file near the down wind end on the bitumen runway 29 facing downwind and were then tugged to the parallel grass trip 11 which effectively put 11/29 u/s

Its a mile or so from the tie down area so I imagine that these runways would be out of action anyway due to the towing process to get the gliders to the tugs.

 

In my view NOTAMS should have mentioned that 11/29 may be out of commission from X time to X time if they were aware of the wind forecast direction before hand.

 

I am not a knocker, just surprised to find a runway completly blocked on arrival and forced to use the cross wind strip.

I think the NOTAMs assume that pilots and ground crew are going to do the right thing.

Exadios,Sounds like sense to me but how do you shift 35 odd gliders from the runway when they are lined up for competition flying? Not a goer I think.

 

I would have been more comfortable if the gliders were lined up for the tug on the side of the runway, space permitting.

 

Just seemed to me to be a dangerous situation if the alternative runway was u/s for whatever reason.

 

Notams did not mention that any runway would be not available. With 35 odd gliders you would think that they could have notified of a possible delay for the active runway and I could have planned around this. i was there for over an hour and they were still tugging when I left.

 

I have no problems with the gliding guys, just the safety issue in taking over the whole runway for a couple of hours or so.

If it where a competition I image that many of the gliders where open class with water on. These need to take off from the center of the strip. With 3 tugs the worst case is 3 gliders on the strip at the same time. Standard class gliders usually do not need to be on the strip at all to take off. They can be launched from the side by the tug pulling them onto the strip.

It is the ground crew's (and, ultimately, the CFI's) resposibility that there are no more gliders on the strip than necessary, and, in any event, no more than they can clear off the strip quickly.

Th engine failure case is clear. The tug priority would seem to be a "wish" rather than a reality. Nev.

Flew into narromine last Wednesday to be greeted with 35 gliders on active runway 11. Notams, so knew they were there but did not expect them to be all lined up on the active runway. They had 3 tugs operating on the paralel grass strip for take offs. I used the cross wind strip 04 after talking to one of the tug pilots who held for me. Would have been interesting if the Xwind was near max and fuel low. Guess that Dubbo would have been my only option.

Also when we hear a new aircraft on the CTAF we make the announcement: "<call sign or 'Narrogin traffic'> this is Narrogin base, be advised that gliding operations are in progress and we are using runway <nn>". This allows the aircraft to declare their intentions if they need to.

I think safty and courtesy require all gliding clubs to addopt these sort of policies.

Hmm Tug circuits....wouldnt that just be the last orbit in a spiral dive that might or might not happen to intersect one of the more traditional legs of the active circuit :big_grin:Tug imperatives

 

1) Get em up as quick as possible

 

2) Get back even quicker

 

3) repeat

Thanks Exadios, It would be interesting to get the story from the horses' mouth on this one ,so to speak. keep us informed in the future if you get a chance please..................................

I think when the full story is known it will point out a hole in the training regime. I'm reluctant to believe that an instructor would set a task for a student if he thought the student could not complete it safely. And it is a little hard to blame the student in these situations.

The danger of having local arrangements, is that an inbound touring aircraft, GA or Rec flying a conventional circuit doesn't know this and a dangerous situation may develop.

Nothing like an instructor pulling power off when you are a bit out on downwind and you realise you are too far too make it back to the strip. I swear first time he did that to me my next circuit was half the distance ;)

Xadios, you asked if there where any tug pilots around, and clearly you have something in mind .... as a "has been" tow plane pilot (a "tuggie") I would be interested in what you want to know .... and for the record, a paddock landing was ALWAYS a high tension (pun intended) event ... but good fun too ..... it brought some variety into a day that usually consisted of about 4 hours of 10 minute circuits .... learnt how to spot land tho'!!Regards

Martin

Our club is blessed with a sufficient number of tuggies. But we are all getting older and the average age of our tuggies is increasing. We have already had a few medical scares. We should be training the next generation of tuggies right now.

As you point out, a tuggie needs to be a very skillful pilot. The chance to use their flying skills seems to be the main inducement for pilots to become tuggies.

What I'm interested in is whether other clubs have an aging tuggie problem and what they may have done about it.

Turboplanner, I had a gander at Google earth and I can't say I agree with your 'not many landmarks' comment.Coming out of Narrogin is a bit slim, but there are roads and creeks or rivers.You would need to sit on the compass a bit. It wouldn't be too long before the wooded country came into view to the SW, especially in clear VFR conditions at cruising altitude. The obvious route would be over collee where there is an airstrip, two large mining operations which should be quite visable, and a sizeable dam, plus of course the town itself. Once over Collee, another big dam, and then the coast should become visable and it's a pretty obvious run to Bunbury. My guess is the pilot might have been tracking the wrong heading initially, which I have done myself during early navs.........................

Almost as soon as you take off from Narrogin you can see the CBH elevator just north of Williams very clearly. (The CBH termianls in WA are painted bright white and it is not unusual to be able to see them from over 100Km away.) In addition from 4000' QNH (ground level is around 1000') it is (and was on Sunday) very easy to see the Pingelly, Yealering, Wickepin, and Bullaring, etc, CBH elevators. Also the lakes to the SE are very prominent.

To the east of Collie there are large open cut mines and power stations. The mines have very large mounds of white soil around them and all these are visible from Williams. Also at 4000' QNH you will begin to see the sea to the west as a silver or gold fringe on the horizon.

As you near Collie you can see Wellington Dam and the CBH terminal in Bunbury.

So it is very easy to orientate youself in the Narrogin - Williams area and the pilot would have had a number of visual cues that something was not right early into the flight.

I've never had a problem with a glider at caboolture - however I've flown them before, so know what a circuit is like from their point of view.The glider tug, on the other hand...

I often watch power planes that, when they join the circuit, they are specks in the sky. What they are doing way out there I cannot tell but one thing I do know - if the engine stops they have no hope of making the landing strip.

OK, Now I'm only going on what info I have here, which is not much, but four questions come to my febel mind....1. Why was he sent on a long nav, if the weather was doubtfull ?.

2. Why was he sent on a long nav, without a rescue beacon ?.

3. If he got caught in cloud, why was he not taught to stay away from cloud ?.

4. Why wasn't he told to land if down to x amount of fuel remaining ?.

I'm told by someone from Narrogin Flying Club that he is a student and was on some sort of nav exercise. Apparently he landed near Augusta, WA, which is hundreds of clicks from Bunbury.

There was a report that he was lost in cloud. There may have been a few Qs popping on Sunday but the only real cloud was Cirrus at 30000'.

Also he ran out of fuel before landing. I'm not sure what they teach now but the rule used to be land while you still have fuel in powered planes and land from height in gliders.

Was told that the aircraft missing in WA was a Tecnam from Bunbury, still waiting on details from the search last night. Here's hoping all is well with the pilot.

Surely there are lots of tuggers here... Hey don't blame me... thats what they used to call themselves...