Exadios

As I said it is not a local arrangement. I was taught to remain within gliding distance of the strip and so where others. The only people who fly wide (which is what I presume you mean by "conventional") circuits are the training flights from Jandakot. If they lose their fan then they are in a paddock and, since neither the student or the instructor know how to land in paddocks, they are dead. That is the dangerous situation that has already developed.

We fly our tug circuits inside the glider circuits - the way it should be. Given that gliders invariably have a better glide ratio than powered planes it seems to me that all powered circuits should be inside the glider circuit.

As you point out you were a tuggie - not a tugger. Sorry, but I got a little annoyed with some of the flippant posts. 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.

I agree. 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.

All glider pilots and most power pilots (I know) are taught the following rule: When you join downwind for a particular strip you are committed to land on that strip. In the case of power aircraft this includes the case when engine failure occurs. So they fly the circuit with this in mind. And a tug engine failure is more than a theoretical possibility. 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.

The weather between Bunbury and Narrogin was not doubtful. It was almost perfect VFR. I believe (but do not know for sure) that he had one. If he did have one I do not know why it was not used. I do not believe that he was caught in cloud because there was none. The cloud report came from an early news report. Hmmmm.

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.

We received a call at Narrogin airfield from the search coodinators on Sunday evening. They wanted to check whether he had returned to Narrogin airfield. We checked our runways etc. but, unfortunately, no luck.

I'm sure that there are many pilots here that are tuggers. But it is not them I am talking about. I am talking about pilots that fly the tow planes which are used to launch gliders - and the pilots that do not pack their pants at the thought of landing in a paddock.

I do not know anything about the gliding operation at Caboolture but, in general, most glider pilots operate under the control of a "duty instructor". You may wish to have a word with him or her. When you talk of the "active" runway who is deciding which one that is. Gliders are more sensitive to cross and tail winds than powered aircraft. I would be very suprised to learn that a duty or tug pilot would allow cross / tail wind operations to continue - especially with sudents involved.

Ay tug pilots here?

My dyslexia must have kicked in! Thanks for the correction. I'm most interested in the use of FLARMs in the gliding context, especially things like false positives when thermaling, etc.

Not discussed here I believe - search does not find it.

Just wondering if any pilots on this board have had any experience with FLAMs? What do you think of them?

Some aircraft enter a spin very quickly in certain configurations. And, having entered a spin I doubt whether the average pilot could recover sufficiently fast without practice. Spins are quite disorienting.

I find that sheep usually haul ass as soon as they see a glider on final.