We've had a little activity in town. Tom Shields has taken over the Ahuriri Motels and we'll be see a lot of him around the airfield as he's taking over most of the maintenance, camping grounds, etc.
Simon Williamson has his 185 back and looking very tidy. It's been rebuilt after that unfortunate incident a bit over a year ago with the hangar doors.
We've been seeing a good number of light aircraft coming through. There were five or six on the airfield on Sunday.
Southern Soaring have their new Pawnee back from maintenance and prepared for the season. It's looking pristine.
Things must be on the way up. Glide Omarama had the first customers of the season on Monday.
We've had it good here at Omarama. All the rain etc has passed us by. The spring is upon us with a warm week and plenty of sunshine.
The roller has been out on the airfield trying to flatten out the bumps.
The only exitement is a bullet hole through one of the new hangars. We're not sure who put it there, or why, but a bullet passed through one of the new hangars penetrating a door, two interior walls, and coming out the far side door. Four sheets of iron don't seem to have slowed it much. Luckily nothing valuable was in the way.
Winter seems to have remembered that it's supposed to be cold. We've had a chilly few evenings. It was nearly -6 last night.
I went with Alaine down to Five Rivers for the weekend to fly with the Southland club. We had some very scenic flying, not much soaring. The Cafe at Five Rivers is nice. It is going to take some time to wash off all the mud though.
Terry Jones and Nigel Davies have a new toy. A new rigging aid. This is a real back saver. Here we can see Terry, who is just a lightweight and who broke his back a few years back so he's not fond of heavy lifting, getting a Duo Discus wing out of the trailer.
Having seen these gadgets in action I'm convinced they're a good idea. For a little bit of fiddling around you get to not carry the weight of the spar end of the wing.
It's been a little quiet here. The winter has been mild, so there hasn't been a lot happenning. Gavin returned from his yachting holiday looking relaxed and happy. Clearly loafing about in the tropics is easy to take.
The only exitement we have had recently was a 4WD burning in the driveway of a local resident. It gave the fire brigade a real fire to attend instead of the usual motor vehicle accident.
I'm borrowing a SPOT messenger to test out the reception locally. I'm planning on getting one for myself next season. I've written a little application to display multiple SPOT messages on a Google map. It's displaying test data at the moment.
It's been trying to snow, but failing all morning. We get the occasional snow shower, then it degenerates to light showers, then tries snowing again. The hills are getting snow, but the basin is just damp and slushy.
June continues to be mild, almost warm. I had a nice afternoon fishing on Lake Benmore, then sitting outdoors having smoked trout in the evening. This is not usual for the middle of June.
There's been a little winter work going on. Shane from Sailplane Services is down doing a few jobs onsite. We gave him a hand to derig TF for an annual today.
You can see we've got some nice weather at the moment. The webcam is continuing to work. It had a day off due to a scripting error earlier this month, but that has been corrected and it is looking reliable now.
After a lot of wind overnight and rain in the morning we have snow falling in Omarama in the afternoon.
I've been playing around with an idea I've had for a while. That is to show position on a map from the bearing and distance to Omarama reported by the GPS most people have in the glider. I've recently found a simple way of doing this and have written a little script to demonstrate what I was thinking of: bearing to Omarama
My intention is that people can report their position as a bearing and distance to Omarama, which most people will have available on their GPS. This should help pilots who are not familiar with the local reporting points give an accurate position report when they call in.
We've had fog the last two days at Omarama. The fog stops just south of Omarama though, so I was able to get a lift from a local farmer onto the top of the Lindis ridge to retrieve the radio relay before winter sets in. Brian Patterson flew me onto the ridge with his helicopter. From the top of the ridge I could see the fog filled the McKenzie basin from the Lindis/Omarama road north. Just the southern edge of the basin was clear.
The webcam has gone live on the GlideOmarama.com website. The latest picture is displayed on the weather page. This is updated every 15 minutes. The test page is no longer updated.
Hugh, Alain, and I drove through to an airstrip in the Landsborough on the West coast. We wanted to see if it was suitable to land a glider on.
It is in a spectacular area, but it's hard to spot and has no road access, just a four wheel drive track. Landable if you knew it, although probably not towable.
One of the winter projects for GlideOmarama is a webcam. The test picture is updated every 15 minutes.
Managed a few hours ridge soaring in marginal conditions on the local ridges. Benmore, the Diadems, and the Lindis all produced just enough to stay on the tops.
It's a bit chilly this morning. There is snow falling in Omarama town. The ground temperature is warm though, so the snow is turning to slush as soon as it settles.
We've had some of the Youth Glide pilots completing more of their training over the last few days. The Blanik has been busy. We've fixed the Grobs tyre problems, so we may have two trainers going today if the snow stops.
Early afternoon snow showers came through.
But we launched in light southerly and climbed up for a nice local flight.
Two days rain. Still fairly warm though. No snow yet although the forecast is for snow on the tops overnight. The airfield is quiet. We have some of the Youth Glide pilots from Dunedin here, but the weather isn't making their life easy at the moment.
We had a nice southerly/southwest blue wave and ridge afternoon. Working nicely early, and fading later in the day. Some of the Youth Glide kids from Canterbury are here and they had a nice afternoon ridge soaring up Benmore into gentle blue wave and flying across the basin.
Finally a bit of a breeze. Gentle in to morning, but picking up considerably during the day.
The place has the autumn feel to it now. It's getting chilly at night, down to a few degrees most nights. Some trees going red and dropping their leaves. Daylight saving is done now, so the afternoons feel like the sun is going early. The low sun makes landing late in the day awkward. You get the sun in your eyes. Not much soaring going on now, but we go get the occasional usable afternoon.
It's all getting a bit quiet now, and the evenings have been getting chilly. Temperatures down around freezing overnight.
The airfield irrigation is broken again, fortunately that seems to happen when there's a bit of rain about. Rained on Monday, and looks like rain again tomorrow.
The DG1000 has been packed up and taken north for the winter.
The season is almost over. The last big rush came over the Easter weekend with the Youth Glide group from Dunedin and a contingent from Canterbury. We had some interesting aircraft drop in on their way to or from the Wanaka airshow. But its looking very quiet from now on.
Learnt something new today. I flew in DD, a Duo Discus X which has the new trailing edge brake/flap arrangement. Today I let my student do the pre-flight checks and didn't double check them. This resulted in taking off with the brakes not locked. Naturaly they started to work open during the tow. I noticed a slow tow, but it wasn't until we released I spotted the brakes where open. The new brake/flap arrangement on the Duo X means that unless you pull the lever, the brakes only come open a little, maybe 50mm. As they open the flap drops and resists further opening.
Southern Soaring had a interesting problem yesterday. The wheel brake failed on their Duo, so they took it back to the hangar to fix it. While they had it in the hangar they smelt burning hair. They looked around and wandered about looking for the source of the smell, but couldn't find it. This went on for some time before they found that the open canopy was focusing the low sun onto the headrest.
We've had a bit of rain over the last few days, fortunately for us as the airfield irrigation is busted again with burst pipes. We should get it dug up and fixed over the next few days.
The weather has gone a bit stable on us now, with difficult thermals. At least they were marked yesterday. Today they blued out in the early afternoon.
Saw a black glider being unloaded off a truck today. It was Billy Walkers fuselage plug for the glider he was getting built. For those that don't know, Billy has been working on a number of ideas for gliders and went as far as getting the fuselage plug made before changing his plan and going for a less conventional lifting fuselage design. Personally I really liked the most extreme design he looked at, the lifting fuse, short tail with tiny V empenage. If you can get Billy talking about what he's been up to it's really interesting.
Today Gavin Wills had what he described as the most frightening experience he'd ever had in a glider. Another glider came within a few meters of him in a thermal. Gavin was well shaken up. He's taken the rest of the week off.
Most of the Glide Omarama gliders, and many of the private gliders that fly here regularly have a FLARM to assist in observing other gliders. There are still a fair number that don't. The glider that came close to Gavin did not have a FLARM.
We have not had a fatal mid air collision between gliders in New Zealand yet, but they have around twenty a year in the high density areas of Europe. We get far to many frights here, and one day we will run out of luck.
We need to keep our eyes open, give other gliders room when we fly in the same lift, and seriously consider getting FLARMs.
We've had rain the last few days, and snow on the tops. The soaring has been challenging. A few landouts during the week. Some good flights though. Three Duos at Mt Cook on Wednesday.
A little damp this morning as a front passes through. Things are quieting down now as the Canterbury club are starting to move their gear back to Horarata. The Glide Omarama fleet launched late afternoon into a cloudy sky, but they all found enough lift to spend a few hours aloft. Except Luke who took Tim in the Grob and tried to soar the Buscot in the easterly. He fell onto Ben Omar strip in about ten minutes.
The run of broken gliders continues. We've had a lot of wheel ups and undercarriage collapses this season, plus the NK landout damage. Today EE was broken near Naseby in a landout. Pilot is OK, but glider isn't.
Just in time too. The airfield is looking a bit brown and the irrigation is off at the moment. Again. We have had a few issues with the irrigation this season. Burst pipes and ongoing problems with the pump. The pump is away being reconditioned at the moment, so the rain is well timed.
Started out in blue thermals and struggled across to the west, getting to the new lake on the Young river. On the way north we found blue wave and went to Mt Cook. The view from Mt Cook was unusual. Normally the west coast is covered in cloud on a wave day, so you hardly ever get a good look at it. It was exposed in all its glory today.
Another wave day. Bit cloudy today in places. Several long flights. Beautiful sunset. People were standing outside the pub in town looking at the light changing against the lenticular clouds. Grey, pink, white and golden shapes glowing in the sky.
A wave day on the weekend. Plenty of enthusiasts up early. I spent all day inside catching up on work. I'm told nine 1000k flights were completed.
A bit of everything today. The mad rush is over, but there are still plenty of gliders around. It gets a bit crowded on the hill after launching gets going. Blue thermals and ridge/thermal today with wave over the top.
It was pretty bumpy getting into the wave in the Dobson, and very rough in spots around Mt Cook. Landing back at Omarama was fun too. The wind was changing as we all arrived back. I had 10 knots down all the way on downwind, plus half that on base. Turbulence all the way to the ground. One of the ASW 25s did a dodgy circuit and landed downwind during one of the wind shifts. It's hard to do a tidy circuit when the wind is changing 180 degrees and gusting up to 20 knots or so every few minutes.
Yesterday saw two wheels ups. One Ventus had the undercarriage collapse on the airfield, and an LS4 ripped the bottom of the glider open landing in the rough. Those rocks don't do gliders any favours. He was just a few miles from the airfield, and hardly a mile from a good strip. Missed the wind change too.
There is nowhere left on the picket lines. The new hangars are nearly finished, but we need to wait for the grass to get established before moving in, so there is a shortage of hangar space at the moment.
The GP circus has nearly finished. The frames holding the GP gliders are still in the hangar, but they get picked up soon. A few GP pilots have been around, but they are gradually going home. Peter Harvey created some amusement by getting caught speeding on the way to Christchurch and having his car confiscated. That caused him to miss his flight. I haven't heard all the details, but I'm sure it'll make a good story.
The weather was looking marginal all morning and early afternoon. Launch was delayed till after 3pm. Start time was something like 3:50. A short task was flown into improving conditions late in the day. Preliminary results have Sebastian Kawa winning the GP contest, Uli Schwenk second, Ben Flewett third.
A bit windy today. The task ended up on task 'F' due to technical problems and adjustments to suit the conditions. Today was the first day with the camera choppers. The resulting coverage was really good. I'm told it was a great race. Ule had a good lead but lost it late in the race on one bad decision. Ben Flewett is currently leading the overall contest.
After the death of Herbert Weiss yesterday the pilots and organisers of the GP decided to call a rest day. The contest will continue tomorrow.
Nice thermal day once you got out of the basin. The task was Goodyer - Siberia - Glentanner - Omarama, just under 300k. Went pretty well.
I had the assistant scorer with me on my daily trip around the task, so I had to get back before the finishers today. We launched before the grid and went on track until we got overtaken by the field between Siberia and Glentanner, then glided back to Omarama. Made it into the terminal just in time to see the final glides on the TV. The rest of the audience was outside watching the gliders land while I watched the broadcast. One look at gliders full of water landing at high speed was enough for me. I don't know how they get away with it.
Telemetry was lost on Herbert Weiss near Siberia. A search found his glider on the side of the valley around 8pm.
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