The 27th Australian Club Class Championships are hosted by the Kingaroy Soaring Club between 7th and 19th of October 2007.  GGC is represented by Simon Brown and Rolf Buelter (picture).

In just completed Gliding Queensland State  Championships Simon Brown took 8th place out of 17 in the club class.  

"A repair shop received a DG-300 with severe wing root damage following a landing accident. During the repair process they exposed both spar caps for inspection. At this point they discovered a manufacturing flaw of the spar caps: Instead of being absolutely straight, the rovings of one spar cap showed a slightly wave-like pattern. Alarmed by this discovery we investigated the spar caps of several other DG-300 wings, which were in for repair in our factory or other approved maintenance shops. We found a similar, but less severe pattern at some of these wings too."

More on the DG Flugzeugbau GmbH website.

The associated DG Technical Note limiting DG300 operational parameters can be found here.

The relevant GFA Airworthiness Alert can be accessed here.

All gliders flight manuals are stored as PDF documents.

• Alexander Schleicher AS-K 13 (0.46MB)
• SZD 50-3 Puchacz (3.16MB)
  
• SZD 51-1 Junior (0.94MB)
• SZD 48-1 Jantar Standard 2   (1.18MB)
  
• Rolland Schneider LS4a (0.59MB)
  
• Glaser-Dirks DG 300 Elan (1.52MB) 
• Schempp-Hirt Janus A (2.07MB)
• Super Cub
  

Recently the Porepunkah Airfield Information Sheet has been published on the website for downloading.

Further to this sheet I suggest you read the hill soaring section pages 118 - 121 in the book supplied to you by the club entitled Basic Gliding Knowledge.

The Special Rules for Hill Soaring mentioned in that section is very important, so I will repeat them below.

1. All turns must be outwards, i.e. away from the hill. 
2. A glider overtaking another glider when hill soaring shall do so by passing between the overtaken glider and the hill.
3. If two gliders approach each other head-on while hill soaring, the glider which has the hill to its left shall give way by turning away from the hill.
4. When hill soaring, a glider shall not be flown lower than 100 feet above ground when within 100 metres horizontally of a person, dwelling or public road.

A VMFG member, Alan Patching AM has been awarded the FAI Lilienthal Gliding Medal.

Regarded as the highest gliding award in the world, the Medal is to reward a particularly remarkable performance in gliding, or eminent services to the sport of gliding over a long period of time. It may be awarded annually to a glider pilot who has: established an international record during the past year; or made a pioneer flight (defined as a flight which has opened new possibilities for gliding and/or gliding techniques), or rendered eminent service to the sport of gliding over a significant time, and is still an active glider pilot.

Alan Patching is the third Australian to received this medal after Ingo Renner in 1988 and C.E. Wallington in 1984.  

The award was established by the FAI in 1938 in honor of Otto Lilienthal, pioneer glider experimenter and pilot. Lilienthal's gliding experiments in Germany during the years 1890-1896 demonstrated that human flight was achievable and furnished inspiration and encouragement to Wilbur and Orville Wright.

Otto Lilienthal died in a gliding accident in 1896. The Lilienthal Medal is made of silver and is 7.5 cm in diameter. The obverse shows in bas-relief two birds in flight being captured by a man; the reverse bears a wreath and the words "Federation Aeronautique Internationale" surrounding a black space on which the year and name of the recipient is engraved. A Lilienthal Medal is struck each year and becomes the permanent property of the winner.  

The first recipient of the medal in 1938, Polish pilot Taduesz Gora was awarded it for a goal flight of 557 km.

The full list of all medals awarded to date can be found on the FAI website.

There are many jobs that require our labour around the club in order for the club to function; many of these are ‘behind the scene' currently being performed quietly by a few members.

An example of this is the current refurbishment of the club workshop, which has consumed a lot of labour hours to date with many more to go to reach completion. In addition there are some fairly simple jobs that require attendance to on a regular basis.

This workload should be shared by all. Therefore to make easier for all to see what work is required the club has decided to produce and maintain a Job List sheets detailing all jobs that are to be performed. Each job will be allocated an ‘owner' usually a committee member who will be responsible for organizing and coordinating all activities to ensure the job is completed.

The Job List will indicate the job, the work involved, estimated time to complete, items you may need to provide and ‘owner' contact details. The Job list will be on the GGC website and will be updated by an appointed person as jobs are completed and new works are required.

All members are encouraged to speak to the committee and suggest a job to be listed on the Job List.

Members are invited contact the job ‘owner' via email or phone to arrange a time to perform the job they would like to do.

Some jobs may only be an hour or two and can be performed on flying days after or before your flight. Some may require work over a number of days and it may be more suitable for these to be done outside the soaring season.

This system will keep everyone informed on what's to be done and give each member the opportunity to choose what work they would like to do and when they would like to do it.

The advantages of the proposed system are:

• One process for all types of work; simplification of the process;
• Ability to manage resources by the committee as all work items is always visible and easily accessible;
• Improved visibility and clarity of work items to all members;
• Betters utilisation of members time, no flying down time;
• Visibility of contributors;
• Public acknowledgement of the effort members make.

So have a look at the Jobs List and pick what you would like to do and contact the Job Owner now!

Thank you for your cooperation and we look forward to working with you soon!

(You need to login to the site to see and access the Job List documents) 

Tobi Geiger went to Benalla this weekend (17-18/02/2007) to do a bit of flying with Michael Sommer (he's a member of GCV now).

The mountains worked very well on Saturday (before it overdeveloped and thunderstorms formed) and he did 612km (Benalla down to East Gippsland (some 45km north of Lakes Entrance), then to Jindabyne and back over Benalla to Dookie and home to Benalla.

Sunday was the pick, though. Tobi did 824km and averaged 122km/h over the task. He could have flown another hour after he landed (Michael did in the Duo Discus) but he was a bit tired and didn't trust the weather (it shut down very rapidly on Saturday). He flew from Benalla to about 30km past Boree Creek, then 75km northwest of Hay (very scary there, no one lives in that area), then past Benalla for another 30km (near Moyhu) and then back to Benalla.

This was Tobi's longest flight in terms of distance so far and he wasn't prepared one bit (just took off and decided to go North first and then West). With a bit of preparation he could have done over 900km.

IGC files from both flight can be downloded from the club's Cross Country Flights Register. They are also available on OLC: 17/02/2007 and 18/02/2007.