News

Our club camps for the next season will be as follows:

Melbourne Cup Weekend - Raywood (our hosts, Bendigo GC)
Saturday 4 November - Tuesday 7 November

Christmas/New Year Camp - Wangaratta
Boxing Day (Tuesday 26 December) - Sunday 7 January (extendable)

Easter Camp - Mt Beauty (our hosts, Mt Beauty GC)
Good Friday (30 March) - Easter Monday (2 April) (extendable)

A real-time flight log of all flarm equipped aircraft is now available on the front page of the member web site or via link on the clubs smart phone app.

http://flightlog.glidernet.org/index.php?t=0&a=YBSS

The site keeps flight records for about the last 30 days, beyond this data is available from this site thanks to the work of Micheal Aldridge.

http://vmfgflightsheets.azurewebsites.net

The airfield at Bacchus Marsh is presently very waterlogged following the sustained rain over the past 72 hours. Given the forecast rain for the next 48 hours also, any operations at Bacchus Marsh this weekend are likely to be limited (i.e. with only one or two gliders) to the bitumen runways.

Given this, we have made a decision as early as possible to postpone Sunday's Family and Friends Flying Day. We are rescheduling this to Sunday 28 May and hope you and your friends and family can join us then. A revised sign-up page will be sent out soon.

Thank you to all those who had registered for Sunday or were part of the organisation.

Don't forget that our free April membership offer still has a few days to run if your friends and family would like to join the club and the GFA.

The YBSS flarm receiver has been upgraded.

If you would like to see the performance of individual flarm units, enter the flarm ID into the web site

http://www.kisstech.ch/flarm-liverange/

Flarm equiped gliders can be seen live on the members web site, OGN (Open Glider network) and on Flight radar 24

Due to an increase in AVGAS price of 11 cents, the tow rate per minute has increased by the 11 cents to $5.89/minute effective immediately. (Note: this will practically take effect once operations resume at Bacchus Marsh after Easter, as club camps have a different tow rate).

You may have also seen in the GFA Board news email sent on 7 April that the cost of 9-day introductory (or AEF) forms is increasing from $30 to $40 from 1 May. We will hold the price of AEF forms at $30 until 30 June of this year, before increasing to $40 in line with the increased GFA cost on 1 July 2017.

• Thanks to Tony Carling for bringing back parachute parts from the US on a recent trip.
• To the many people who de-rigged gliders for the Mt Beauty camp on Saturday 8 April, thank you!
• To Allan Petersen for such a speedy (but still very thorough) Form 2 of VWR.
• To Tom Van Blaricum for around five years of club service as the glider maintenance officer - thank you for your many years of coordinating teams, organising spares, and undertaking much of the maintenance yourself.

The MGC's April Membership Drive is being run in conjunction with the GFA’s Aviate in April promotion.

For the month of April 2017, any of your family and friends who join the club as new members will receive free membership of the club (bond/debenture and GFA membership will still be payable). This offer does not apply to renewals during the month of April 2017.

To take advantage of this offer, your friends and family should use the code MGCFREE when they sign up. 

Full terms and conditions are available on our website.

28 May 2017

We invite all our members who have family, friends or acquaintances with an interest in taking up gliding to join us on the day for an Air Experience Flight where they can try gliding for themselves and learn about the Melbourne Gliding Club.

Flights will be at club rates, plus the $30 GFA 9-day introductory membership, and be charged to your flying account.

To help you and your guests plan your day, book your slot by visiting this site:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090b4caea622abfb6-mgcfamily1 

This event was postponed on 27 April from 30 April to 28 May.

TNC's engine was delivered from Nelson yesterday and will be heading down to Gippsland this week for the next stage of it's overhaul. 

Alan Payne's story

The picture is of a paddock/airfield used by a RA pilot between Myrtleford and Wangaratta. At a briefing one morning at Wang, various pilots identified this as a good spot to outland if needed. I was flying over the area getting quite low and decided that it may be time to outland.

I looked at the said paddock and thought it doesn’t look quite wide enough so I chose to look for a better option.

The next day a couple of us decided to drive out and have a look at the paddock. Yes a pilot did use it a high wing Jabiru. The strip was 14m wide and the grass on either side was probably a metre high – we fly nothing smaller than 15m.