Windsock
Byron Gliding News
May 2006 WELCOME : Hello to all members of the Byron Gliding Club. It has been decided by the committee members that a newsletter is in order for the club to inform members of the happenings of the club. I am starting to write a monthly news letter to club members to try to keep you all updated. I have decided to call the news letter WINDSOCK I hope that is o.k . This is a new thing for me to do so please bear with me over the coming months. ASHLEY OSBORNE .
 

WHATS ON: We are in the process of organizing activities for members at the club and are hoping to make it a little more social and to have a bit more fun, Stay tuned!!......If anyone has any ideas or has any talent that could benefit the club and its members drop me an e mail at ashjo31<at> hotmail .com or call 0266291171 / 0417 287 284 Ashley. 

BBQ 12 O CLOCK FIRST SUNDAY of the Month
ALL welcome, food and drinks supplied. BYO alcohol 

k21 photos 

CLUB NEWS:

A lot has been happening at the club lately and a fair amount of flying going on . March 16 - 19 saw Ian McPhee, Guy Wilson Brian Marshall, Ken Robinson, Paul Midson, Jim Hackett and myself take a trip out to the Southern Downs Soaring Club at Warwick to see what the flying was like out there - and as it happened we weren't disappointed. Guy had the best flight on the Friday and to all of us who arrived on the Saturday the saying was "you should've been here yesterday" Guy, who is a recent solo pilot and who was trying real hard to get his half hour at home, took off, hooked in to a nice thermal and hung on to a height of Ten Thousand feet and three hours in duration .(not bad for a new guy ) pardon the pun, thought he'd been up a while so landed had lunch went up again and had another two hours all in YHB, a motorfalke .

Ian and Guy also did over one hundred kms in the falke on glide later that afternoon, so not bad .... For the rest of us we had good soaring all day on Saturday, flights of one to two hours were the norm and heights of five to six thousand feet , only coming down to give someone else a go. Sunday wasn't as good as the effects of the cyclone came in to effect clouding it over, so an earlier departure was on the cards back to Byron .Both the Motorfalke and the Dimona performed equally well in the conditions and I heard a couple of the Warwick boys saying "we need to get one of those motor gliders" so any one who says a motor glider cant soar had better eat their words.. Sorry to all who missed out hopefully this news letter will keep you all updated on up coming events. 

TECH TALK:

XJX Motorfalke is moving along at a steady pace lately . Alan Rundle is working on installing the Jabiru motor which is in place and is now being hooked up with fuel lines oil lines wiring etc. The cowls have been modified and are well on their way to being ready for the paint shop along with the rest of the fuselage so the cowls can be matched, striped and blended in with the already painted tail section. Ian has been doing a lot of work on XJX spending two to four, sometimes more hours a day on all sorts of jobs to keep it moving along . There is a lot of work that goes into rebuilding a glider than meets the eye as I've found out doing a bit on it also. And like everything else it takes time .I think we can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel or should I say glow at this stage . Hopefully in less than a few weeks we will be flying a newly restored brand new engined motorfalke around with all the mod cons.
 

XJX IN ITS EARLY STAGES here GLC .Motorfalke is currently out of action and awaiting its form two annual inspection. I think it is also on the cards for an engine rebuild so it will be good as new in the future .

ZDD Dimona, The new engine for the Dimona is a Sauer motor and as of early April has been built and test run in the Sauer factory in Germany and is going to be just fantastic. Ian said he has heard from them and we will be getting 90 hp on 28 degree days approximately 600 ft/min climbs currently we are getting 300 ft/min so a big difference is in store for all you Dimona pilots out there. A fair bit of work will have to be done to transplant the new motor in the existing engine bay so a bit of head scratching and a big hammer and all will be ok., "it wont happen over night but it will happen." Just a quick note in case this happens to you, the throttle cable broke on ZDD a few weeks ago fortunately on the ground and pilot was aware and switched off, but what happens is, when it breaks the engine goes to full power so if you are flying and all of a sudden the engine revs increase rapidly check the throttle is working . Dimona photo here FFN Grob109 Russell's Grob is looking nice with a shiny new overhauled prop out front, not sure on its performance but it looks good. FFN hasn't flown a great deal lately but is on for joy flights.

MEMBERS COLUMNS:

If anyone has any thing to add ,whatever it may be stories books or items for sale whatever send it to me ashjo31<at>hotmail.com and I will put it here. 

COMMITTEE MEETING:

The committee met on the 1st of April and appointed Jerry Leach as the President of the club and also appointed Ashley Osborne as Vice President until our next election of officers at the Annual General Meeting to be held in August. 

LAST LIGHT:

As with all clubs members come and members go , it was a loss to see David Heath leave moving back to Melbourne to live but we have welcomed some new members to the club . Young Paddy Harrington , Alastair Gray is back having lessons, Bruce Mcbean has made a return to flying .This is all good for the club . All you other members who haven't been for a while remember the fun you had, so why not come and fly again and say G'Day 

MACCAS NOTE: 
Remember to do your Four F,s Four C,s and Two T,s before take off . 
When starting engine point to all gauges as a reminder, and check Oil Pressure. Check radio squelch is set also. 

Fuel drums need to be put back into fuel shed , not left in hanger as it could be an insurance problem if anything goes wrong. 

When cleaning canopy's use detergent and water to remove dirt before polishing with the plexus as plexus alone just rubs the dirt around and could scratch the canopy. 

Regarding volts in Dimona it is best monitored via Ilac vario Go to BAT and 4 dots means (5m/s up)14v, 3 dots 13v, 2 dots 12v, and 1 dot 11v - better than VDO meter 

Also if people could get in the habit of lowering a canopy and not walking away with it up especially Falke. A European visitor in the past left XJX canopy up and went to catch it by the window when it blew down and canopy was badly damaged. A new canopy is in the order of $3000 plus fitting. And three to four months to make. Other clubs it is an absolute no no. 

When doing checks at end of field please park at 90deg to runway so as to get a view of glider in circuit etc. It is not nice to land over the top of a glider lined up on runway as you never know when it might start to move. Falke GLA did just that on Sat 8th

Here is a section listing a few addresses - e.g. ATSB go into great detail with glider accidents

UK Air Accident Investigation Branch web site:

http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident data base:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/

MACCAS NOTES CONT..... This database goes back to 1962 and allows you to filter for gliders and various other criteria.

My analysis of New Mexico glider accidents:

http://www.abqsoaring.org/misc_files/NM_Glider_Ac cidents.pdf 

Two more links to other glider accident research I ran across:

http://www.bea-fr.org/etudes/glideraccidents19992001a/glideraccident

http://www.streckenflug.at/download/fatal_gliding.pdf

All of above research was only possible as a result of detailed accident data being available.and these sited for interesting aircraft (electric powered and Magnus 2 seater motorglider)

http://www.ams-flight.si/

MACCA