Day the First

Easter Saturday dawned nice and sunny.

Filled the glider to the brim with 95 Octane from the local Shell station.
Checked all was aboard, you know the drill, a chart:-), camera and phone.
Interesting observation that with a Garmin GPS loaded with airspace data the paper chart is really a standby option in case the gadgets fail.
Nice little app for my Galaxy phone recorded the day in an IGC file. As well as being available for receiving inflight txts.....:-)

The trip from Tauranga to Norfolk Road Aviation took 1 hour 25mins with sometimes a tailwind up to 20 knots.  WIth a sunny cloudless day and crusining mainly at just under 6500ft airspace, it was great to be able to appreciate the rugged King Country. As a glider pilot I was very conscious of looking at landout options. I was surprised at actually how many survivable landing options presented themselves, from top dressing strips to river valley  flats.

What a great location at Norfolk Road in the lee of Mt Egmont/Taranaki, lots of people and lots of gliders and a mid day BBQ!!!
Easter visitors from all over the North Island were there with Vintage Kiwi gliders and Aucklands ASK21 in attendance as well.  Nice cup of tea(Thanks Clint) and chats. Some discussion re Part 115 and its impact on Mountain Trial flights it was not seen as a major problem. Thanks Kevin for your great contribution and support of Gliding.

Then a 6 minute hop over to Stratford.  Unfortunately I missed the locals who apparently were mssing a towpilot and had shot off to do other sunny day things.

With nice therms developing over the area I headed off to Fielding and the Manawatu Club. Unfortunately due to time pressure I was unable to stop and "smell the roses" ie switch of the noise and enjoy some soaring.  Onwards at 115knots.!
A working bee was underway at Fielding with a clubhouse exterior paint job and deck replacment and enhancement in progress.  Meanwhile their main weapon(The DG1000) was popping in to the sky. Some lovely chats with the locals and again a question on Part 115 and the impact on local trial flights.  No major concerns here either.   Another great little club (25ish members) with a dozen or so out on Easter Saturday working...Thanks Ross & Team for your hospitality

One thing that was apparent to me at both these clubs that SIZE matters. These smaller clubs appear to have none of the negative "politics" that seem to invade larger clubs.

With a stiff Easterly on the ground at Fielding it looked like there may be some wave to help me on my way north.    After easily outclimbing and much faster than a Cessna 152 that departed 30 seconds before me I headed north thru the Fielding Clubs GFA, Unfortunately no bars of wave.  Taking advantage of some pockets of lift I easily climbed in uncontrolled airspace around some cloud to settle in the cruise at 7500ft.

What beautfull country we have in the middle of the North Island, makes me want to come back when I have some time and do some soaring here.

And so back to Tauranga. 4 hours flying time, $90 worth of fuel and having met some more great gliding people. A great day and a really happy webmaster.