Lake Keepit Regatta 2012

Rob is looking for club members to join him in attending the 2012 Lake Keepit Regatta held just outside Tamworth on Saturday 18th till Saturday 25th of February 2012. The regatta is a good opportunity to experience flying in a different location, and great place for safe cross country flying with out-landing possibilities if required.
 

This year Tom Ebeling went, flying a Twin Astir with Garry Speight, and Rob was flying a G-103 with Grant Nelson.

The plan is to fly from Alice Springs to Tamworth on Friday 17/02. We will be picked
up from the airport by someone from the Lake Keepit Soaring Club.
This will give us Saturday to get familiarised, do the necessary check
flights etc. Then fly the competition from Sunday til Saturday next week, and fly
back to Alice Springs Sunday 26/2. It will only cost you 6 days of
annual leave.

Sofar, Rob & Tom have already booked their places again for this year, and anyone else who is interested should contact Rob ASAP.

Article in the Advocate

Thanks to the work of Jim Thomas, (and his connections in high places!) the club had an article published in 'The Centralian Advocate' on Friday about the recent club fly-in at Tillmouth Well. Below is a transcript of the article;

"The Alice Springs Gliding Club Fly-in to Tilmouth Well


After some procrastination we were on our way to Tilmouth Well to enjoy an Easter Weekend of nonstop gliding at Tilmouth Well. The club planned to fly Friday, Saturday and Sunday, possibly extending to Monday if more members arrived.

Located 200 km from Alice Springs, Tilmouth Well is a pleasant road house on the banks of the Napperby Creek and not far from Lake Lewis. Right now the lake is nearly full of water stretching out from the Tanami Highway 70 km towards Central Mount Wedge on the horizon.
The club had been given permission to fly off the airstrip by Roy Chisholm, the owner, and the club members were eager to go.

The gliders towed out from Bond Springs aerodrome were the new Twin Astir and the single Astir. We started early on Friday morning and, as you recall, it was a beautiful clear Central Australian morning. It was an interesting convoy with the winch leading the way, Alison in the Hilux and the two gliders towed by Robert and Allan.

Both gliders were rigged and ready to fly, shortly after arrival at Tilmouth Well. The airstrip was inspected for length and clearance from the grass verges. Most of the bush airstrips have been affected by the existing La Nina event and have been overgrown with vegetation. This strip was no exception. Rob Mclean very helpfully provided a staff member Dave to mow the offending edges and the strip was now in excellent condition for the launches with the winch. We had 1.2 km length to lay the wire and room enough to operate two gliders safetly.

Our new twin Astir has revitalized interest in the gliding club. It has only flown 2000 hours out of a total of 12000 hours allowable flying before the life of the glider is extended after a major inspection. For our club that represents many years flying in a beautifully maintained glider that is as good as new. The aircraft is a pleasure to fly. The controls are smooth and well balanced which is why it is an excellent aircraft to train student pilots. Incidentally, gliding is the cheapest way to learn to fly and pilot skills are honed to high level when they go solo.

The club is geared for passenger flights, called TIFs or Training Instruction Flights. Our first passengers were a couple of Geologists who had no idea what gliders were and had never seen one. They were amazed at their size and even more amazed at the way the gliders were to be launched. Nevertheless they were keen to go gliding after being involved in helping to rig them.
The single Astir was flown by an experienced cross country pilot, Sal Onga. He had seen Tilmouth Well from the air before but never on the ground. His wife Glenda and their two boys were happy to help and enjoyed chatting by the Allen and Simon’s camp fire that evening.

Friday’s excellent weather was repeated on Saturday. The club members had enjoyed a late night socializing the night before and since most had never seen Lake Lewis from the ground, decided to drive 20 km to the lake’s edge. Full of water the lake is a remarkable and fairly rare sight. From our vantage point it was possible to see it stretching south towards Mount Zeil and Mount Chapple on Narwietooma Station and west to Central Mount Wedge.

Edward Connellan and his girl friend Sonya, had arrived at Tilmouth Well at the same time as we arrived back from the trip to the lake. The CFI, Simon Hatfield, checked Edward for the endorsement into the Twin Astir. The next flight Sonya was his passenger. It was a short flight of 5 minutes but the next attempt they caught a thermal and climbed away to 5,500 ASL (above sea level). The flight lasted over an hour while they checked Edward’s home I.e. the southern neighbour Narwietooma.
On Sunday Robert Smits flew the Single Astir. He would have loved the chance to fly back to Bond Springs but the conditions were not good enough. To have any chance the thermals would have to be above 7,000 feet, so he had to satisfy himself with a few wingovers. We decided to de-rig the single Astir after Robert’s flight and thank the staff at Tilmouth Well for their hospitality.
That ended a great weekend of flying for the Alice Springs Gliding Club members, who are now planning for the next one.

The club welcomes new members. We fly mainly on Saturdays from the Bond Springs Aerodrome 20 km north of Alice Springs." - Jim Thomas

Saturday Gliding

Gliding operations have returned to our normal Saturday flights once again. So come out and get some air with us at the Bond springs Airstrip, ~20kms North of Alice Springs (up the Stuart Highway), every Saturday from 11am!