Drew’s gliding journey and passion for the sport started as a fourteen year old flying in the skies over Woomera in South Australia, making his first solo flight when he was fifteen. He continued flying with the Woomera Gliding Club for four years before joining the Royal Australian Navy where he continued gliding as a member of the RAN Gliding Club at HMAS Albatross and later the RAAF Richmond Gliding Club. Throughout his seagoing Navy career Drew took every opportunity to fly with various clubs in Australia and overseas. He joined the Canberra Gliding Club in 1984 where he not only pursued his passion for gliding but also became an active volunteer with Gliding Australia. He has amassed about 1,600 flying hours with over 600 as a gliding instructor.

He has contributed significantly to gliding in Australia as a volunteer at club, regional and national levels. At the club level Drew has been an active Canberra Gliding Club member for over forty years, undertaking roles such as Instructor, Chair of the club’s Operations and Training Panel, Chief Flying Instructor, and tug pilot.
Regionally, he was the Regional Manager Operations for NSW from April 2013 to June 2014 where he was responsible for overseeing NSW gliding operations, safety and training. He was actively involved in the development of improved training, safety and operational procedures, the conduct of safety audits, accident and incident investigations and remedial actions and the provision of education on contemporary safety and operations issues.

Nationally, Drew chaired GAus’s Operations Panel comprising Regional Managers of Operations for five years from 2014. In this role he was responsible for the management of nationwide initiatives to improve operational safety, training standards and regulatory compliance reporting directly to the GAus Board as a member of the GFA Executive Team. As part of this work Drew was responsible for developing safety cases and risk response strategies for key airspace access and safety issues affecting glider pilots, and gliding operations in shared airspace. He has played a pivotal role in liaison with CASA, ATSB, Airservices Australia, Defence, BoM, international gliding associations and aviation industry safety groups.

In 2021, in the lead up to Gliding Australia’s application to become a CASR Part 149 Approved Self-administering Aviation Organisation, ASAO, Drew took on the pivotal national role of Safety Manager. Once again he joined the Executive Team and became the Board’s Advisor, responsible for GAus’s Safety Management System. He was the key developer of the current Safety System MOSP 5 and Emergency Response Plans and played a leading role in the crafting of GAus’s application to be recognised as an ASAO by CASA. Drew has also been a key contributor to the Manuals of Standard Procedures, including Operations, Airworthiness and Administration. To this day, as Safety Manager, Drew is a Key Person defined under GAus’s CASR Part 149 ASAO accreditation.

As a passionate glider pilot Drew seeks to inspire others to join and excel in the sport. He regularly mentors and coaches young women and men and has been actively engaged with the Australian Air Force Cadets so that cadets can undergo flight training and gain valuable gliding experience to inspire them to seek a career in aviation. He has developed and delivered a wide range of gliding courses covering areas such as safety management, human factors and advanced gliding and meteorology.

The toughest role for Drew has been his involvement in around nine fatal gliding accident investigations where he has either led or been a major contributor to the analysis of the accident, identifying causal factors and the development of remedial actions. While this work has proved harrowing, Drew has persisted in order to identify areas to improve the Safety Management System, training, risk assessment and procedures so that pilots may have a safe and enjoyable experience in their pursuit of gliding as a sport under an umbrella that provides an effective and highly developed safety culture.

Drew’s effervescent personality, his obvious passion for the sport, his professionalism, his dedication to any job he takes on, his intelligence, his balanced approach and his ability to get the message across would be hard to match. His contribution to gliding has been enormous and remains ongoing. He is truly a Living Legend of Australian Gliding.

On behalf of the GAus Board, I have great pleasure in welcoming to the Membership that Drew McKinnie be honoured as a Life Member of GAus.

Steve Pegler
Chair of the Board
November 2025

The GFA is proud to honour members who have made major contributions to the GFA and gliding in Australia over many years with Lifetime Membership. The current list of Lifetime Members is below.

Jeremy Wells
Timothy Shirley
Allan Ash
Maurie Bradney
C E Churches
Terence Cubley
Roger Druce
Fred Foord
R Gething
Robert Hall
Beryl Hartley
Jack Iggulden
Doug Lyon
Drew Mckinnie
H Meertens
Robert Moore OAM
J R Muller
Alan Patching
G Richardson
Kevin Sedgman
Harry Schneider
G Strickland
M Waghorn
Jeremy Wells
M Williams
R A Woods

Terry has served as GFA President, Vice President and in many other roles in the GFA over a period of many years. He is currently the GFA Executive Officer and Vice President of the International Gliding Commission (IGC).

Terry has been Australian national champion five times and has competed in seven World Championships. He was the Competition Director at the Gawler WGC, and served as referee, steward and jury at three international championships.

After taking the role of Operations Director at the Junior World Gliding Championships at Narromine 2015, he is now the Competition Director for the  World Gliding 15m 18m and Open Classes to be held at Benalla January 2017.

Terry was instrumental in  the successful bid to stage these two WGCs in Australia and recently attended the IGC meeting in Luxembourg where he presented the successful bid to hold the next Women's World Gliding Championships at Lake Keepit in 2019.

Terry has worked tirelessly for many years promoting the  sport that is his passion. Terry is still a competition pilot, having flown in several competitions in early 2015 including the Multiclass Nationals and the Two Seat 20m Nationals.

Beryl married into a gliding family in 1964 and has been involved with the sport ever since. Since arriving in Narromine in 1974, she supported the Australian international teams 22 times as crew and team manager, and the Japanese team four times as team manager.

For many years she has actively promoted Narromine as a host venue for international gliding events. She has held many administration positions in the NSWGA and the GFA including Vice President, President and Treasurer. She has been the FAI Certificates officer since 1991 and received the GFA Iggulden Award, Life membership of the GFA and the FAI Pelagia Majewska medal.

Rob had Competed in 28 consecutive Australian Nationals until the mid1990’s he has crewed for in 11 International Competitions three of which were as Team Manager one of those being the 1983 World Championships. He was a Steward at the 2009 Australian Gliding Grand Prix. Rob was an inaugural member of the GFA sports committee in 1980 and served on and off in various roles on that committee for over 30 years including 7 years as the Chairman of that committee. Rob has an OAM and FAI Air Sports Medal for services to gliding.