Congratulations to Christine Shortt for re-soloing in a glider. Christine started gliding in her hometown in Germany at the age of sixteen and was a fairly accomplished pilot including aerobatics and her motor glider licence. After a 15-year break from flying, she took a number of refresher flights at Southern Cross Gliding Club and was sent solo again in one of the club's ASK-21s.
At Kingaroy Soaring Club in August Jack Christie went solo in his first single seater (Astir), completed his C certificate and took Mum (Jo) Grandad (Duncan) and Dad (AVM Nathan) flying. Smiles from the whole family!
Bathurst Soaring Club held the regular NSW airworthiness course in August. This year was a record breaking course with seven aircraft and over 20 students! Congratulations to all those receiving airworthiness ratings and a big thank you to our instructors and course volunteers who gave so much time to make this possible.
The Australian Air League Point Cook and Geelong Squadrons would like to thank everyone for providing a wonderful gliding experience on the Gliding Day on Saturday 7 September at Geelong Gliding Club. Parents and Cadets thoroughly enjoyed their day and had a fantastic time and look forward to the next activity in the future.
In early September Matthew Atkinson climbed to over 18,000ft in wave at Bunyan. Matthew wrote, ‘What an amazing day's flying. Thanks Mike for the tow and the Canberra Gliding Club team for your hospitality and assistance. Rick and I pushed a fair way south, invited by well marked wave. What a hoot, I could see the sea to the south and to the south eastcorner of the mainland.’
Temora Gliding Club had good early spring weather on 9 September. It was windy, but fine soaring was to be had with cumulus bases at 7,000ft. All this came during a full weekend of aviation at Temora - the Temora Aviation Museum put on one of their great Showcase events on Saturday and Temora Flyers Inc hosted another weekend for Country Hope. VH-VNK stole the photo opportunities, which were bookended by one of the Roulette's PC-21 and a RAAF Spartan.
Hunter Valley Gliding Club enjoyed a great weekend of flying in early September. The club is preparing for a big summer
Ian Benning, instructor at Sunraysia Gliding Club, was happy to be greeted by a student at the club in September. ‘Time stood still for me on Sunday when Sam DaCosta came up to me in his Airforce uniform and thanked me as one of the instructors at SGC who introduced him to flying. He is now with 100 Squadron and lives in Geelong. He flew the Winjeel on Sunday. My log book shows an entry for 8 July 2006 when I gave him a solo check flight.’
Bodhi Flockhart made his first solo at Kingaroy SC on 5 October. Congratulations Bodhi.
Congratulations to Hamish Young from 203 Squadron! CUO Young achieved his Air Experience Instructor rating during the April GTS Warwick Flight PEX+ Camp and has been instructing on subsequent flying training activities.
Congratulations to Peter Jarvis on being awarded the VIC/TAS Maurice Little Memorial Trophy for Club Development 2024. Peter's tireless and selfless work to build our club is an excellent example to all, of the kind of member that the GFA hopes to attract and retain in the gliding community.