In October, GAus held the first in a new series of online Member Information Meetings. The purpose of the sessions is to keep the membership up to date with developments in Safety Management, Operations, Airworthiness and Soaring Development. They are an opportunity to hear first hand from the department chairs as well as ask questions. The meetings are planned to be held every two months. In the first meeting, the Chair of Airworthiness, Operations, Safety Manager and Soaring Development Manager made presentations.
You can see the full webinar at tinyurl.com/GAUSmemb
Safety Manager Drew McKinnie covered safety activity and challenges, describing the presentation he made to the board and executive recently on accidents and historical trends. The main messages the data indicates is the ongoing importance of safety consciousness and training. Incidents of loss of control, separation, hard landing and so on continue to occur over the years.
He also discussed Human Factors in safety management. Unit 24 of the GPC book covers a variety of such factors, but misses some crucial HF issues that need to be kept in mind. (See the image above.)
Chair of the Operations Panel Aaron Stroop stressed the importance of members keeping their credentials in JustGo up to date.
He talked about the change to the validity periods for Self Medical Declarations. Self Declarations are now valid until the pilot reaches 70 years of age. Above 70, they are valid for two years. Instructors, including AEI instructors, now need a Medical Practitioner's Certificate of Fitness or CASA-issued medical certificate. He also detailed the work the Operations department is conducting to provide standard information for First Responders in case of emergencies.
Chair of Airworthiness David Villiers gave an update on Form 2 reports, daily inspections and updates to the manual on airworthiness training syllabuses. He also described the Airworthiness Department structure and urged members to meet their local Regional Manager Airworthiness (RMA) and get to know them. They can answer questions and serve as a valuable resource. All RMAs and other GAus personnel are available at glidingaustralia.org/contacts
Soaring Development Manager Vic/Tas Mike Durrant talked about the need to leverage the Juniors World Gliding Championships at LKSC 2929 to attract and train new pilots for the Australian team. To be eligible to compete, pilots must be born after 31 December 2002. Funding has been allocated to support juniors preparing for the contest.
A further Soaring Development focus is increasing participation in National Championships. He sees an opportunity to use Distance Handicap Tasking to make contests more attractive. DHT will be used for the first time at a championships at the Leeton Multiclass in January 2026.
