If we had 10 times the amount of funds and 10 times the amount of members we would love to have a K21.
Unfortunately we don't and we have a Blanik and an old winch. But we fly every weekend and do the best with what we have. If this means we are not a modern club then we are just a gliding club sharing all the things some of the other people have posted; learning how to be friends with people we wouldn't usually have the opportunity to meet, enjoying getting past the first thermal from home, getting 50 mile out, teaching people how to fly, teaching people how to teach people how to fly, taking people in the general community for their first flight in anything etc etc. Sorry for not holding up the expectation of being a 'modern' gliding club by having a Blanik. Maybe we should all just pack up and forget about keeping our nearly 50 year old club going. Sorry but maintaining our Blanik is the least of our problems. Kindest Regards Grant On 09-Jul-2011, at 12:20 AM, DMcD <slutsw...@gmail.com> wrote: and fairly easy to maintain Does this need some qualification? I know people who have handed in their form 2 ticket for metal aircraft based on working in Blaniks. While a Blanik may not be technical, it requires a lot of time consuming maintenance compared with say a K21… perhaps 10 times the amount in hours. If you have a maintenance person with a lot of time on their hands, this is OK. But in a club environment, it's a killer. Nice to fly, maybe, but o for my money, melt them down for saucepans. They have no place in a modern club. D On 08/07/2011, Grant Davies <gr...@davies.id.au> wrote: Interesting comment Mike. The Jabs do seem to have a problem with engines stopping so some gliding and forced landing practice should be mandatory for any Jab student...lol The Blanik is a good trainer and fairly easy to maintain. I cross hire my Twin Astir and we use that too. We did have a single CS but now own half a Pilatus. Since the Blanik got grounded the only other aircraft we could afford was a K7. The grant I have in is for a new ASK 21. Not sure if we will get it but hey, gotta try with anything with a bank balance like ours. Kindest Regards Grant Davies -----Original Message----- From: aus-soaring-boun...@lists.internode.on.net [mailto:aus-soaring-boun...@lists.internode.on.net] On Behalf Of Mike Borgelt Sent: Friday, 8 July 2011 1:56 PM To: tom claffey; Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia. Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Gliding Australia! At 12:43 PM 8/07/2011, you wrote: I would suggest your major problem is the Blanik, the glider equivalent to the 1961 VW beetle. The weather you cannot control. Tom They are in Bundaberg, home of the Jabiru. There's a RAAus flying school at the airport that uses Jabs. How about a little lateral thinking and having people do some basic training there and then glider conversions? If they stay flying Jabs they weren't going to stay flying gliders anyway. The presence of people learning to fly Jabs with the flying school in order to fly gliders as their goal may even get you some more glider pilots in the slightly longer run. If people think that paying for the power lessons is too expensive they need to rethink as to whether they can afford gliding. Mike Borgelt Instruments - manufacturers of quality soaring instruments since
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