News

The Club has been advised by the Awhitu Peninsula Landcare Group that they will be undertaking a pest control programme from 1st January - 31 Dec 2019 that will involve laying cyanide baits along the whole of the West Coast cliff areas from Karioitahi Beach to the Manukau Heads Lighthouse. The area where the poison will be laid will be restricted to a strip of around 30m along the cliff edge. No poison will be laid on the beach or where easy access can be reached to the cliff edge.

A new set of airspace files have been published on the Airspace Downloads page. These have been updated to the latest version of the CAA Airspace Navigation Register (15th Nov 2012).

In this release new formats have been added. In addition to FA5 and KML we now have OpenAir and GPX formats, so the files can be loaded into much broader range of devices.

Also, in addition to CTA, GAA and MBZ the files now include CTRs.

Before using, please take note of the disclaimer on the Airspace Project page. If you discover any issues with these files please add a comment here so that it can be resolved.

If you look at the site guide, you will see over 30 launch sites listed.

How many have YOU flown?

Here is you chance to seek out and explore, and let everyone else know about it.

The Site Explorer Competition is open to all pilots HG and PG and those under instruction.

All you have to do is:

• Fly as many different launch sites from the Site Guide as you can between the 1st of September 2011 and the 1st of May 2012
• Record the site you have flown on the Site Explorer Competition Page.

Simple!

Only one flight per site counts, so you can't go crazy flying Kario, although there are a number of launch sites you can tick off at Kario in one day ;-).

The Site Explorer Leader board will show who is currently in the lead. The winner will receive a suitable prize and kudos at the end of season party.

This competition is only open to AHGPC members so you have to login first. If you can't access the competition page even after logging on contact the website admin.

So, where the bloody hell are ya?

Cheers.

This time nearly doubling a long standing site record.

Check out the track log - http://www.paraglidingforum.com/modules.php?name=leonardo&op=show_flight&flightID=149422

Raglan Harbour At the AGM on Friday night, several of us thought that the forecast looked promising for the following day and decided Pukemore was a good option.

The morning's forecast seemed to differ a little from the previous evening, with more of an easterly wind swinging to the northeast as the day went on. Pukemore was still our target. A quick check of the site record showed Russell Read had flown 61Km on 06.02.99 - about time we updated that one, I thought.

Airspace MapThe Site Guide now has a new feature - an online 3D airspace map. You can download the map and view it on the Google Earth desktop application or download the Google Earth plugin and view the map right on the web page.

Check it out here.

AirspaceEver tried wrestling with a paper map in-flight? Ever wished you had spent longer looking at that airspace map before you took off an hour ago? These little frustrations may be a thing of the past - you can now take your airspace maps with you, packaged neatly into your map capable GPS.

I have spent the last few months building software that can convert the CAA's airspace definitions into digital maps that can be loaded into your GPS. These maps are available for download from this website are are free for all to use. The maps include CTAs, GAAs and MBZs across all of New Zealand, with other airspaces planned for future releases. Only Garmin GPSs are supported at present, but other GPSs and Google Earth are also on the todo list.

These maps will help you to be aware of the airspace you are flying in and to fly legally. I have used early versions of these maps in-flight during competitions and found them very useful. They tell you not only what airspace you are in, but also the location of nearby airspace boundaries allowing you to optimise your flight path.

Read more and get your downloads from the Airspace Project pages.

As you can see the look and feel of the site has changed. Hopefully you will find it a bit more attractive and fun. The changes are far more than skin-deep however. The platform that runs the site has been changed to allow many new features, and you can expect to see some of these features appearing in the near future.
The most requested new feature is an online site guide, so look out for that over the next few weeks.