The airstrip at Carrick. A glider can be seen on launch, bottom left
By Jim Collett
The Goulburn Gliding Club is one of the smaller clubs of NSW, having a current membership of only nine paid up GFA memberships for this current year. Nevertheless we fly from our field on one day almost every weekend, weather and crew availability permitting. Members of several other clubs also fly with us on a regular basis.
Our club was formed in 1969 by Vic Kasak, an ex CFI of Southern Cross Gliding Club, so we started with a wealth of expertise, and have been operating successfully ever since.
Initially we hired a Blanik (brand new) from a Mr Eddie Williams, but after about one year, we formed a private company - the Goulburn Gliding Group Pty Ltd, and bought a new Blanik VH-GVJ from Bill Riley, for $6,495.
We are still more than delighted with our Blanik, and most if not all of our members would not swap it for the latest in two seater technology. It has still done less than 2,000 hours, so there is a lot of life in the old bird before the life extensions are required.
We also have two privately owned single seaters, a Pilatus B4 VH-WQM and Cherokee 2 VH-GLU. The Pilatus is available to selected pilots and all aircraft are flown regularly.
All three gliders are housed in our hangar (a recycled burned out hay shed), together with our winch and two tow cars.
Our field is located at Carrick, a rural area about 11nm north-east of Goulburn Aerodrome, at the foot of the Cookbundoon Range. The field is in fact a large grassy paddock which is generously made available to us by the owner at no cost. We have been operating from there for more than 25 years, and we really appreciate the site.
Our field, with an altitude of 2,000ft, and some 45nm from the coast (Jervis Bay) produces excellent thermals in the mostly western air, and our airspace goes to 9,500ft, which allows for some excellent soaring.
In addition to the thermal lift, we also regularly enjoy frontal lift in the sea breeze front which often pushes inland in the late afternoon and pushes the western air upwards. This collision of the two air masses produces some spectacular cloud effects, with a long line of clouds like ski slopes mixed with vertical columns of cloud, often terminating in a mushroom cloud reminiscent of an atomic explosion. This mixture of lift often requires the use of dive brakes to avoid intrusion into controlled air space.
Frontal lift occurs at many sites in this country and after it has gone, usually kills the thermals and stops soaring for the day - but not at Carrick. We have the Cookbundoon Range, and we can "hill soar" until sunset. Right next to our field is what we call 'Hedley's Hill', after Hedley Carman our hill soaring expert, who has now sadly left the district. We can soar Hedley's Hill even at low wind strength, down to about 800ft and still do a normal standard GFA circuit with safety.
Our main strip is 1,400m long and is oriented NE/SW. We can extend the length to 1,600m if the wind is in the right direction.
We use a single drum winch for launching, and with the usual 1,400m strip, we get launches in the Blanik from about 1,500ft to 2,500ft, depending on wind strength and direction. The single seaters of course go even higher. The winch motor is a Valiant V8 through an automatic gearbox and is simple to operate. We sometimes have another club visit us with a tug when we use mixed aero-tow and winch launching.
We usually fly Saturdays. The field is 8km along the Carrick Road, which is about 12km from Goulburn on the Hume Highway. Anyone interested in visiting our club should phone first to make sure that we are operating on that day: (02) 6297 3504.
The airstrip at Carrick. A glider can be seen on launch, bottom left
One of the privately-owned aircraft, Pilatus VH-WQM
The club's V8 powered winch
The Goulburn Blanik landing at Carrick