Newsletter: September 2003
Next Meeting: AGM Tuesday 7 October @ Valley Club, Lower Hutt, from 7:30pm
NEWS
MT CLIMIE POSSIBLE WIND SITE
Greater Wellington (formerly known as Wellington Regional Council) are investigating Mt Climie as a possible wind farm site. Here is the report from the Dominion Post 30 September:
"A hilltop on the Rimutaka Range has promise as a site to generate electricity from wind", says Greater Wellington regional Council.
Council renewable energy projects manager Murray Kennedy said an average wind speed of 35km was needed for sites to be viable wind generators. The average at Mt Climie, east of Upper Hutt, was 68km.
Mr Kennedy was investigating possible generation sites across the 40,000 hectares of land the council owns.
He has resource consents to erect anemometers on the Belmont Hills between Lower Hutt and Porirua, and Pukitiro, behind Battle Hill Farm Park near Pauatahanui.
Mr Kennedy wants at least 12 months of data before a decision can be made."
Kris spoke with Murray Kennedy (WRC) and invited him along to our AGM to talk about the proposal - but he thought this would be more appropriate in a one year's time when they have more information. Murray was of the opinion that a wind farm and flying site would not necessarily conflict - as we flew out from the launch site and the turbines would be spaced along the top of the ridge. Mmmmm?! Given we sometimes fly (involuntarily) backwards.....
WEATHER STATIONS
Paekakariki and Climie
Lloyd and Ken have recently revived the Paekakariki weather station after it went down for a period. The reason that it had "gone down" was that the battery was stuffed. A temporary battery has been installed. Does anyone have a suitable battery that the could donate? A 12 volt, 6 to 12 Amp hour is required - contact Lloyd on 589-1811 or 021 506-822.
Also, the box that it is contained in is very rusted. Lloyd proposes that the Mt Climie station be totally removed, and that the box be used for Paekakariki. (When Climie was decomissioned last year only the anemometer was removed). There is a possibility of selling the Climie station to the Auckland club.
RESERVE PARACHUTE REPACK Grant Tatham
We had a pretty good turnout to the repack day, I guess the lousy weather does help sometimes. About 15 or so chutes were aired, of several makes and designs. It was good to have a few of the more experienced guys there and prepared to give a hand. Particular thanks to Ian Bowie, turning up first, and busy all day. Also thanks to those others that assisted.
The day was very definitely worth doing, in the process, most chutes were in pretty good condition, though one was found to be set up incorrectly. Incidently, this particular chute had been like it for some considerable time, and in the condition it was in, was most likely to fail to open. Those of you that haven't got your chute done, do you know for sure that its rigged correctly, and that the rubberbands are fresh? I assure you, you dont want to be worrying about this while you're being tipped around and considering using it. Much less find out the hard way that it's going to be slow to open or refuse entirely.
Must say a big thanks to Terry O'Neill for putting on a real good lunch, Happy Birthday by the way, and to Craig Henderson for setting up the venue. I hope we can use it again next year. I know of several guys that weren't able to make it to the day, could anyone still needing to repack a chute let me know, I will organise another evening in the near future.
INTERESTING LINKS
Safety and longgevity of paraglider materials
Next Meeting: Tuesday 7 October @ Valley Club, Lower Hutt, from 7:30pm
