The magazine that posted last week is Issue 30. Last night I spread
all thirty magazines out on the floor, a block with five rows of six. It
covered as much of the floor as a reasonable sized rug and it looked fantastic.
In fact, I’m thinking of having a poster made of the thirty covers. Every cover
is a stunning illustration of the excitement and adventure of soaring. When you
put all thirty of them together, they look amazing. We have photos of gliders
in all attitudes - upside down (twice), gliders on the beach, over the sea
(three times), over lakes (surprisingly only three times), over mountains
(really surprisingly, only twice), places other than NZ (four times) and
showing people (six times). Some of my favourites are Issue 8, with young Hugo
Miller flying a Blanik with the canopy off (you know he was having fun), Issue
5 with a Dimona over a Queensland beach, and Issue 12 with Piako’s PW6 on the
beach at Raglan. It’s a different and pretty picture of a glider, and the fact
that it was my own landout doesn’t change that. My all-time favourite is Issue 21,
with Toby Read posing beside GlideOmarama’s Duo at Milford Sound, with Mitre
Peak in the background. It is not only a very scenic picture but it puts a
gliding take on an iconic view. Looking at this photo, I know that these pilots
had an adventure. You can’t get a better cover picture than that.
It was pointed out to me that there isn’t a cover with a
woman. It is a very good point and sadly, representative of the number of women
in the sport. Ladies, if you get any good shots of you flying, forward them to
me for possible covers. Actually, any readers out there, send me good, high
resolution pictures. We are always looking for exciting gliding photos.
Technically there is a cover with a woman. I was actually P2
in the Dimona on Issue 6, but you would have to look hard to see me.
Only one glider has managed to be featured twice, Dane
Dickinson’s LS8, ZN. It was on the cover of Issue 4, back when it had swirly
decals and on Issue 25 when it had an equally fancy but more standard, black on
white paint job. It features in this issue too, but not on the cover. It was
flown by Roland van der Wal in EuroGlide. ZN gets around.
Thirty issues with forty eight pages of text at roughly five
hundred words per page equals around 720,000 words. Modern popular novels
usually come in between 80 – 100,000 words. We have collectively (because there
have been an awful lot of contributors over the years), written around eight
novels of gliding words. That is a huge body of work. Have a look on your
bookshelf and see how much room that many words take up. And then there are the
photos. I have no idea how many wonderful images we have printed.
Which of all those words do I like the best? Reporting on
the Grand Prix back in Issue 2 was exhilarating and bizarre. The magazine was
all new and then bamm, when we were still feeling our way and working out how
to make a magazine, we had an international competition in our patch. It was so
exciting. Over the years we’ve had some fantastic reporting on World
Championships, from both our own NZ competitors and international writers who
were pleased to help out.
We’ve been very lucky with some of our NZ regular contributors.
Two in particular stand out in my mind as amusing and informative: Ian
Dunkley’s vintage columns are missed, now that ill health is slowing him down
and David Hirst’s technical pieces can make me laugh while I learn. The most
common query I get from people on past magazines are for David’s columns, ‘An
Idiot’s Guide to Tephigrams’ in Issues 3 and 4.
SoaringNZ has
covered some incredible world records. We started with a very special one. The
feature story in Issue 1 was Fossett and Delore’s, 2007, 1250km 25% FAI
triangle speed record. By the time we went to press, Steve Fossett was missing
- later confirmed dead. Terry Delore has set another other world record since,
a three turnpoint, 2500km declared distance, flown in New Zealand with John Kokshorn,
in Issue 14. Doug Hamilton’s ‘Flight from Hell,’ Issue 7, was a hard fought
1500km triangle. It wasn’t a world record but it did win him the honour of
being NZ’s last Barron Hilton cup recipient, in 2009. Jenny Wilkinson achieved
a 500km out and return woman’s speed record in 2009, Issue 8. We have also
highlighted spectacular flights from our sport’s past, featuring Dick
Georgeson, Doug Yarrall, Keith Wakeman, Yvonne Loader and others. This issue’s
story on Ann Johnson’s 1979 245km goal flight continues in that tradition.
Long flights have, of course, featured strongly in our pages
but I’m equally as pleased to have printed stories of first solos, 50 kms and
stories of the joyous, happy, local flying contributed by pilots who just want
to share their pleasure in our sport.
Back issues are still available at the same cost as current
magazines, if you would like to complete your set.
Issue 16 was a little different. It had both a large number
of safety articles, including Part One of Arthur Gatland’s ‘Threat and Error
Management’, and the finals of our one and only photo competition. It has been
a challenge to keep our competition reports fresh and entertaining. I don’t
think we do too badly with that. Of course, the people who were there are
probably the most avid readers of those, but we hope others are enjoying the
coverage too. It has been great to chronicle the inception and growth of
YouthGlide and the Youth Soaring Development camp, but that could be my own
personal bias.
When I think about what I am most proud of though, it is the
fact that you are holding Issue 30 in your hands right now. In September 2010, Issue
18, I wrote an editorial entitled, ‘Random Thoughts on Earthquakes and Their
Aftermaths.’ No-one had any idea then how bad things were going to get. Issue
21 came out when our world was completely broken by the February 2011 quake
that destroyed Christchurch and killed more than 180 people. I am so proud of
the fact that, in spite of everything that has happened since then: the loss of
our house, our printer’s factory, the huge damage and upheaval in Christchurch,
you have still received a top quality soaring magazine every two months. There
have been times where you very nearly didn’t.
Thank you to all the people who have contributed over the
years and the many more people who have read and enjoyed our efforts. Please
share your love of gliding and of SoaringNZ
with your friends. Help us to grow into our next five, ten, fifteen years.
Happy Birthday to us all.
Cheers
Jill McCaw
