November 18, 2005

Cirrus No. 20, ZK-GVZ

Currently Owned by: Malcolm McCullie

STATUS: Flying

LOCATION: Caboolture Gliding Club, just north of Brisbane 

Paul Buchanan reports that No. 20 was imported into New Zealand after flying in the 1968 worlds in Poland by pilot Allan Cameron, who placed eleventh. It was owned by Frank Gatland up in till 1972 and then purchased by the club I started gliding with, Wairarapa and Ruahine Aero club. It was crashed late 73 by a pilot on a 300 km attempt. He stalled and spun it down a ravine trying to land in a paddock. It came to rest with it suspended on both wings about 6 ft from the rocky creek bed. Pilot Ok. (He still is involved with gliding today at the age of  nearly 80.) He told me after I got VZ flying that they spun really badly which I discounted after spinning VZ a few times intentionally. A half turn and when you relax the controls she would recover. I had some height to spare one day and was goofing off. I decided to hold her for a couple of turns and then recover. The first turn was as normal but as the second started the nose pitched down even further and when I relaxed the controls nothing happened. I then pushed positive elevator to get the nose to pitch even further down and it recovered as normal. This gave me a hell of a surprise. The tailplane feels like it gets blanketed by the fuselage or wings or fully stalls. I notice that the USA TC does not allow spinning in the Cirrus and I can see why. A fully developed spin with a light pilot could get interesting real fast. (I weigh out at the max pilot weights).

The fuselage and horizontal stabilizer of this ship are from No. 20, while the wings, ailerons, rudder and elevators from No. 68, ZK-GFV (q.v.).

Malcolm McCullie reports that he's had only 11 aero tow launches in it as of August, 2000, and has found it to be a pleasure to fly in all respects, although he hasn't yet tried out a landing with the chute.....read the article on chute release problems, so will make sure he's ready for any unwanted events. He started gliding in 1974, and gave up the sport in 1977 when he relocated from Cape Town to Johannesburg. In 1988 he moved to New Zealand where he renewed his PPL, got a tow rating and has been towing gliders since 1994. He purchased a small motel in 1997, built more motel units in 1999 and then decided to quit his job at Unisys to give myself a better "Motel" life style and to take up gliding again. He sold his share in a 1942 Tiger Moth (the Classic in him) and started looking for a glider and ended up purchasing No. 20.

In late 2003, Peger Bergman bought a half-share in No. 20 and accumulated 100 hours in less than a year!  In the fall of 2005, Malcolm McCullie wrote that he had bought out Peter Bergman's share in GVZ and will be taking the glider to Australia in January. He's undecided as to whether to sell or hold on to it. Who knows, may end up keeping it as Queensland has some fantastic soaring weather. He will probably locate the glider at Caboolture Gliding Club just north of Brisbane.