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| August 27, 2000
Cirrus No. 68, ZK-GFV Currently Owned by: Paul Buchanan STATUS: Destroyed (see No. 20, ZK-GFZ) LOCATION: Hood Aerodrome, Masterton
No. 68 was imported into New Zealand and first flew
here on the 25/10/69. It was imported for Dick Georgeson who flew it until the
30/03/70. It was then shipped to the states to compete at the 1970 worlds in
Marfa Texas, where Dick placed 25th. It was in the states for the duration of
these and flew a total of 72 hrs. It was then shipped back to New Zealand
where Dick owned it until I think 14/08/71 (there is no record in the logbook
of a change of owner, just the change in the person doing the entries and
where it did its flights) The Canterbury Gliding club based at Christchurch in
the south island owned it then until its accident on the 01/01/83 with a total
of 1765 hrs. The note in the logbook note states that the glider landed
inverted!!
The accident was due to a pilot getting an aerotow retrieve
from an airstrip that had long grass on it. As he rolled on takeoff, he caught
a wing and groundlooped but was going fast enough to get the thing inverted
before hitting the ground and landing upside down. No damage to the pilot.
Glider fuse badly damaged but wings only minor stuff.
Back in the late seventies a club pilot was flying it from
his home base in Westerly wave conditions (which we get a fair bit of down
here) and hit some bad rotor turbulence. He was rolled
nearly inverted and then slammed the right way up again but during it badly
damaged his back. He flew back to the airfield and had to be assisted
from the glider and was sent to hospital with bad spinal injuries. The cause
was put down to by the feds as the straps not being tight enough and when the
pilot tried to do them up all he could tighten was the shoulder part. The lap
straps where pulled up his chest allowing his lower back to basically be
unrestrained. After this the club installed a better harness system that you
can pull on the lap strap better and turned it into a five point harness which
is now in ZK-GVZ (No. 20).
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