Vintage Kiwi – a living museum

It is an untrue but picturesque Myth: “Vintage & Classic Gliders are only brought out on the calmest and finest of days, loved, fettled and flown by a bunch of geriatric old timers, washed and lovingly put back to bed.”

Off airfield vintage flying in Ireland, the red Olympia won.

“VINTAGE KIWI” A LIVING MUSEUM. Ian Dunkley

It is now over five years since the idea of a vintage gliding club for New Zealand was discussed with Gliding New Zealand and their support obtained. World-wide, the number of glider pilots is, in most cases, declining whilst within the same countries the membership of vintage clubs is increasing. NZ is no exception. We now represent a membership equivalent to nearly ten percent of NZ glider pilots, placing us within the top five ranking clubs in the world.

“Vintage Kiwi” is not a business but a movement for change so we neither compete, nor suffer competition from the existing clubs. Achievement of our objectives is often assisted by efforts outside of our organisation, ie members within the mainstream clubs that help with restoration of a glider or the organisation of a rally,

“The Vintage & Classic Glider Club of New Zealand Inc” is an incorporated society: this enables us to go on the fundraising trail. It also has the unfortunate side effect of requiring us to develop a management system and controls. The development of rules led to the realisation that rather then being some kind of gliding club we were in fact potentially a flying museum; but without a building and operating gliders without an airfield. What does that mean? The following is an outline of what we are currently doing, how we operate in various areas and our plans for them.

Pilot Members. All our current glider pilot members are members

of GNZ gliding clubs. Any member who wants to learn to glide

will have to join a GNZ club and our international members need

affiliation with GNZ to fly. This means we do not need the flying organisation of a formal gliding club yet we are able to recruit

members to our sport.

Airfields. We do not need one, for all our flying is done as guests on a GNZ club airfield under the control of the CFI. In the case of

expeditions to non airfield sites we would need to enlist the enthu

siasm of a GNZ club to join us, and to host the event.

Gliders. Vintage Kiwi, thanks to donations and other arrangements

now have our own vintage and classic gliders under restoration. To these can be added those owned by syndicates of VK members,

other syndicates, individuals and, most welcome, some gliding

clubs who operate old gliders. Museums. There is already a “Vintage Kiwi Collection” at Classic

Flyers Museum at Tauranga and a number of other museums that

already display gliders and have the ability of displaying more. We are assisting them in this by passing on gliders that are unsuitable

Joe Himmel, one of the original builders, with a Swallow pro.

C herokee 2, part of the Vintage Kiwi Collection at Classic Flyers Museum, Tauranga.

SZD, builders of the PW5 & 6 in Poland, are building new 193.

Flying Glider Museums. Every GNZ gliding club that includes vintage/classic gliders in its

club fleet, has members who own them, or

hosts vintage events can considered, by us

if not them, to be a flying museum. To these

could be added airfield based museums that

may in the future display airworthy gliders that

can be flown on special occasions.

“Vintage Kiwi Distributed & Virtual

Museum”

This is a concept, under preliminary devel opment, that will embrace our total operation. T he “Virtual”, a web site, with appropriate links What will be NZ’s oldest flying Glider, a 1944 Weihe under restoration.

containing all the places where vintage gliders

can be seen, with both details of the sites

and gliders. This could also provide the basis

of an aviation trail that could be followed by

tourist and others to the benefit of museums

and gliding clubs. The “Distributed” part would or shopping malls or stored where they can only be seen by arrangement. A Commercial

“Vintage Kiwi” is an ambitious project and a hard working team has come a long way in five years but there is still a long way to go. If you would like to join us, it only costs $30pa. You would be welcome what ever your field of inter est, write to us, email vintagekiwi@xtra.co.nz or visit our website www.glding.co.nz/vintagekiwi

As we go to press we have just learnt that “Vintage Kiwi News” came out on top when participants at a recent US “Vintage Sailplane Association” rally took part in polls to deter mine the best vintage gliding magazine. The vo te was taken to assist in selecting the best layout for a redesign of the VSA’s long running magazine “Bungee Cord”.

Jim Short, President of the VSA said that “The New Zealand magazine is indeed beauti ful and colourful and has a pleasing layout”