On Sunday 10 June I was soaring my ES60 Boomerang at 4,500 ft just to the south of the
Airfield in company with a Grunau Baby 2, a Foka 5 and 2 Ka6s, truly a magic moment, all the dreams
of having such an event had been realized and all the effort made worthwhile.
The Vintage Regatta was conducted by the Barambah District Gliding Club, Wondai Airfield,
Wondai, Queensland from 9 to 11 June 2007.
The weather immediately prior to the event was drought-breaking with 65mm of rain following by two
days of Antarctic winds which, fortunately, abated by Saturday. However this did not dampen the spirit and
enthusiasm of the attendees and an absolutely marvelous time was had by all.

Fearing strong cross-winds hampering the Auster's ability to launch, arrangements had been made to hire the Reverse Pulley System from the Boonah Gliding Centre Inc.. The Launch Vehicle had to be transported over 300km, anchor points for the Pulley manufactured, holes dug to 2mtrs and the units concreted in place and 2,000 mtrs of 8mm rope laid out all within 3 weeks. After some initial teething problems we had success and the Grunau Baby 2 was launched to 2,100 ft using 1,800 mtrs of rope with almost perfect speed control within the 38kts to 42kts speed range of the Grunau. This System will now remain under hire at Wondai. We are deeply grateful for the efforts of all attendees but in particular to Leigh Bunting for coming all the way from South Australia – he was the star attraction with his beautiful GB2. The Foka 5 GEF was manned by pilots from Boonah, sadly last minute work problems prevented Laurie Simpkins attending and bringing the T31b, Bernard Gonsalves brought his K6 CR GSR and Nigel Arnot brought his Ka6 GNO. The Auster MSP gave excellent launches flown by Carl Mengersen and myself but we had problems coping with the speed range of the GB2 so the Pulley System was a godsend.

The weather problems curtailed any organized tasks but every body had some enjoyable soaring flights.Special thanks go the Joyce Sefton, Secretary of the local Aero Club for catering for us, a tidy sum was raised for the Royal Flying Doctor Service due to her efforts to help commemorate their 78th anniversary. The BDGC is a small group of very experienced pilots who gave me full support to enable me to fulfil my dream – to my friends Carl Mengersen, Simon Rammelt, Ib Braes, Neville Badior and Geoff Wendland my gratitude for your help and support. Finally thank you to Boonah Soaring Centre Inc. for making the Reverse Pulley System available and in particular to Phil Slocombe for his tremendous efforts to get us operational. A small but highly successful Inaugural Vintage Regatta which will be repeated next year with Vintage Fly-Ins planned quarterly in the meantime. Time and weather hindered our hope of Vintage Aircraft and cars but will be on next year – we saw a number of owners of vintage gliders who now plan to proceed with their restoration – most attendees are not currently VGA members so this is being followed up.

Queensland T31 Back in the Air ... Laurie Simpkin The aircraft started with the Royal Australian Navy gliding association in 1954 and went through Tamworth,Namoi and Amberly Gliding clubs before being swapped for an ES57 Kingfisher by my father (Gilbert Simpkins). It’s been in our family since and was removed from service in 1975 for an overhaul which lasted until 1983 but never flew until 1991. It did three hours in the next two years and was mothballed again in 1993. I decided to return it to service in time for the vintage regatta at Wondai and it was completed just in time to, unfortunately, miss the event due to work problems. I finally flew the aircraft for the first time in 14 years on Sunday 17th June at Boonah Gliding club and it behaved well. I only stayed up for 15 mins as varios refused to work. On Monday I converted Phil Slocombe (pictured above) to the aircraft as I had to tow and after sorting out a leaking Cosim Vario he had 2 flights, one of which was 45 mins. Since then 3 more members have enjoyed the experience of low performance (17:1), open cockpit flying and a few more are waiting for a go.

Two Phonix Beaufort Gliding Club Phonix, built by the club from 1942-1945, about 1949 at Berwick on a winch launch. Pilot Len Travers Photo by Doug Lyon

The world’s oldest operational fibreglass glider,the FS-24  Phonix, was imported into Australia a while back by John Ashford. Built fifty years ago,another Phonix was flown by  Hans Disma at theVGC Nitra rally in Slovakia. We hope to have astory in an upcoming issue.