- Bruce Dunlop has also been our secretary this year
- Damian Buchtmann has run our clubhouse during the year filling the fridge and making sure the members didn’t run out of anything all year.
- George Northey has assumed the role of CFI and managed maintenance of the recreational fleet including repairs to our training aircraft.
- I know we were all sorry to lose Adam Booker due to pressures of commercial flying. Adam resigned from the committee during the year and the committee decided to carry on without a replacement. I want to thank Adam for the support he has given the club over the years and look forward to having his enthusiasm for club activities in the future.
- Lyndal has supported me with her thoughts and ideas and work on production of the news letters that so many members find full of interesting stories, I would like to thank Lyndal as well for maintenance of the website
Thanks to all members who have provided interesting stories for the newsletter and thank you to all of the members who read the stories and continued to pay annual subscriptions.
Facilities
Damian Buchtmann managed the HDFC hangar and club house during the year. We have had no problem filling the hangar with rent paying aircraft this year and, more importantly, all aircraft have been active during the year. Currently we have six home built aircraft, one C150 and the two recreational aircraft in the hangar. On the downside the hangar is showing signs of needing work. For example the track on which the doors slide needs repair and the lighting requires attention.
Recreational aircraft
The original Foxbat has been replaced after 2000 hours and 6000 landings and the Eurofox has been repaired but I will leave it to George to provide detail on these topics. During the year Damian Buchtmann and Jack Terp achieve their recreational aircraft instructor ratings.
Members
We have had 29 new members between July 2009 and July 2010 – membership at the end of July 2010 was 192
Strategic Planning
The committee made a submission to PMHC late last year about the draft Airport Masterplan, particularly supporting retention of the grass runway, the creation of a taxiway and the construction of more hangars
The Port Macquarie Hastings Council has published an updated Airport Master Plan for Port Macquarie airport. The document makes interesting reading. The budget for the runway/taxiway alone is $48 million in 2010 dollars.
Over the past few months I have been in negotiation with Trevor Sargent who is Regional Development manager at the council about setting up a Business and Industry Growth program for aviation related businesses. The preliminary lunch/meeting will be held in our club house tomorrow. I have had interest from fourteen businesses and see this process as a way to help us develop a business plan for the flying club and to move towards closer relations between people around the airport.
The new airport manager Doug Page has come to a committee meeting during the year and with a past history as a GA instructor I expect Doug to be very support of HDFC activities. With tighter security and greater safety requirement surrounding jet aircraft we have needed a more informed approach from airport management. I think Doug is doing this for us as we have had no alarming incidents since his arrival.
This year’s highlights
- Fly and Spy and Flight Fest Fly-in
- Gloucester Club Fly-in
- Sale of the Foxbat wreck and purchase of a new upgraded LSA Foxbat.
- New class E and airspace rules
- New CFI
- Tri club was dominated by HDFC at Taree and a few months later at Rutherford.
- Scholarship holders –
Trent Merchant ( who has completed his RAAus Pilot’s Certificate and has commenced training for his PPL with Johnsons), Mathew Baker, Toby Stutsel – their progress has been held up by Eurofox unavailability
- New scholarships – Daniel Pye, Andrew Eames
- Students from St Columba Anglican School Years 1and 2 visited the clubhouse hanager
- Ten pin bowling
- Barefoot bowls
- Flying Comp lunches
- Annual Presentation Night dinner
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