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The President of the Stanwell Park Hang Gliding Paragliding Club, Chris Clements, was recently asked to meet with representatives of the Wollongong City Council on Bald Hill in regard to vandalism involving the illegal felling of trees.
Chris and Vice President, Tony Sandeberg were greatly disturbed to be taken to the Southern landing area where they could see many trees had been cut down at the base by chainsaw, very recently, and left on the ground. They were told that there were approximately 50 felled trees! The matter had been brought to the council's attention by a letter to the Editor, written to the Illawarra Mercury by a concerned local resident.
In the past these trees have saved a number of paraglider pilots when, after they landed, the wind had pulled them toward the road. Considering that a major reason we get an exemption from CASA to top land is the fact that these trees provide a barrier between the landing strip and the road, the committee has difficulty accepting that it would be a pilot.
As you all know, our site is very sensitive and we are still in negotiation with the Council to secure a licence for our Club to use it. It upsets the Committee greatly to think that an individual member could have taken it upon themselves to make decisions regarding the site which could jeopardize its use for all.
We stress that we are not saying that a pilot did do this. There are plenty of other possible scenarios. If anyone has any factual information then you can pass this on to a member of the committee.
From time to time the committee organises site maintenance days, which we post on the website. We encourage all members to join in and help out. And, as usual, if anyone has any suggestions to improve our club or its facilities, we encourage you to make these suggestions to the committee so that the decisions and outcomes can be managed properly.
Jorj Lowrey
Secretary
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The subject of VHF radios has been a hot topic recently with the introduction of CAR166 (mandatory VHF at non towered aerodromes). The HGFA is trying to get hang gliders and paragliders exempt from the requirements but you can help by making your opinion directly to CASA.
Another new feature: You can now add your own comments/views/opinions to the articles on the web-site by using the 'comment' link at the bottom of all news articles. At the moment anyone can add a comment regardless of whether they are a member or not (may change if we get spam) but logged in users don't have to go through the anti-spam questions and can use the full range of features.