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Reaching
for the sky |
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TV
TIMES 28-Feb-76 |
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Ready
for the quiet challenge ... |
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A
Big Country cameraman Paul Tait
waits while a glider is
prepared for flight. |
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Bert
Persson (front of cockpit), the
glider team's aeronautical
engineer. |
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ABC-TV series A Big
Country starts its 15th
series with a
get-away-from-it-all
program on glider
pilots. |
| The
program, The Quiet
Challenge, is produced
by Jeni Kendell and
filmed by Paul Tait -
both gliding
enthusiasts. It looks at
men who are expert
glider pilots and
partners in Australia's
only commercially
operated gliding centre.
Bill Reilly, the team's
business manger and
prompter, started the
gliding centre at
Tocumwal, southern NSW,
five years ago. At the
time he was puzzled by
Australia's poor record
in international
gliding. |
| Riley
said: "Our climate
is ideal ... long hours
of sunshine, open
terrain and uncongested
skies. So I decided that
better training must be
the answer and set out
to improve the
situation". Bert
Persson, holder of
Australia's height
record joined him to
become the team's
aeronautical engineer. |
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program includes several
sequences of spectacular
aerobatic flying ,
filmed with camera
mounted on wingtips,
nose and cabin of the
glider, and hand-held
camera in an
accompanying
helicopter. |
| The
Quiet Challenge screens
in A Big Country: NSW,
SA and Tasmania, Monday
March 1, at 8pm;
Queensland, Tuesday,
March 2, at 8pm; WA and
Victoria, Friday March
5, at 8pm. |
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Free
as the breeze ....
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| Webmaster's
Notes: |
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| a)
Bil Riley's vision met
with a great deal of
success ... Ingo
Renner OAM, who had also joined the Sportavia Soaring
Centre team at
Tocumwal as Flying
Instructor, went on to
become world champion
on four occasions and
Australian champion on
nineteen occasions. He
also set two world
records (one with
Hilmer Geissler for a
974 km straight line
two-seater flight in
1975 from Bendigo in
Victoria to near
Bundaberg in
Queensland - the other
for averaging 195 kph
around a 100 km
triangle at Tocumwal
in 1982). |
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| b)
Bert Persson holds an
FAI 1,000 km gliding
badge (for a 1,016 km
flight out of Tocumwal
in 1982 in a Nimbus
2F) and is a Life
Member of both the
Alice Springs and
Caboolture Gliding
Clubs. |
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