New Zealand soaring movie

Long time ago I saw a neat movie about a father and daughter(?) learning to soar in New Zealand. Great scenery. Remind me the name of the movie?

Also, if my 14 YO son gets instruction and solos in New Zealand does the flight time and solo endorsement from a Kiwi certified flight instructor count directly towards a US Private Pilot-Glider certificate when he turns 16?

On Friday, September 2, 2016 at 10:57:59 AM UTC-6, wrote:
Long time ago I saw a neat movie about a father and daughter(?) learning to soar in New Zealand. Great scenery. Remind me the name of the movie?

Also, if my 14 YO son gets instruction and solos in New Zealand does the flight time and solo endorsement from a Kiwi certified flight instructor count directly towards a US Private Pilot-Glider certificate when he turns 16?

https://www.nzgeo.com/video/windborn/ but I believe the DVD is available through soaring vendors.

Frank Whiteley

Excellent!! Thanks for posting!

The father Gain Wills runs Glide Omerama. Very sadly I believe the daughter Lucy is no longer alive.

On Sunday, September 4, 2016 at 12:20:00 AM UTC+12, waremark wrote:
The father Gain Wills runs Glide Omerama. Very sadly I believe the daughter Lucy is no longer alive.

Yes, Lucy died of cancer in 2004, aged just 28.

It does spoil enjoyment of the video for those of us in the NZ gliding family, so I wasn't planning to mention that. Of course it's also great that we have this memory of Lucy!

A lot of effort and expense went into making this video, which of course predates the modern very small and cheap and good video cameras with flash storage. It even predates DVDs as a consumer technology.

When Mike Abernathy and I first started talking about trying to make a movie about soaring, we watched "Windborn" many times. It was truly one of the most inspiring and influential films we had seen. Without this and other films like it, "Cloudstreet: Soaring the American West" would have never come out as well as it did. Many thanks to the Wills family and the producers who made this superb movie.

BTW, we just found out that "Cloudstreet" has been nominated in four categories in the Rocky Mountain Emmy Awards.

I just noticed in "Windborn" that the glider flown and forced to land on the beach was a Janus M. Isn't that a motorized Janus? Maybe they pieced together clips from several flights?

Congrats on the nomination of "Cloudstreet"
Michael

On Sunday, September 4, 2016 at 8:34:25 AM UTC+12, Duster wrote:
I just noticed in "Windborn" that the glider flown and forced to land on the beach was a Janus M. Isn't that a motorized Janus? Maybe they pieced together clips from several flights?

Yes, the film was made over a number of flights, and certain things were staged for dramatic effect. Shhh!

Victor Quebec was later owned for several years by a member of my club (Wellington), before being sold to the Whangarei club. You can hear Rob G make radio calls from her at 0:42 in my video http://youtu.be/kJD395MgJBo

On Sat, 03 Sep 2016 14:56:35 -0700, Bruce Hoult wrote:

Yes, the film was made over a number of flights, and certain things were
staged for dramatic effect. Shhh!

An excellent film.

I notice that some scenes were shot at the Southland Gliding Club but it
doesn't appear in the club list on Gliding NZ, so I assume its now an ex-
club. Do you know what its current name is or where its airfield used to
be?

I noticed a series of shots where Lucy's hat changed several times in the
course of a scene. Nice: it reminded me of "Plan Nine From Outer Space"
though of course Windborn's production values are somewhat better!


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Sunday, September 4, 2016 at 10:38:55 AM UTC+12, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sat, 03 Sep 2016 14:56:35 -0700, Bruce Hoult wrote:

Yes, the film was made over a number of flights, and certain things were
staged for dramatic effect. Shhh!

An excellent film.

I notice that some scenes were shot at the Southland Gliding Club but it
doesn't appear in the club list on Gliding NZ, so I assume its now an ex-
club. Do you know what its current name is or where its airfield used to
be?

I think it was shot all over the place! Many of the early gliding scenes look to be along the side of the Remarkables, with Lake Wakatipu in the background and even one or two glimpses of Queenstown.

Other scenes are obviously shot at Omarama, including the interview with Ray Lynskey with the Buscott ridge and Mt Benmore in the background.

I've never flown there, but the aerotow practice and first solo look to me like Te Anau. I'm not entirely sure what strip they're using, but I think quite possibly a now defunct one he




I noticed a series of shots where Lucy's hat changed several times in the
course of a scene. Nice: it reminded me of "Plan Nine From Outer Space"
though of course Windborn's production values are somewhat better!

I believe the changes of clothing and hats are intended to artistically indicate the passing of the months :-)