Stonefield - SA

Stonefield today has only two civic establishments - a Church and a gliding club.
The Barossa Valley Gliding Club and the Adelaide University Gliding Club currently share the airstrip. This sharing arrangement occurred in about 2005 when the University Gliding Club lost its lease of its wheat field runways near Lochiel. The Barossa Valley Gliding Club purchased the property in the 1980's after leasing it for many years for a small fee.
This area is ideal for the sport of gliding for two main reasons. It is far enough away from the ocean that sea-breezes do not interrupt thermal conditions until very late in the summer afternoons, if at all. This is not the case at several other gliding sites further south and to the west.
It is also offers pilots the choice to plan out and return flights over hundreds of kilometres either north-west to Quorn, Hawker, or even Leigh Creek, or east to Mildura, and sometimes south east to Horsham. In all of these directions there are landable wheat paddocks should the need arise!