When Ingo Renner retired from flying, he was just 40 hours short of clocking up 38,000 hours in the pilot’s seat.
The unbelievable feat is testament to his love of being in the air, and why he continued to be involved in gliding as a sport well after he was grounded.
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That dedication, and his enormous achievements to the sport and his Tocumwal community, will be honoured at the Tocumwal Aerodrome this weekend.
Mr Renner died on February 26, aged 81, and a special memorial service will be held in his honour from 1pm this Saturday.
It will be hosted in the aerodrome’s World War II hanger, which was home to Sportavia — where Mr Renner taught for several decades.
Considered one of the premier glider pilots in Australia, Mr Renner collected a string of national and international championships, which included four world championships.
His dedication to the sport earned him an Order of Australia Medal and a 2014 induction to the Australian Aviation Hall of Fame.
It was the first time his chosen sport had been recognised at such a level.
‘‘It’s the first time that gliding was recognised in the Australian Aviation Hall of Fame, and I’m honoured to have received this recognition,’’ Mr Renner told the tfBannersc Southern Riverina Newstf$f at the time.
‘‘It was a fantastic evening and I felt privileged to be among other world-class aviators.
‘‘Every chair was taken on the night and I was really happy to be there.’’
Mr Renner was also honoured as an Australian Living Legend by the Gliding Club of Victoria in 2014.
At the time of his Hall of Fame induction, Mr Renner had been gliding for 50 years.
Mr Renner was a war baby, born in Bremen, Germany, in June 1940.
His passion for soaring developed from watching model gliders in action and he soon learnt to build his own.
He began gliding lessons at age 15 and after qualifying his club nominated him as an instructor.
A ship-builder by trade, Mr Renner set out for Australia and found work at a shipyard in Brisbane.
Determined to keep flying, he pitched up at the Darling Downs Soaring Club at Jondaryan.
Within a week he was granted a full instructor rating. Characteristically, Mr Renner owned his own Schneider Kingfisher before he owned a car.
In 1970 he moved to Tocumwal and began work at the then newly established Sportavia Soaring Centre.
He was there for the next 36 years, splitting his time between instructing in Australia during the summer months, at the Oerlinghausen Gliding School in Germany for the northern summers.
Mr Renner logged around 1000 hours each year and in 1971 became an Australian citizen.
He represented Australia at several world gliding championship events, winning first in the Standard Class in Finland, in 1976.
Mr Renner would win several more times on the world stage, including three consecutive wins in the Open Class in the USA in 1983, Italy in 1985 and Benalla, Victoria in 1987.
His trophy cabinet swelled with wins at several meetings around the world, including:
- 19 Australian National Gliding Championships
- Open Class Austraglide at Benalla in 1984
- Bremen Regional competition in Germany
- Queensland State competition (twice)
- Smirnoff Derby and Hitachi Masters of Soaring in the US
- Tour Lilienthal held in Berlin to celebrate 100 years of flight.
The record books would also carry the name Ingo Renner for many years.
In 1975 he set a two-seater world distance record and in 1982 a single-seat speed record over a 10-km triangle, when he averaged 195.3km/h.
That effort saw his name added to the Guinness Book of World Records.
He has held many Australian gliding records.
He has also coached the Australian Team for world competitions (including in 2019), helped the Japanese organise and run their very first international gliding contest on Hokkaido and coached many pilots for international competitions both here and overseas.
In 1988, the extraordinary career of Ingo Renner was recognised with an OAM for services to gliding, followed in 2000 by an Australian Sports Medal and in 2014, induction into the Australian Aviation Hall of Fame.
Renner finished his career with 36,000 hours of flying, of which about 31,000 was instructing and coaching.
‘‘The impact his career and personality had on the Australian gliding community cannot be understated and his loss will be felt for many years to come,’’ Australian Flying editor Steve Hitchen said.
‘‘The thoughts of Australian Flying are with the Renner family and the Australian gliding community.’’
~ Compiled with the assistance of Australian Flying.
■ Tocumwal champion glider Mark ‘Lumpy’ Paterson — who had the pleasure of learning from Mr Renner — has created a dedicated email page as a memorial to Ingo Renner.
Stories, messages, photos and articles can be shared by sending it to ingomemorial@tocumwalsoaring.com.
Senior journalist