All in all a great day. The ridge was just working, thermals were OK, combine the two and you shoot up like a rocket. David Hirst submitted a weather forecast from Auckland and it came out pretty bang on.

A promising start to the morning.

The day in numbers:

3 Tasks for 3 classes
5 Landouts
22 Competitors
1 Wheel up landing (Bill couldn't get his gear down, but it's all fixed now) 
Number of restarts: quite a few! 

The Matamata Soaring Centre competition is now on, as well as the Sports Class Nationals, making 22 competitors total, and lots of people flying up and down the ridge.

The tasks today were set to 3 hours AAT tasks, a number of people found it tough going, getting low. 

Well done to Nelson Badger for starting, landing at Te Aroha, getting back to the airfield quick with Les, then restarting the task again. Quite a few others restarted the task also after getting too low, or stuffing it up somehow. Nelson ended up landing around 6:30pm.

Congrats to Bryan O'Brien for winning Club Class, Maurice Honey for winning Sports Class and Tony Van Dyke for the Fast Class. Click the class for the full results of today on Soaring Spot.

The webcam is now up and running again on the front page for those who want to check what things are up to. It stops occasionally and needs to be restarted manually so apologies for when it does stop.

A startled Bill & Bob at morning briefing. They had just received the task for the day.

Ross Taylor in GPV on ground roll

Arriving back, tying down, and still clouds in the sky

Mmmm meat, Captain Dom & dad at the helm.

We didn't fly yesterday's Soaring Centre practice day due to the rain. Instead we sat around taking pictures of rainbows. And here they are!

Good for the farmers at least

The rainbow as promised.

"Look the rainbow goes from there...

...to there!"

In advance of the weather bomb about to hit, Fin set us a task to the south – Matamata – Putaruru (10km)  - airfield – Okoroire (5km)  - home – Now for some that might seem simple – but add in an easterly that was cutting off the thermals and making them hard to “manage” a ridge that wanted to dump you several kms out, a blue hole over the airfield  and a humid airmass that didn’t want you to venture too high – then it led to several interesting challenges. 

Notwithstanding these Maurrie came in first yet again followed with only 2 points in arrears by Paul Schofield (how close can you get!) and a close third being Tim Bromhead – well done to you all.  It was a challenging day with some of us having to take two tows and most taking more than one try at the start gate.  Most memorable for me was loosing 1000ft between the southern side of the Gore residence to the spud patch – yes I know its only across the road but really indicative of the easterly wave hitting and interrupting – and guess who didn’t twig to it!!! But it sure made for a more cautious return from there onwards. 

All in all – a great day and thanks to Finn for calling such a fine task!!

Thanks Robbin for today's writeup.

Results from Yesterday, day 3

Results from Today, day 4

We didn't have any pics from today, but here are more from yesterday

Tim

It was cloudy.

Maurice

Paul

It was hot.

Sandy

Tomorrow is cancelled for some reason...

Damn Maurice has won the friggen day again.

The camera lens makes the background look closer. Yeah Right.

Well done Maurice, it was a tough day. We all started around 12:30 to an over developed sky, with odd bits of sun hitting the ground. We started landing back in about the order we took off. Maurice and Paul S were at the back of the grid, launched last and managed to stay up for quite a long time. Paul came back, and Maurice decided to start out on the course.

Meanwhile the rest of us 'land-backs' adjourned to the clubrooms for a cup of tea or an iceblock. About 2 we decided to give it another go. All this time Maurice had been flying around trying to stay up.

Standing around talking about flying instead of flying.

Who knew PW5 wings were so long?

At that stage unless someone else starts the course and goes over 30km around the course the day would be a no fly day.

Tim managed to get started, and two competitors meant the task officially had enough people. It was a good run to the first turnpoint of Morrinsville, with a big heavy overdeveloped cloud street starting over the town. This had fantastic lift under it, and conveniently the street went to the next turn point of Karapiro. A quick dash to the turn point and then things disintegrated, putting Tim into a very nice look paddock just out of Cambridge.

Maurice nearly made it right around the course, but landed out near the base of the Kaimais. As such the day will be devalued, so points won't be vast.

Edouard also made a start, and travelled enough to earn some points too, probably coming third for the day.

Everyone other than Tim and Maurice landed back at the field.

Tim's retrieve proved interesting. First up Bill Mace and Les Reisterer managed to get lost on the way. The drove to the road closest to the coordinates given, but unfotunately a big gully was in the way, so they had to find a way around. This involved driving through Cambridge, and buying a map along the way. Bill's phone had run out of battery too, so there was no way to relay what road to go to.

Anyway the retrieve crew turned up, and all was well with the world. Until we realised there was no way our car and trailer would make it down and up a rough and rather steep gully road. Luckily the farmer was handy with his tractor, so we stuck the trailer on that, and away we went. From there on things went smoothly, and we were back in time for dins at 7.

The tractor glider pulling event might be at the next fielddays.

Les riding the back of the trailer

Maurice was retrieved by his son Peter, who also took flight in a local microlight to take some pics. 

Maurice attracting the ladies once again...

All in all a fun day, we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the results.

Sandy & Tim lined up first on the grid

Surprise over development catches field in the fields. That's a quick way to summarise the day.

We launched to a lovely looking sky, and things were progressing well. Our top turn point was a 5km circle around Kaihere, and the bottom turn point 10km circle around Arapuni.

The top turn point well and truly over developed as we all arrived. 4 of the 7 landed in paddocks. Actually it was 5 thanks to Bill in the Lak who wasn't competing, but didn't want to miss out on the action. Dennis was also following the group in XP, and thoughtfully decided to drop the task and do our scoring. Eventually just 2 competitors made it back to the airfield, the rest were retrieves.

A big congrats to Robin Britton for making it back to the airfield, winning the day, and being the only competitor to complete the course set. Maurice Honey also made it back, but accidentally missed the bottom turn point.

Full results and task can be found here on Soaring Spot.

After all the gliders were put back together Jan put on a beautiful roast chicken dinner. Thanks heaps again Jan!

Sports Class
Overall results after day 2

And now, some pictures from the day thanks to Peter, Maurice Honey's Son.

Looking good before launch - the weather that is, sorry Maurice...

Robin, 1st in the Ka6

Maurice 3rd in a PW5

Tim 2nd in a PW5

We didn't manage to catch any pictures from the competition today, here are some pics from this evening instead...

Spot the last thermal of the day, 8:10pm this evening

Tauranga's Tug

Trees.

The 2009 National Sports Class Competition has kicked off today with a good solid day of flying.

We have 7 competitors, with a couple only doing a few days due to other commitments. All are flying PW5s except for Robbin in the Ka6. A few turned up for practice day yesterday, which was an even better flying day than today.

This morning we woke to a not-very-promising sheet of cloud covering the Waikato, Finn the task setter optimistically giving a 51 to 49 percent chance of flying, in favour of flying. That one percent of optimism was worthwhile however, around 12:30 we were ready to launch with wisps of thermals starting around us, and good looking stuff in the distance.

Unfortunately we had no tugs. A slight flaw in the competition plan one might say. Tauranga's tug was on it's way still, and Piako's tug was away being fixed in Hamilton. Fortunately 10 minutes later they both turned up at the same time, and away we went.

Fin set a 158km 2.5 hour AAT distance task with 10km turnpoints, which turned out to be a good task. Everyone but one made it around, with Paul Schofield in GSB landed out at the second turn point.

All the way through the afternoon the high layer of cloud would block the sun, then partially break up, then reappear, just giving us enough convection to get some thermals working well. It wasn't too easy, and not too impossible, so everyone was happy.

Congrats to Maurice Honey for winning today's task for 1000 points, Tim Bromhead second with 935, and Robin Britton third with 781. Full results and a view of the task available on soaring spot.

Thanks to all those volunteers helping out with this contest, there are almost more volunteers than pilots, so it's really appreciated.

For anyone in Piako club, tomorrow's weather looks similar to todays, and there are 4 gliders available to fly, NI, XP, PK and PC. If you have QGP you're welcome to launch at the back of the grid.

Until tomorrow...

The task and flights for Day1