Competition Summary

Hi all, it's been quite a few days now since the end of the contest, here's a quick wrap up.

Congrats to all the winners, here they are!

Club class

Open class

I would like to give a big thanks to all those who made the competition a great success, Tow Pilots, John the contest director, Bill & Jan for running the clubhouse and food, June and Mavis on the radios, Joan on the retireve crew and generally causing trouble, Edouard for scoring, Jeff on the grid, Ruth managing the tows, all the wing runners who helped out, and everyone else who played a part!

Amazingly, thanks in part to the westerlies running all week, we flew all 7 days, the first time in many many years. And they were all 1000 point days, in the open class at least. This means our golf hasn't improved at all this year, and Steve Wallace's annual bike ride didn't happen either. Well done to Steve especially for nearing the max 7000 points with 6889 total.

Awards this year, John Bayliss received the trophy for the most meritorious flight, with an amazing 'perfect' ridge task on day 6. No turns at all, he really showed us how it should be done.

Also congratulations to Ralph for receiving the FAI Paul Tissandier award. A writeup about this is in the Soaring NZ magazine this month.

We did have two incidents causing damage to aircraft this year, one was ground handling of a glider, the other was a motor glider starting an engine too late and ending up in a less than ideal paddock after it didn't start. Thankfully no damage to people. This was another lesson from an experienced person getting caught out by the basics, in this case, not choosing a paddock early enough and not being aware of their height above ground.

In other news, I've been selected to defend the Trans-tasman trophy at the Multiclass Nationals held in Benalla, just north of Melbourne. We'll be heading off very early January, with the contest starting 7th Jan. This year it looks like we'll be flying an ASW20 or LS8. It's not hot over there at that time of year is it? Oh good. Thanks to those who have offered to help out and crew while I'm there.

The Pawnee is going to be out of action for a bit, due to a problem with the undercarriage which happend while we were giving 20 students flights. A replacement is being sorted out while it's fixed. Thanks Iggy for sorting that one out promptly.

And now, I leave you with some pics from the final days of the contest.

Tim

The mighty Lak taunted by yet another evening wave

The three Disci pilots, Dave, John and Tim

The final night banquet. Bob and Iggy being manly men cutting meat.

Ralph receiving his FAI Paul Tissandier award

John awarding Steve with the prize for winning the open class