A rather good day yesterday, a few landouts up north, but strong conditions south.

Some pics available here from one of the guys doing the longer task.

http://discuscs.blogspot.com/2010/11/task-week-day-3-day-1-for-me.html

We had a very interesting day 2 at the XCountry course. A few landouts, a number of land backs, and crazy weather.

We started off optimistic however a trough didn't move away quite as quick as we would have liked, and the associated easterly wind isn't conducive to good thermals. The advice from our intrepid yet remote weather man was to go south, and the first half of the day this was very true, with North looking rather shabby indeed.

"for they didst gaze out apon the assembled murk to the North and declare that, yea, it looketh like poo. Southward they didst go!" were the wise words from David. Followed by a 4pm of "And lo! The showers didst arrive, though in a Slightly Patchy manner, and yet only of a Mild annoyance to those on Final Glide from the South".

A small 75km task was set for Waharoa, Arapuni, Tirau, Waharoa. We had cold easterly wind cutting off thermals around the airfield, but those who got away faired better, with a few getting around. Bad luck Bob, landing out at the spud patch.

Later in the day things change a lot, with the south over developing, raining in places, and the Te Aroha area turning into booming conditions. Finally after everyone was back or being retrieved it rained on us here at the airfield.

Where we tasked to

Where we didn't task to

Many of the usual suspects

Trev Terry's glider seems to always gets in the way of good photos

Today is the first day of the XCountry course, and it's starting look pretty good weather!  We had a briefing last night that included a paddock landing from Steve. Jan cooked up monster burgers that were pretty impressive.

Don't forget towing is available all week, and most of our club single seaters will be available for QGP holders. 

Wednesday and the weekend will have normal club flying.

Things are really starting to pick up weather wise, and to prove it we've got the XCountry course coming up just over a week away.

Well the Taupo central plateau competition is over and it was a goodie. We had just 11 competitors so it was quite small, but the weather didn't turn out too bad, with us flying all days except one. Also I've learned how to spell plateau properly.  A big thanks to the Taupo gliding club, especially Trev and Tom for putting on a great and well organised event, Roland for doing an excellent job with the weather (there were no beatings or lashings this time). From our club thanks to Harold for towing, Les, Phil and Mavis for travelling down to help out.

Final results are at http://www.soaringspot.com/cpnz2010/results/open/total/day5.html

XCountry Course - Mon 22nd Nov to Friday 26th Nov

The Matamata Soaring Centre runs the task week and XCountry course. For our club members not participating we have towing all week, with instructors rostered on the normal club flying days. If you're GQP you are welcome to come fly anytime, if you're not QGP, you'll need an instructor around on the field. From our club we have a number of instructors instructing on this course.

At the same time as the XCountry course is "task week" for more experienced pilots. During this week there will be tasks set every day.

Regional Competition - Sat 27th Nov to Sat 4th Dec

Following the XCountry course we have the Norther Regional Competition. There is still time to enter, and we have at this stage of the club ships we only have GXP entered with GPC, GPK, GNI and GSN available. If no one enters these they will be available during the week, again non QGP will need to fly normal club days or find an instructor.

For both events we need helpers, especially to help launch the grid, so if you have some free time please come on out. Perhaps get in touch with Les, Bill or Bob if you can help.

One request from Tim especially during the contest, if you're flying club gliders please ensure everything is put back in the hanger afterwards, and leave room at the front for GXP.

Hooray for better weather, and hope everyone makes their way out at some stage soon.

After a no-fly practice day, and a practice day on day one, we finally had a proper contest day. It proved to be tougher than imagined, with no one getting around the task.

From our club Alan and Tim are competing in a field of 11.

Rob our contest scorer is writing up news and all the results are available on soaring spot:

http://www.soaringspot.com/cpnz2010/

With a bit of luck, tomorrow will be improved

Anyone want to go for a fly with Richie McCaw? There's an auction underway on trademe.

We had a great weekend, Whenuapai turned up in droves, the sun was out, and it was hot. There weren't as many fluffy clouds as we would have liked, but it was good fun anyway. If anyone has any exciting pics from the weekend, please send them in.

The Taupo Central Plateau Competition is starting this weekend. Alan, Brett, Tim, Les, Harold & Mavis, and Fin are heading down so Piako is well represented. Looking at the forecast the beginning of the week might turn out OK. We'll do an update later in the week.

We're flying this long weekend, Sat, Sun and Mon, and the weather forecast is looking really good. There isn't any training on, so both twins and all 3 singles will be available all weekend.

If you are planning on coming out, make a booking if you can, just so we can decide whether to have 2 instructors on or not for each day.

If you have any friends/family who might like to go for a fly, this will probably be a good weekend to do it! Don't forget they fly at club rates.

Whenuapai Gliding Club is joining us for the weekend, so we can aim to get some good flying with them in.

Our third parachute has arrived, meaning we can fly all three singles without chute issues now.

Whatever you're doing, have a great weekend, and we hope to see you out there.

Actually thermals kind of never got going, but Edouard, Phil and Dave managed to make a good go of it. Good one guys! And at least the sun is out finally. A course training also went well. Tomorrow looks like an even better day, maybe see you out there.

Full set of photos available on our flickr page

GVW

BZA

GSN

GPC