Another great day! Better than forecast even, with the task to the north east, then to the west. We had an AAT task, and many including myself ended up back home early, which cost us speed. If you get back early, you're scored as though it took the task time of 3 hours.

Mark in the Lebelle came first again, and myself second. The score chart eerily similar to yesterday and can be seen here:
http://www.soaringspot.com/nzclub2013/results/club/daily/day2.html 

Don't forget the contest directors blog for more frequent updates during the day, so you can glide vicariously.
http://2013clubclass.blogspot.co.nz/2013/02/day-too-too-good-to-sit-on-ground-last.html

Tomorrow has a chance of being rained out, although after a beautiful evening here, it's hard to imagine.

The Club Class nationals has started in Taupo. This year we have 11 fearless competitors.

The practice day yesterday went well, with a good run out over the forests to the east of Taupo.

Today was even better, although tricky at times especially north where the thermals were softer and harder to core. We went up to Tirau, then down to the bottom of lake Taupo. There was a bit of wind at times making the thermals tricky to find, but there were definitely a few goodies in there.

Everyone bar one made it back home, with a couple of landbacks.

Results online here:
http://www.soaringspot.com/nzclub2013/results/club/daily/day1.html

Roy the contest director is writing a blog, with updates in the morning and when we get back from flying. Follow it at:
http://2013clubclass.blogspot.co.nz

Tomorrow looks like another good day. Here are some pics from today.

Heading south down the western side of Lake Taupo

Exciting stuff. I must remember to take photos of people.

A half panorama of the mountains.

The audacious contest director Roy, and unflinching Adrian Cable

I just had to write something before turning in tonight and let everyone know what a wonderful day we had at Matamata celebrating Waitangi Day – gliding club style!

28 flights had Iggy spending more time at the fuel pumps than he would on 6 Wednesdays and a little distraught by the fact his maintenance scheds for BZA had been blown to bits by such unexpected activity! A big days flying and huge thanks for the continuous effort delivering us into thermals on a blue day!

It started at 9:30 or so for Geoff Taylor - ever the enthusiast and consummate early-bird that he is – by the time I rolled in at 11 or so he had the entire hangar empty with help from Iggy, Will, Kim & David Muckle. An empty hangar deserved a sweep out so Peter gave me a hand to spoof it up bit – thanks for that.

Will must have seen a big day coming as he turned up with a gazebo so the launch point was looking pretty special. Dave and Bill had the Thermalling contest rules on a blackboard so we could all study them and pretty soon it seemed to those of us that thought we might have a crack, that a strategy needed to be adopted that ensured the really experienced pilots in hot ships (like Bill in RR, Robin Britton in  NV, Alan Belworthy in RY, Bob Gray in YL, Ralph Gore in VC, Morrie Beale in JD needed to be kept occupied or delayed on the grid to ensure their chances were kept slim whilst Will, David, myself could get away and do our thing.

Sure enough plenty of trial flighters turned up meaning Bob was hung out to dry in PC from the get go and he racked up 9 flights for his day with 3hrs 9 mins time – good practice for the coming Taupo comp, and even better for the rest of us because YL never saw the light of day (1 down)! Realising that we were needing a hand in the instructor department to get the grid queue down, Bill was asked to help, and he was still going at 3:00pm and starting to look anxious about his attempt at his own contest, whilst the formally mentioned “lesser lights” had managed to wangle their way to the front of the grid (2 down – nearly)! Poor Morrie nearly wore a hole in the ground pacing around on the grid as the twins kept being dragged to the front of the grid leaving him stranded! Behind him Robin who as smiling and patient as ever, was regretting the fact that her GPS batteries were flat so she couldn’t compete – ha! and she never even suspected us (3 & 4 down)! Meanwhile Alan Belworthy had disappeared eventually turning up more than 4 hours after departure – thankfully it seemed he had no intention of submitting an entry (5 down)!!

While all this was going on, Rob Munn got checked out and went off in NI, Peter Minor snaffled an idle PK (after its TF duties were done), Neil  exercised XP. None of these pilots were competing (6, 7 & 8 down).  Meantime,  Pieter got PC back with Bob for another 3 circuits. However Bob changed that by stepping out for the last one and giving Pieter the “of you go lad”. SOLO!!!!

Congratulations and well done Pieter – It was fitting that his was the last launch of the day, and given the contest and BBQ following, a nice crowd was on hand at the grid to share the moment. It was great to hear the spontaneous applause from the sidelines when he opened the canopy - that’s the way it should be in a supportive and caring group when someone achieves a milestone.

Today also  saw two temporary members return for a second flight and it seems pretty certain that one of them, local farmer Nigel Brinkworth, will join us very soon, I spotted him with Bill ticking some things off on an A syllabus  -  the other is a holidaying English power pilot Robert Osborn who totally loved the his experience thermalling in the valley, having taken his first flight at Raglan. Two others(Justine & Matt) took their first TF and it seems certain they will return too!

After the flying was all over, well nearly - Alan was still out there somewhere having an epic day – the barbecue was lit and 20 or so gathered around the patio for a great get-together! It would have been even better if we had actually announced that, despite our best attempts,  Bill had won the contest with 5 thermal climbs of 1000’ within the 40 min period, but somehow that didn’t happen. I was there however, when Bill stood in front of his bar fridge deciding which bottle of wine he should present himself with!!!!! Well done mate – and more importantly, many thanks for coming up with the idea. The whole day was only conceived last Saturday evening when Dave suggested having a Barbie on Waitangi day, Bill jumped in with let’s have a thermaling contest, and the rest is history!

I don’t have the full results but will get them published next week – I think Dave was second with 4 ( it was fun scheming how to keep Bill out mate, but you can’t keep a good man down – Neil’s idea of letting RR’s tyres down might have been the way to go). Quite where the results went from there I don’t know, but I was given my gps back without comment- clearly 2 didn’t cut it! The best result was the turnout on the day – competing or not!

A fantastic day, and thanks to all the helpers for pitching in when the duty pilot no-showed. Thanks as well  to Dave’s partner Mary for food/kitchen work and anybody I may have missed.

See you for this one next year!

By now you will have read your emails - yes I jest of course!!! :-)

So for those who's taste is a blog rather than mail this is for you!!

Watangi Day 6 February 2013 - we are having a thermalling contest - Bill's Aussie rules apply - should he be allowed to enter? See survey below for your vote on this!!

Then we are having a barbie after - Dave Muckle is setting the rules on this one but the rumour is $5.00 for a Bills Beaut Butchers BBQ Pattie and stuffings in  a Big Burger Bun - bring money for this and the bar, and a wife or two would be most welcome - its a fun day people - join us.

It has been great to be flying in the valley again after the Raglan "fiasco" and haven't the thermals been a treat? Lets hope Wed in 10knot Southerlies after 2 wet days is really superb. Well we could run the thermalling contest on the simulator - but Bill built it so that would be rigged as well............ I am sure it will be fun whatever we do!!

SEE YOU THERE!!!!

Click here to vote if you think Bill should or should not be allowed to enter the thermalling contest - remember he flies a LAK ............

Keep clicking ........

Ah it's great to be back in NZ, at work, and in temperatures that are less than 43 degrees.

I'd like to say thanks to everyone who helped during the contest in Australia:

• To everyone who sent me texts, emails, facebooks of help, advice and support.
• The Mike Rix Trust for helping with airfares to Australia.
• The racing committees in NZ and Australia for all their help organising.
• Ian Grant for the use of his glider, and the days spent crewing for me and helping out.
• Ian McCallum, for being such a great opponent.
• Benalla gliding club, for their support, letting me use the airfield cars and sorting out accomodation, and help with all the competition paperwork.
• Bryan Hayhow, Andy Smith, and the Maddocks crew for all their help, and keeping me entertained on non flying days.

Today I learned I should have left the trophy in Australia, as it will be flown there again next year, and that would have saved shipping. Doh! So if anyone wants(!) to take it over to Aussie, let me know.

I'll be doing a write up for the next magazine.

MetService rural weather forecast charts coming back soon

MetService have updated their website, and the rural weather lost it's great little temperature and rain charts. I really like these, they gave a good indicator how stable the day will be, and how fast it will get hot. Good news, they'll be coming back soon.

Club Class Competition & MSC Comp in Taupo

Final call for anyone entering the NZ National Club Class Competition, or the Matamata Soaring Centre competitions. Early bird entries must be in before the end of January. Enter here:

http://www.taupoglidingclub.co.nz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55:cpsc-2012-newsletter-entry&catid=2:competition-detail&Itemid=9 

Current list of entries are as follows, we currently have Brett, Edouard, Bob and myself going from Piako:

http://www.soaringspot.com/nzclub2013/pilots/
http://www.soaringspot.com/msc2013/pilots/

Today ended up a no fly day. Which means... dum dum DUM... we have won the Tasman Trophy for New Zealand. All in all, I'm rather chuffed. This is the third time a NZ pilot has won in Australia, which evens it up, as it's also three times also an Aussie has won in NZ. Final scores:

Tim Bromhead 5495
Ian McCallum 5361 

Today we waited around for a long time. After an hour or so from our start time we sent up two sniffers. They both came back a short while later. We waited another hour. The 15m and standard classes were placed at the front, and they cancelled the open and 18m classes at the back. Then they switched our class to the backup B task which was shorter. Then after 3 hours the whole thing was cancelled.

We then had a mass derigging of all the gliders.

The final dinner and prize giving tonight was great, with 116 people total.

I was given a big round of applause for winning the Tasman Trophy, while one of the organisers John waved a NZ flag in a rather depressed sad way as I walked up.

I have a huge list of people to thank for making this trip happen, which I'll follow up with soon! Right now I have to vacuum the cabin, as we're off to Melbourne first thing tomorrow morning. Yes it's a glamourous life at a gliding contest...

40 degrees with 20 knot winds, and no lift!

Ian Grant helping put VTM in the trailer

The awards table. Some very impressive trophies.

A great bunch of people, who I hope to see again soon.

I think I finally saw a snake in the wild!

I have no idea how to fly it yet, but we have a task, we'll be out on the grid soon. There is a cold front coming through sometime today, so we just don't know what will happen really.

Task is a 2.5 hour AAT, you can see here:
http://www.soaringspot.com/ausmulti13/results/15-meter/task/day8.html

I'll have my SPOT tracker operating, you can see here:
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0A22JxOZH5zbv2PqH8Ys1UfrHWRqxHzOX  

Scores will come in after we land, and be available here:
http://www.soaringspot.com/ausmulti13/results/15-meter/daily/day8.html

Thanks for all the support from everyone, I'll post an update after our dinner and prize giving tonight!