Queen Birthday Weekend Precision Landing Contest report.
Saturday got off to a brisk start with a keen bunch showing up to prove their paddock landing skills. Bill & Julian took turns in the back seat for those needing the reassurance of an instructor. Dave Dennison put himself to work between launches creating a formula in Xcel to decide the winner based on how far short or long, left or right of the mark the main wheel touched down. We observed a number of different approach techniques from high & steep to somewhat lower & faster. With a wide variety of results on display as well. Some took the opportunity to see if Bill had brought his longest tape measure with one landing reported to have been nearly 50m short of the mark. Others took a more conservative approach & cleared the imaginary fence by a wide margin with the resulting touchdown in the vicinity of 20m beyond the mark. Other results were scattered around the mark. The winch rope needed repairs at around 3:30, by the time repairs were complete the rest of the toys were back in the hangar and there was a small huddle around the computer all trying to see where they stood amongst the results. After the banter & trash talk had died down it was announced that Ben Helyer had won. Well done Ben. Ben has been a member of the club for 8 months so this is a huge result.
Sunday started with light rain on the field so the time in the hangar was not wasted as the winch crew had a few minor modifications to do. These completed and with the weather not quite cleared it was time for lunch in the clubrooms. With lunch & tall stories out of the way it was time to go flying. It seemed like PK had learnt from the previous days lessons as the results were generally much closer to the mark. We were also joined by a couple of powered aircraft later in the day. Case in RVC touched down around 15m long and Rainer in PFL had two attempts the first at about 18m & 8.5m on the second. With the last glider launch at around 1650 and everything packed away a similar huddle gathered around Dave’s computer to put an end to the speculation. It turned out that yours truly had taken the honours by a small margin.
A big thanks needs to go to Bill for instructing both days assisted by Julian on Saturday, Kent Muckle for retrieving gliders both days. The winch driving was shared between Neil, Jamie & myself.
