Regionals 2012 Underway

Our first day of flying for the Northern Regional Champs was yesterday. The weather gods decided to taunt us with a layer of cloud for most of the morning that defied all forecasts. This did eventually open up, and we launched around 1:30. Our original task was a 300km AAT task, with a 15km circle around SH60 and 25km around Tihoi. This changed on the grid to the task you see on soaring spot. The club and open classes had the same task.

On launch, cloudbase wasn't very high, and didn't really change much over the course of the flight. Climbs were weak to start with and in the valley between Putararu and Tokoroa. We had two landouts, both single Discus - one in lower Atiamuri, the other at Tokoroa.

My flight went well, with low points near Tokoroa on the way down and up. Highpoint was near Mangaikino of 4800 feet, which was a good height to get back over the forest back to Tokoroa. As I was quite slow, I reached the bottom turn point at 4:45. With an oninous warning at the weather breifing we should be on final glide by 4:30, I wasn't optimistic. Things were certainly starting to thin out considerably south of Tirau.

The view of Tokoroa north. A nice big gap.

North of Tirau, there was plenty of cloud, and with a 10 knot north westerly, the ridge was also helpful to get home. We just had to get there.

In the end there was a rough climb over the papermill, which got us to a small line of cloud at Litchfield. Only 1 knot there, which died after a few minutes, but that was enough to grab a better climb over the forest at Ngatira. From there it was a flight along the ridge and home.

In the end it was only Bob and myself who got around from the club class, with Steve, Ian, Connal and Bill making it around from the Open class. What was meant to be a 2 hour task took me 3 hours. Overall a challenging, but enjoyable day. Results are available here:

http://soaringspot.com/nznr2012/results/club/daily/day1.html

http://soaringspot.com/nznr2012/results/open/daily/day1.html

Tim