Hello Soaring Enthusiasts.

It’s the end of Day 3 at the Nationals and I have been so busy, or so exhausted I have failed to keep up. Surely I am not slowing with age?

At the beginning of practice day we only had 24 entries and had 3 towplanes organized to service this fleet. The rule of thumb is 1 tow plane per 8 entries to allow an hour for a fleet launch.

By the end of the day a further 8 entries had been received! Needless to say there was a lot of grumpiness from this Director as he asked the committee for another towplane. In to the night, Chairman Bill was on his phone negotiating the use of Taranaki’s Pawnee and a special “Flying squad” to leave at 7am on Monday to take a pilot to fly the tug to Matamata. A heartfelt thanks for those who stepped up and met the challenge.

As usual we had a number of pilots (funnily some repeat offenders) who ...
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Day 2 Day prizes were presented to the 4 classes being contested.

18 metre
Standard
Club
Sports

The Transtasman “winners free breakfast” was awarded to Ozzie Matt Gage for his excellent first days performance. This competition is supposed to be a competition between a Kiwi and an Ozzie.
In this competition one talks with a Pommie accent, the other a Canadian! Does this mean that “down under” is being flooded by foreigners?

Mmm not so hot in the forecast and blue(no cloud) conditions forecast along with some brisk winds. At noon it was just 20C and it had been calculated we needed 24+ to trigger thermals. After 1pm it was decided that the Sports Class being at the back of the grid would not have much of a chance if launching was started at 2pm.
Sports class day was cancelled.

At 1:45pm a local club flight was launched for what many saw as a sledge ride back to earth….From release it immediately contacted lift and reported 7knots on the variometer …A task was rushed out and the fleet launch started less than 30 minutes later… A lot of gliders flying together started off into a totally blue sky ...
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