Firstly
a big thanks to Brian & Anne who's administration roles
made the whole week work brilliantly, there is no doubt
their contribution is what made the competition possible.
David Higgs and Mick Maloney had the unenviable task
each night ensuring the scoring was correct as well as
helping many pilots submit their logs. Neil Muspratt spent
all of his time at the airfield standing behind the bar
serving. Garrett Russell also put in a big week keeping the
flight line under control. Thanks to you all.
Practice
day. Karl Bodie. 209km at 83km/hr total flight time 3hr03min
Low point around 1500' and a couple of 2000' points. Run
to finish line at 110 knots.
Day
one. Alan Graham.
248km at 81 km/hr 3hr 04min on task 3hr57min total flight
time. A low point of around 1000' near the Bunya
Mountains. Another couple of low spots below 1500 feet had
us well practiced in paddock selection. The inbound call
to Chinchilla 20km
from the airfield at 3500 feet above
ground made for a quiet glide to the finish line.
Day
two. Nathan Cornwell. _km at _km/hr. 1hr 43 min
duration. After struggling for height before the
start we finally made a start at about 3000' AGL. Gliding
toward Miles we passed 2 single seaters returning home.
Another weak thermal up to 3000' had us back on track.
However the weak conditions and low heights convinced me
to return to Chinchilla, where gravity
eventually won. We did score, 17km. Mick Maloney and I
still managed to retrieve a Twin. The Bundaberg Twin
outlanded a few km from the airfield.
Day
Three. Neil Muspratt. 210km at 85 km/hr 2hr 20min
on task 2hr 46min total. On task we had a bit of a
struggle early getting away from 1200' at one stage. We
then had a great run with strong thermals until about 30km
from home we had to take a weak thermal under an overcast
sky to make final glide. That was our 2nd flight. The
first flight saw us being launched first, struggling to
get away. After trying to gain height in vein for half
an hour at 1000' or
less we gave in and joined the end of the queue for a
relight.
Day
four. Lindsay Mitchell. This was going to be an interesting flight
right from when Lindsay's phone started ringing as
we commenced the ground run. 256km at ....... oops we
outlanded. Only about 10 km from the airfield. We
had had a great run, strong thermals, long glides 20km or
more without thermalling. Just past Condamine we had a
discussion, disagreement on which way we should continue.
I won, taking us another 10km further from Chinchilla.
What neither of us knew was that the battery had about
another 20 minutes of power left. So with 40km still
to go our varios fell silent. We were only about 500' too
low to make it back to the airfield. A nice paddock was
selected, we parked right next to Pierce Mitchell's
Mosquito. Lindsay did mention something about 'if only
we hadn't flown so far from Chinchilla', but I wasn't
listening.
Day
five. Simon Descovich 4hr 36min for 4h on task
covering 296km at 73km/hr. Best flight of the comp. The
first 150km gave us great streeting and strong thermals.
Ask Simon what
it feels like to pass up a 5 knot thermal and
he'll no doubt tell you it was nothing compared to flying
straight through 10 knot thermals because we had enough
height. Averaging 100km/hr gave us a huge amount of
confidence turning back toward Chinchilla, 100km and one
hour to go. We then fell to a great looking paddock and
checked it out from 1500'. A climb back to near cloud-base
renewed the confidence of penetrating into the 20 knot
headwind. Then the battery went dead. 60km
from home 4000' No varios, again. We continued on,
trying to feel the thermals when we spotted someone
thermalling. As soon as we got to their thermal they left.
We proceeded to try and feel our way up the thermal when
we were joined by David Higgs in the Gympie K21, the
Boonah Twin joined
us, then more gliders till there were six gliders all in
our thermal. We followed them to the next thermal and then safely made
it home.
