38th Australian Club and Sports Class Nationals at Lake Keepit
As shared by US Soaring Teams 3 women from the USA practice this season.
” Top National and International pilots have already registered, it is shaping like a great event.“
Day 11..task 10 ;
Sports class 476 km.;Pete [Temple] in his 18 m. ASG 29 flew around with 145 km./h.; 994 points for him. No secret who won the 1000 points: Adam who flew around with 139.50 km./h., but his handicap is 1030, Pete’s 1075.
Peter[Trotter] was at spot 3 and moved up to the same spot overall, as Ailsa lost nearly 200 points on spot 10. BUT she is still on 4 , with nearly 300 points on Lisa[Turner] .
The other Pre World girls; Kath did very well on 4 , Lisa [Turner] on 6, Lisa [Trotter] on 8,Diana on 14, Akemi on 16 and Kerrie on 19 after an out-landing after 412 km..
A challenging day with lightning and thunder.
As shared by Kath who did well on this day.
The adventurous story from Simon, I read it with a big smile. It’s not all hosanna during a good competition!
“We only had to do two things. Fly our gliders from Lake Keepit, up along a nice valley, turn left and track overhead Moree, then another left turn to track home over Mt Kaputar – 470km. Admittedly that is about 5000′ high, but should not be too hard given the air was convecting to 8000′. Then the storm hit. That tends to kill convection all around it, and then the glider pilots end up in paddocks, normally far, far away. That is bad for the crew who then have to come and get you. I heard bleating noises over the wireless from the pilots ahead who were getting shot down near Mt Kaputar, so I deviated about 50km west. Then the storm came to meet me. I wandered around rain showers, slowly weaving my way back to Keepit. At one point I ran into heavy rain, which is bad, because the water drops on the wing interfere with the glide performance. But I pushed on and within 20km of finish I could see, and hear on the radio, that Keepit airstrip was being hit by storm, wind, dust, rain, hail, pestilence, plague, and probably pox. It was too dangerous to land there, so I had to make other arrangements. I think I remember telling Miss Elliott (she wore a red tartan skirt with a large kilt pin) in kindergarten that when I grew up I wanted to land a glider at Gunnedah. So I turned right for the 20 km trip. The computer in the glider said I could make it, but my Mark 1 Eyeball wasn’t so sure. I pushed on and got proper low, but that worked out OK because the strong wind was giving me a bit of ridge lift down low. I squeaked into Gunnedah airport, and the beautiful Sue was there in half hour with a smile and beer to take me home. This morning [Friday]Diana and I are going over in the Bellanca Scout tug to drag me and the glider back to Keepit, so that we can do it all again today.”
club class; one of the USA girls called the day FAST AND FURIOUS.
Where were the men??? ….. the first 5 places were for the women, with Sabrina upfront, a good “omen” for the WWGC next year. The overseas pilots” FEEL ” Lake Keepit now. Those who are there, are blessed with the know how they have NOW, for next year.
Allan in the SZD 55 was on spot 6. Still 908 points. Not an easy day as you can read in Allan’s OLC comment;
“Day 10 of the Nationals. Stressful day at the end. Day was forecast to storm so I wanted to go fairly early but not so early that Ray could run me down on the first two legs. Ended out leading out a biggish gaggle and got away from most of them but the storm over Kaputar became pretty huge. I had a choice on the final leg- fly well right towards Pilliga and come around the long way, or try and work the energy on the leading edge of the storm. I went for the storm – there was a big red dust cloud going up and I figured that would be where the lift was. But I got flushed, almost landed at Narrabri before finding something. Got into a convergence line but fell off the end of it into horrendous sink – thought I was landing again near Boggabri but managed to find a strong climb to final glide in among the lightning. Ridiculously stressful!”
Day 12 task 11; LAST DAY!!!!!
Sports class; 3 hour AAT and as good juniors and former juniors do,..they help each other. So do the Joey’s. Adam is one of the founders of JOEY GLIDE . And this weekend JoeyGlide starts for an other edition with 29 young ones in 2 classes. GOOD !!!! Practice day yesterday on Saturday with 2.30 AAT from the airfield of Waikirie.
Today was cancelled due to poor weather, talking in junior language the day was “canned”.
Back to Keepit, Ailsa, who had lost her 3d place and Adam left together about 10 minutes after most others, to see if combined efforts could help her back. They both flew exactly 3 hours ,…good on them…. and though Ailsa flew 5 km. more the points were close; Adam 1000 and Ailsa 930. That was 36 points MORE than Peter [Trotter] who was the new overall number 3 the day before, with 34 points ahead. So some thrilling moments before the final overall scores would be there!!! It just worked out!!
Peter was 5th for the day so Ailsa was on spot 3 with 2 POINTS DIFFERENCE!!!!
Final scores after 12 day’s[ including 1 compulsory rest-day], so 11 tasks!!!! Not bad.
1. Adam Woolley with .10.684 p. Winning 9 of the 11 day’s!!! Chapeau!!!
2. Pete Temple with 10.255 p.
3. Ailsa McMillan with 9.350 p.
4. Peter Trotter with 9.348 p.
5. Lisa Turner with 9.034 p.
Lisa Trotter was on 6, Diana on 15 , Kerrie on 16, Kath on 17 and Akemi on 18.
Adam was happy;”Sports Class National Champion! The competition couldn’t have gone better, yet I still can’t quite believe it myself. As you know, I’ve put a lot of effort into this over the years & it’s nice to feel/see it all finally coming together.I think the biggest part of my recent success has not only come from the WGC’s recently, but from my now confidence in myself, & a true belief, but the biggest thing I think is that I’ve let go of my, Fear of failure.”
More in his Adam Woolley’s Gliding Adventures
the top 3 Adam, Pete and Ailsa
as shared by Lake Keepit Soaring Club
Club class; 3 hour AAT, and with 350 km. Ray [Stewart] was the best as he was back in his Discus only 3 min. late; 1000 points.Sabrina was runner up in her LS 4 with ONE point less ;999. Allan was 3d, lost around 30 points , but no worries he had more than enough to win.
Final scores after 11 day’s of flying:
1. Allan Barnes with 10.133 p. He won 3 day’s.
2. Ray Stewart with 9.875 p. and won 3 day’s as well.
3. Sabrina Vogt with 9.665 p. and won 2 day’s nearly 3 as she missed out on 1 point on the last day.
4. Jo Davis with 9.435 p.
5. Jenny Ganderton with 9.096 p.
All day’s were flyable with good tasks. It really showed what’s possible for next years WWGC. Try to be there then.
Only happy pilots and crew, the organization should be proud.
Picture shared by the ladies from team USA.
Happy champion, Allan, runner up Ray and 3d place pilot Sabrina.
As shared by Lake Keepit Soaring Club
“Forget the Australian Sports Class Nationals, check out today’s speeds at the New Zealand Multi-Class Nationals!!” is what Adam said last Thursday.
So let’s quickly go there for their last day’s!!
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NEW ZEALAND MULTI CLASS NATIONALS.
” The airfield gets a bit of extra water! ” [ at 6.34 PM]
Photo Neil Alison
Open:
On task 8 last Wednesday there were no scores,as I had to leave early, so here is what happened.
“We have very strong Westerly wave for today and AAT‘s.”
Max Stevens [ Ventus 2C ], new face at the podium , NOT in competition soaring, won the day and he really did; 144.91 km./h over 495 km. He started at 17.22.
Keith was the first to start at 16.24 but out-landed.
The runner up , Derek Kraak [ASG 29e] had 91.67 km./h over 376 km. He landed at 20.21!!!
Weird day and late !!
On task 9 , 3 hour AAT…”a miracle” happened!!!! During a competition a speed of 206 km./h. over 620 km. is stunning even in wave. That’s less than 3 hours!!!!!Who else than Keith, can make such a flight.
His comment on the OLC; “Ripping wave task. Had to go to the back of all the cylinders and still landed back a little early.”When he calls the day, with all his wave experience a ripper, it WAS a ripper!!!!
The organizers wrote on FB;”Keith Essex smoked around a handicap distance of 620.2 km at an average of 206.7 km/h! His non-handicap distance was just over 600 km and speed was 202 km/h. That is a very high average speed for such a long distance.”
But ….he was not the only fast one, the others were fast too.
The 2 Duo Discus’ flew around with 186 km./h. WOW!!!! Not baaaadddd!!!!
Task 10; with the message :”We are now up to Task D – which I am just trying to print out now!”
374 km set task and Keith left half an hour after most and won the day with 135 km./h.
2 Did not finish and 2 did not fly.
Omarama WAVE…forming.
Gliding NZ National Multi-Class Championships – Omarama
Racing class;
Task 8; 3 hour AAT and not Nick who was 3d , not Vaughan who was runner up, but Terry Jones in an LS 8 was the day-winner so also here a new face at the top. So about 1000 points ahead in the end seems not possible for Nick , but no worries, it ‘s good as it is!!! More than good!!!
Task 9 , also good old Tony van Dyke knows how to fly in wave; In his LS 8 he flew around over 527 km. with a speed of 173 km./h. !!!! And that was 10 km./h. faster than the runner up Vaughan with 165 km./h. in an LS 6 !!!.
And what about 124.48 km./h in the Libelle??? Crazy!!
Task 10; The launch has finally started with Task D for both classes as the Easterly has pushed in faster than first thought.
5 competitors left in this class and Nick won the day;121 km./h over 324 km. Tony was runner up.
There was no day 11, no LAST DAY!!!
“Drop zones would be a problem today. The weather is taskable but getting everyone away from the normal drop zones close to Omarama is predicted to be difficult. The only reliable way would be very long tows to Magic Mountain. In the end, given that it is the last day and we have had a lot of good flying, the task for today has been cancelled.”
So here are the final results after a good 9 out of 11 day’s;
Open;
1. Keith Essex in ASG 29 with 8.166 points
2. Scarlat & McCormack in DUO DISCUS W with 6.045 p.
3. Derek Kraak in ASG 29 E with 5.928 p. Unhandicapped Derek would have been runner up.
Racing;
1. Nick Oakley in Discus 2 with 8.132 points, so still a huge margin.
2. Vaughan Ruddick in LS 6 with 7.264 p.
3. Tony van Dyk in LS 8 with 6.462 p.
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL.
As shared by Gliding NZ National Multi-Class Championships – Omarama
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—Morgan Sandercocks great flight in the ARCUS M [ 2.321 km.] last Wednesday got a reaction from his country man Matthew in Australia. Matthew is from Sky Sight and this is his picture and reaction;
Looks like a perfect match!
Morgan Sandercock‘s 2300km flight yesterday, overlaid on the SkySight forecast using the new SkySight IGC Upload function.
On the OLC Morgan said in his comment:
“Thank you Dennis for letting me use your glider. And crew. And towplane.
This day appeared to have a low probability of working when we looked at the forecast. The lift bands didn’t seem to be linked up properly and there was a lot of cloud on the forecast. The links between the lift bands were not a problem at all. We were able to maintain a high average speed despite jumping gaps every 50km. We never got low. The clouds were very concerning. For eleven hours we were looking at a wall of cloud coming over the Andes from Chile that threatened to engulf us at any moment. The big stacked lenticulars behind us were also threatening. Several times we had to maneuver around clouds.
Thank you also to Brad, my copilot, who did half of the flying and to Mendoza Air Traffic Control who monitored us on the radio for the entire flight.”
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—More great flights;
January 9; 1.221 km. from Serres in France by Klaus [Ohlmann] in the Stemme S10.
Worcester still had 1000 km’s too, one in an 18 m. Discus 2T.
January 10; South Africa was “HOT” and the place to be that day was Worcester. Super flights ; 1. 332 km. in a DISCUS 2T/18m. and in the ARCUS T. They planned the flight together and must have enjoyed it very much. The longest flights EVER from Worcester. The German pilots Lucas Blattmann in the Discus and Philip Goralski and Juergen Zuhlke had 148 and 150 speed on the “clock”.
5 from Gariep one of them by Stephan Bosch in an ASH 26E; 1.122 km. and a few over 900k.
January 11; Peter Raphael flew in Toc in the past and loved his ventage gliders.
I noticed that he flew 100 km. in a Hall, Cherokee II, during the Vintage Gliding Rally 2019 from Bordertown.
January 12; 3 declared FAI 750 flights from Tocumwal [nearly 800 OLC km’s] . Tougher than forecast though the first leg was fun! For Richard Traill the very first declared 750 task and for Lumpy and Butch , who arrived from Queensland to try records in Toc ,the so maniest.[one ASG 29 E /18m. and 2 JS 3’s]
They topped the OLC list world wide that day.
—As I said already, the Bitterwasser-season is after a fabulous year, nearly over with only in Bitterwasser 189 over 1000 km. flights , that’s not counting Kiripotik, Pokweni or Veronica, all in Namibia as well.
Here is now their news;
“The season in Bitterwasser is nearly over. 2 weeks are left for the guests to fly. So far 189 x 1.000 km could be recorded in Bitterwasser. A cold front in the south of Namibia only enables flights under 1.000 km in the last days. The temperatures stay relatively low and due to the lack of air humidity no clouds develop. Also the base is lower on these days. Nevertheless the pilots are flying. For sightseeing or in the hope that the well-known “Bitterwasser weather” will develop better than predicted. We are looking forward for the forecast for the beginning of next week and of course for the 2nd pool party!”
More next Wednesday about JoeyGlide, and the Club Class Nationals from Chaves in Argentina.
Cheers Ritz,……it’s fun all those comps!!!