THE END

Hello Sports fans.

Its all over including the shouting.

At the final dinner "debt collector" Theo, extracted some more dosh for the local Search and Rescue Volunteers.   The objective wa sto make enough so that they could have a "Grab & Go" kit for hillside rescues that they could take with them on the Helicopter or whatever when they had a mission on a hillside.

Included in a specicial Pack would be such items as bolt/tube cutters, saws, stabalisation equipments, patient protection equipment and all the things they need for such operations

It was gratifying to see that $1855 ish was raised for that worthy cause.

With only one road retrieve from Wanaka-which saw Ben,Tony & Russell arrive back at 11pm - some 70 odd bods enjoyed a fine meal-and had to put up with me raving on and organising the prizes.

This was my last stint as Contest Director at Omarama(my first was 2007 and next months Club Class Nationals will be my last stint as Contest Director. A journey I started some 10 years ago in Matamata.
Time for a new, enthusiastic member of the gliding fraternity to meet fabulous people and be involved in an amazing activity. I can recommend it as a satisfying experience.  As I have been quoted, "its like herding cats". Getting so many diverse personalities all heading in the same direction. For me immensly satisfying.

Now to the numbers.
You can see the final scores on the website http://glidingcomps.42.net.nz/nat2011/index.php

The trophies were awarded and thanks to the Aussie Battler's Janeen for presenting the prizes.

Broadlands Cup, winner of 15m  Dane Dickinson
Court Trophy, highest placed FAI Standard class  Dane Dickinson
Messervy Trophy, most Meritorious Flight over a triangular course, Dane Dickinson Day 6.
Rix Memorial Trophy, highest placed pilot under 25, Dane Dickinson(last time he can win it he says)

Georgeson Trophy, winner of 18 metre class, Grae Harrison
Berkett Trophy, highest placed pilot from the other island, Grae Harrison

Wills Cup, presented by Gavin Wills with the story behind the trophy, awarded to Doug Hamilton/Karen Morgan

Hansell Trophy - most meritorious flight, awarded to George Wills, Day 6 almost home.

Continental Airlines Trophy, longest speed task, awarded to Mike Oakley & Crew, day 4 456kms

Hookings Trophy, Most meritorious flight not a triangle  awarded to Billy Walker, Day 3 144.3 kph
Richardson Trophy, highest average speed, Billy Walker, Day 3 144.3 kph

Veterans Trophy, highest placed pilot over 60, Warren Dickinson

The Tasman Trophy - New Zealand - Care of Tony Passmore.

Thats it from me and I wish you all good flying

Keep it up!

DAY 6 and Flying

The Day started very well with forecast giving good thermal activity albeit a bit blue.

Messrs Kraak, McCaw & McCaw started off the front of the grid to do the task plus a bit to get in a 500km thermal day. 2 or 3 the tree landed out while the third got around the first turnpoint and a third of the way on leg 2 before scratching his way home.  The tenacity we like to see in a rugby player.

The launch was interesting with one lad dopping his rope grabbing hook which entailed a linup of grid guys walking line abreast from the next glider in line down the runway.  Then we had a towplane reporting smoke and waved off his glider at around 8/900 feet.  He retuned safely and the glider climbed away-fabulous.
With 6 towplanes and and 26 gliders to launch it didnt take long.

The day didnt perform as expected and our Aussie Battler lead the charge into airstrips.  At one stage we had 4 towplanes on retrieves.  Two towplanes had to refuel at Wanaka to achieve their tasks with one towplane doing retrieves from Minnaret station, Makaora and Mt Cook.

The "buggar" award surely went to George Wills who climbed to 8,000ft at Pukaki for his final glide and got shot down 12kms short of Omarama. A great effort.

Today looks good and forecast says better than yesterday. But task setters are a bit gunshy after yesterday's forecast didnt pan out as hoped.

Its an AAT task for all classes so we are looking forward to everyone getting back OK in time for tea and medals also know as final dinner and prizegiving.

To the grid to the grid to the grid grid grid.

Keep it up

Day 6 Almost

Unfortunately the weather didnt quite come up to expectations, the day was called at 2:30pm.
Just enought time for an intrepid team to hustle up four 4WD vehicles and a jet boat.

Then after a small overheating problem in the Ben Mobile, which gave an excuse to gather at the roadside near the Clearburn Strip. It was off to Turnpoint 46 in the Hopkins River Valley.

A most surprised lone tramper had his tranquil hut setting invaded. First by 4 vehicles and 14 "bods" then almost immediately by a jetboat bring another 3 somewhat wet and cold looking glider pilots.

On the way back the team metup with the more hardy mountain bikers, another half dozen sweaty looking glider pilots who where also out for a non flying day jaunt.

The weather started to look better at 6pm. It must have been OK as Gavin reported scratching around to Mt Aspiring and another local flight climbing to 13,500ft in the wave.  But definately was not a taskable day.  Honour was satisfied.

Today is the real Day 6 with sunny skys, good forecast and very positive task setting team.

Lex will be flying with Davie Speight in the mighty ASH GYJ, so scoring may be a bit delayed as the long wings task is 470.9kms and the Open class launches off the back of the grid and therefore starts later than the Std/15mtr "boys".

Brian the Aussie Battler is running a blog for his Aussie mates.
http://www.gfa.org.au/iMIS15/GFA/Sports_Content/Brians_Blog.aspx

First launch is estimated to be 12:30.  An early day by Omarama standards

Keep it up

DAY Seex dawns

Yesterday was a most challenging day.
Early on 2 pilots decided that tramping up the Ahuriri Valley offered a much more interesting day while one of our overseas pilots decided to take a friend for a fly in a Duo Discus.

Thank good ness there are a squillion sleek and tidy discii to accomodate such decisions.

I have to admit that at noon with overcast skies I was thinking they may have made the right decision.  But no, the forecasters weather duly arrived and in a skurry of activity 24 gliders were launched using 6 towplanes!!!  We had 2 extra towplanes on standby in case the task setter required a long tow to Magic Mountin which would have added 4 or 5 minutes to each towplane turnaround time.  In the end the local "Horrible" nursery slopes were working so thats where they got launched to.

Some pilots decided to take restarts which put them late on track and ZZ spent quite some time low around the bottom of the Neuman range before staggering honm, task not complete at around 7:30pm.  Some heavier gliders couldn't quite get on the tops of the Ben Ohau Range to "get over" and home via Pukaki Spillway.  Only one landout which was our Aussie Battler.  The retrieve tow pilot arrived back to say "the man deserved a beer" for hanging on in very blustery conditions at the Glen Lyon strip.

The designated barman called in to apologise that he couldnt open the bar as he was having a ripper west of Queenstown and could we organise someone else.  Well done LP, shame we hadnt tasked around that area.

Today is another day-forecast not as good as yesterday but we think still taskable.  We are aiming to launch the fleet around 1:30-2pm.

Keep it up

DAY 5 - SUNDAY TASK CANCELLED

We knew the day would be "not strong". But were confident it would be flyable.
Plan was to be ready to launch  at 1pm for when the temperature went over 20 degrees and the thermals albeit some might be blue, would start popping...

Mmmmm 1:30ish and still all nice and sunny not a cloud in the sky.  Some  local "rides" were launched on to the nursery slopes but faile dto stay up or climb. One pilot when asked  after 45 minutes how it was going reported 3700ft but just had a great climb....of 200 ft....

A motor glider launched on to the Buscott range and reported 300 fpm climb at 3700ft. The pilots sturted to shuffle around on the grid, a bit of expectation in the air.  Buggar... a few minutes later motor glider reported couldnt get thru an "inversion" at around 4,000ft.

Dang, its 2:30pm and TASK A has time expired. This is a latest launch time, calculated by estimating the end of the "soarable" day and then back calculating on task time start gate opens launch of the fleet.

Forever hopeful we check the recorded temperature at the airfield. Maybe an increasing temperature will ccok the inversion away? mmm Temperature has been 22C since before 2pm.....More "rides" launch no change in flight profile. WIth TASK B time expiring at 3:30pm a Task C is prepared but not issued to pilots.

Some more waiting while Pilots discuss everything from Schemp Hirth water dump valves that dont, to the merits of bike riding on the wrong side of the road and a million other totally absorbing topics....yea right!

3:30 PM the temperature is now 23C but no change so the day is cancelled

Tis another day tomorrow

Keep it up

SATURDAYS DAY

Day Four task took pilots over some of the most spectacular scenery in the South Island.

The First Turnpoint Near Glenorchy was so scenic that our Australian Trans Tasman pilot just had to land near Paradise.(I kid you not thats what its called). The area that Peter Jackson used to shoot some spectacular footage for Lord of the Rings.  SPOT proved its worth as we knew he landed before he got to a phone to report in. Oh forgot to mention that EE landed on a strip with 600 sheep. No worries says Brian, bought up on a sheep farm. Just herded them down the other end of the cross strip. Well done that man, all without a trusty sheep dog! 

Our Airspace Guru Trevor, had negotiated some extra airspace access for airspace controlled by Queenstown Tower which allowed Gliders to fly up to 11,000ft on task rather than the normal airspace restriction of  8,500 and 9,500. Thank you airways Queenstown. Thank you Trevor and Lex for putting the information out to Pilots and in to the scoring program.

Lex had a day off yesterday as he went parting in Christchurch-OK it was a god child but hey-lashings of ice cream and soda pop. Matt took the helm and we still got raw scores out in a timely manner-well done Matt.

A number of landouts gave retrieve aircraft a busy evening with one tug having to refuel at Wanaka to complete his assignment.

We discovered a small glitch with SEEYOU scoring program. TD switched of his GPS 30 seconds after landing and then some time later took an aerotow the short distance back to Omarama. A cunning strategy that fooled SEEYOU in to scoring him as a finisher......But the intrepid operations team easily picked up on that :-)).

The Search and rescue fund got a bit of a boost at briefing this morning(Sunday) as  coin contributions were "frowned" upon in favour of something that would buy more than a bootlace for the volunteers.  Last time the Nationals were held in Omarama in 2009 the movement raised more than $2,000 for the local volunteers to help fund Sat phones and other equipment to make their job easier.

Today Lemmy has forecast that the task area will be light winds, sunny(mainly blue) with not so high temperatures.   With that in mind Tasks for Day 5 Head west to the head of Lake Wanaka then north to a point to the East of Mount Cook and then home.
A task B has been published which is more of a cats cradle to keep the course closer to home.

The word from the wise is that we probably wont launch until after 1pm altho we will need to be ready to launch as soon as the fleet can stay up.  So gridding at 12:30 on the runway in front of the Gliding Centre Buildings.  With 4 towplanes it shouldnt take long to launch the 26 contestants.(one short today as WC has a day off).

Check the North webcam at http://www.glideomarama.com/conditions/web-cams
for current temperature and what I can see out my window.   The grid is slightly to the right of this picture.

Keep it up

DAY FOUR DAWNS

A great day yesterday with no landouts by competitors..
As was famously quoted during the Falklands war many years ago by Brian Hanrahan. "I counted them out and I counted them back".

A few pilots abandondoned the task but the vast majority completed.  The sad thing about the current scoring system is that altho you complete the task,  you can miss out on getting any speed points and just get distance points hence a number of  the 15mSTD class pilots all getting 708 points.

Ben Flewett had a bad day as water leaked out of his right wing during the first part of the course leaving him to "limp" around wunwing low.

Billy Walker blitzed the field. His SPOT was not working(seems he hasnt paid the renewal fee:-)) and so we had no idea where he was until he called 5 miles out.  The old fashioned Ops Normal Calls every hour, even with a leg number dont really give us a clue as to progress.  Especially with long task legs.   The task was such that a call one hour out could be Leg 3.  That leg was 172kms long.  The final leg was 125kms which at 144kph wouldnt take long. I will leave you to do the time maths...
Besides look at Billy's trace on the scoring site.  Well done billy who trashed the big wing guys who were doing the same task.

Brett Hunter had a great day after talking to Chris Richards before the launch on a strategy. Brett took Chris's advice and beat his advisor by a good 20%.  Just goes to show the comraderie amongst some competitors.

Lemmy, yesterday, suggested that today would be loverly but not as strong as yesterday.  A non competition pilot reported 70knot winds at altitude.

Keep it up

DAY FRIDAY DAY THREE

Its a great morning here in Omarama after 2 days of rainy non flying weather.
Thermals, ridge and wave will all be available with forecast winds at 15,000ft being in the order of 70 knots.

Tasks have been set. They are the same turnpoints for both classes giving around 445kms of racing.
Differnt starts so Theo will have a wee excuse if those pesky short wings fly as fast as him.

We expect to start the launch around 12:30pm.  The facebook page  omarama nationals will be updated during the day.

Have fun out there

Fly safely.

DAY FREE

Unfortunately we seem to suffering the curse of Gliding Competitions around the world, rain. We note Gliding Comp in Western Australia also has this problem....arrrrrggggg.
The weather guru, Lemmy, suggests that tomorrow will be better with thermals, wave & ridge lift.
Good opportunity for lots of yak yak about gliding matters from how to stimulate club membership. The balalncing act of Youth Glide programs, aerobatic gliders, getting ratings on new gliders by very experienced pilots etc etc etc.

Until Tomorrow

DAY TWO

A great attendance at morning briefing with 30 or 40 standing at the back and most of the 60 chairs full.  A crowd ov over 100.

The weather looked good even though a non "normal" easterly was blowing at 15plus knots.  Justin Wills arrived to announce that wind on the ground at Irishmans creek(NE of Lake Pukaki) was zero and that the Easterly only kicked in after passing Twizel.

Three Tasks were set to cater for any changes in high cloud sneaking down from the North or the Easterly changing.   A good launch started at 1:45pm with a high tow (4500QNH) directly towards Magic Mountain.
Only one glider landed back while the majority started and headed off to the first turnpoint of a triangle of 345kms.  Once again the SPOT messengers proved their worth in reducing stress and workload for the Operations team. A side benefit is the significant reduction in radio traffic.  A have included a photo of the Directors computer screen to show the spread of the "GREEN DOTS" each representing a glider.  WIth a simple mouse click I can get the track to that point with the time of the lastest "ping".    The radio ladies also have a screen so they can check whose SPOT is working and who they need "OPS normal" calls from. Of the 27 pilots only 8 are spotless.

We had a number of calls "probably landing out", but a number of gliders(13) abandoned the task and returned to Omararama with 7 actual landouts of which two were road retrieves. Including our intrepid Aussie whose retrive included winching the trailer across road washouts in the Ahuriri Valley.

One pilot reported flying in the snow with snow "bits" coming in the cockpit.  I have to say there were some cold pilots arriving home. They had not figured it would be so cold  around the top turnpoint.  This was not high high altitude flying but just plain old cold.

Its interesting the visitors we get wandering by, including Newspaper photographers, All Blacks, Civil Aviation Inspectors, Rodeo riders & heaps of Back Packers of all shades & sizes. 

Today is a rest(read raining) day and the forecast doesnt look good until FRiday. The good news about that is that the grass on the airfield is the greenest I have ever seen it in all my visits since 1995!

The Flarm team have requested that pilots use the latest version of Flarm to "test" it out. They had tried to test it at the Australian Nationals (washed out) and the South African event, but are running out of time to test it before their March time frame for an update.

So now its time for some revenue earning work from your scribe. So much better than doing it in the middle of the night:-))

Keep it up

RESULTS

Results can be found at
http://glidingcomps.42.net.nz/nat2011/index.php

We hope to have the results on Soaring Spot later during the day.

MONDAY - DAY WUN

From a rainy day at the 10am briefing, and Lemmy forecasting a clearance while TV weather was putting out heavy rain forecasts, all went well.  So well in fact that the day was devalued for all classes as first gliders home completed the task in just under 2 hours.

A rebrief at 1pm gave a go/nogo time of 2:30 as the weather slowly improved. At 2:20 we started to grid with first launch at 15:40 . Our Australian friend was bemused. Where he flys in Queensland the "rule" is you better be on final glide at 4pm as the lift shuts down about then.  He reports a slow day for him  but now the "monkey" is off his back. ie his worries have dissipated and he can settle down to do some racing!!

The father and son battle (Gavin QQ verses George XG) proved age and experience beats youth and enthusiasm (well today anyway). 

WIth our Japanese friend broadcasting opps normals on the wrong frequency, we needed to have a friendly chat with Search and Rescue mission control after we hadn't heard from him in two hours.  Then we had a report from a non competition glider sighting him flying "on task". I think the local  SAR team will have a yen for a donation:-)  Actually  the donation bucket will be well used in the morning.

Interesting problem with the semantics of the english language. JN reports probably landing at Morven Hills.  Nothing more heard. We usually get a landed message relayed. Morven hills is in a dead spot for transmissions from Omarama as well as being a no cellphone coverage area. No phone calls from the residence as house is locked up(we tried phoning from Omarama) . I ask if would hitchhike back to base. I am advised no,  "he should be getting an aero tow".  An aero retrieve is organised. As towplane goes out of radio coverage, yep you guessed it..Pilot arrives having hitch hicked back.  Yet to talk to the towpilot who has just landed 30 minutes before dark having been away nearly 90 minutes.
So "probably" changed to "will" in the speakers mind.

Ah the joy of being the Fat Controller(oops I mean dedicated contest director)

and now to dinner(9:18pm)

SPOT TRACKING

For when the action starts look at
http://map.xinqu.net/spot/fullmap.html

The latest version of Phil Planes Glider tracking software that will show the map optimised to cover all active trackers.

Ok today shows 2 gliders at the airport :-)

A NEW TASKING OPTION

Our "Tour Guide" (used to be called a task setter). Was keen to explore the ability to limit pilots height from start point to first turnpoint, or indeed the complete task.
Reason being
a) Safety focussed to stop pilots on reciprocating headings at high speeds in the wave.
    Ie going in to the turnpoint not above???9,000ft  coming out knock your socks off up to 17,500ft..
b) Increase the challenge and make pilots use ridges rather than rattleing around the coures at altitude in the wave.

After a number of full and frank exchanges of views and opinions. It shall be done.
Lex has worked out a cunning plan for the scoring system to detect height busters.
With advice from the two SRC attendees penaly regimes have been set.
Bust height limit by up to 500ft, first offence a warning, subsequent offences 25 point penalty.
Over 500ft then you have deemed to have finished your competition for the day at that point :-)

It will be interesting to see how the pilots handle such things. I am sure they will provide some insights to SRC to enable a good set of rules and penalties to be introduced into the next rules rewrite.

For the pedantic this is covered by rule 5.1 (iv) and 5.6

Interesting times ahead:-)

PRACTICE DAY

Yours truly up at 6:30am!!! Unbelievable...looked like a nice day starting.

But now?  Check out the Omarama Webcams

Pre contest compulsory briefing was presented as a 14 question paper exam.
Confering was allowed...
Questions included:

1. What is Omarama landing Protocol sequence main point.

2. What is recommended way to join other gliders in a thermal?

3. What is minimum height AGL/QNH to fly over Omarama Township?

4. When do you change to 119.1 (Hint not near Omarama)?

5. Give an example of an ops normal call.

6. Give an example of a final glide call and on which frequency.

7. What is Mout Cook MBZ frequency and how often is a position report required?

8. After what period of time without radio contact with you will Search & Rescue begin?

9. What is the retrieve phone number. What do you include in a text to that number?

10. When is cloud flying permitted?

11. How long do you have to download your GPS trace after returning to the airfield?

12. How would you advise that you are landing out at the dingle if you cannot contact

Omarama Radio directly?

13. Have you got the retrieve phone number in your cellphone?

14. Do you know the name sof the Tasman Trophy Pilots?

15. When would you prefer the final night dinner? Friday after flying or Saturday.

A practice task was set and the "Right hand of God" then gave us the weather forecast. In summary go now as it will rain this afternoon.

Keep it up