It turned out to be the best day of the regatta. The task was a three hour AAT with turnpoints at Mullaley AF 30 km, Edgeroi silo 40 km and Manilla Silo 20 km. Dave Turner, Nick Singer, Dave Shorter, Sam Clift, Christian Linnet, Allan Buttenshaw, Dave Sieb, Geoff Neely, Gerhard Stuck, Harry Medlicott, Chris Carr and Geoff Sim Flew the task.
Ian Sawell attempted his five hour silver C soaring flight, but missed it by about 5 minutes. He was just a little to late taking off, and the day wasn't quite long enough!
Nick did a check flight with Jim Thompson in the Grob Twin ll, before flying the task, and Jim was able to go solo in the Grob for the first time. He had been confined to the Puchatek before. Well done Jim.
Dave Sieb brought along friends Scott and Monica Barrett. Scott is a hang glider pilot who works for Airborne Gliders, and Monica ran the NSW state Hang Gliding comp at Manilla. Monica was happy to stay on the ground but Scott was keen to fly the task so we went together in Garry's Twin Astir. Scott had one done one or two flights in a sailplane before, but had clocked up some hundreds of hours on an online soaring simulator. This experience seemed to translate to the real world quite well, as he was able to do most of the flying himself, including the take off and landing (with some assistance but not a hell of a lot). We were able to push along quite fast in the twin to start with, and made good time to Mullaley, where we cut the corner to follow what looked like better clouds. However abeam Narrabri we came unstuck a bit and had to slow down. Headed for Mt Kaputar, but it was not as good as it looked, sneaked over the ridge past the aerials and started heading for split rock. However the conditions seemed to be closing down, and we had a big blue hole to cross. As time was getting on we decided to just touch the Manilla circle and head back to keepit. Managed a slowish climb near the north end of Mt Borah which gave us enough for final glide through the Manilla circle. I wasn't sure about the workings of Garry's final glide computer, and gave it an extra 500 feet, which didn't prove to be necessary, so we came in fast with a good safe height. Scott was able to plan the landing. Lots of lift in the circuit made us a bit high, but we ended up right opposite the hangars, which was a good result. Excellent work Scott! we ended up coming 6th for the day, with a handicap speed of 86 km/hr and a handicap distance of 262.9 km. Actual distance flown was 267 km according to the OLC.
Dave Shorter won the day with a speed of 100.8 km/hr.
Butts awarded me the bottle of sparkling wine, as he is fed up with being beaten by the two seater! However I think the credit belongs to Scott for that one!
Ray Tilley spent the day doing the 50 hourly inspection on the Puchatek, for which I thank him greatly. It is not ready for lots more training!
While ever not flying Tim and Chris Carr were busy with the shade sail and the new hangars. Lots of welding of glider tracks is required!
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