The Eagle has Landed

Life at Omarama begins. I arrive at 7:30pm after a leisurly drive down from the Ferry.
One competition pilot advises that, from derigging his glider in the rain at Tauranga, he was soaring Mount Cook 27 hours later. For the safety conscious, he also reports sleeps on the Ferry 3 hours and the back of his station wagon at Seddon (5 hours).

Can you imagine a South Island based Pilot so keen to get to a North Island based competition?
Lets see if any take up the challenge to fly the 2010 Nationals at the new site of Taupo.

The campgrounds at Omarama are looking very good. Lots of greenery and the trees are now "significantly" high and large. A lot of gliding families are enjoying the facilities. Its good to see quite a team of Youth Soaring members in residence as well as the "littluns" running around amongst a large gliding family.

With 4 days to go before the first competition day all seems to be in order and more relaxed than I have seen in previous years.

The $100 Team!

We have the following entrants as at Christmas

Standard/15 Metre Class
Ben Flewett
Dane Dickinson
George Wills
Graham Paul
Mark Wilson
Max Stevens
Nigel Davy
Tony Passmore
Tony van Dyk
Gavin Wills
Bill Walker
Lindsey Stephens
Vaughan Ruddick

CLUB Class
Hamish McCaw
Lemmy Tanner
Wilson Ellery

OPEN Class
David Speight
Eric Gosse
Michael Oakley
Terry Jones
Doug Hamilton

18 METRE class
Terry Jones
Theo Newfield
Adrian Cable
Brett Hunter
Chris Richards
George Deans
Grae Harrison
Martyn Cook
Rob Garlick
Ross Gaddes
Trevor Mollard
Warren Dickinson
John Gorringe

Of course this may all change before the starting gun!

Merry Christmas to you all.

In the Beginning

Welcome Sports fans to the first of a series of Blogs to reflect the "goings on" at the New Zealand Gliding Nationals in Omarama in January 2009.

The opportunity to save $100 on entry fees got some excited!!
Both Lemmy and Gavin figured they were enterring the "sports" class. Unfortunately there will be no Sports class at Omarama in 2009, Sports class comps will be in Matamata in February....

Nice to see that a man who can fly huge triangles in his ASH was enterring in the club class-he reckons he needs the competition (wonders what the handicap will be like against single astirs)

And of course the 2 seat pilot who has "Madonna" as a co-pilot in his Duo Discus will be the envy of the material girl generation.

Interesting to see how many glider pilots have taken the opportunity to have their own "flight following" by obtaining SPOT messengers. (GPS tracking units that send txts/emails with current location) This Director is a great supporter of such devices (happy to lend my unit to a worthy competitor....) and will be watching closely the best way to utilise the devices. Have already had some strategic thoughts from competitors. If they fly in stealth mode(ie no radio calls) others might not know where they are.

Like FLARM, the strategists look outside the square when new new technology is introduced (remember the pilot at the last Omarama Nationals who used FLARM to find a saving thermal before landing out - yep Grae saw a flarm signal from another glider that he couldnt see which was climbing close by...)


Start Gate opens in 14 days