Start of the competition season

Saturday was the day before the first thermal competition of the year. It was forecast to be a nice 10mph easterly wind which meant the local slope (Brownside Farm) should have been great. I was up early and out the house for 9am. Got there in 10min, climbed the hill with slope dog and David F only to find the wind gusting 2 - 6mph. 

We had a few launches in the stronger gusts but there was just no lift to get us to height and then cruise about until the next gust came trough. Thankfully it's an accessible slope because we had a few long walks down the hill and back. 

We called it quits just before 11, game was a bogey.


Sunday was an early rise to go to the first thermal duration comp of the year; 2m and open HLR. There were 9 hardy souls competing and a few others watching or dropped by. Some new models were tested and a couple of refurbished models took to the air prior to the competition start. The wind speed started at 6mph and steadily rose to 10mph later in the day. Once again, it was different from the forecast.

There were 6 entries in the 2m class. Standing on the sidelines our view was that the conditions never looked great. It ended up being good enough for most rounds have at least one flyer with close to max score. I lost all faith in the 2m foamie model I had last year after some trimming problems arising from design issues. (crap hardware and crap tail mounting system.) I am hoping to pick up another 2m class model shortly and hope to be out flying it soon. 

We had a quick break for lunch and some test flights then it was onto the open models.  I had a few nervous moments but with some guidance I settled into the 3 rounds ok. There was good lift in most slots and in some cases pilots were only a landing point or a few seconds from max scores. Not bad considering the freezing cold was numbing fingers and conditions were far from ideal.  

My new open model launches very well and I won't have issues reaching height/upwind with it. Some trimming and tweaking of the set up is required to get it flying spot on but it's a good starting point as the 10min flight I had in round 2 proved. My landings were poor, now I know the model is nearly set up I will get in as much practice and testing as I can. I will be using a frisbee as the spot landing marker and hope to have the nose in it on landing as often as I can. 

I will post up the details of the next comps and the results for this comp once I have a bit of time to decide on the format of things. In the meantime check the SAA website for details of events. Soaring contest calendar.

some pictures from Sunday.