WHAT I DID ON MY H 34th FAI World Gliding Championships
BY KAREN MORGAN
The 34th FAI World Gliding Championships were held in Benalla, Victoria, Australia last month. There were three official practice days from 5 to 7 January and an opening ceremony on 8 January. The competition ran from 9 January to 21 January 2017.
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ew Zealand sent a full team of pilots and supporters. The Open Class was flown by Brett Hunter and Mark Tingey, both in their 21 metre JS1s which are normally based in Tauranga. John Coutts flew in the 18 metre class in a new, factory supplied, Ventus 3, joined by Tim Bromhead in a rented ASG29. The pilots in the 15 metre class were Steve Wallace in a rented Ventus 2 and Alan Belworthy in Lindsay Stephens’ ASW27, which was shipped from New Zealand for the event. Julian Elder was team captain, and the supporters included the families (wives, children, parents, in-laws, siblings) of the seven listed above and a few non-family crews. These were: Robert Smits (for Tim), Lindsay Stephens (for John) and
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February–April 2017
Terry Jones (for Alan). We also had specialised meteorological support from David Hirst. All up, we made a crowd of over 25 people. All manner of other Kiwis dropped in a for day or so over the period and a few came to take part in the concurrent OSTIV conference. Most of the team had flown one, two or three competitions in Australia in the past few months. Mark Tingey was the most successful, coming second in the Australian Grand Prix qualifying round at Horsham, Victoria. Pilots and crew/family arrived over the period after Christmas, with the last arrivals being Brett and Mark who, as they had their own gliders in Australia, needed less ‘fettling’
