CENTRAL PLATEAU REGIONAL GLIDING COMPETITION, TAUPO 30 OCTOBER TO 7 NOVEMBER Put together from information from Peter Battersby and Rod Lyon’s contest blog.
Strong Easterlies caused a slow start to the week but the later part of the contest turned out to be excellent. The best day on Tuesday was even better than predicted. The task set for that day was a boomer!
Trevor Terry was the competition manager and task setter, Tom Anderson the contest director, Rob Lyons the task setter and scorer, and Roland Van der Wal the weather predictor who was usually bang on. The following is from Rod Lyons’ notes on the “Soaring Spot” web site. Sunday 30 October A free practice day with only a few of the boys going up. A 20-25 kt easterly, with largely blue skies. A bit of fun. Monday 1 November A late start on a grey day. 200 km/300 km AAT with minimum 3hrs time. Tuesday 2 November After yesterday’s struggle, finally, it all seemed to be coming together. A good forecast and a good sky. The persistent easterly died down to 5 kts or so tending NE on the airfield. The thicker overcast to the east that had been bothering us for the last two
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days disappeared. AAT tasks which most pilots rocked around in the 3 hour time window. Wednesday 3 November A boomer day yesterday, probably one of the best we’ve had at Taupo for this time of year. Predicted overdevelopment. Launch started at 12.30 for more AAT tasks. This worked well to get everyone home in time for the barbeque. Thursday 4 November After yesterday’s task, several folks came back and packed up “because it’s going to rain tomorrow”. Several folks then re-rigged frantically Thursday morning. A repeat of Wednesday’s weather (unstable, good lift, likely over-development) forecast but with the added excitement of a looming front racing across the Tasman. The biggest problem for task setters today was high overcast, which was absent at 10:00 am but appeared over the eastern part of the task area later. Another early launch. High overcast moved through parts of the task area from time to time. While the north looked great early on, this area died out in the middle of the afternoon and Roland turned back from an attempt to reach Harris. Overall, final distances and hence speeds were lower than the day before and the final result was a close match between Delio and Lindsey, with the 2.5 minutes under time penalty for Delio reducing his speed just enough for Lindsey to clinch the day. Friday 5 November Rain. The Day cancelled! My wife and I went shopping (I needed the brownie points). When we went into the Warehouse at 2:30 it was raining, when we came out 30 minutes later it was a bright blue sky, hot sun and a brisk fresh southerly. Seems like the front steamed through pretty quickly after all. Saturday 6 November FINALE! The wind was a fresh 10 to 15 kts southerly and the forecast for good cloud bases but broken thermals. Local experience said
