GNZ
CLUB CLASS NATIONALS By Ross Gaddes, GNZ Sailplane Racing Committee
The new ‘Club Class’ concept competition has taken place in Matamata. Organised by the Matamata Soaring Centre as an addition/inclusion to the Matamata Soaring Centre (MSC) Competition, this event took place during some pretty average weather, considering the time of the year. Unfortunately the weather has played a negative part in most of the competitions in NZ this year and February 2011 has proven to be an unreliable period, which is not usual. However, we managed to get five competition days out of the available eight.
As someone who has been involved in the changes to Club class, and as a competitor, I have written this article mainly from my own perspective. Encouraged by a couple of friends and Sailplane Racing Committee (SRC) members Maurice Weaver (Janus NM) and Brett Hunter (LS4 KM), I decided to have a go. I borrowed VW, an ASW20. It is a glider I have flown many times before (but some time ago) which is owned by Phil Smith. The main problem was that the weather was very frustrating for the weatherman to predict. Most days were very soft and the task setters were keen to make the tasks reasonably long and challenging. This was good in my opinion and I also think it was good that the task setters could concentrate totally on the one task. Like many pilots, I too can be critical when the task is first handed out - i.e. too short or wrong area etc. However, by the end of the day I was usually pretty sure that the setters and weatherman had done the best they could have done, given the weather predictions. This theme continued for the five days, and in my opinion, resulted in a fair representation of who was flying well. During the races I do not think that the top end gliders, such as the LS8s and the ASW27 had that much of an advantage. It could be argued that it was because of the weak weather. The banning of water ballast is also very important, in my opinion, even though some pilots found the rule objectionable. It could be an option to split the classes to ‘Club’ as a Nationals and the rest in the MSC competition, and allow ballast, but I think, personally, that would just get us back to the original situation. I just don’t feel we have the numbers to achieve this. It was one of our main objectives to lift the prestige of a ‘Club Class Nationals’ title by getting some
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April 2011
very good pilots into the race. We achieved this in my opinion. It would have been good to see more of our sharp pilots but guess individuals can only commit so much time and money to our sport. Most of us have other demands for that time and money and just have to prioritise. The entries totalled 25. I had hoped for more but this is a theme that we need to address for all gliding competitions. From a personal point of view, I have had much better flights this year, and this was a pity. It’s the most frustrating thing about our sport - bloody weather! It seems that the best day of the year is always the day after the competition has finished, and there is nothing that can be done. It’s no one’s fault and no amount of planning and good preparation can overcome the risk. Anyway, in the end Tony Van Dyk and Nigel McPhee were worthy winners and Nigel being in an Auckland club owned glider is also significant. What I would like is to get comments from those interested, so that if any fettling is necessary then we can present the changes (if any) to the next AGM. Please feel free to contact the SRC and/or myself with any ideas. Think of these objectives: • To give those ‘Club’ type aircraft a class which will make them competitive, despite their age and value. We know there are lots of these aircraft sitting in hangars and we need to facilitate getting pilots (youth especially) into them for a reasonable cost. • To create an event where winning is genuinely a prestigious National achievement. • To encourage all pilots to extend their skills by racing against their peers. • To create a genuinely friendly atmosphere that can attract
Photo John Griffin
MATAMATA 5-13 FEBRUARY 2011
