Southern Fun Paragliding Competition
27th - 30th December 2020 By Tim Brown
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t’s been just a few days since the end of the “Southern Fun NZ 2020” paragliding competition on the South Island and I’m gearing up now to go on holiday with my wife for a road trip around the far north. I take these few moments to write of another successful ‘Southern Fun’ competition.
Preparation was started much earlier this year and it made for a less stressful lead up. Of note was that a formal ATC NOTAM was issued some months ago and we received questions from the Wanaka Airport User Group and the Wanaka Airport Management team as to how we would best notify other airspace users. This year a simple procedure was created and paraglider pilots were encouraged to use airband radios. I’ve not yet received any feedback but it was good to develop a better relationship with fellow air users as this has been a big issue in the past. Treble Cone management has recently changed and the new
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Above; Jesse Dhue launches into his first season of competition flying
Photo; Melanie Heather
team appears to a little more accommodating of our paragliding operations, but once again, land-owner issues, particularly along the Matukituki Road, proved to be difficult as we were told “do not land” on those properties. Tasking was therefore adjusted so as to keep pilots away from any possibility of violating those property
Above; Crossing to Mt Roy on task 2 Photo; Sanae Noguchi owners’ concerns. Assisting me in the event preparation again was Louis Tapper, who does a lot of the IT side of things and had also been doing a lot of ‘reconnaissance’ flights to new sites over the last few months. This year we thought we’d try a newly investigated, in fact an old site that hadn’t been used in many years, site above the Waikerkeri Valley Road just north of Clyde which would allow us to fly well
Left; Overall winners l-r; Aaron Chesterman (3rd, Richard Castro (1st), Louis Tapper (2nd) Photo; Louis Tapper
