Flyday!

Your Contest Director was very proud of "his"pilots yesterday.
A challenging Day with pilots making great decisions. Whether it was the decision to land back or the decision to landout after a long day, all were well done.

Yesterdays task hailed a first for your scibe. The first time I have had to contact Airways to extend the Controlled airspace requests. In this case  to extend the request to 7pm from 6pm.   The Duty manager was very helpful.  The last glider landed at 6:51pm.

With the gliders getting out of radio range in the Matamata valley, Ralph Gore offered to be a radio relay point. He talked to the gliders and then sent txts to me to record progress.  Its moments like this that SPOT messengers are invaluable for contest organisers knowing where their "flock"are.  There is a case in my mind to make them mandatory in contests.

After such a great effort by KT in finishing the task, it was a bit disappointing that the scoring system  did not give him many points more than a competitor who landed out.

Before the launch we were visited by the lady reporter from the local newspaper, her attention was drawn to the tall young man and recent Transtasman Trophy winner, Tim Bromhead.   Tim must have decided that media attention was a good thing.  On his landout more attention. This time not only two young ladies arriving with the retrieve crew but two fire engines and two police cars.

Read more about Tims adventure on the Piako website.  http://www.glidingmatamata.co.nz/news/

Todays task should be in a more cloudy sky!!

Task is a 2.5 hour AAT.
Matahina Dam (20k circle)
Waipunga (20 k circle)
Teawa Camp (10k circle and control point)

147km to 322km with point to point of 229.3km.

Tomorrow we are joined by gliders entering the Matamata Soaring Centre competition.