F5J results Diggers Rest 12 Jan 2020
We pretty much had 4 seasons in one day, I started the day in a raincoat with heavy cloud, a light drizzle and a light wind. By afternoon wearing sunscreen and a t-shirt, the wind picking up a bit, and finished the day with a medium strength sea breeze and blue skies. We got lucky for mid-summer in that it wasn’t hot, and the southerly kept the skies clear of smoke haze.
We had 7 pilots competing with most of the regulars there (Marcus was away doing Elvis impersonations up North), and couple of helpers attend, so we flew 2 heats a round, (thanks Wren for timing, and Norm for doing some mowing and timing).
With either cloudy or breezy conditions, most pilots took a conservative approach height wise, and even-so you could still end up far down wind and landing out. I found at times I had to cover a lot of ground to get to a thermal, but were good once you found them.
There were a few great get out of jail low height get-aways, one in particular with Hugh and Dave M circling together at 4 or 5 metres off the ground, and Dave getting away, was a nail biter to watch. With the wind, and ballast the usually light planes were carrying, I think the window for those flights was only a small period of time in the afternoon, and more often than not pilots weren’t so lucky.
We ended up flying 8 rounds, and was close most of the day with the lead changing a few times in the afternoon windier conditions. The final results were:
1st Jim Houdalakis
2nd Hugh Blackburn
3rd Dave Milward
Thanks to everyone who helped setup and packup, and Hugh for helping with entering the scores.
See you at the next one,
regards
Jim
f5j_flight_scores_diggers_jan2020.pdf