Contest 5 of the

Y2K JR / Airsail F3B Series,

hosted by AucklandSoar at Ambury,

on October 14-15, 2000.

CD: Chris Kaiser

Summary, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4

This contest saw the regular crew joined by a long distance competitor - an Aussie Battler* (pronounced oz-e-BAT-la) come all the way from Sieeed-nee to show us how to fly. Despite having to cope with unfamiliar conditions and the occasional jibe about accents (awh, that's eiiiin!), he acquitted himself very well. He didn't fly too bad either... :-)

Saturday turned on the best weather for months, with lots of sunshine and no wind in the morning, then a sea-breeze picking up around mid-afternoon. With calm conditions for most of the first two rounds the launches weren't great, but there were generally plenty of moderate thermals around allowing most fliers to get their duration time and a good number of legs in distance. Speed times weren't so flash, with the best times on this first day being in the 19's. Dave Larsen's contest got off to a bad start when the wing of his Ellipse 2V folded on launch - this was a total surprise as there was little wind and hence only moderate line tension at the time. We can only assume the wing had some internal damage or defect that led to a gradual weakening over time. Dave flew the rest of the contest with his Ellipse 3CAM, but the loss of 2000 points put him well out of contention. The Aussie Battler showed us some tactical flying in his second distance slot, heading off downwind to gain height in a thermal before entering the course. Unfortunately the other fliers had good air on course early on, and although the 'Battler started high the air deteriorated and he ended up a few legs short. The tactic was noticed however, and Aneil Patel put it to good use the next day to win his round 3 distance slot.

Sunday turned on a bit more wind and mid-level cloud, resulting in a predominance of weak wave-type lift rather than genuine thermals. Some serious sink also showed up later in the day, making the last last duration round much trickier than the previous ones. The breeze resulted in higher launches and better speed times however, with the Aussie Battler's 17.89 second run the fastest of the contest by a whole 0.02 seconds!

Congratulations to Craig Dawson who joins the Sub-20 club with a 19.21 second speed run in round 4!

Also thanks to Chris Tank and Angus Macdonald, who took over running the contest for large chunks of Saturday and Sunday respectively. This made the CD's job much easier and was appreciated by all the competitors.

*AKA Carl 'Emu' Strautins