Fly before you buy!

Had a note from competition pilot last week asking if Sports Class and Club Class will be held at Taupo in 2010.

Yes they will!
The classes to be contested will be.
Open Class
18 Metre Class
Standard/15 metre Class
Club Class
Sports Class(which includes PW5s)

It occurs to me that a number of pilots will not have flown a competition from Taupo. Especially those from the Canoe of Maui (yep ewes Omarama types).

With magic of Google Earth you can now fly around the Taupo area with Google Flight Simulator.

Get Google Earth pointing at Taupo then press Ctrl +ALT +A choose the aircraft (I dont recommend the F16 if you want a glider pilots view) and then click your mouse in the middle of the display. Voila, your mouse is now a "joystick".

I had some great fun in an F16 beating up Omarama then flying VFR up the coast(compulsory beatups of Christchurch and Omaka) before leaping the Straits and doing a Paekok beatup at 1100 knots - 600 feet (eat your heart out Vaughan) before popping in to Taupo.

The scenery is excellent, fly slow and low and you get the full impact of what fun you will have in a glider at Valentine Glide. Fly high and you get the layout of the competition area.

Keep it up!

Roy

Secret Hide away

Progress is a wonderful thing.

The memorandum of understanding(MOU) between GNZ and Airways for Valentine Glide has been born!
Weighing in at 6 pages with wonderful coloured maps it says that Glider pilots will be able to "flit" about up to 9,500ft in the most interesting areas of the competion.

Now the MOU journey begins as everyone (including yours truly) has a say.
But!!!! its looking good.

For those forward planners amongst you.............yep the ones who want to make a great family adventure out of Valentine Glide. Look at this for Taupo accomodation.

http://www.holidayhouses.co.nz/properties/2583.asp

Other sites to visit include bookabatch and batchcare.

Thanks to those who have responded to the poll of who thinks they will/wont be having fun next February. If you havent ticked a box. NOW would be a good time :-)

Roy

Another Year Another Competition.

For all of you who followd the 2009 National Gliding Competition (see omarama2009.blogspot.com) then this is the followup!!

Yep New Zealand National Gliding Competition-all classes
Starting Valentines day 14th February 2010 in picturesque Taupo.

So in the spirit of all things romatic I think I shall refere to it as Valentine Glide.

Rumour has it that there will be prize money of $2010 but I will need to confirm that.

Yours truly has been asked to be Contest Director and Sue Wild has accepted the challenge to help man the radios. So those who flew at Omoaram2009 will be dealing with some familiar voices. :-)

I also understand that Trev Terry and his team are organising some extra airspace so pilots can taste the air at 9,500 over the hill country.

As they say....keep tuned to this channel....more news as it comes to hand.

Keep it up
Roy