Dave makes his first goal in just his second ever comp. Nath also made his first ever goal on this day but he beat me in so I couldn’t get a photo!

So ends another Gulgong Classic. The elite field from last year were nowhere to be seen which made for quite a different comp compared to any I had been to in the past. The atmosphere was casual with no crap about scoring systems or the like. This week was geared towards the average pilots and making us fly better.

Scott Barrett is incredible in this respect. He seems to draw more enjoyment from teaching others to fly further and faster than he does from his individual success. Winning the comp was merely a formality for Scott, instead he invested more of his energy in watching other pilots styles and decisions and providing feed back to us on what we did well and what we might be able to try when placed in a similar situation next time.

Scott will be running an informal comp clinic at the Corryong Cup in January. Any pilots, especially if you’re in a floater, that wants to learn how to improve their XC skills should get down to this comp for what will be a very fun and educational week.

So back to Gulgong, rather than running you through each task you are best to look at Davis’s accounts:

2007 Gulgong Classic

2007 Gulgong Classic - Day 1

2007 Gulgong Classic - Day 2

2007 Gulgong Classic - Day 3

2007 Gulgong Classic - Day 4

2007 Gulgong Classic - Day 5

2007 Gulgong Classic - Day 6

2007 Gulgong Classic - Day 7

With Scott and Cam having cemented in first and second places the battle moved down to 3rd place with three of us in the running. Davis, Armando (an awesome guy from Canada) and myself. Only 20 points separated 3rd from 5th - this was going to be fun.

Wow, I had never imagined being in such a position. Normally as we come into the last day at a comp I have my eye on twenty something’th place with nothing on the line. This was a chance at a podium finish some different tactics were required - but what?

Once again, Scott had his thinking cap on and elected to fly the task with me knowing that he already had first place in the bag. Which ever way the day was to pan out from here I knew that it would be a great experience to draw on in future.

After Davis hit the deck early it was between Armando and I. We both made goal in good time. I had my suspicions that Armando would have completed the course faster than I, but he had taken a later start gate which meant that I stole most of the arrival points. We would have to wait for the GPS downloads to see who snagged third place.

After a tense, but jovial wait, in which Armand and I managed to consume a few beers and congratulate each other on taking bronze (neither of us thought we had it), the scores were calculated. 4 points in it. One extra turn after a week of flying. How close can you get? It was me on top this time, so naturally I was stoked, but more than that I am looking forward to the rematch at Forbes. Hopefully Armando finds time in his schedule to get down to Canberra for a spot of flying before then.

So ended another week of fun, comradery and learning. The lessons from Gulgong this year were many and varied so I’ll try and get some of them down on here before too long.

Final scores can be found here

Incidentally, Davis put Cam on to using Seeyou and Soaringspot.com to score the comp. This an excellent method of scoring comps and publicising the results. I hope that it is adopted by all comps in the future.

Why would you want to fly when you have beer? That seems to be the story for today. The day was cancelled due to a lot of rain last night which left the place waterlogged as the guys found out - apparently Trent and Dave’s comments were that the dam had to be conquered leaving the vehicle bogged.

So what better way to spend the rest of the day than at the pub. At 4.30pm when I spoke with Trent I sensed that they might have already been there for a couple of hours. There are plenty of wineries around in Mudgee but they didn’t get that far after finding a local pub to sip away on some nice local brewed beer. What a life!!

Early reports say that tomorrow might be 50/50 but Saturday looks good, and an attempt may be made on Sunday to fly home.

Gulgong - Day 4

Hot off the press although I can’t give too many details as Trent hasn’t even been updated yet but it appears that Ed has made his PB today with an excellent flight. The sketchy detail in is that he flew about 30km today which is a fantastic result and means that he’s on his way up - there’s no stopping him now!! More results on that tomorrow.

Trent explained his flight as good fun and he really enjoyed it. He landed about 5km short after stopping to top up on his height but instead landing. Davis was about 100ft or so above him and made it in so deep down I think Trent might be mildly annoyed although it didn’t sound like it when I spoke with him. Davis has already managed to have his flight details published on the Ozreport (see this link).

We’re still trying to find out the results for the other Canberra guys but Trent has promised me that he will call tomorrow morning so I can update them. With all of these great flights this week, it looks like my Saturdays and Sundays are now going to be filled with retrieve driving. It suits me, all that counts is that they’re having some great and enjoyable flights.

The results for today should be up later tonight but in the meantime, here are the results for yesterday (day 3) and the total results after day 3 (total).

Lastly, what can I say about Scott and Cam - they are on fire. Trent has been commenting that they have been flying really well and again today, they both made goal. Looks like Scott may maintain his first place position - there’s only 3 more days to catch him.

Day 2 saw Cameron Turnbridge win the day for the second time keeping him in first position. Trent made goal coming in 7th position, making him 5th outright after the tasks for the two days. Pete came in 12th for the day, Nath in 16th and Dave in 19th. Trent described the task as a smiley face with an out and return on the middle leg and then goal back at the airstrip. Results for Day 2 can be found by clicking here

Total results for the two days can be found here.

I haven’t got much to report on day 3 except in the five minutes that I spoke with Trent it didn’t seem that he was that happy. He commented that he didn’t fly too well but it seems to be the case all round with only Scott making goal today based on preliminary reports from Davis. Davis’ writeup can be found on the Ozreport website which was posted at 9.00 tonight. A link to the report can be located here. After reading the report Trent may not have gone too bad but we’ll wait and see. I spoke to him shortly after he landed and when he got over his tantrum (I don’t think it was that bad but as I have been tasked to do the writeups while he is away I think I do get some poetic licence) so he wasn’t too sure on how the other Canberra guys went but will keep you posted.

The first day of the comp yesterday (Sunday) and a task was set for 78km. It’s looking like its going to be great weather for the week so hopefully some longer tasks will eventuate.

Once again Trent is away (I never seem to see him as soon as spring/summer arrives) and I have the job of posting results.

The Canberra guys did very well yesterday with Nath leading the way ahead in his first ever goal for comps and finished a well deserved 4th place (a great effort!). Next in goal was Pete in 5th position and Trent in 7th position.

Dave had an awesome flight also making his first goal. This is a great achievement for his second ever comp. Well done Dave! I can’t give you his place as the wrong tracklog was used and it is reported wrong in the list but Trent informs me that this will get fixed shortly.

While we are talking on first evers, Grant in his first ever comp had a great flight and kept up with his motto of never landing in the same paddock in which you took off in (unless of course the goal is the same place as launch). It was the longest (in hours) cross country flight he has had and there’s no stopping him now.

If the boys continue with these great results and the tasks keep coming up as out and return which I am told by Trent was also the second day (109km), then I might have to consider driving for them next year so I can relax instead of driving the long distances at Forbes!

Results for day 1 can be found at the following website (subject to change when Dave’s results are fixed up)

Day 1 results

UPDATE ON DAY 2: Trent made goal again today (109km) but I am yet to find out the results for the rest of the guys. Will keep you posted tonight.

The results from the Classic have been added to the CIVL world rankings.

View the Aussies here 

… and everyone else here

While on we’re thinking about Canungra here’s some random photos from the 2007 Canungra Classic.

The official Class 1 scores have been released from Canungra.

Link here

As well as removing the rigids from the results, Tim has taken the opportunity to rectify the FTV calculations to correctly handle Did Not Fly (DNF) scores.

Unfortunately, taking the brunt of these alterations are Barnsie and Kath.

Also the track logs have been released here. These are released as IGC files but I will endeavour to get them compiled into something a little more user friendly if there is sufficient demand.

Scott has uploaded a few pics from Canungra…

Who went up and down?
FTV results can be found here.