Thursday, December 27, 2007

December 27 - Wanaka

December 27, 2007

Gidday Race Fans!

Well, the GP has packed up and hauled itself to Wanaka and the New Zealand Air Games. Billed as the largest air sports event ever in the Southern Hemisphere, this event is basically the FAI’s attempt at a dry run for the 2009 World Air Games in Turin, Italy. Run by the New Zealand Aero Club, the event provides a venue for the other 9 air sports that will be at the next WAG to come up with media-friendly “games”/competitions.

This event, as well as the concluded World GP Championship, is being backed financially by AirsportsLive, Peter Newport’s company designed the event to bring all the FAI sports to the world through new technology and outreach to the media. This appears to be the only game in town for the FAI and all of our airsports as we begin the journey to modern day sponsorship in our sports.

As a jumpstart to a brave new world of sponsorship for our sport, and others, Airsports paid for the GP pilots’ airfares here, some of the glider costs, some food and hotel, and tows for the GP Final and this Exhibition in Wanaka.

So basically we are obligated to indulge in this “exhibition” here in Wanaka as part of the “sponsorship” we all received.

The Sailplane Grand Prix concept is by far the most mature of any FAI airsports here and is in fact the only event here that is officially sanctioned by the FAI as an event. So, while we come with a working product, the other sports are basically making things up on the fly (Ha-ha…).

Hopefully all this will go safely and prove out the bigger concept for all the airsports. We are racing for “fun” and have been requested to make a show rather than race with our elbows out. The looks on my fellow GP Pilots at the briefings have been amused to say the least… some of the world’s best pilots throttling back?

This event, which is basically being anchored by the gliding element, is a real tricky thing with every event programmed into a very tight schedule for safety and efficiency reasons. For example, gliding is working with all the other airsports, a daily scheduled ATR flight that arrives at 2:45 p.m., as well as the local skydive operators – or “meat bombers” as they are colloquially called in these parts. This makes for a very complicated ballet of moving ships and crew vehicles on and off the runway.

So did we fly today? No. We watered up and pulled all 18 gliders on to the “dummy grid” for a move to the real grid en-mass at about 1:30pm, for a scheduled launch at 2:30 and a start at about 3 pm. Had we launched at about noon, the 181km wave task would probably have been a fun little run around the local wave system as we had strong NW winds and were surrounded by stacks of Lennies. But by 1:45, the weather was closing in on Wanaka from the NW and the Makaroa/Hunter Valleys were in heavy mist and rain.

Brian Spreckley, CD, made the wise decision to pull the plug on things and hope for better tomorrow. He did offer a number of pilots the chance to launch and demonstrate final glides with water dumping for the crowd. But after 4-6 gliders had towed down to the real grid, the rain really started and even they came back to the tie-downs without flying.

Team TM took the opportunity to go touring to Queenstown. Like most touring for glider pilots, the awesome mountain views were obscured by rain (remember, rain = rest day), but we did get a feel for the very touristy nature of the “capital of extreme adventure”, as well as a very cool view of the snow frosted Remarkable Range from the highest sealed road in New Zealand!

Tomorrow’s weather looks like a great, post-frontal thermal day so I hope we can put on a good show for the crowd while getting in some more, and our last, “fun” racing of this competition. Wish us luck.

See Ya! Tim/TM

P.S. It has come to my attention that some GP-style racing has, in fact, taken place in the U.S. That’s great! Then maybe we can get some resources going for organizing a US Qualifier like the IGC DESPERATELY wants, for next year (2008). If you like the concept, give it a thought and get in touch with Eric Mozer,the U.S. IGC rep.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Tim, Susan and Sarah,

I am now in the Northeastern US.

It's cold,raining and most of the snow has melted on Long Island. (You are still in a better place with just rain....enjoy!)

I certainly have enjoyed your blog for the last few weeks. Enjoy your few days that remain in New Zealand. See ya'll soon.

Thanks,

Rick "FD"

Tim McAllister said...

Thanks!
Stay warm to all in the Northern Hemisphere.
Tim