Mission From Moir's

Having arranged to meet Anand at the turn-off at 1100, I was surprised to receive a message from him saying he had turned around and gone home due to it looking too stable. Fair enough it was cloudless blue, but the forecast promised more and in fact I was expecting an increasing wind. Of course that would be after I had launch and skyed-out on the way to far distant places. There was no-one else at the carpark so I lingered modifying my plan. Then Rodger turned up and in no time at all we were off to the launch. It looked promising at launch, the wind seemed good and clouds were forming, so we rigged up. And here was the fatal mistake, we didn't stop and wait, as soon as we thought it was OK we launched and unfortunately we launched into nothing. A couple of zig-zags and we on the deck. Bummer. Of course in the meantime Nick and Evan were on the way and launched about an hour later and flew to Matakana. I'm really starting to hate that. Leonardo Flight Link

This is the earliest start to a season I have experienced. After we had the "Wet", July, and then the "Cold", early August, we got light winds and a sunny day with the prospect of some good XC conditions developing. It seemed everyone had the same idea, and at launch we had about ten pilots rigging up and then launching. Jeff RIpley was the first to launch, managing to gain for a while, then heading out front only to return low, slope landing at the bottom of the hill he managed to climb back up and launch again to go over the back and all the way to Leigh. The best of the day. The rest of us fluffed around launch for a while, some managing to claw enough height to go over the back, albeit for only short distances. I couldn't crack 2000 feet, and having launched with a tangled speed system, decided to stay at the Hill for some thermalling practice, landing at the Short Distance Goal Paddock after an hour or so. Trisha had stayed home and some time wa...