F5J Varms 14 January 2024

Hi all,

even though there were a few regulars away, we still had 11 starters for F5J last Sunday with the forecast being for warm weather, with winds building.

The winds started at light to medium strength, with the forecast for them to build. Unfortunately the winds started off easterly and were occasionally south easterly. For those not familiar with the new Varms field, it's basically a large runway to take off  from and land on, and the no-fly area begins at the west side of the runway. So essentially we couldn't fly down wind, making chasing thermals impossible, and making landing approaches challenging. 

To the east it's an untamed field of tall flowers and bush rising to a forest of trees and hills to the east about 400 metres away, and a forest to the south about 300 metres away. Sometimes you can see the thermals / dust devils work their way through the flowers until they reach us on the runway, and this was the case in the second heat where I watched one head straight for the centre of our flight line and me wishing we could chase it down wind. With the start countdown almost at zero, the dust devil went through Bob, causing his plane to twist in his hand and crunch a wingtip. Not a good start for Bob.

So challenging conditions, where more often than not, you had to abandon thermals at the restricted zone and try to find the next one upwind, and with the wind building, and the thermal cycles getting longer, it was getting harder, reflected by a lot of short flights in the scores. 
Eventually the "sea breeze" kicked in for the last couple of rounds, and the gustier winds swung to the south, which meant you could follow thermals down wind, becoming a bit of a good heat, bad heat, situation. 

Special mention must go to Kevin Fryer who fought on through the day flying an Old Timer, even winning a heat. Eventually it got a bit too windy for his plane, but it flew very well for the conditions.  

Anyway not being able to chase lift down wind is my Kryptonite, but others handled the upwing thermalling much better than me.
So in that regard,
Congratulations to

David Pratley      1st

Rod Watkins       2nd

Hugh Blackburn  3rd

 flight_scores_f5j_varms_2024_01_14.pdf

 overall_results_f5j_varms_2024_01_14.pdf

Thanks to everyone who helped me setup and pack up,

and thanks to VARMS for letting us use the field for the competition.

Next, to those going, I'll see you at Armidale NSW for the Sailplane Expo over the Australia Day Weekend

regards

Jim Houdalakis

PS I forgot to take some pics, so if anyone took any photo's of the day, could you send them through and I'll add to the website