October 21, 2012
Kingaroy Soaring Club members have won both classes of the national gliding championships flown at Kingaroy Airport between October 8-19.
Jim Crowhurst took out the Club Class with a total of 8342 points.
John Buchanan won the Sports Class with 8530 points.
Competition director Greg Schmidt, president of the Kingaroy Soaring Club, said 38 gliders competed in the two classes; four of the pilots were women and there were two juniors.
Other competitors included reigning Club Class champion Craig Collings, former world champion Brad Edwards, and Stephen O’Donnell who was the youngest pilot to represent Australia at a world championship, and the youngest Australian to complete a 1000km glide flight.
The Club Class caters for older gliders, while Sports Class covers higher performance aircraft. The planes are also given a handicap which is set against their flight times.
Each day, the gliders had the opportunity to score 1000 points, with points awarded for the distance travelled and the speed achieved.
GPS logging equipment kept track of the gliders while they were aloft and the flight information was downloaded after landing to assess the pilot’s score.
The pilots were assigned different tasks to complete on each day of the competition. The fastest each day over the course won that leg of the competition, with points accumulating for the overall winner.
Only two days of competition had to be cancelled because of poor weather.
Overall Winners:
Club Class
1. Jim Crowhurst, Kingaroy, 8342
2. Allan Barnes, Darling Downs, 7935
3. Stephen O’Donnell, Kingaroy, 7836
Sports Class
1. John Buchanan, Kingaroy, 8530
2. Brad Edwards, Lake Keepit, 8342
3. Shinzo Takizawa, Soar Narromine, 7808
Winners of the Club Class and Sports Class daily tasks are available on the Soaring Spot website
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