Condor NZ

Gliding NZ Condor Championships

Race 1 / 7

Gliding NZ Condor Championships kicks off tonight 7pm NZT hosted by Canterbury Gliding Club. Mixture of ridge wave and thermals strong 27 kt NW wind increasing with Height for the 214km task.

Winning race insight…

Jordan from WGC smoked the field flying a JS1 with 231kph followed by Nick Oakley in second with 213kph. Jordan’s original plan was to run the wave although was undecided and didn’t want to risk the wave in lee of Mt Hutt not working. He decided to run the ridges and stuck with it the entire flight. He said the most challenging part was the start decision hence restarting and the nerve racking crossing over Rakaia River (like most of us in real life) with the plan to get on ridges asap. Dan McCormack and Nick were doing the same thing so he had confidence it was going to work.
Jordan had decent height on T1 where his PDA indicated it was 6000ft below glide on 6kt mc. From there it was running ridges at 120kts the entire task deciding he should be able to make up 6000ft above glide to make Cass turn point by running ridges. When Jordan turned at T2 he was 2000ft above glide and ran vne entire way home clocking average speed of 231kph. Finish height is your choice which for many means ground effect.
Nick climbed in wave at one point on task that was a game changer separation between 1st and 2nd. For others who chose a mixture of wave and ridge they all had high speeds including Peter Taylor and Colin Winterburn. But ultimately ridge won todays task. Just like being in the cockpit there are a bunch of us that use an audio chat platform so it’s as if we are speaking to each other on the radio and can help with lift insight etc.
Tasks get scored, weather reports, land outs, cloud flying, collisions, flying at vne in wave causing flutter are all very realistic. You have vario noise, wind noise and more. There are some cheeky overseas competitors that didn’t fly the task live that have gone and flown it later after insight of how the winners flew the task. But we’re focussing on the winners who take part in the 7pm kick off time with similar race start format. All for fun. 

Next race 2 / 7 we go to Nelson Lakes for a club class task. Unfortunately there is no way to view these races online live… yet. Condor may have something set up very soon. For now check out Jordan and Nicks flight trace below.