POST NATIONALS INFORMATION / COMMENTS NOTE: This is the only page that is likely to be updated once all the scores are posted. FINAL NIGHT DINNER The final night dinner and presentations went very well with only a few people not attending (the fact that they lived three days drive away and wanted to get going is no excuse). A few people came late, but considering that they were on the last retrieve, that is understandable. The dinner contained the usual list of dignitaries, including the local state minister and the state sports minister, who actually took down some notes when the contest director made a few pointed remarks about the sales tax payable on gliders, but not most other forms of aviation. Some of the awards presented were; Best performer in first or second nationals: Lisa Trotter (IIC - ASW20B) Best performer in an un-competitive aircraft: Andrew Georgeson (Mosquito) Best foreign pilot: Mitsuru Marui (LS6, runner up in racing class) Most of the young (and a few of the young at heart) headed off into the local RSL club for Friday night disco night and a few quiet XXXX's were taken orally, as per medical instructions. At least that's what I recall were the instructions - unfortunately the two doctors who were competitors were absent. THE DAY AFTER The day after, as was expected, was a bit bleary eyed for some. Those who had been good the night before had arranged early aerotows and were attempting to fly home to respective clubs. These ranged from Jondaryan (90 km away) to Narromine (approx. 720 km) with Lake Keepit in between (approximately 500 km from Kingaroy). There were at least one dual aerotow in the morning with open class machinery (presumably full of water). I saw this launch (nil head wind at best) and thought that the poor tow plane's climb out performance wasn't much better than watching a « ballasted ASW24E do a self launch. The day was much like the previous few days with a predominately south easterly stream and early cumulus development, tending to slightly over developed in the afternoon. At this time the author does not know who ended up where, though last I heard on the radio, some were around Lake Keepit area with at least 1-2 hours remaining in the day and at that stage cross country averages of 110 - 120 km/h seemed quite possible. I will update this section when I know of the fate of the competitors flying home. As is often the case with major championships, the weather immediately after the contest was probably better than during. Saturday (1st day after) saw a standard class glider do 330 km @110 km/h and reasonably similar on Sunday. Monday looked like it would be better again. INTERNET RESULTS Quite a few people have commented (mostly very negatively) at the slowness of the Internet posting of results. Unfortunately we were very short staffed and had to rely on volunteers in Brisbane to do the Internet uploads. We were not able to check these from Kingaroy and thus were not always aware of the slowness. MEDIA COVERAGE We concentrated media coverage on local area, i.e. Kingaroy and Toowoomba, with good coverage in these areas (4QS, 4SB, South Burnet Times and I believe the Toowoomba Chronical also ran stories.) We were also successful in getting ABC T.V. from Brisbane who ran the story state wide and Optus Vision who will run the story, if you're connected. Unfortunately we don't think that any of our club members are. Results and press releases were sent daily to AAP who were asked to send to all media outlets. Major newspapers though aren't likely to run stories or results if people in the area don't nag them enough. I do not know what coverage (if any) was received by major dailies. CAMBRIDGE TRACES If it is possible (and service provider space allows), I will upload my Cambridge traces as a guide to the tasks flown. Further information on this shortly. KINGAROY TASK AREA / CONDITIONS (SPRING) As you read through the tasks for the day and, at least for some of the foreign readers, will probably note the relative shortness of the tasks. Southern Qld in spring typically provides some excellent flying with great out landing possibilities (i.e. when getting too low - level wings and lower wheel), but is faced with typically short days, such that the maximum possible task duration for a competition is in the order of 4 hours and we regularly end up with tasks under three hours which suffer a devaluation. Typically September / October provides some great weather with a 100 km/h day being a bad day, but this year, after months of drought and 500's being flown in July (mid winter), we have been struck with a couple of fairly average weeks, thus the shortish tasks. FLYING AND SAFETY After a mid air collision resulting in a fatality at Horsham last year, there has been a slight re-think on airborne safety at Nationals. In these comps, pilots were assigned three different start points (from a list of 9) and were forced to use one of these. This went someway to reducing the gaggling that often occurs when the "good guys" hang around a particular start point. Kingaroy as a site also generally offers cumulus conditions, which in contrast to the predominantly "blue" conditions experienced in Horsham (and to a lesser extent Gawler in the preceding year) meant that there was less of a tendency to gaggle. Restricted Radio Frequencies: The competition was held such that a list of four frequencies was placed on a board and pilots had to write their name (for all to see) next to the frequency that they were going to monitor. In theory, all pilots were to then change to a single "gaggle" frequency when entering gaggles. A single frequency was tried and enforced for the state competition immediately before the nationals with mixed results. It is possible that next year there will be a single frequency per class plus a gaggle frequency. The competition organisers also pointed out that the use of mobile phones whilst airborne was also against the rules (and illegal, but that's less likely to worry most.) Generally there was wide spread acceptance of these rule changes and most pilots were supportive of the gradual move away from team flying at championships and that team flying should be encouraged by the National team in training after the championships.