Glider Golf Competition, Wednesday 17th June 2009 

The weather on Wednesday was quite wet in the late afternoon, but we had it on good authority that the “rain band would clear”. 

It didn't clear till about 6:45 and the grass was so very wet. The rain was clinging to the long grass stems so that when you walked through it you got completely soaking trousers from the knee down within a few paces. This water then transferred itself to your socks and got your feet soaking inside your shoes. 

We had 5 willing competitors by about 7:15 and tried to set out the course. We were going to use balloons tethered to small tent pegs with a 1 metre length of string attached instead of the usual bamboo sticks and flags. The idea was good, there would be no damage to leading edges on arrival at each “virtual golf hole”. In practice the balloons did not work. We burst about 6 balloons either by catching them on the tent pegs or mainly by the prickly  grass when we tried to set them down. In the end we conceded and used some aluminium tent poles that Phil had in in car. 

We set up 5 “holes”, the objective being to fly from one hole to the next, landing within 1 metre of each hole, using as few throws of the model as possible. The wind was quite strong, 10 – 15 mph. This made the up wind legs difficult to reach because of the head wind and the downwind legs tricky because you had to launch up wind first and then swing the model back downwind. Nobody found it easy – some found it quite difficult. 

Phil the Fridge won the comp by getting round all five holes in 14 throws using his Discus Launched HLG.

Bryan Tucker got 15 throws using a Zaggi 5C.

Mike Brinkworth got round in 25 throws after having to swap his model from his Weasel to a Zaggi.

Geoff Dawson took rather more throws and got round in 45 throws with his Zaggi.

Brian Boucher managed 15 throws to get almost to the 4 hole but had to retire with a damaged tailplane on his Dreamer. 

I think we all enjoyed the comp but it would have been better without having to go round with wet feet.

Many thanks to everybody who took part or watched the comp.