The competitors, Malvern Hills in the background 

Thermal Soaring Competition with Malvern Soaring Association

Malvern Soaring Association once again provided their venue at Fish Meadow for an inter-club Thermal competition, based on BARCS rules.

They also provided brilliant weather for the event with 100% sunshine throughout the day and just a few cumulus clouds forming around the field. The wind was almost non existent and frequently changed direction when thermals moved across the field. The Malvern hosts were very well organised and provided table and chairs complete with timing apparatus and a Tanoy system. 

The competition comprised 2 teams, each of 4 men, each team member was to fly against each of the 4 opponents, man on man, generating a total of 16, ten minute slots. 

The flying started promptly at 10:30am in brilliant sunshine but almost no wind at all.  This year we had our own power winch courtesy of Chris Bishop. 

Brian Boucher was in the first slot but had a problem launching and had to relaunch twice. Luckily his opponent decided to relaunch once and landed barely missing the tree tops near the road – this made Brian's score more competitive again since both had relaunches. 

During the first 6 slots we started to drop further behind but then we started to find some patches of excellent lift and our fortunes started to turn round and we began to recover and gain some points. Each team had won 4 slots by the halfway point and we were only trailing by 86 points. 

At the lunch time break we had completed 10 of the 16 slots and in the last 2 slots before lunch Brian and Bryan had made the points difference to 781 ahead. This produced  several smiles between the sandwiches in the SCSA camp. 

During the last 6 slots in the afternoon the thermals got better on the whole and there was some very close flying. Chris managed to find some sink in one of his slots and amazed everybody by flying for several minutes at about tree top height trying to get away, but eventually had to land early. 

We got to the last slot with SCSA still 719 points ahead. Chris decided to let the MSA guy launch and then to watch what happened with the thermal activity. Chris was about 40 seconds behind at launch but provided Chris managed about 7 minutes then SCSA would still emerge triumphant. Both flew into good thermals and Chris was so high towards the end of the slot that he ended up doing rolling circles to loose height and to show off a bit. Chris landed in the bonus circle with about 2 seconds to spare and unfortunately for MSA, Mike Grantham over flew the slot time by about 1.5 seconds and could therefore not pick up the 50 points landing bonus. This gave Chris the win by 6 points, even though he was 44 seconds behind. 

The final score showed that SCSA won MSA by only 729 points even though SCSA had won 11 of the 16 slots. How close was that? 

A special thank you is called for from the SCSA to Chris Bishop for his excellent coaching throughout the day – he seemed to be able to spot thermals and helped everybody to make the best of them  (except Phil who flew his own version of the advice). But Phil could obviously spot his own thermals because he won all 4 of his slots, well done Phil. 

Thanks to all the SCSA team, reserve and helpers for helping with timing and line retrieval etc. 

Many thanks to the Malvern Club for organising the competition so well and for making such a close run competition which could easily have gone either way. 

We look forward to the 2010 challenge . 

Chairman Bryan

I would like to say thanks to all the team for a fine effort and specially Phil with a max 4000 score repeating last years performance also thanks to Doug as reserve and Mick for helping.
Brian B

MSA						SCSA
Time	Bonus	Total	Score	Total	Pilot	slot	Pilot	Time	Bonus	Total	Score	Total	lead
341	50	391	1000	1000	Mike Grantham	1	Brian Boucher	170	0	170	434	434	-566
258	50	308	857	1857	Mike Hurley	2	Bryan Tucker	309	50	359	1000	1434	-423
572	50	622	977	2834	Malcolm White	3	Phil Hayward	586	50	636	1000	2434	-400
574	50	624	1000	3834	Nick Neve	4	Chris Bishop	520	50	570	913	3347	-487
589	25	614	1000	4834	Mike Hurley	5	Brian Boucher	454	0	454	739	4086	-748
584	50	634	1000	5834	Mike Grantham	6	Bryan Tucker	410	50	460	725	4811	-1023
302	50	352	567	6401	Nick Neve	7	Phil Hayward	570	50	620	1000	5811	-590
203	50	253	496	6897	Malcolm White	8	Chris Bishop	460	50	510	1000	6811	-86
140	50	190	465	7362	Nick Neve	9	Bryan Tucker	573	50	623	1000	7811	449
404	0	404	668	8030	Malcolm White	10	Brian Boucher	554	50	604	1000	8811	781
519	0	519	850	8880	Mike Grantham	11	Phil Hayward	560	50	610	1000	9811	931
560	50	610	1000	9880	Mike Hurley	12	Chris Bishop	344	0	344	563	10374	494
582	50	632	989	10869	Malcolm White	13	Bryan Tucker	589	50	639	1000	11374	505
336	50	386	865	11734	Nick Neve	14	Brian Boucher	396	50	446	1000	12374	640
589	0	589	921	12655	Mike Hurley	15	Phil Hayward	589	50	639	1000	13374	719
594	0	594	990	13645	Mike Grantham	16	Chris Bishop	550	50	600	1000	14374	729
7147	575	7722	13645					7634	650	8284	14374
Mike Grantham			3840						Phil Hayward			4000
Mike Hurley			3778						Bryan Tucker			3725
Malcolm White			3130						Chris Bishop			3476
Nick Neve			2897						Brian Boucher			3173
final score			13645						final score			14374	729

Bryan on final approach

Brian launching

Phil and Bryan hit the landing  box

Chris launches for Brian

Bryan launching and landing

Brian  presents himself with a prize

Phil wins the beer legs

Bryan and Chris

Nick