Peter Bolton <<pbolt>>
writes:

The 2010 South Australian Hang Gliding Championships have just
finished. Results are up
here.

SAXC10 Open
Pilot	Total	Place
Tony "Crossy" Cross	3667	1
Paul "PK" Kelley	2884	2
Miguel "Flying Dutchman" de Jong	2812	3
Peter "Pebo" Bolton	1650	4
Dave	1497	5
Steve Pap	1300	6
Martin	1252	7
Aren	1195	8
Ralph	1001	9
Birget	882	10
Geoff	762	11
Mark	745	12
Helen	697	13
Gavin	647	14
Brent	553	15
Garry	482	16
Michael	404	17
Stuart	150	18

SAXC10 Floater
Pilot	Total	Place
Paul "Kamikaze" Baxter	880	1
Ben Levick	563	2
Robin	93	3

The competition was run (as usual) over a series of four weekends over the
Australian spring time. This year, there was hill-launching only - as all our
past tow paddocks in the SA Mid-North area were still under crop. South
Australia's hills are typically only about 500ft agl, so getting away from these
hills in light winds can be quite "challenging". We flew at total of six tasks
from four different sites. Conditions were variable with winds from ~ 0 - 25kt
and cloud bases reached over 11,000ft on at least one day. Goal distances were
typically about 80km - with one turnpoint and a downwind component to both legs
- due to the mod-fresh winds we had to fly in. Paul Kelley made the longest goal
flight of about four hours - due to an extra turnpoint he felt he had to
handicap himself with!

Winner - and leader through most of the comp - was SA Mid-North local, Tony "Crossy"
Cross - on an Airborne Rev. Tony won by a large margin after some very
consistent flying. This was all the more remarkable because he has just returned
to hang gliding after an absence of about three years! In 2nd place was (meet
head and outgoing SA champ) Paul Kelley. In 3rd by a narrow margin was the
"Flying Dutchman" - Miguel de Jong - pictured flying at SA's Lochiel ridge with
his frog mascot and high over the Hallett Hill Wind Farm.

I was in 4th place, but also of interest was that 2nd, 3rd and 4th places were
all Airborne C4's (and first was an Airborne Rev). Winner of the Floater class
was Paul "Kamikaze" Baxter narrowly over Ben Levick.

There were no major incidents or serious injuries and most of us didn't get too
much heat stress on South Australia's bare hills. Many of our hill sites are now
also the sites of wind farms. We have reached some agreements with the owners / operators for us to be able to continue to fly from the hills after
construction. Fortunately, turbines are not able to be sited near radio / TV / phone towers, so there remain a few gaps in the rows of turbines. It is possible
to fly in front of turbines, but we have agreed to certain minimum clearances
for safety reasons.

We've known for years that we really need a large car-tow site which is
available to us all year round, but we haven't been able to come up with the
money to buy or lease one. This would probably cost about 100 times what the
average pilot is prepared to pay… So, we continue jumping off small hills in
light winds hoping for the best.