Hi Grant Harper (from the North Queensland Soaring Centre) and I are organising a regatta at Charters Towers during the mid year school holidays in Queensland. Charters Towers is approx 150 Km SW of Townsville.
The Qld school holidays run from Sat 18th June 2005 to Sunday 3 July and the regatta will run from midweek in the first week to midweek in the second week (giving people time to drive up to N Qld and drive back). This timing will also allow lovers of chamber music (such as Rozz and I :-) to go straight from the regatta to the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville. This starts on Friday 1 July (see http://www.afcm.com.au for more details). Typically, weather in N Qld at this time of year gives cloud base up to 12,000ft with temperatures in the mid to high 20s! The North Queensland Soaring Centre is in the process of moving its operations inland to Charters Towers from its current coastal location at Ayr (just south of Townsville) to take advantage of these much better conditions inland. North Queensland Soaring Centre is a winch only operation at present (they have two winches with a third possibly on the way), but we are hoping to have at least one tug in operation also. The countryside in N Qld is somewhat challenging for XC, requiring a GPS with the known out landing sites loaded and disciplined flying by pilots to ensure they are never out of range of one of these sites. This is a regatta, not a competition: a range of XC tasks will be available and pilots will choose a task appropriate to the weather, their glider and skill level. There will of course be winch conversion training occurring as well (in a long wing Kookaburra and Blanik). If you are interested in coming north to enjoy "Christmas in July" in north Qld, please could you get in touch with me direct (do NOT reply to the list please), including details of the glider you want to bring. If you want to bring a glider that does NOT have a belly hook for winch launching, please could you make this clear in your reply. Hope to see you there! -- Robert Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED] +61 (0)438 385 533 Brisbane, Australia http://www.hart.wattle.id.au _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
