South Island Gliding Championships

24/11/2025

Well done to all the pilots, esp. Keith in UC and Rolly in VH who were the only ones to get around their tasks on the final day! Unfortunately no one else got over 16km, so the scoring algorithm gave them zero points! A good prize giving and final meal was had at The Glider Cafe at the airfield :-)

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22/11/2025

The Open class is on the front of the grid and we have started launching. Will be interesting to see how well the task goes!

22/11/2025

I'm running out of pictures to put with these launch delay messages ;-) This is a photo, from Reese, from the grid a couple of days ago. Lots of wait and talk, not much fly! Launch is delayed until 14:45.

22/11/2025

The launch as been delayed further until 14:30. The non-competition gliders that are up at the moment do not seem to be able to get over 4,000 ft in altitude. It would not be good to have 18 competition gliders all running around at the same, low, height!

22/11/2025

The launch has been delayed until 14:15. You can see that the cloud is still well down the sides to the Benmore range.

22/11/2025

Everyone is lined up waiting on the grid for the cloud base to lift a bit. Meanwhile, here is an action picture from yesterday's launch. Thanks Terry.

21/11/2025

It is going to be a late start for the final day of the competition. The cloud is right down low in the basin at the moment but we have a task for each class. The launch is not scheduled until 13:30 which could make it interesting getting all the scoring done before the prize giving at The Glider Cafe tonight!

21/11/2025

Everyone is back and the scoring is all done. An early start makes things finish a bit quicker! You can check out the scores on the Soaring Spot site: https://www.soaringspot.com/south-island-gliding-championships-2025/

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20/11/2025

We have very similar tasks today as we had yesterday but the weather is predicted to not be that great later in the day. As a consequence, we are launching early to try to get a good weather window in for all. The launch has just started (though this picture is actually from yesterday's launch!). The tasks have been put up on Soaring Spot for you to see.

20/11/2025

Some spectacular cloud formations from ZF up in the wave today. A few of the Racing class gliders have landed after getting around their task most of the other pilots are still up there in the wave.

19/11/2025

We have a launch and the conditions look strong (at least for the launch part ;-))! We can see the lines of lower level wave cloud to the west and there is a decent wind here at the airfield. It looks like most gliders so far are climbing ok. You can follow the gliders on the GNZ tracking site at https://gliding.net.nz/tracking.

19/11/2025

We have a line of cloud coming onto the South Island and this is marking the lines of wave lift that should get better as the day goes on. The only downside is that the cloud could get thicker and fill in later in the day making the soaring conditions quite tricky. We have some longish tasks for each class that you can find on our Soaring Spot site: https://www.soaringspot.com/en_gb/south-island-gliding-championships-2025/. The launch is set for 12:30. Hopefully the local conditions will allow the gliders to get away on task!