RES & Postal Round 1 at BERG

The last 3 weekends has really delivered very good weather at the BERG field and Sunday the 8th was no different and once again we had a good turn out. I counted
no less than 12 car’s.

a Good BERG turnout for postal and RES competitions.

I left home early so that I could setup the club winch and spots for the RES and postal competitions and by at 9.30 AM had already flown two test flights. Like Craig, I have also
decided to fly my 2 meter Tsotsi in the Postals this year. I will fly my trusty 2.5 meter Tsotsi in the RES competition. (The 2 met is RE only) The test flights indicated to me that air was already buoyant and shortly after that Herman and Toni arrived and we started with flying the postal flights. Herman timing for me. At this stage there were no cloud cover and the lift was easy to find.

Tsotsi's galore (In front my 2.5 meter, in the middle my 2meter Tsotsi and in the back PJ 2 Meter Tsotsi)

I did not want intermix my RES flights with the postal flights and therefore stated straight away with the postal flights. The weather improved by the moment and I strung in the flights one after the other. By 11.30 some cloud cover set in and the good lift, that I had, disappeared and after 4 max’s. My 5th and last flight I flew into sink that my 5 year old willing Tsosti just could not survived and landed with a 1.49 on the clock but a good 2 meter spot.

With the postal score now done I started with the RES flights and straightaway, because of the cloud cover, struggled to get the required time of 8 min. At this stage decided to wait
until the weather improve as it was only Midday (12.00 AM). One had to read the conditions more carefully. Typically one had to wait until the sun appeared form behind the clouds and then after a minute or so, launch and therefore the next 3 flights were good. This tactic worked, but on my last flight the sky was total covered with clouds.

On the 5th flight I once again struggled and did not make the time. My 2 throwaways rounds were now used up and I just had to fly well on the last flight to do well. And at 3PM decided to go for it as the air did no feel cold. Although I did not hit a boomer I ran into some smooth lift that lasted the whole flight and I even had to dive the glider down to land close on 8 min.

Mike Launching his RES Pathfinder and Blake timing.

Mike, with his RES Pathfinder, started even latter than I did. (after assisting his son Blake with normal postals) He was faced with similar conditions and was also flying well. He had to really wait for conditions to change for the better before his last flight and in the end, the only difference between us was 6 sec after two throwaways.

Unfortunately this guy was disqualified as he had 2 jet engines and not 2 spoilers in the RES competition.

I must admit, that of the two formats, I found the RES postals more challenging because of the working time format and will definitely recommend this as intermediate step before one goes on to the HTL competitions.


Blake timing for Mike.(RES Comp)

Wolfgang says Hi.

Tony's fling in full flight.