Tuesday, March 03, 2020

Flying NZ National Championships and International Wings Trophy #3

After all the fun, games and serious competition, we end up at the presentation dinner. This is where we find out if we did as well as we thought. It's also another chance the let the hair down without worrying about competing.

The evening starts with a welcome, then into presenting scholarships to the Young Eagles to support and encourage them in their flight training. Following this, we intersperse results with dinner and dessert.

The food was great, so was the band, everyone was having a good time and it didn't take long for the paper airplanes to start flying. Everywhere. All directions. I wish I had videoed it [some others did]. the following picture shows the scene, although somehow all the paper airplanes were on the ground at this point!

180 people in a hanger for a party! Paper airplanes lying around everywhere!


For the second year, I had the honour of announcing the results which is a fairly serious activity, especially as many competitors had spent a lot of time and money to practice, come and compete. I did hand over these duties for the Wigram Cup announcements [since I was in it and for many it is the main event].

As for my results?

Second in the liferaft competition [that's a nice surprise] and a very surprising first in the Wigram Cup Instrument Flying event! Absolutely stocked with that! The win came with a cup [which has to be handed back next year] and a plaque which I get to keep. There are also certificates for the win and the Wigram Cup second place.

The Cup

The plaque

Overall, Wellington came second in the Wigram Cup [congratulations to Whenuapai Aviation Sports Club who took out the Wigram this year!].

Tauranga Aero Club did a fantastic job of organising much of the event in conjunction with Flying NZ. I think the set the standard [or at least, kept it very high], which is a great effort!

Anyway, that's about it. Competitions are a lot of fun. The social side is great fun also [at one stage, a certain CFI was supplying paper for the paper airplanes..!]. I can't recommend this enough. The only requirements are you must be a member of a Flying NZ club and for some event, you must have won at your regional competition. Simple, eh?!

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