The Bicester Regionals 2008

Thursday's News

8:10am I admit I slept in a bit this morning, but a sneaky Windows update rebooted the PC as I was about to upload this file. Anyway, it's a bit nicer today, from what I can see on the MetMan's computer, and although there will be high cumulus in the early afternoon, it does look likely to go blue towards the end of the day. Still, these boys and girls can handle that sort of thing. In fact only the other week 379 was saying that if it's blue, he can win. Brave statement, but we'll soon see how things go. Also, in the Open class, we could do with a different face to John Roberts' in the winners gallery - it's frightening the children.
Grid AFTER briefing

10:30am The task has been set, and is the same for both classes.
AAT Bicester Northwest - Bishop's Cleeve (30km circle) - Pitsford (30km circle) - Banbury (20km semicircle, N/S) - Bic A/F
Task time will be 3 hours or 2:30 hours or 2 hours, to be decided closer to launching. First launch not 11:45am

The comp prizes have been announced, and are the same for both classes.
Overall First gets a Cannon Powershot A590is 8.0 Megapixel camera, 4x optical zoom
Overall Second gets a copy of SeeYou (thanks to them for sponsoring this prize)
Overall third gets a bottle of Glen Morangie, finest Scottish Malt Whisky
The special two-seater prize will be a Sony MP3 player with built in radio.
So, get racing boys and girls, as these are excellent prizes.

11:45am We will launch the Sport class at 12:00, on Task A (3 hours) - sniffer reports nice cu and good thermals. And the Open class will launch immediately afterwards, also on Task A.

13:00 They're off, well the Sports are, with a steady stream of radio calls now.

13:45 Seems to be a lot of cu around for a blue day... (Metman: I didn't say blue until after four!)
Most of the Open class have gone now, only 4 left, along with 3 Sports class still to call a start.

14:20 and the first two landouts are 93 at Enstone (within 20 minutes of starting!) and K19 who is at Weston-sub-Edge (somewhere near Broadway)
14:45 looks like CCR has landed out too, near Shipston on Stour. While KAW and J34 are on the ground somewhere.

16:10 Finishers in the Sports class - ETY (first one back I think), GW, MF, and GAM
16:20 Followed by 288, A20 and HGG, with 574 and D54 just behind them
But LS8, T19, MH, LD, 535, KMC, 466, PIO, DG, X15, KMC and DNE are all in fields.

16:31 First of the Open class back should be 260 and 4A, with ML from the Sports
16:40 C29, X8, JF, DUO all due back soon. Followed by 963, AH, 165, Z27 and 265. Good grief AA has called 5 minutes! We've had several others call non-comp finishes - we suspect they've used a turbo, or abandoned the task. And someone is on the ground at Upper Heyford, 4 miles short - it's N3.
16:48 EHT and 846 are 10km out, with LL behind them. So a fair number of finishers in both classes so far.
17:02 K5 is 5km out. F2, the sniffer got round as well. FJK 5 minutes after the other two.

18:40 I've just heard that T19 who landed out at Bidford, has landed out from his aerotow retrieve, this time at Enstone and is taking ANOTHER aerotow retieve. The big question is, has he now spent longer on tow today than on task?

And apparently Debbie "lost" CCR for a while, after meeting up with her crew. All those green fields look the same, don't they.

21:30 Most of the results are now online - use the menu. In the Sport Class, 22 got round, in the Open Class 20 made it back.

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