The final competition was held on October 14 with fine conditions prevailing and a 10 to 15 knot variable wind. Parachuting and quite an amount of traffic made the day a little more interesting.

The first task was an instrument-less 1000 ft circuit. Most were able to nominate their speeds fairly close to the mark, but heights that the circuits were flown at varied considerably. Downwind heights varied from 1000 ft up to 2000 ft, turns on to crosswind from 500 ft up to 1000 ft and turns on to final were made at up to 1200 ft. A good case for spending more time looking outside the cockpit and learning to judge speeds and heights better and not relying on instruments all the time. (After all, it is VFR and not IFR we are flying.) Cockpit checks were quite good with only one downwind check not completed.

The 500 foot circuit and short field landing were not too bad with most achieving the target. As I have said before, the secret is to have the aircraft set up early and closely monitor the perspective and make the necessary adjustments early. Remember the nose attitude controls the speed (61 knots in VH-BAC for a short field approach) and power is used to control the rate of descent.

Steep turns, I thought, were once again a little disappointing, some not taking time to have a good look before rolling into the turn, and few were able to keep a constant height and bank for the full 360 degree turn. Anything in excess of 45 degrees constitutes a steep turn, but some were a little reluctant to go beyond 30 degrees.

Again, the secret is to look outside the aircraft, (and not head down looking at instruments) getting your cues from the attitude of the aircraft to the natural horizon. Any changes in attitude will be picked up much more quickly looking at the horizon than looking at instruments. They have a delay in them anyway. In time, with practice you should be able to feel whether the aircraft is in balance or not and properly apply the right amount of rudder.

The emergency landing was quite well done and for the most part checks were complete, although clearing the engine on the way down was not always carried out.

The quiz relating to the forecast and notams for race day at Bathurst was OK, but some answers were incomplete.

The main one was the first question. Most knew that it stood for Global Positioning System Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitor, but did not go on to say that its purpose in life was to monitor the signals from the satellites and advise if the accuracy of the system was good enough to conduct NPA approaches. It will issue a warning if any component of the system has been degraded and is not up to the required standard.

In questions three and four, some did not cover the full content of the notam. Another misconception was in question five. The 7000 stands for 7000 metres visibility and not a cloud base of 7000 ft.

Kingsley Picker won the day with 66 points from Brendan Simpson with 65.5 points and David Bull in third place on 62.5.