2009 NSW Canopy Piloting State Championships

Beginning October 5^th members of the Australian Canopy Piloting Team and many others met up at Sydney Skydivers for a week long training camp leading up to the NSW Canopy Piloting State Championships. The championships are the teams last chance to get some competition experience before heading for South Africa in December to compete in the Canopy Piloting World Cup. Australia’s best at the World Championships in 2008, Rob McMillan, was available during the week to coach and mentor the new guys in the team on what to expect at a big international competition.

Unfortunately the weather gods did not play ball at all, the winds were strong most of the week and kept everyone on the ground more often than not. But at least we were all in the same boat. There was actually way more action at the go-cart track than at the dz during the week.

Saturday morning and it was all action stations, 19 competitors, 13 in open and 6 in intermediate. One of the intermediate guys had not competed before and was not available to train mid-week and prove he was safe so all the inter competitors were offered the chance to do a practice jump first up. Then the comp began with round 1 of Speed. Not long afterwards the winds picked up from the east over the freeway making it turbulent and unsafe on the pond. The conditions stayed that way till the end of the day. Fully Sik was not shy about letting everyone know that he was hoping that the weather would continue to stay bad and the comp get called on 1 round due to him leading the intermediate competition and he was up for a Gold medal if that happened. Unfortunately for him he wasd to be bitterly disappointed.....

Sunday morning, partly cloudy, light northerly. Competitors waived the usual minimum turnaround times and the competition rounds continued smoothly. As the day progressed the winds picked up and one round of Inter Zone Accuracy all competitors got a rejump due to the wind limits being exceeded.

Rob McMillan was leading the Open competition until he verticalled in the 2^nd last round. Michael Vaughan took the lead and held on for the last round. Shane Price finished a very close 3^rd just 0.5 points (30cm) ahead of Darren Griggs, both in their first Open competition after competing in intermediate at the 2009 CP Nationals earlier this year.

Due to a few rejumps and wind holds the intermediate competition did not complete the full 9 rounds. The competition was very close with Conor King taking it out by just 9 points from Keven Walters followed by Clayton Werner in 3^rd.

Congratulations go to all the winners and also to Sofia Giussani for attaining her CP judges rating.

Open Overall

Gold - Michael Vaughan

Silver - Rob McMillan

Bronze - Shane Price

Intermediate Overall

Gold - Conor King

Silver - Keven Walters

Bronze - Clayton Werner

Thanks to all the competitors for a safe competition also many thanks to all the judges, volunteers, pilots, manifest and everyone else who made it happen.

Good luck Aussie CP Team for the World Cup in December.

Photos by Simon Martin

Top Glenn Farrel

Bottom Conor King