| Kiwi Open, Manilla, 24 February to
2 March 2006 Competition Report From Bright to Manilla, four days to get used to light Manilla conditions after the hills and trees of Bright. Manilla had also suffered a bad summer with less flying than normal. Plenty of rain had made the land almost green. The Kiwi Open and Manilla Pre-worlds were to be back to back with a very strong international field. 135 Pilots registered for the first of the two competitions including 8 Brits. The first two tasks went smoothly, with very light conditions. Unfortunately there were no more tasks as a high pressure system over Tasmania forced a wet weather trough over the region for the rest of the competition. Competition Results: Overall, T1, T2 Task animations: T1, T2 Official Competition Website 
 Day
1: Task
1: AnimationA light to moderate South Easterly forecast with isolated storms. A 74km elapsed time task to Turrawan was set. It took a while for the inversions to break and the climb-outs from launch were slow and difficult. A few early pilots bombed out but got to re-fly as allowed in the local rules. The first of the hill were the Norwegians, flying as a team. They flew as a team all the way to goal too, getting there first. The rest of the field were slow to get away. The clouds grew but the thermals were still weak. 80 pilots got to goal. The task winner was Norwegian Rolf Dale (UP Targa 2) with Steve ham (Airwave Magic 4) the top Brit in ninth place.  Day
2: Task 2: AnimationA light to moderate South Westerly forecast with isolated storms. A 56km triangle was set in order to stay local and away from the storms. Again, very light thermals on launch made the start difficult, though not so many pilots needed to re-fly. The first into wind section split the gaggles nicely and when high cirrus covered the sky the going got very slow. Only 20 pilots got to goal within the alotted time, with many still flying past the task deadline. Japan's Mr T (Axis Mercury) was first across the line with most of the French team just behind him. Mike Aston was the top Brit in 32nd place.  Day
3: Task 3: Storms everywhere except the immediate vicinity forced a local task to be set. 46km to Mt Stegga and back, then to Manilla. The weather gods weren't playing ball as the rain got too close and the day was cancelled shortly after the window opened. Day 4: The day was cancelled at the morning briefing due to imminent rain and bad weather. Day 5: The day was cancelled at the morning briefing due to imminent rain and bad weather. Day 6: The day was cancelled at the morning briefing due to imminent rain and bad weather. Day 7: The day was cancelled at the morning briefing due to imminent rain and bad weather. report by Mark Graham | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||