The Third South African WAG Qualifier was flown at the lush Groen Goud Glider Club field on Saturday, 8 November 2008. Notice of the event was published nationally and reminders were sent out a reasonable time in advance, suggesting that the event was “open to all”. Lionel Brink in his capacity as WAG observer, and Mark Stockton as CD were the event officials. Scoring was performed by Lionel, and checked & confirmed by Mark. Both Mark & Lionel confirmed that each pilot launched & landed within the allotted time/landing area for each slot. Any landings outside of the box were confirmed with the individual pilot’s timekeeper & no disputes were raised during the event.
The weather conditions started out as very blustery & a violent downpour, but changed to wet, overcast & with a relatively strong breeze. The box was clearly defined with the aid of steel poles cushioned with what looked suspiciously like swimming pool noodles - roughly 5000 sq. metres (being equivalent to approx. 50m x 100m), with the longest portion perpendicular to the prevailing winds as per the WAG rules. Pilots drew random numbers from a hat to enter into pre-matrixed slots for the preliminary rounds.
All times were recorded in seconds, all normalization based on the maximum time recorded for each slot. Rankings were based on normalized scores for each task.
Pilot briefings were held before every round to ensure that each pilot understood the rules. Pilots were either flying or timing for one of their competitors.
Results for task 1 (last flight)
Pilots, Slot, Time, Normalised, Ranking
Derek Marusich, 1, 90, 776, 5
Stephane du Ponsel, 1, 102, 879, 3
Alan Smith, 1, 116, 1000, 1
Gary Grainger, 2, 61, 871, 4
Piet Janse van Vuuren, 2, 70, 1000, 1
Lionel Smith, 2, 54, 771, 6
Reino Jacobs, 2, 54, 771, 6
Results for task 2 (last up x 3)
Pilot,Slot, Time 1, Time 2, Time 3, Normalised, Ranking
Derek Marusich,1, 89, 67, 96, 897, 4
Stephane du Ponsel, 1, 97, 81, 103, 1000, 1
Piet Janse van Vuuren, 1, 61, 0, 53, 406, 6
Reino Jacobs, 1, 0, 52, 58, 391, 7
Alan Smith, 2, 82, 130, 125, 1000, 1
Gary Grainger, 2, 45, 80, 67, 570, 5
Lionel Smith, 2, 68, 92, 143, 899, 3
The results from both tasks were accumulated with all pilots qualifying for the semi-finals, which saw the top 6 go through to the semi-final round.
Pilot, Round 1, Round 2, Preliminary, Ranking
Alan Smith, 1000, 1000, 2000, 1
Stephane du Ponsel, 879, 1000, 1,879, 2
Derek Marusich, 776, 897, 1673, 3
Lionel Smith, 771, 899, 1671, 4
Gary Grainger, 871, 570, 1441, 5
Piet Janse van Vuuren, 1000, 406, 1406, 6
Reino Jacobs, 771, 391, 1163, 7
For the semi finals, pilots were grouped into 2 slots, based on their preliminary round rankings (odds & evens). The semi-finals were flown using the last up x 3 format of Task 2. Lots of zero scores recorded due to models being blown away from the box in the high winds.
Pilot, Slot, Time 1, Time 2, Time 3, Normalised, Ranking
Alan Smith, 1, 123, 180, 159, 1000, 1
Derek Marusich, 1, 0, 0, 140, 303, 5
Piet Janse van Vuuren, 1, 0, 46, 89, 292, 6
Stephane du Ponsel, 2, 116, 87, 58, 1000, 1
Lionel Smith, 2, 109, 0, 2, 425, 4
Gary Grainger, 2, 63, 63, 89, 824, 3
The top 4 placed pilots based on the semi-final rankings qualified for the finals, during which a knock-out format was flown, with the “last pilot standing” declared the winner.
Pilot, Ranking
Alan Smith, 1
Stephane du Ponsel, 2
Lionel Smith, 3
Gary Grainger, 4
As the officials observing, we declare that the above results are an accurate & fair representation of the 3rd South African WAG qualification round.
3rd WAG ranking
Using the formula ”(SQRT(Total Competitors)/(Position in Event))*100” the WAG qualification results were determined by Mark Stockton as:
Pilot, WAG ranking
Alan Smith, 264.58
Stephane du Ponsel, 132.29
Lionel Smith, 88.19
Gary Grainger, 66.14
Derek Marusich, 52.92
Piet Janse van Vuuren, 44.10
Reino Jacobs, 37.80
