The competition winner was BC pilot Jim Bamford. He flew a UP Comet 185 - a new, larger size that had just become available. With his light weight of around 135 pounds, he could easily have flown the smallest size, but in the light conditions prevalent at this site, he enjoyed a very low sink rate and a huge advantage over other pilots.
By the following year, many other pilots had adopted the larger size as well, including myself. By then, there was a newer model, the Comet 2. It had a better glide ratio, but was harder to turn, so having a low wind loading by then was no longer such an advantage. Eventually pilots all migrated to smaller gliders. But by then the competitions were focusing on cross-country flying, where the higher speed associated with a higher wing loading became an advantage.
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| Top 10 pilots at the 1982 nationals |
1st Jim Bamford, 2nd Jeff Blake, BC; 3rd Rick Mercer, AB; 4th Tony Schmidt, BC; 5th Howard Vandall, AB; 6th Rob Sinclair, 7th Lloyd Matthews, BC; 8th Bruce Galloway, AB; 9th Bob Yarnton, SK;. Missing: 10th Ken Hiebert.
I remember that comp...I flew in with my Quicksilver 2 place on floats but never entered...Instead I was trying to pay the bills doing Fun Flights and Demo Flights from the beach promoting the the aircraft and tandem float flying biz opportunity ... Jeff Blake ended up buying one and later.. Brian Dodd ended up buying a Spectrum Beaver on floats.
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