I now understand why people don't leave this place. Now that our second tug pilot is here, I've been able to get out and do some soaring. Um... holy crap. This place is wicked good.
I have some pictures up on webshots... be warned, they're PG. I've very much biwingal now ;)
http://community.webshots.com/user/j1mrooney
Today was pretty typical. High preassure, light winds. Winds don't seem to matter much. The lake does. Coronet is a South launch (All the way from west to east) and on North days, it still blows South up Coronet. The valley (see pictures) is one gigantic, ridge soaring dream of a bowl. The only downer is there is an airspace ceiling, so you can only get a couple thousand over launch.
It's not on all the time... when it's not High preassure, it's generally windy and drizzle. The weather here changes constantly though, so you're not stuck with it too long.
It's soarable anywhere from 9 or 10am till sunset, which happens to be around 9 or 10 pm. It's not all braindead, but at some point in the day it generally is.
Evenings are... um... well, it goes Magic every freaking day. We're 100k from the Ocean and the seabrease sets up anywhere from 4pm to whatever. It's thermals and ridgelift from then on.
I've been flying this in PG for the last few days and always get the call to land after a while. It blows out for PG. Today I got to fly a HG :) It doesn't blow out for HG. HELL YEAH.
Queenstown is a great place to fly, except that you have to bring your own glider. The people are great, the facilities are nice and the flying is rockin.
Fun stuff.
Jim
New Zealand Magic
Moderator: CHGPA BOD