The Sugar Gliders - Australian Women's Gliding Team

The 3rd Women's World Gliding Championships will be held in Germany in July/August 2005, with the major training event to be held at the same site and time in 2004.

For the first time ever, Australia will be represented at a World Gliding Championship. We aim to win the team trophy for Australia. We also expect our individual pilots to rank highly in the competition. Lisa Turner and Lisa Trotter will be competing in the Women's team.

Reports from Germany

Catherine Conway's diary entries will be published here as she sends them.

The pilots are sending brief comments too:

... and Steve Kittel is also sending reports:

IGC files from the contest will be published here as the team sends them in:

Peter Creswick has kindly sourced weather data for the competition area:

The scores from the contest are on the contest web site here. Rankings by pilot ("Gemeldete Teilnehmer") or by class ("Flugtage nach Klassen"), along with a facility which lets you "play back" any pilot's flight on any given day, are here.

Meet the Sugar Gliders

Lisa Trotter

Lisa is 44 years old and works as a social researcher. She started flying fixed wing aircraft when she was 18 and gliders when she was 26. Lisa has achieved a national distance record and has completed many flights of over 800 kilometres. After some years of long distance flying, Lisa moved into competition flying and has participated in 5 national championships and 10 state championships. She has been selected to represent Australia in the 3rd Women's World Championships in Germany in 2005.

Lisa Turner

Lisa is 27 years old and currently works as town planner in Brisbane. Lisa started gliding at an early age through the encouragement and support of her father and older brother, who also glide. Lisa flew her first competition when she was 15 years old and has since flown in 4 national championships and 8 state championships. Lisa represented Australia in the 1st World Junior Gliding Championships held in the Netherlands in 1999, making her the only Australian junior pilot to have competed internationally. She is now looking forward to taking her gliding to the next level, having been selected to represent Australia in the 3rd Women's World Championships in Germany in 2005.

Image © Mal's Net Pty Ltd. Used with permission.

Catherine Conway

Catherine is the Team Manager. She is 38 years old and works as an Engineer in the IP Telecommunications industry. She started flying with the Adelaide University Club while still studying and has been flying for 18 years. Her first competition was in the club Bergfalke with an instructor before she went solo, leading to her first national competition in 1991. Catherine has represented Australia in NZ competing for the Tasman trophy.