Flytec
Wills Wing

Oz Report

Volume 5, Number 31
11 pm, Wednesday, January 3 2001
Tawonga, VIC, Australia
https://OzReport.com
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

to Table of Contentsto next topic Bogong Cup – Task 6 – The Flatlands

Tue, Jan 2 2001, 11:00:00 pm GMT

Betinho Schmitz|Gerolf Heinrichs|Kari Castle|Kraig Coomber|Oliver "Olli" Barthelmes|Sepp "Seppi" Himberger

Sorry about the late report and results, but it was a long task and everyone got back late.

The weather forecast calls for light easterly winds, so we're on to go back to Mt. Buffalo.

Launch and front setup area at Buffalo.

I'm on the task committee, but I have been basically deferring to Phil, a local pilot, whose also the weather guy, and Olli Barthelmes, a German pilot who flies in the area a lot.  Having been so deferential regarding the previous tasks, I finally had enough chits to name today's task and get everyone to agree.

After yesterday's too short task out on the flats, I called for a 100 miler (which we think is the longest task called in the Bogong Cup) again out on the flats.  It wasn't straight line (no need with the light winds forecasted), had two turnpoints, and brought us back to the same goal as yesterday.

The task was to fly west out to the McDonalds on the Hume highway to the west of Wangaratta, then up north to the wine country at Rutherglen, and finally south back to the stand along winery at Millawa (Brown Brothers airstrip). 161 kilometers.

We got going early up Buffalo so everyone was ready to start launching at 1:15. There would still be a 5-kilometer start circle as well as a 15-minute start clock increment.

With light or no winds, Buffalo can be a pleasant experience, still the rocks can get hot and put off short spikes of lift which are jarring.  We climb at a reasonable pace to 9,200' MSL to cloud base.

I can go at 2 but it’s not perfect.  Kari Castle forgetting about the start clock game, takes off then.  Many pilots are low around 2:15, but get high soon after that.  We get right to cloud base and for ten minutes play right next to the cloud at a little over 5 kilometers from the launch.

I'm happy to see that we set up little patterns that keep us from getting in the cloud or getting in each others way as we hang in zero lift up the sides of the cloud.  At thirty seconds to go for the 2:30 start I go with Gerolf back to the 5 kilometer distance, hit Mark and Enter, and about thirty pilots go off together.

Gerolf, Betinho and I are in the lead and it is a long glide to just west of Myrtleford, where we pick off the first straggler from the previous start clock in a thermal.  We are right on him, and the rest of the start gaggle is just behind us.

The three of us race out to the next thermal, get up 30 kilometers from the first turnpoint, and race on. Again a long glide, as we come in under the next straggler, but find weak lift that because we are a bit low means we'll have to take.  The guys behind us stay in better lift.

Gerolf gets the jump on Betinho and I in this weaker thermal and almost catches the guy over us from the previous start clock.  He gets ahead of us going toward the turnpoint.

Betinho and I head out after him after climbing in the weaker lift, Betinho will stop along the way, but I continue to a thermal near the turnpoint that is marked by a number of pilots from the previous start time.

This is a much better thermal, and the pilots behind me who've climbed high in better lift come join me and earlier pilots.  Gerolf takes the turnpoint with the fastest of the earlier pilots, while we all climb fast behind them, and get the turnpoint a few minutes later.

It was a fast run under good looking clouds 60 kilometers to the first turnpoint, and now we turn and head into the wind.  It's blowing about 9 mph straight from the second turnpoint and we've got 50 kilometers to cover.

As we pass over Wangaratta, I see Kari Castle hit a strong thermal, and we all join her at 800 fpm to over 9,000' MSL.  Gerolf and the earlier pilots missed this thermal and many are on the deck in front of us.

The clouds will continue for a while as we head over the river, but after that it is 30 kilometers in the blue out to the turnpoint.  I'm thinking about what to do with the blue.  Stay with the gaggle that is now behind me, or forge ahead?

Betinho and I are in the lead, with Gerolf way low and behind.  There are little cu's forming along the course line, so we keep pushing out into the headwind, and pulling the bits and pieces of the gaggle with us. Only the strongest pilots are able to come in under us. Betinho is gliding very well.

We spread out more as I try to move a bit to the east toward the right side of the course to get a bit upwind as it appears the wind is coming a bit more from this direction.  I hit strong lift out in the blue and get 1000' over Betinho.  Given the strong lift in the blue, I decide to forget waiting for the gaggle and go out on my own.

Betinho will decide to wait and use the other pilots to help him get through the large blue area (we now have twenty kilometers to go to get to the turnpoint, then we have to go back through the blue to get to goal).

After all the strong lift, even in the blue, it now chooses to disappear as I try to follow microlift lines but toward the turnpoint.  I find lots of sink, and little bits of lift here and there.

I'm in strong search mode the closer I get to the turnpoint, and I'm ignoring the turnpoint and searching for lift.  No luck.  Finally, 2 kilometers out and under 2,000' I head to the turnpoint thinking that that is as far as I will get.  Just as I make the turnpoint with 1,000' I hit a bit of lift.

I'm in survival mode now, and fortunately I can drift back toward goal and stay in whatever lift I can find.  At first it is just anything that causes any kind of beep on the vario as I try to find a core.  After what seems like too long, I'm able to get a full turn in lift, and it rather quickly turns on to 700 fpm as I climb out to 4,500' AGL.

By now a number of the pilots who were following have come close to the turnpoint.  Betinho who stayed high has made it and is slowly heading back toward goal.

There seems to be a lot more areas of lift on the way back then I experienced on the way out, but it is much reduced in strength.  I work 100 to 200 fpm to get high enough for the thermals to get stronger.  Some pilots will take a line to the right of the course line and get under some clouds that are working and will get them to goal.  I continue heading straight as there is a cloud ahead.

With not enough altitude to make goal at 15 kilometers out, I spy Rohan and Gerolf behind me circling.  Olli has just landed below them, and Seppi is about to. The lift is weak but it is enough to hang out for a minute and assess the situation.

As the thermal gives out we spread.  I'm way to the left.  We head toward goal, and I find it first.  It's 500 fpm, after 6:15 PM, and we are quite surprised to find something this strong, this low.

Since I'm on top I can keep track of the situation.  I'll stay in the thermal until Gerolf goes, then go with him.  We gain plenty of altitude to make goal, and then burn it off on the way into goal.  Gerolf get there a few seconds earlier, but I believe that I could have actually kept up with him, and I just backed off a bit.

I spoke with Gerolf in the goal paddock afterwards.  I found out that his Garmin 12 XL is resetting itself after down loading the track log.  This explains why it was set to the default datum at WGS 84. He kept changing it back, but forgot on this day.

The goal keeper and Gerolf both has Garmin 12 XL's. This may explain why their GPS times on the same for the goal, while other pilots are off.

Gerolf stated that he felt when he had 4 liters of water ballast that he was able to out glide me, but that when he didn't have ballast, I would just out glide him.  I don't use ballast (but may in the future). He thought it was interesting that it was that close.

Today's results:

1 SCHMITZ Betinho Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 936
2 BARBER Mike Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 874
3 HAZLETT Brett Moyes Litespeed 4 CAN 842
4 REWOLINSKI Steve Icaro Laminar USA 841
5 HEINRICHS Gerolf Moyes Litespeed 4 AUT 814
6 STRAUB Davis Air Atos 145 USA 812
7 COOMBER Kraig Moyes Litespeed AUS 807
7 WEISSENBERGER Tom Moyes Litespeed 4 AUT 807
9 HOLTKAMP Rohan Airborne Climax AUS 802
10 CASTLE Kari Wills Wing Fusion SP USA 798

Cumulative:

1 SCHMITZ Betinho Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 5133
2 OLSSON Andreas Moyes Litespeed SWE 4468
3 HAZLETT Brett Moyes Litespeed 4 CAN 4387
4 HOLTKAMP Rohan Airborne Climax AUS 4355
5 BARBER Mike Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 4336
6 STRAUB Davis Air Atos 145 USA 4165
7 DURAND Jon Jnr. Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 4136
8 HEINRICHS Gerolf Moyes Litespeed 4 AUT 4102
9 CASTLE Kari Wills Wing Fusion SP USA 4055
10 REWOLINSKI Steve Icaro Laminar USA 3995

The full results will be up on my site at http://www.davisstraub.com/bogong.

Discuss "Bogong Cup – Task 6 – The Flatlands" at the Oz Report forum   link»

to Table of Contentsto next topic Wallaby Open and USHGA sanctioning?

Tue, Jan 2 2001, 11:00:01 pm GMT

Competition Committee|Cross Country Magazine|John Borton|NAA|USHGA BOD

John Borton, USHGA Competition Committee Chair, «CompCommittee» writes:

With a history of conflict between the Wallaby and Quest contests dates, the full Board of Directors (BOD) of the USHGA by unanimous vote directed the Competition Committee (CC) not to entertain conflicting date requests for these meets.  With this directive in mind, on Oct.  22, 2000 the CC voted conditional sanctioning of non-overlapping dates for these two contests -- April 15 - 21 (7 days) for Quest and April 22 - 29 (8 days) for Wallaby.  The dates conditionally approved were modified from the dates requested only to remove a 2 day overlap of the meets.  At the time, the Organizers were given 2 weeks to "confirm these dates or lose sanction" (BOD minutes). The Organizer of the Quest meet confirmed its dates within the conditional window, while Wallaby did not.

Only a few weeks after the conditional window expired, I noticed in Cross Country Magazine that Wallaby was announcing dates for its meet that now met the BOD's "meets can't overlap" policy.  With this bit of news, I fully expected a sanction request to be submitted by Wallaby.  Such a timely request would have guaranteed instant approval by the CC since it would have met the previously mentioned BOD requirement and also allowed for compliance with the publishing, notification and registration requirements of the USHGA rule book.

Rather than the expected sanction request from Wallaby, I was informed that a representative for Wallaby had approached the NAA and that Wallaby was attempting to circumvent the USHGA sanctioning process by an end run directly to the National Aero Club.  After discussion and review of the BOD minutes, the NAA saw no reason to deviate from standard procedures whereby sanction requests for US meets are handled by the USHGA.

Following these events, I emailed a Wallaby meet official inquiring about the status of any potential request for sanctioning.  The substantive part of my original email follows:

"I know that you want this meet to be sanctioned as much as the rest of the CC and the pilots do… Should I tell pilots that there will be no sanction?  If there is anything I can do to help get it sanctioned, let me know also."

I exchanged more emails with this official (who was in communication with Malcolm) but no conclusion followed.

Today I learned that Wallaby, only a week before the full USHGA BOD meeting, has requested a vote of the Executive Committee (EC) of the USHGA for approval for the Confederaco Brasileira de Voo Livre to hold a competition at Wallaby.  This appears to be yet another attempt to achieve the goal of sanctioning without requesting it through the normal USHGA process.  The EC wisely decided to defer the request to the CC and full BOD as is usual.  If the request still stands in a weeks time, it will be taken up in full CC session.

The Wallaby organizers have clearly been quite busy in their attempts to acquire sanctioning for their meet…just not from the entity, which can offer it -- the USHGA.  In spite of the USHGA's offers of sanction, apparently Wallaby feels strongly that there are advantages to circumventing the normal process and rules of the USHGA by obtaining sanctioning in a circuitous back door manner.

No doubt that in 2001, Wallaby will be up its usual top-notch standards.  The USHGA asks little of sanctioned meet organizers.  The Association has an obligation to its members when issuing sanctions to ensure both fair notification and open registration policies.

All that stands in the way is Malcolm requesting and complying with the sanctioning requirements.  Will he? -- we hope.

Discuss "Wallaby Open and USHGA sanctioning?" at the Oz Report forum   link»

to Table of Contentsto next topic Chris Muller in the hospital

Tue, Jan 2 2001, 11:00:02 pm GMT

Chris Muller|injury|Stewart Midwinter

Stewart Midwinter, e-mail: «Stewart», web: http://www.midwinter.ca writes:

The good news is that Chris is going to be okay, it was a minor injury to his C-7 vertebra.  He'll be back in Canada in a couple of days.  I spoke to him at the British-American hospital in Mexico City.  If anyone wants to phone to wish him well, you can dial (011) 525 230-8000 and ask for room 245.

Conditions were light and scratchy on the first day of the paragliding Millennium Cup comp, and in one thermal circle Chris hit a bit of sink on the backside of the turn and a tree was rude enough to get in his way.

I'm glad to hear he's okay.  Good luck for a change.

You can get a rude surprise at any time in this life - a car hit me last week while riding my bicycle home from work.  The driver got out and began harassing me for breaking his mirror (hey buddy, how about a "are you okay?"). I'm just lucky to have suffered only minor injuries, and to have been given a little wake-up call on leaving a greater margin for the "bozo factor".

Discuss "Chris Muller in the hospital" at the Oz Report forum   link»

to Table of Contentsto next topic ATOS cam helper

Tue, Jan 2 2001, 11:00:03 pm GMT

ATOS|Vincent "Vince" Endter

Vincent Endter «vendter» writes:

I made a device to help in setting up the Atos.  It started when a friend broke his arm and suffered some temporary nerve damage, making it difficult for him so get his cams over center.  Then I tried to set up in 38° °F, and with my numb hands found it very difficult as well.

Anyway, I made up several of these.  I'm not really trying to sell a bunch of these.  It would be nice if Atos included one with each glider.  It took me about 10 hours to make up 18 of them and would take them just a couple of minutes each with a CNC machining center.  I have a picture of a prototype at the egroups web site.  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RigidWing/files/Photos/Atos+cam+helper/ Not only does it make setting the cams easier, but it helps keep the cam parallel with the rib while setting.  You can also set the cams a little tighter to get the last of the wrinkles out of the sail (usually only a concern for comp pilots).

(editor's note: I'll be getting one from Vince, and provide readers with a full review in February.)

Discuss "ATOS cam helper" at the Oz Report forum   link»

The Oz Report, a near-daily, world wide hang gliding news ezine, with reports on competitions, pilot rankings, political issues, fly-ins, the latest technology, ultralight sailplanes, reader feedback and anything else from within the global HG community worthy of coverage. Hang gliding, paragliding, hang gliders, paragliders, aerotowing, hang glide, paraglide, platform towing, competitions, fly-ins. Hang gliding and paragliding news from around the world, by Davis Straub.

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