Oz Report

2002 Australian Nationals – the Hay Hair dryer

Australian Nationals 2002|Oleg Bondarchuk

Australian Nationals 2002

Australian Nationals 2002|Oleg Bondarchuk

After two days, Little Jon is in the lead of the Class I gliders.  It looks like a lot of guys are up close to the top, so no one is running away with the meet so far.

I heard the story from another pilot about what happened to Gerolf.  He was flying and especially gliding so well that he was up on top of the gaggles and going out in front.  He did come with me when we were about 20 kilometers from the turnpoint.  I found the lift and got up, he took a while longer to find it and was then near the bottom of the gaggle.

He got dropped back a bit from the first five guys who went with me to the turnpoint after he didn't find this thermal as quickly and was now on top of the second gaggle as we left the turnpoint.  He didn't want to stay with them, as he was already high and pushed forward on his own.  This lead to finding a weak thermal while the guys who were below him stayed in a good one and ended up going over his head.

Gerolf then came in late to goal and just landed short.  As he says, great performance is not always that helpful.

Paris is also complaining about having to fly with the lead gaggle.  He wants to stay back 15 minutes and then fly fast to catch the lead gaggle.  The problem is that he has tried this a couple of times (at the last meet), and he has failed to get the next start time and then hasn't been able to catch anyone because he was on his own.  Now he's afraid to give it a try because it looks like all the points come from being in the first gaggle.

Also so many of the good pilots are going in the first gaggle, that it moves quickly along and is harder to catch.  Also I'm pulling them with the better performing ATOS-C so they are going even faster.  Yesterday, Jerz used the strategy of following me (the rabbit to the greyhounds) and so far, it is working for him.

Oleg was able to catch the lead gaggle on the third day at Deniliquin, after starting 15 minutes behind them.  He overcame the early departure points, got the early arrival points and the speed points and won the day (and thereby the meet).

Today it was 104 Fahrenheit (40 Centigrade) in Hay with a strong wind out of the northwest.  The day was called fairly early – 1 PM, so we were able to get to the pool for a rousing three games of volleyball.

Results should be up at http://www.dynamicflight.com.au

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Hay⁣ Nationals?

Florida|Hay|sailplane

Florida|Hay|John "Ole" Olson|sailplane

(?-i)John "Ole" Olson|Florida|Hay|sailplane

Florida|Hay|John "Ole" Olson|sailplane|Tove Heaney

Apparently it got on the Australian national news (ABC) that Deniliquin and Hay were fighting for the right to host the Australian National Hang Gliding Championships.  Tove confessed to making a booboo when she thought she might get her proposed meet at Deniliquin to be called the Nationals (she later renamed it the Australian Open).

With Deniliquin right down the road from Hay (and the location of the gliding tour that Tove has run for a number of years), some folks in Hay felt mighty threatened when they thought that "their" meet was going to be taken over by a rival rural town (which, frankly, has a lot more going for it). They felt badly enough about that to make sure that it wouldn't happen.

For example, the tow paddock that Tove was going to use right next to Deniliquin suddenly was no longer available.  Seems like the owner of that paddock had closer ties with Hay than Deniliquin.  Things went from bad to worse as Tove searched for another paddock, found one in the next shire (county) 30 kilometers from Deniliquin, and then had to ride hard on the local counselors to get it prepared.

Everything turned out for the better, but as everywhere else, politics played a big part in making things harder than they should be. People like Tove need to be encouraged, and while she made a little political mistake, hopefully she will find encouragement from the whole Australian hang gliding community (as well as the rest of the world).

Foreign pilots really appreciate the opportunity to come to three meets in a row in Australia (it is even better than two meets in a row in Florida). The meet organizers need to work together for everyone's benefit.

I heard last year and have proposed again this year, that the cool thing might be to hold an aerotow meet at a sailplane port.  Maybe Tocumwal, Narromine, or some other sailplane port.  Need to have a lot of towing resources (like we had in Forbes last year), and the organizers have to build on the successful towing formats pioneered in Florida (and not those used at Forbes). This could be a swell idea.

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ATOS-C Spy pictures

photo

In the wind today I tried to take some photos of the inside of the ATOS-C at the nose area.

The long straight wire that goes through the white ring on the left side is the wire going to the spoileron.  It continues around the bakelite pulley on the right side of the picture at the nose end of the spar and then back to a horizontal aluminum cylinder in the middle of the picture.

The wire coming out of that cylinder to the left goes down through the bottom of the sail to the front of the left down tube.  It is the side/front wire.

The loose wire coming out of the right side of that cylinder connects through a pulley in the keel to the cylinder on the right spar.

This shows the same arrangement on the right spar.  The green ropes are limiters.  Theer is a white bungee on the right end of the cylinder.

This is the pulley in the keel.  The wire through the pulley connecting both sides means that you can't just raise one spoileron.  They get raised and lowered together.  Also, the side/front wires don't have any slack and when you pull back on the control bar, you swinf forward.

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No Valle meet

Nick Kennedy|Valle de Bravo

Nick Kennedy «nkavalancheranch» writes:

The Copa Millenio Cup in Valle de Bravo has been cancelled due to lack of sponsorship.

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Aeros Combat 2

Wills Wing

Aeros Combat|Wills Wing

Aeros Combat|Oleg Bondarchuk|Wills Wing

Aeros Combat|Oleg Bondarchuk|Wills Wing

G. W. Meadows «gw» writes:

As expected, with Oleg doing so well in the competitions in Australia, I’ve had lots of calls and emails from customers wanting the “low down” on the new Combat 2. For that reason, I thought I’d give a quick overview of the glider for your readers.

Aeros has always had a philosophy of building upon current successes.  Every comp glider since the Stealth 2 has been a progressive improvement over the last and the Combat 2 is no different.  Over the Combat 1, the Combat 2 incorporates a slightly different sail cut, airfoil, span wise sail tension and rib distribution.  It utilizes a completely different cloth on the leading edge, which allows for more reliable shaping throughout the speed range of the glider.

Handling is improved, as are the landing characteristics.  One large difference with the Combat 2 is the availability of the “micro-drag” control frame which utilizes the Wills Wing upright profiles with our own new state-of-the-art corner brackets as well as the best designed carbon speedbar you’ve ever seen.

The overall package provides a tremendously high performance glider that will keep up with any on the market – I think Oleg is proving that right now!  I might point out that the exact model of glider that Oleg is flying right now in Australia is available to the customer.  Oleg decided a few years ago not to fly gliders that were “questionable” in stability.  For this reason, we are able to offer the same Combat 2 to the customer.  Complete pitch testing has been done on the current Combat 2 and it passed with “flying” colors.

I am currently working on a significant incentive for customers in the U.S. who order a new C2 before the end of February.  I’ll update your readers as soon as it is finalized.  U.S. Aeros will be committed to making purchasing a hang glider in 2002 as affordable as possible.

(editor's note: Jerz Rossignol did very well on the Aeros Combat 2 yesterday.  If he hadn't been looking at the wrong goal location (the one on our GPSes instead of where they moved it to), he would have been the first flex wing to goal.)

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More Push to Talk

Pablo Gomez

Pablo Gomez-Trenor «pablogt» writes:

You might want to take a look to what these guys sell http://www.airtalker.com for "push to talk" radio communications.  Once you get through their less-than-practical web, their products look good to me.

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