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topic: Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

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Our Russians are Safe

Mon, Mar 14 2022, 7:10:36 pm MDT

And not in Russia

Andrey Solomykin|Bobby Bailey|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Julia Burlachenko

April sends:

I have been in contact with Evgeniya and Yulia. Two of our pilots. They are safe for now. I am posting one of the correspondence as of this morning.

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya, Bobby Bailey, Julia Burlachenko

Bobby Bailey with Evgeniya and Yulia

Hi April, I am very touched by your letter, thank you. Yulia and her husband, and their daughter, and even Yulia's mom, as well as Andrey and I, are still out of Russia, in Sri Lanka. We all are safe. We don't want to go back to Russia now because of the war, and from the looks of it we maybe won't be back there for years. Since we are not in Russia, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube still work for us.

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Evgeniya Laritskaya, tail dragging

Thu, Sep 24 2020, 6:47:10 pm MDT

In Russia

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook

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2020 Forbes Flatlands »

Thu, Jan 9 2020, 8:30:56 am EST

Day 6, Task 3 results

Øyvind Ellefsen|Attila Bertok|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Forbes Flatlands 2020|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Rohan Taylor|Trent Brown|Vicki Cain

Vicki Cain writes:

We’re getting ready for task 3 today launch starts a little early at 12:45 you can watch the action live at Flymaster. The Open Class are coming back to the airfield so we will all be at goal with bells and whistles and cold beer and watermelon.

Live Tracking: https://lt.flymaster.net/bs.php?grp=3171

Attila, the day winner.

Task 3:

# Name Glider Time Total
1 Attila Bertok Moyes RX 5 Pro 03:24:53 1000
2 Josh Woods Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 03:25:23 973
3 Rohan Taylor Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 03:26:28 946
4 Jonas Lobitz Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 03:26:39 944
5 Filippo Oppici Ww T3 144 03:30:25 914
6 Trent Brown Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 03:30:28 907
7 Jonny Durand Moyes RX 4 Pro 03:30:31 902
8 Philippe Michaud Moyes RX 4 Pro 03:31:00 895
9 Steve Blackler Moyes RX 3.5 03:43:26 838
10 Olav Opsanger Moyes RX 4 Pro 03:55:32 764

Cumulative:

# Name Glider Total
1 Attila Bertok Moyes RX 5 Pro 2655
2 Josh Woods Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 2485
3 Jonny Durand Moyes RX 4 Pro 2384
4 Filippo Oppici Ww T3 144 2342
5 Trent Brown Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 2214
6 Olav Opsanger Moyes RX 4 Pro 2130
7 Jonas Lobitz Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 2069
8 Vic Hare Ww T3 144 1884
9 Oyvind Ellefsen Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 1847
10 Lukas Bader Moyes Rs 4 1846

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

Our pilots had a 157km flat triangle task, mostly with a cross wind and a final short leg with the head wind. The launch was open at 12:45. The towing was rather rough from what pilots said, but this just meant that the weather is great. Our tug pilots are amazing, by the way, towing and saving hang glider pilots in such extreme conditions.

Andrey said he had ceilings of 3000+ meters (~10,000 ft), thermals at times up to 5m/s (1000 fpm, sinks were strong, too), and winds from 8 to 25 km/h. Andrey ended up 41 km short, but time-wise (not distance-wise) he had the longest flight of his life: he was in the air 6 h 23 min. He was fighting hard, having two low-saves from 350 meters and one from 249 meters, which was already at half past six in the sunset light, and it turned into +5m/s.

Aleksei was flying faster but his harness’ zipper broke at some point and, after flying for 70 more km with open harness, he landed on course. Michael decked it after the first turnpoint. Konstantin made it further than the other Russians, but also didn’t make it to goal. Yes, the conditions were challenging!

Fifteen amazing pilots made goal with Attila leading again.

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2020 Forbes Flatlands »

Wed, Jan 8 2020, 8:14:47 am EST

Day 5, Task 2 results

Øyvind Ellefsen|Andrey Solomykin|Attila Bertok|dust devil|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Forbes Flatlands 2020|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Konstantin Lukyanov|Trent Brown

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

The task committee set a 144 km long zigzag task to Bogan Gate, with the launch opening at 1 pm. There were some concerns about the wind at first, but by 1 pm the weather at the paddock looked really good (the heat and dust devils are included into the “good” when you are in Forbes).

It was a really fun to watch live tracking. Attila Bertok was flying with the Ollie Chitty’s tracker, so it was Attila who was blasting all the way to goal. Jonny Durand came in second, and Filippo Oppici third.

As for our team, Michael Karmazin made goal. Andrey Solomykin was 350 meters short (he is sad, but I am proud for he was never giving up!). Aleksei Labzin landed halfway between second turnpoint and goal, and Konstantin Lukyanov was flying too fast at some stage, which caused him to deck it before the 2nd turnpoint.

My pilots said they could climb up to 3100-3200 meters (10500 ft), the wind was cross most of the way, the thermals were not too strong and rather broken most of the time, but sometimes they would find something like 6 m/s (1200fpm) on average. And a lot of dust devils everywhere. Forbes: the way we love it.

https://www.forbesflatlands.com/results/results-2020

Task 2:

# Name Glider Time Total
1 Attila Bertok Moyes RX 5 Pro 02:55:21 1000
2 Jonny Durand Moyes RX 4 Pro 03:09:57 848
3 Filippo Oppici Ww T2C 144 03:10:03 838
4 Olav Opsanger Moyes RX 4 Pro 03:12:41 818
5 Josh Woods Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 03:12:55 812
6 Oyvind Ellefsen Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 03:14:26 794
7 Yasuhiro Noma Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 03:23:09 756
8 Pedro L. Garcia Ww T3 144 03:25:18 745
9 Jonas Lobitz Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 03:38:05 695
10 Vic Hare Ww T3 144 03:49:00 652

Cumulative:

# Name Glider Total
1 Attila Bertok Moyes RX 5 Pro 1655
2 Josh Woods Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 1512
3 Jonny Durand Moyes RX 4 Pro 1482
4 Pedro L. Garcia Ww T3 144 1443
5 Filippo Oppici Ww T2C 144 1428
6 Olav Opsanger Moyes RX 4 Pro 1366
7 Trent Brown Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 1307
8 Vic Hare Ww T3 144 1244
9 Yasuhiro Noma Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 1228
10 Jonas Lobitz Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 1125

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2020 Forbes Flatlands »

January 7, 2020, 8:45:02 EST

2020 Forbes Flatlands

Day 4 results

Andrey Solomykin|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Filippo Oppici|Forbes Flatlands 2020|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Trent Brown|weather

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes at noon:

Our task and safety committees chose to believe the most optimistic of the weather forecasts, so here is the task we hope open class pilots can fly today: a straight line 167 km (157 km optimized distance, I think) with a quartering tailwind. Right now it is still a little too windy.

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes at 3 PM:

Launch delayed. Still waiting. Pilots are ready.

At 3:30 PM pilots are in the air.

https://lt.flymaster.net/bs.php?grp=3171

Looks like Jonny landed 41.6 km from goal and he was the furthest according to Live Tracking.

Here are the Results:

http://www.forbesflatlands.com/results-show?id_results=3&db=results2020&class=results_open

# Name Glider Distance Total
1 Trent Brown Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 119.15 671
2 Josh Woods Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 117.30 664
3 Pedro L. Garcia WW T3 144 116.78 662
4 Jonny Durand Moyes RX 4 Pro 104.75 603
5 Vic Hare Wills Wing T2C 136 94.95 567
6 Filippo Oppici WW T2C 144 94.46 565
7 Andrey Solomykin 91.32 550
8 Olav Opsanger Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 86.94 526
9 Marcin Gil 77.95 483
10 Rich Reinauer Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 72.21 461
10 Steven Blackler 72.29 461

2020 Forbes Flatlands »

January 6, 2020, 8:15:50 EST

2020 Forbes Flatlands

Day 3 cancelled

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Forbes Flatlands 2020

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

Strong winds everywhere around.

http://www.bom.gov.au/nsw/forecasts/parkes.shtml

Hot. Partly cloudy. Areas of smoke haze. Medium (40%) chance of showers on the slopes, slight (20%) chance elsewhere. The chance of a thunderstorm this afternoon and evening. Winds east to northeasterly 25 to 40 km/h tending northwest to northeasterly 25 to 35 km/h in the middle of the day then tending northeast to southeasterly 20 to 30 km/h in the evening. Daytime maximum temperatures 35 to 42.

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDN60801/IDN60801.94715.shtml

At 2:30 PM Monday the wind at Forbes was 22 km/h gusting to 35 km/h.

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2020 Forbes Flatlands »

January 4, 2020, 8:52:50 pm EST

2020 Forbes Flatlands

Day 2 cancelled

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Forbes Flatlands 2020

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

The Forbes Flatlands Championship, day 2 was cancelled for two reasons. First, the visibility is less than 5 km, which is required to fly legally in this country. All this smoke. Furthermore, with the wind becoming more southeast as the day progressed, it is expected to become worse.

The second reason is the wind. At the airfield it is flyable but everywhere around it is very strong, such as 72 km/h we were told. It is dangerous to fly beyond the paddock. So our task and safety committee cancelled the day. If the visibility improves, pilots may free fly locally if they want. It is still very very hot, so not too many pilots want that.

Pilots are taking juggling lessons at the moment, and going to visit the Parkes radio telescope.

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Corryong Cup last day

January 2, 2020, 8:08:59 EST

Corryong Cup last day

The pictures

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

Before I begin this story, I should clarify that we are now safe in Forbes. Hopefully we will be flying from today on. When the wind is wrong, the smoke from the fires all over NSW can be noticed here in Forbes (they even reach New Zealand). When the wind is right, however, it looks like our usual hot hang gliding paradise.

30th of December, the fourth day of the Corryong comp, was canceled due to strong winds.

The day promised to be an ordinary rest day. First of all, Judi organized a contest for the best flying paper airplane (which Andrey won). Then there was a meeting on deploying reserve chutes. Then some pilots went to view the waterfalls, some rafted along the Murray River, and a few others, like us, decided to swim in it.

16:12 Our meet director Karl sent us all a message: “Just a note to everyone a fire is NW of Walwa. We’re not in danger but keep an ear to the ground”.

Walwa is 32 km away from Corryong and behind two small mountains. A strong wind was blowing directly from that direction. I have no idea how fast a fire like that can move, but the local pilots were calm. In a way, we were already used to the smoke from the bushfires circulating all over the country, so we were not at all surprised when, while swimming, we saw lots of smoke obscuring the sky above us and making the sun red. But we still went a few kilometers towards Walwa to see what was going on and observed thick columns of smoke coming from behind the second mountain where Walwa is.

18:31 On the way back to Corryong we received SMS “Bushfire Emergency Warning from FFMVic. Walwa and surrounding areas. LEAVE NOW. DO NOT USE SHELLEY-WALWA RD. Check local radio or www.emergency.vic.gov.au

I asked local pilots and they said we were good for the moment. If you looked at the emergency map screenshot I am posting (thanks so much to those who made this web-site and were updating it), you will see that, at 18:36, Corryong was in the yellow area, which means “There is currently no threat to you, but you should stay informed of the situation.” Oh, good. We went to the restaurant to have dinner, but noticed that some local people were getting worried. No wonder. The smoke from behind our closest Mitta-Mitta mountain was the worst I have ever seen and the charred leaves of eucalyptus and ashes were coming down from the sky.

After a rather short dinner, we decided to go back into our rented house and prepare our things for possible evacuation. If nothing else, at least we would load gliders on the cars.

20:33 I looked at the web-site again and now we were in the orange area, which means “Don't wait, leaving now is the safest option - conditions may change and get worse very quickly. Emergency Services may not be able to help you if you decide to stay.“

It was not an “Evacuate right now!” black colored area, which was around Walwa at that time. But we decided to take the good advice and be on the safe side, though most of our fellow pilots decided to stay in Corryong, Colac-Colac and Towong (all neighbouring little villages) and monitor the situation.

It was actually hard to decide to leave: we didn’t know where to go yet. The emergency web-site advised going to Tallangatta, so we decided to move in that direction and seek for a motel online while driving. Furthermore, we were not sure we had to go - the local pilots were rather optimistic and planned a briefing for the next morning. But, hey, this fire was not under control, the wind was blowing towards us, and the next day the forecast was for the same wind. On top of that, there were so many “not under control” fires in Oz everywhere, why would this one be an exception? The scary part for me was that even if the fire didn’t hit Corryong the next day, the escape routes will be blocked. I heard a few recent stories about Australian villages and cities trapped by burning roads all around with no means of escape.

So we decided to pack and go, even though some members of our team were muttering that we all were being alarmists. While packing we saw not just glowing smoke but fire coming closer and closer along the second ridge. It took us less than an hour to pack everything and leave.

21:30 We left Corryong and headed towards Tallangatta, noticing many cars driving in the same direction. Passing by Colac-Colac (6 km away from Corryong) where some hang glider pilots were staying, we saw a full-on evacuation happening, with emergency cars with their emergency lights.

22:14 Our fellow pilots reported: “SkyNet team has been evacuated from Colac-Colac. We are heading to Tallangatta.”

On the way to Tallangatta, we noticed that police were blocking the way back. The most frighteningly stunning part of the drive was passing the Walwa valley on the right. The sky was glowing from the fires and it felt so close.

We didn’t find any place to stay in Tallangatta so we went all the way to Albury to stay there overnight. We were still hoping this nightmare will be over in a day or two and we would be coming back to finish our competitions.

23:31 I looked at the map and Colac-Colac as well as the road through it were in a black “full evacuation” area.

00:58, 31st of Dec, Colac-Colac was already in a red area which means “The safest option is to take shelter immediately. It’s too late to leave”. It is by far the scariest advice I have ever seen.

03:12, 31st of Dec, Anna Wright, who was staying in Corryong, wrote in our hang gliding chat group: “Yes well we have been evacuated from the house in town where we were staying tonight and asked to go to the high school to be with everyone. The wind has moved and they have fears that they will lose the lower end of town! Stay safe people…”

The fire situation in Towong, where most pilots were, looked better still.

8:19, 31st of Dec, Karl sent a message that the final days of the Corryong cup were cancelled and the comp is finished. We spend a day slowly driving to Forbes, where we decided to await the start of the Forbes Flatlands competition.

16:06, 31st of Dec, Elena sent us news that “Fires hit Corryong eight hours ago. A woman staying in the evacuation center set up in Corryong college said in a Facebook post that the power was out and there was little to no mobile reception. She said the evacuation center was safe but there were concerns over supplies and sanitation.”

20:19, 31st of Dec, Judi said: “The fire was indeed ferocious, and circled the town. Locals are fine. I think a couple of houses and a farm or two [are affected]. We came back this afternoon. No electricity. Soot and embers all through the house but all fine really. Still many people at the relief centre. I think it’s all over now. Very smoky though.“

And Todd wrote: “I spoke with a lady at the fire refuge in Tallangatta this morning and she told me that she lost her home along with 10-15 others in Cudgewa”. Cudgewa is 11 km away from Corryong.

Random Instagram posts were showing Corryong reports such as:

“Over 1000 people are at the evacuation centre, which we were told to move to at 3am as the fire came over the mountains. Families are here with dogs, cats, horses and birds and of course little children. All so worried about their homes. Kaylie, Howard and I are safe with everyone. We are all so thankful for the men and women fighting this enormous fire.”

Yesterday, the 1st of January, we had breakfast with Karl who was in Corryong yesterday. He said that six or seven houses were gone in Corryong, there were fires starting here and there in the city, and people are fighting it hard. Karl had to drive all the way to Tumbarumba to get petrol for his car, and on the way back to Corryong he saw a fast moving fire going across the road and cutting this road off.

Jason Kath said “Toby and I stayed and defended Colac Colac. All good there but prob no power for days.”

We don’t know what is going on there now. We are hoping that the fire has passed and left Corryong. Hard to understand from the map, really: http://tiny.cc/lid8hz

According to various reports, the Corryong city was hit by fire around 8 am on the 31st of December. It was only 16 hours after we first heard rumors about the fire, and 12 hours after the first advice about evacuation, which is when we decided it was best to leave. It happens really, really fast. Life changes really, really fast.

I apologize if you find this too long of a post, but mostly I just wanted to clear my head. If you look at the map by the link I posted above, you will see all the currently burning fires in the state of Victoria.

This site shows fires in New South Wales: https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/fires-near-me

People are fighting back, but still getting trapped and losing livestock, property, and even lives. It is terrifying as just a concept alone, but when you have just stayed in that house, flew from that mountain, talked to those people, ate their food, and now it is all on fire - it is devastating. I so hope it all stops, and that they all and their houses and pets and property survive the fire, please.

More links on the subject:
http://tiny.cc/uid8hz
http://tiny.cc/cjd8hz

Our thoughts are with those who fight the fire.

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2019 Corryong Cup »

December 29, 2019, 10:19:16 EST

2019 Corryong Cup

Day 2 and 3 results

Andrey Solomykin|Blue Sky|Corryong Cup 2019|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Konstantin Lukyanov|weather

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

The sky was overcast from the morning on, and the weather forecast wasn’t optimistic at all. Still, pilots decided to go up and give it a try. And they were so right to do so!

The task committee set a 51 km task around Mount Mitta Mitta, a little mountain range up to 950 meters high. Right on the east side of this range there is the Murray river, dividing the Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales.

The only problem was the overcast, but now and then the blue sky holes were coming and going, providing rare thermals. That made the task challenging and requiring luck. Flying from sunny spot to sunny spot, hanging in zero sink when there was no sun, almost landing, and then happily finding something which would let a pilot “survive” until the next sunny cycle.

Konstantin wasn’t lucky and landed after struggling for almost half the distance. Aleksey had the opposite experience. He had a really fast run to the goal. We are very happy for him. Andrey almost landed after the first turnpoint, spent forever trying to get back up and was finally rewarded by getting enough sun to get to the goal, too.

Rob de Groot was first in goal today.

Results: http://wow.asn.au/comps/?q=node/100

Task 2:

# Name Nat Glider Time Distance Total
1 Konstantin Lukyanov RUS Litespeed RX 3.5 01:26:33 48.07 990
2 Andrey Solomykin RUS Litespeed RX 3 02:12:55 48.07 744
3 Mark Russell AUS Litespeed RS4 40.40 621
4 Michael Free AUS Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 35.95 576
5 John Harriott AUS Litespeed RX Pro 30.76 508
6 Peter Burkitt AUS Litespeed RX4 Pro 24.35 413
7 Aleksei Labzin RUS Litespeed RX 3.5 19.72 347
8 Jay Kubeil AUS Sting 3 - 154 12.24 242
9 Todd Wisewould AUS Wills Wing T2C 10.03 209
10 Peter Garone AUS Gecko 155 5.92 145

Task 3:

# Name Nat Glider Time Distance Total
1 Rob de Groot AUS Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 01:43:31 50.67 907
2 Aleksei Labzin RUS Litespeed RX 3.5 01:47:41 50.67 858
3 Andrey Solomykin RUS Litespeed RX 3 02:53:29 50.67 604
4 Gary Wright AUS Litespeed RX 3.5 21.35 397
5 Konstantin Lukyanov RUS Litespeed RX 3.5 20.70 392
6 David Drabble AUS Gecko 170 12.85 301
7 John Harriott AUS Litespeed RX Pro 12.21 291
8 Michael Free AUS Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 8.54 227
9 Todd Wisewould AUS Wills Wing T2C 5.00 167
9 Jay Kubeil AUS Sting 3 - 154 5.00 167

Cumulative:

# Name Nat Glider Total
1 Konstantin Lukyanov RUS Litespeed RX 3.5 2382
2 Andrey Solomykin RUS Litespeed RX 3 2096
3 Michael Free AUS Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 1607
4 Aleksei Labzin RUS Litespeed RX 3.5 1519
5 Rob de Groot AUS Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 1314
6 John Harriott AUS Litespeed RX Pro 1263
7 Todd Wisewould AUS Wills Wing T2C 1186
8 Gary Wright AUS Litespeed RX 3.5 1164
9 Peter Burkitt AUS Litespeed RX4 Pro 829
10 David Drabble AUS Gecko 170 765

Corryong Cup

December 28, 2019, 9:04:10 EST

Corryong Cup

Day 1 Results

Andrey Solomykin|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Konstantin Lukyanov|weather

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

The results of the first day were announced in the morning: Konstantin was first. Andrey was fourth, there were 17 participants (there are also quite a few free-flyers), and the Russian team is in first place. The results can be found online, here is the link: http://wow.asn.au/comps/?q=node/101.

The weather forecast today promised more complicated conditions than yesterday: a stronger wind and a greater chance of overdevelopment. The pilots were not even sure if they would have enough time to complete the task. But they did The task was the same as yesterday with one minor difference: it was not an elapsed time format, but race, in order to lure the pilots into the air earlier.

At some point during the task it even rained lightly above the third waypoint, but in general the weather allowed the guys to fly the route. Kostya and Andrey made goal again. You can see their tracklogs at the Xcontest:
Konstantin - https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/pilots/detail:Caustic
Andrey - https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/pilots/detail:An.Petrovich
Aleksey - https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/pilots/detail:4aleksei2

http://wow.asn.au/comps/?q=node%2F101

Task 1 those at goal:

# Name Nat Glider Time Total
1 Konstantin Lukyanov RUS Litespeed RX 3.5 01:21:30 1000
2 Todd Wisewould AUS Wills Wing T2C 01:36:18 810
3 Michael Free AUS Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 01:36:57 804
4 Andrey Solomykin RUS Litespeed RX 3 01:44:06 748
5 Gary Wright AUS Litespeed RX 3.5 02:00:31 637
6 John Harriott AUS Litespeed RX Pro 02:39:29 464
6 David Drabble AUS Gecko 170 02:50:50 464

The Russians at Corryong

December 27, 2019, 8:38:22 EST

The Russians at Corryong

Precursor to the Forbes Flatlands

Andrey Solomykin|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook

Andrey Solomykin|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Konstantin Lukyanov

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

First day of the Corryong Cup. 38 degrees Celsius in the shade. The smoke from distant fires reduced visibility so much that we could barely see the mountains on the other side of the valley. After the flight, the battens were so hot that it was very difficult to get them out of their batten pockets. The Locals say nonsense, it's not hot yet, wait till it's 45 degrees.

In general, this is real Australia, everything is according to plan. The kangaroos jump right at the launch. The air smells like eucalyptus. There are few gas stations and they close at six. The grass is dry everywhere dry. The pilots are cheerful, relaxed and only waiting for the task to be announced. They would like to fly to Mount Kosciuszko (2228 M), the highest point of Australia, 50 km from launch.

The Corryong Cup is a small local competition with only 20 + participants (more precisely, we will find out according to the results of the first day). There are four Russian Pilots: Andrey Solomykin, Konstantin Lukyanov, Aleksei Labzin and Michael Karmazin.

Today, the guys have about 49 km. Kostya was first goal, They are using elapsed time here, so the winner of the day will be found out only tomorrow. Andryukha reached the finish line, which is cool for the second flight on this glider and his first experience of the topless competition.

The page of spot trackers of Russian pilots here, you can follow: https://www.flytrace.com/tracker/map.aspx?group=828&defcoordformat=deg

More pictures here.

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From Russia with Love

September 11, 2019, 8:03:31 MDT

From Russia with Love

We're hoping to have these pilots at the Worlds

Alexandra "Sasha" Serebrennikova|Andrey Solomykin|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

Zhenya Laritskaya <<zhenya.laritskaya>> writes:

For the Women's Worlds:

Alexandra Serebrennikova
Evgeniya Laritskaya
Yulia Sushkova
Natalia Petrova

For Sport Class:

Andrey Solomykin
Azat Masalimov
Valentin Teraud
Egor  Sadyrev
Nikolay Sushkov

Well, four of the Russians have registered so far. Thirty five pilots in total have registered for the Worlds.

https://airtribune.com/2020-world-championships/pilots

We have sent an email that they can use to help get US visas.

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2019 Russian Open »

August 6, 2019, 7:00:20 MDT

2019 Russian Open

Andrey wins open class on a Gecko

Andrey Solomykin|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|photo|Russian Open 2019

Andrey Solomykin writes:

The Russian Open Hang Gliding Championship 2019 has finished and to my small collection of sport trophies I have added a Champion's cup and these three gold medals:
1st place in Open class;
1st place in Sport class;
1st place of our Moscow team.

This is my third consecutive victory (in the USA, Australia, and finally, in Russia), and my first one in the open class.

Competing on a king-posted wing in open class with pilots on topless gliders was far from easy but very exciting. The Moyes Gecko really did great. I was lucky that this year our strongest athletes preferred the Russian Cup on the flatlands over the Russian Open Championship in Utsa. It gave me a chance to be among the leaders and to try to join the national team based on Championship results. I can honestly admit that I did not dare to hope for such a good result.

In addition to the official teams based on regions, we also formed unofficial small teams, such as king posted gliders, topless gliders, women, etc. I must mention our king posted team almost beat the topless guy! We were only six points short from winning in our unofficial team contest.

I really enjoyed this competition and our flying community, and we had a lot of fun. My sincere congratulations to Sergey Lagun (3rd place) and Vladimir Sokolov (2nd place), and many thanks to the organizing committee and all the pilots who took part in this competition. And of course, many thanks to my wife Evgeniya Laritskaya who supported me all these days and moreover provided technical support for other pilots, helped with scoring and made great reports with excellent photos (you can find them on the Russian hang gliding forum here: http://www.deltaplanerizm.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?p=68950#p68950

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2019 Dalby Big Air »

April 13, 2019, 8:18:11 EDT

2019 Dalby Big Air

Day 6 and final Results:

Andrey Solomykin|Dalby Big Air 2019|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Rohan Taylor|Steve Blenkinsop|Trent Brown|weather

Andrey Solomykin|Dalby Big Air 2019|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Michael "Zupy" Zupanc|Rohan Taylor|Steve Blenkinsop|Trent Brown|weather

Andrey Solomykin|Dalby Big Air 2019|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Michael "Zupy" Zupanc|Rohan Taylor|Steve Blenkinsop|Trent Brown|weather

http://williamolive.com/comps/dalby/index.html

Task 6:

# Name Glider Time Total
1 Matthew Barlow Moyes RX 5 Pro 03:28:24 992
2 Glen Mcfarlane WW T2C 144 03:35:04 908
3 Trent Brown Moyes RX 3.5 03:38:47 876
4 Rohan Taylor Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 03:34:51 859
5 Adam Stevens Aeros Combat 12.7 03:55:28 838
6 Steve Blenkinsop Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 03:54:53 834
7 Sam Prest Moyes RX 3.5 04:01:21 776
8 Craig Taylor Moyes RX 3.5 04:13:20 770
9 Brodrick Osborne Moyes RS 4 04:05:45 760
10 Neale Halsall Moyes RX 4 Pro 04:23:36 731

Task 7:

# Name Glider Time Total
1 Rohan Taylor Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 01:32:42 939
2 Trent Brown Moyes RX 3.5 01:29:06 908
3 Guy Hubbard Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 01:36:25 905
4 Adam Stevens Aeros Combat 12.7 01:37:25 883
5 Rick Martin Moyes RX 3.5 01:37:27 873
6 Steve Docherty Moyes RX 4 Pro 01:37:35 871
7 Steve Blenkinsop Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 01:37:42 862
8 Sam Prest Moyes RX 3.5 01:38:15 854
9 Howard Jones Moyes RX 3.5 01:37:40 851
10 Mikhail Karmazin Moyes RX 3.5 01:38:26 839

Final Results:

# Name Glider Total
1 Steve Blenkinsop Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 6127
2 Rohan Taylor Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 5780
3 Adam Stevens Aeros Combat 12.7 5772
4 Sam Prest Moyes RX 3.5 5160
5 Matthew Barlow Moyes RX 5 Pro 5111
6 Craig Taylor Moyes RX 3.5 5101
7 Glen Mcfarlane WW T2C 144 4909
8 Steve Docherty Moyes RX 4 Pro 4810
9 Guy Hubbard Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 4664
10 Nils Vesk Moyes RX 3.5 4428

Andrey Solomykin again won the day and all days and was the overall winner in Sport Class.

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

Dalby Big Air, day 6. Groundhog Day, as our task committee called it. Sport class had the same task as their previous one - 51 kilometer to Brigalow, almost perfectly in line with the wind. Open class flew the same direction as before but much further - 217 kilometers this time.

The weather was truly fantastic - just look at the photo of the clouds from my retrieve drive. The cloudbase was around 2100 meters MSL and the clouds were easily reachable. The wind was pushing pilots pretty strong (~25 km/h) along the course, but it didn’t affect their take off safety. Thermals were 2-3 m/s on average, but I heard reports of 5-6 m/s even.

Looks like the sport class pilots undercalled their task: many of them had already made goal by 1 pm! They could have flown a much longer task! But at least there were so many happy faces at goal!

Andrey and Hugh (first and second place in the current sport class scoring) were mostly flying together. Their results are very close again, but Andrey managed to be one minute faster. Peter Garrone was first at the goal field and earned the most leading points, but was three minutes slower than Hugh! Four more kingposted guys made goal and Richard Hughes landed in the adjacent field and ended up one kilometer short.

Eleven open class pilots made this long task, and Guy Hubbard was only 180 meters short! Matthew Barlow won the task (for the second time at this comp. Look at their speeds, by the way: nearly 60 km/h. I could see on their Spot trackers page that they were flying really fast today. It was hard to keep up down on the road.

Sport class podium:

Open class podium:

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2019 Dalby Big Air »

April 11, 2019, 5:03:42 pm EDT

2019 Dalby Big Air

Day 5

Dalby Big Air 2019|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

Clouds looked fantastic today, but one could see a strong wind hidden in their shape. It was also gusting at the airport (sometimes up to 35 km/h), but on average the conditions were flyable and “taskable." Some pilots were setting up their gliders in the laying down position. Some used the wind to help them carrying their glider over the field.

Open class has got a task of 150 km to Dulacca, with one turnpoint at Brigalow - almost straight line with the wind. Pilots reported both good racing conditions and over clouding on the course line, patches of light rain, many low saves and tough technical flying. Still eight pilots made goal and our Michael is among them, fifth for the day, great job! Guy Hubbard was first in goal!

Sport task was cancelled before their launch was open: the wind was turning more and more from the hangar (which brings more turbulence, and was showing 27 km/h on average and gusting up to 36 km/h. It was more than the safety committee declared safe for the king posted guys, so the task was cancelled and most of the sport pilots derigged their gliders right away. Some still flew.

Michael landed at some really nice field which turned out to be located next to a private road with the gate one kilometer away from his landing. We didn’t want to drive there without owner’s permission, so it took us half an hour to find a neighbor (Matt) who was able (after quite a few calls) to find a phone number of the owner of our field and to call him on our behalf. Only then we and Matt drove together through that gate and picked up Michael there. Big thanks to Matt.

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2019 Dalby Big Air »

April 10, 2019, 9:34:45 pm EDT

2019 Dalby Big Air

Launch potatoes

(Zupy|Dalby Big Air 2019|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Michael "Zupy" Zupanc|photo|Rohan Taylor|weather|Zupanc)

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

Dalby Big Air, day 4. An even harder day than yesterday. It started with a pretty strong inversion, so pilots were playing “launch potatoes” and waiting for the weather to improve for quite some time. Open class had a 106 km long Big Dipper shaped task with five turnpoints; sport class had a 51 kilometer straight line task; both tasks to the north-west.

“Kingposted” pilots reported flying over a blue hole area with the thermals all broken between 2300 and 2500 meters. “Topless” pilots reported their furthest leg being under a shaded area with very light thermals and they all experienced cross winds. All this together allowed only five open class pilots to make goal, and the first one was Craig Taylor on his RX3.5. Sport goal was again made by Andrey and Hugh on Geckos, and Andrey was only five minutes faster. Andrey, Hugh and Alastair (currently scored third) are flying together for the last couple days and enjoying it very much.

Special mentions for Peter Garrone who after storming the course with an earlier start landed just 550m short of the goal radius! Keep it up Peter.

Huge thanks to Michael Zupanc for taking me up in the trike, so I could take a few aerial photos of our “launch potatoes."

Michael Karmazin was testing a new instrument prototype, which measures electricity in the air to spot thermals better.

Evgeniya Laritskaya and Andrey Solomykin can't come to the US this year

January 25, 2019, 8:20:12 EST

Evgeniya Laritskaya and Andrey Solomykin can't come to the US this year

Perhaps somewhere else

Andrey Solomykin|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

The US consular officer decided today, that this year we should go to Australia or Sri-Lanka, or some other nice place rather than to Florida. We were refused a visa under Section 214(b). We couldn't show strong enough ties to Russia. Staying in Florida for half a year twice in a row didn't help.

We are going to miss flying and all the flying community so much. Here is a photo of us being happy one year ago. The Aeros Discus on the picture is for sale now then. It is located in Wilotree (former Quest).

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Malibu Tour to Dune Du Pyla

November 6, 2018, 1:38:49 pm PST

Malibu Tour to Dune Du Pyla

Coastal France

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|PG

https://www.facebook.com/leagull/posts/10212677388866040

Long break from flying on a hang glider brings especially sharp and vivid sensations.

Technically, the body, of course, remembers how to control the wing. It took a couple of minutes, though, to remember the ground control tricks in a strong and gusty wind and that was it.

Even the glider did not seem heavy nor the harness tight and stiff, as it had before on the first flights after shorter breaks. Perhaps it was because for “returning to hang gliding” I deliberately chose dune gooning flying, in which I personally experience the least amount of stress with a huge amount of joy.

Well, if you multiply the usual joy of flying a hundred times, then you will maybe get closer to how deeply and profoundly, and almost to tears happy you’ll feel when you have returned to the sky after a long break, when you fly again.

It is weird, of course, to write about “returning to the sky” for a person who, over the past two years, has spent more time in the sky than ever before, but it feels that way. It’s as if I had returned to my beloved dream, to my native element, to the coolest VR, and I was absolutely not ready to leave this place. I wanted to gasp in the air, the element, to get full of it, to feel the world as if through the prism of a drug, to hear the echo of happiness within my whole body.

Pity the feelings are not always so vivid when we fly. Why is it impossible to consistently feel something this profoundly?

I remember one day at the Forbes competition. I think it was the tenth consecutive day of continuous and very long flights. Moreover, since I was always flying slow, it would take me about six hours each day to fly the task which on average good pilots flew in four hours. Every day. The air temperature in the shade was over 40 degrees C. My body felt completely worn out already after five flying days, and only by an effort of will was I able to hook myself into my hang glider. Okay, who cares about the body.

Moral fatigue was accumulating, making me feel that I don’t want it any longer. To melt on the launch again, to be towed again acting automatically, to observe the same landscape again, to thermal again, to turn, to turn, again, again, and again. You remind yourself that you must appreciate every second of the flight, that you came to Australia, very far away from your home, that you must use every opportunity to fly, that it is winter in your own hemisphere. All the pilots seemed to be reminding of the same themselves, and were refusing to have a rest day, and flew, flew, flew.

On the tenth day, after around fifty kilometers of the task behind my back, I spiraled down all the way from the cloudbase to the ground. I am very not proud of it. I just wished it never happened. I wished I could always enjoy flying as much as I sometimes do, as when I was flying this time at the Dune du Pyla.

Because of all the rain, we were able to fly only in the late afternoon. Because of the rain, the Nikon was hidden far away in the car, so all the pictures are so-so: snapshots from the gopro and from the phone. No smiles to the ears and tears of joy are on the pictures. What you can see in the pictures is that the wind was strong and it was easy to get really high along and across the whole dune. By the way, the dune itself is three kilometers long, and the slopes and dunes adjacent to it from the south stretch and stretch and stretch as far as we had no time to fly even.

The benefit of the strong wind and rains was that there were no paragliders, which, according to the locals, completely occupy the dune. So we were able to do whatever we wanted.

I refused to believe that sunset came so quickly, and continued to fly after sunset, then after dusk, and landed in the end in the dark. Night fury, - said Andrey, illuminating the slope with a small flashlight.

It felt very sad to part with this feeling of flying. As with a dream that, you know, exists in reality. Later, in the hotel, after a long day and long grueling transports of the gliders and the harnesses back and forth, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a rejuvenated face. Here it is, a little secret of eternal youth. Fly.

I won’t blog more about this journey, but if you want to read more about Dune du Pyla, this is my very detailed story from 2014 about this place: https://zhenya.blog/2014/…/malibu-tour-to-dune-du-pyla-2014/

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Getting your private pilot's license for Russians

August 24, 2018, 8:26:40 MDT

Getting your private pilot's license for Russians

Andrey and Zhenya

Andrey Solomykin|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|video

Evgeniya Laritskaya is with Andrey Solomykin and writes:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212233326924769&set=a.3478567359324&type=3&theater

This announcement will only be of interest to any Russian speaker who would like to know more about how to become a private pilot in the USA.

This Sunday, August 26th, at 21:00 Moscow time (18:00 UTC), Andrey and I will be presenting our second lecture on "Private Pilot License in the USA". The lecture will be broadcasted live online on the Youtube channel of St. Petergburg's aeroclub, which we are currently visiting: https://www.youtube.com/clubsla. In this lecture we will talk about the recent changes in FAR, Part 61 about ground school, flight training, Airmen Certification Standards, and exams.

During the presentation, we will also be answering as many questions about acquiring a private pilot’s license as possible from those posted in the viewer’s comment section.

Our first lecture can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/B-km_IOqhHA - only in Russian, sorry. It was about a comparison of Russian and US aviation, a comparison of different types of initial licenses, and the different types of schools and bureaucracy preceding the start of the training, especially for foreigners.

Some of this information can be found in the series of seven articles about getting a pilot’s license in my blog http://zhenya.blog, which is bilingual. So far, however, I’ve only finished two parts. The remaining five are coming soon.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212233326924769&set=a.3478567359324&type=3&theater

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Of interest to tug pilots

August 21, 2018, 8:37:05 MDT

Of interest to tug pilots

Changes in training requirements

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Timothy Ettridge

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

Have some great news about some great changes, but first I want to thank The Uncontrolled Airspace Podcast for being great at what they do (specifically podcast #458), Timothy Ettridge for listening to them and for passing the news on to us, and most of all the AOPA for pushing those changes and making them come true.

On June 27, the FAA published a new final rule with many changes, particularly to Part 61 of FARs. Some of these changes have already started to take effect on July 27, and the rest will have taken effect by Dec. 24, 2018. The most important change for us, as Sport Flight Instructors, is that now the FARs allow sport pilots to credit all their flight experience towards higher certificates and ratings. This means that any dual airtime either I or Andrey might give a student will be counted towards their Private Pilot License in the future. Also, with a little bit of extra training and the required endorsement, we will be able to provide training on control and maneuvering solely by reference to instruments.

This AOPA article will explain it all. We are so excited.

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2018/june/27/faa-cuts-cost-of-training-proficiency

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More on scoring with FS

May 25, 2018, 6:11:57 pm MDT

More on scoring with FS

Manual manipulation

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

Flavio <<flavio.tebaldi>> writes:

http://ozreport.com/22.103#3

In case you have to manage two different tracks of the same flight.

The first solution [shown in the article linked to above] is bad because if you insert time and distance manually, the program couldn’t calculate the leading points, because it’s based on the pilot position related to the other pilots position during the task.

The second tip could be correct but it’s much easier to merge the two tracks automatically when you download them from the instrument, using GPS Dump. When GPSDump opens the flight list of an instrument, you can select more than one track for the day and it will merge them creating a single igc or kml file to use with FS. Doing this you’ll not lose the digital signature inside the file.

Zhenya doesn't usually have access to the flight instruments, that's why she didn't mention GPSDump.

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Scorekeeping with FS

May 22, 2018, 8:30:47 CDT

Scorekeeping with FS

It is very flexible

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|record

If you don't have a perfect track log, say you need to stitch together two track logs because there was a glitch in the flight recorder, you can cure the problem in FS with manual scoring, or by manually stitching flights together. Super scorekeeper, Evgeniya Laritskaya, tells us how:

There are at least two ways to fix the problem.

First, yes, manually entering the right flight parameters. Like this:

And then:

Enter times and distance there. That's it.

Second, scorer may modify the track, combining two igc tracklogs in one.

For that, scorer has to open both igc tracks in any text editor (Notepad, for instance). He will see something like this:

Each igc file consists of header lines, flight itself and footer lines. Each flight point like starts from time in UTC format.

All scorer has to do is to copy FLIGHT POINTS (without header and footer) from second IGC file and paste them between flight points and footer of the first igc file. Watch the times. Then save the new file. Most likely, FS will score it properly afterwards. Little more technical work, but don't need to do any manual measurements this way.

By the way, we often use SeeYou to help us make any manual measurements if we need to do that.

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Two new CFI's (Certified Flight Instructors)

May 18, 2018, 10:41:32 pm CDT

Two new CFI's (Certified Flight Instructors)

Light Sport Aircraft

Andrey Solomykin|Certified Flight Instructor|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

Evgeniya Laritskaya and Andrey Solomykin.

Evgeniya Laritskaya, Andrey Solomykin

One of our gators

May 11, 2018, 7:02:34 EDT

One of our gators

Zhenya found him walking across the runway

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|photo

He was apparently headed to the pond tucked away in the woods on the southwest side of the airfield. A Sandhill Crane landed nearby. This guy is about four foot long. There are two of them in our pond/lake about the same size. Maybe the other one asked this one to leave.

Click on photos for higher resolution versions.

Spinner's photo from a bit earlier:

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2018 Quest Air Nationals »

Sun, Apr 22 2018, 9:14:28 am EDT

The podium

Andrey Solomykin|Bruce Barmakian|Christian Ciech|competition|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Glen Volk|John Simon|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Krzysztof "Krys/Kris" Grzyb|Makbule Baldik Le Fay|photo|Quest Air|Quest Air Nationals 2018|Sara Weaver|Zac Majors

https://airtribune.com/2018-quest-air-national-series/results

The Sport Class top three:

2018 Quest Air Nationals Sport Class top three: Andrey Solomykin, Charles Cozean, Rod Regier

Andrey Solomykin, Charles Cozean, and Rod Regier. Sara Weaver was the first place woman.

Final Results:

# Name Glider Total
1 Andrey Solomykin Aeros Discus 14 1822
2 Charles Cozean Wills Wing U2 145 1576
3 Rod Regier Moyes Litesport 4 1540
4 James Race Wills Wing U2 160 1472
5 Sara Weaver Wills Wing Sport 3 135 1434
6 Douglas Hale Moyes Gecko 155 1276
7 Makbule Baldik Le Fay Aeros Discus 13B 1269
8 Nick Jones Wills Wing U2 145 1208
9 Rich Reinauer Wills Wing U2 145 1119
10 Lee Silver Wills Wing U2 160 1105

The Open Class top three:

2018 Quest Air Nationals Open Class top three: Zac Majors, Christian Ciech, John Simon

Zac Majors, Christian Ciech, John Simon. Corinna Schwiegershausen was the top finishing woman.

The final results:

# Name Glider Total
1 Zac Majors Wills Wing T2C 144 3004
2 Christian Ciech Icaro 2000 Laminar 14.1 2968
3 John Simon Aeros Combat C 12.7 2625
4 Sandy Dittmar Wills Wing T2C 144 2624
5 Jonny Durand Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 2619
6 Alvaro Figueiredo Sandoli Ww T2C 144 2528
7 Bruce Barmakian Aeros Combat 12.7 2497
8 Glen Volk Moyes RX 3.5 2457
9 Krzysztof Grzyb Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 2373
10 Malcolm Brown Wills Wing T2C 144 2298

Sandy Ditmar, one point behind John Simon. It was so great to see Sandy here from Venezuela. It's been too long.

Photos by Evgeniya Laritskaya.

A little flight in summer like conditions

April 3, 2018, 8:42:22 EDT

A little flight in summer like conditions

With higher than normal temperatures

Bobby Bailey|Dragonfly|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|John Simon

Comes the threat of local cumulo-nimbus development. There was a forecasted 30% chance of rain under a high pressure and no front coming through. On Sunday the first convergence OD of the season didn't happen until after 6 PM and it was a beautiful flying day, so Monday could prove to be the same.

Lots of cu's and lots of pilots ready to fly. But high above there were bands of thick whiteness periodically shading vast areas below. The day looked iffy early unlike the previous wide open day, so we changed the task for this light wind forecasted day to up and down highway 33 instead of the more extreme around the Green Swamp.

With Joel Froehlich, Bobby Bailey, and Evgeniya Laritskaya towing we had plenty of resources to get the dozen or more pilots in the air around the tandem operation. Mick was up early. I got Joel to take me up five or so minutes later.

Joel found lift at the end of the runway and banked up the Dragonfly. Not as much as Bobby would, but enough to let you know he was going to hang in the thermal. After a few seconds I pinned off at less than 1,000' which Joel appreciated. It was going up and there's no reason to hang on to torture the tug pilot.

The climbs were slow until I saw John Simon far below to the east climbing up at 600 fpm. A few turns in that and I was off to the north. John got to 4,500' went on glide without looking to the north to see what was up and glided to the ground at Grass Roots airfield not stopping for weak stuff. What was happening to the north? Nothing. Blue area devoid of cu's. Cu's to the east and west of the course line. High white stuff over head.

I stopped for the weak stuff because I had experienced it off tow and John was taken in by the 600 fpm that he had found. I had to go back and forth under cu's just north of Groveland before finally finding better lift to 4,100'.  There were a few cu's ahead combined with large areas of shaded ground.

Three of us climbed out on the south side of Grass Roots as we watched John move his glider around at the airfield. That lift was weak as was the next thermal, but looking at the sky you were happy to stay up at all. There was gray every where and the cu's were flimsy.

Mick was ahead and we could here him calling out 200 fpm at the turnpoint so we knew that it was possible to continue on. Four kilometers from the turnpoint (the intersection of the Florida Turnpike and highway 33) I found 400 fpm on average to 4,600'. Mick came and joined in on his way south back toward Quest. He had topped out at 4,500' at the turnpoint.

Making the turnpoint and coming back to the same area worked out but only to 3,800'. Looking ahead there were again very few cu's and lots of shading. I chased the few cu's to find weak lift off the course line and tried to stay up as Mick worked up at the chicken coops. At this point Mick and I decided that going down to Deen Still and 33 was not in the cards. The day was too weak. So he would head back to Quest once he got up.

I found 180 fpm north west of Grass Roots that got me back up to 3,700'. Then 100 fpm west of Grass Roots with Rich Cizaukas who was below me working it also. Leaving at 3,500' I headed for a set of small cu's, mere wisps,  to the south east, but there was nothing there.

Down to 1,900' eight kilometers north of Quest over swamps with few good landing areas ahead and thick white clouds high overhead blocking the sun I decided to turn and go west to better prospects for landing than downtown Groveland. There were some nice fields near the chicken coops.

As I headed west the high overhead clouds moved to the east, and the sun came out west of highway 33. Down over the best looking field at 900'AGL with the pod bay doors open. I saw the sun light hitting the ground and felt the air lifting. I stayed with it even though it meant zero sink for four and a half minutes. Rich came in under soon after I arrived at about 500' to 700' AGL.

Finally we both found where it was actually going up and instead of landing out we both got up at 200 to 300 fpm. I climbed to 4,300' as Rich continued to climb below me. I had Quest easily from that altitude and came in with plenty. Mick had made it back. Rich would continue on course and land out not too far south of Quest.

The sky had opened up and there was sunlight on the ground every where in the neighborhood, but not to the northwest where there was a cu-nimb. Good thing we cut it short.

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/2.4.2018/17:39

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2018 Green Swamp Sport Klassic »

March 19, 2018, 10:10:15 pm EDT

2018 Green Swamp Sport Klassic

Day one, task one

competition|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Flytec 6030|Green Swamp Sport Klassic 2018|Greg Dinauer|John Alden|Larry Bunner|Quest Air|Tim Delaney|weather

https://airtribune.com/2018-green-swamp-sport-klassic/results

https://airtribune.com/2018-green-swamp-sport-klassic/blog__day_2

The forecast was for 10 mph west northwest winds on the ground with higher winds aloft. Not a great direction and strength for a king-posted competition. None the less we persisted.

The forecast also showed no cu's but Larry Bunner, our weather guy for the competition, dismissed that as nonsense and sure enough at 11 AM during the pilot task briefing the cu's started showing up just to our north and soon the sky was full of them.

Given the forecast for moderately strong westerly winds with a north component, the task committee set a task to Wallaby Ranch to our southeast, but to keep pilots away from landing in areas with locked gates (Branson Ranch south of east/west highway 474), they set a 3 kilometer turn point at the round-a-about at the intersection of Dean Still and highway 33. Making this turnpoint would be difficult for king-posted gliders because of the wind.

We had two launch lines setup at the east end of the east/west runway. This required that the Dragonflies land to our southeast and then taxi across to the launch area, which slowed things down a bit. None the less the pilots were off in an hour. There were a few reflights, but given the conditions they were pretty minimal.

This wind direction and strength makes for rowdy conditions below 500' and pilots really need to be on top of the situation while on tow to make sure that they don't get knocked off to one side or the other. I was very happy to see that pilots responded well and all launched safely. All the pilots with reflights also landed in the designated area and were picked up and hauled back to launch by David Finn.

With Eric Williams directing tug traffic and after an initial hesitation pilots moved off the staging lines and into the launch line quickly. Each line had numerous official helpers with yellow safety vests on, who made sure that the pilots were ready to go before they got to the launch box. Safety of the launch is a major concern here at Quest Air.

The lift conditions were strong. I was going up at 1,300 fpm on tow with Zhenya towing me and pinned off at 1,400'. The lift was right at the west end of the runway. I was seeing 700 fpm on the 20 second averager on the Flytec 6030. My team launched almost last at 5 minutes to 3 PM. The thermal averaged 360 fpm.

With the wind averaging 12 mph I was quickly drifting to the east southeast as I climbed to 4,200'. I launched first with my team, but I was quickly losing track of them as we would not be able to get together in this wind. Andrey was below me and climbing.

Our tactic was to go west to get upwind and to the southwest "corner" of the 5 km start cylinder which was centered 3 km west of Quest. Given that we all knew our plan I headed upwind in that direction hoping to meet up with the rest of the team assuming that they got towed high. Unfortunately, while the lift was great over Quest and to the east, downwind of the course line, there was little lift upwind to the spot that we had designated. I had to drift back in light lift still in the start cylinder and hope to find my guys. No luck.

There were a number of competitors and mentors in the air and combined with the prevalence of cumulus clouds spotting the lift was not that difficult.  With the 12 mph west northwest wind, staying in the lift was more of a chore than on light wind days. The thermals were broken and choppy with quickly varying locations. Combine that with the fact that they were relatively weak and it made for cautious flying on my part at least.

The tactic that we agreed upon was to stay upwind of the course line west of highway 33, but that was soon abandoned given the need to stay in lift and the wind. I was calling out my location and climb rates, not that it necessarily did any good for my team members, but I could hope. I was only able to get to 3,500' or lower so that added to the thrill.

I was climbing up from 2,700' just south of the glider port when Zippy and Owen with two other gliders came in under me, Zippy was easy to spot flying an all red glider. I had climbed about 500' and then decided to leave when the lift stopped, but said to myself, "wait a minute, why don't I stick with these guys and try to help them out?".

I went back over them and promptly lost 500'. Owen would later tell me he was not aware of any lift that they were circling in.

Down to 2,600' I headed south southwest toward a reasonable looking cu about a kilometer away. I saw those guys going to the south southeast, which did not look that good to me. That next thermal provided 270 fpm to 3,200'.

I looked over to the east as I drifted in that direction and there was a red glider on the ground. The remnants of the four person gaggle that had come under me was circling in the neighborhood. That thermal seemed weak so I head further downwind to better looking cu's and found 240 fpm to 4,500'. I was still nineteen kilometers from goal at Wallaby Ranch, still had to go 8 kilometers a bit upwind (13 mph) to get the turnpoint and the Flytec 6030 displayed me not quite having enough altitude to make goal.

I headed for a lone cu that looked okay half way to the turn point. That got me back to 3,900'. Two kilometers from the turnpoint and I watched one of the competitors turning just to the south of Dean Still. The lift looked good ahead. As soon as I made the turnpoint my 6030 showed I had goal by 1,600' from 10 kilometers out at 3,000' with a 13 mph tail wind.

I had seen scattered gliders down along the way in friendly looking fields. There was a green king-posted glider circling ahead of me over two gliders down in the last field before Wallaby. Looks like they just didn't have quite enough altitude to make it.

A good number of competitors made it to goal. We are scoring the sport class pilots flying topless gliders separately from those flying king-posted gliders.

King-posted task:

# Name Glider Time Distance Total
1 Lee Silver Wills Wing U2 160 01:04:32 39.78 669
2 Matt Pruett Wills Wing U2 145 01:08:25 39.78 630
3 Eric Kriner Wills Wing U2 160 01:08:53 39.78 627
4 Willie Van Caulart Wills Wing U2 160 01:09:14 39.78 624
4 Tim Delaney Wills Wing Ultrasport 137 01:16:15 39.78 624
6 John Alden Wills Wing U2 145 01:10:55 39.78 614
7 Max Kotchouro Wills Wing Sport 2 155 01:21:55 39.78 598
8 Chris Chaney Wills Wing U2 145 01:25:10 39.78 549
9 Rich Reinauer Wills Wing U2 145 01:35:48 39.78 511
10 Thor Froh Wills Wing U2 145   37.51 407
11 Richard Milla Wills Wing U2 145   37.29 405

Topless:

# Name Glider Time Total
1 Oded Kalir Atos VQ 00:52:31 611
2 Austin Marshall Wills Wing T2C 144 01:01:05 589
3 Ricardo Vassmer Moyes RX 4 01:09:01 518

The Monday task was cancelled due to forecast for no lift and 50% chance of rain this afternoon. It is sunny now at Quest but dark clouds just to the north. Greg Dinauer got this shot at around 7:30 AM before the gust front came through:

North clouds about here now.

No Cu's

March 6, 2018, 8:24:36 EST

No Cu's

We set a longish task for a blue day

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|John Simon

competition|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|John Simon

competition|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|John Simon

The wind forecast is for light winds, but no cu's. XCSkies (NAM or RAP) rarely show cu's, but we've learned to ignore it regarding that forecast, especially if there are southeast winds at all (which almost always mean cu's). In a north wind condition, dry air is coming in and often that means no cu's. We have to look at the SkewT to see if there is an inversion or a dry air mass above that would preclude cu's. And no cu's was the forecast from the SkewT.

The top of lift was predicted to be 4,000' to 5,000' at 1 PM, so Larry saw no reason to hold off launching then. Larry had come up with a task south to the roundabout at Dean Still and highway 33, east over to Wallaby (I made it a 2 kilometer cylinder), back over the area behind locked gates (south of highway 474) then further to the northwest to Center Hill (1 kilometer cylinder), northwest of Quest, and then back to Quest. A total of 114 kilometers.

Larry apparently likes bow-ties, although I never see him wearing one.

I was pulled up first by Zhenya just before 1 PM and pinned off at 1,500' AGL in 300 fpm which I took to 4,500'. Larry pinned off just to my east and we climbed up together. We headed south along highway 33 into the blue and we found strong sink (no doubt to a line of sink set up by the south wind). I finally veered off to the west and found light lift. Larry was down to less than 1,900' and found better lift nearer highway 33 and I joined up with him below him.

We climbed to 3,900' at over 275 fpm and then again headed south. Not finding anything and going down quickly I veered again off to the west and found 460 fpm. Larry joined me as we climbed to 5,900'. I had dressed extra warm (5 layers) for today but it was not enough. I was still cold.

Three kilometers later we climbed back to 5,600' and I was still cold. At this point I decided just to fly south until I got down low enough to feel warm again. Larry called out 200 fpm behind me near the glider port, but I was having none of it as I was still too high. I glided nine kilometers down to 2,800' before I found lift again. I was much warmer at that altitude. I was no longer flying close with Larry, but team flying by calling out lift in front.

The fast flying racing down the course line was a good idea. We're not in an official competition yet, but we are interested in how well we are flying and that means comparing ourselves to others. Here that means flying fast between thermals.

Now I was out in front on my own with no cu's to guide me. No other pilots to make up for that either. There seemed to be plenty of good lift, so I was not unhappy with my circumstances. I found three good thermals and I was back to 5,600' but having warmed up and going as fast as possible between thermals to get down to warm altitudes. The last of the three thermals averaged 500 fpm, so there seemed to be better lift than on our cu filled sky days.

I could hear John Simon not that far behind me so I raced on, taking the turnpoint at the intersection of Dean Still and 33 and heading west down Dean Still. A 400 fpm thermal a few kilometers from the roundabout got me to 5,400' and then I raced to down to 2,700' just to the edge of the two kilometer circle around Wallaby. The thermal there was only 240 fpm, but I wanted to get high enough to be sure I would have plenty of altitude for the first part of the next leg. Of course, this allowed John to get a lot closer. I climbed to 4,400' before saying enough is enough, I'm going to find better lift out to the north northwest.

I headed for a small debris fire and took 300 fpm to 5,200'. I was getting used to the cold as long as I didn't have to stay there very long. Oops, there was John right at my altitude just to my east heading north. I raced on.

We found over 500 fpm to 5,900' and then pushed even harder toward the northwest. Coming over the east/west highway 474 we found only 330 fpm. It was a little after 3 PM and we climbed to 6,000'. Will Ramsey came in under us as we climbed but we left when we got high and he was still working the thermal. I hadn't ever seen JD or Ken.

We glided ten kilometers getting down to 2,700' getting a mere 10 to 1 with a two mph tail wind. We had headed for some small fires that a farmer was using to burn scraps from the orchards. The lift was broken and ratty and we only averaged 350 fpm, then 250 fpm as we kept searching for the actual thermal, back to only 4,400'.

Larry behind us go low just west of the intersection of 474 and 33. He struggled from 1,100' but then found 350 fpm to 4,500'. The next thermal at 250 fpm got him to 5,100. Then he hit the jackpot climbing to 6,100' just southwest of Quest. After that it was a very long glide to the ground.

Everything was falling apart for us. Going north the lift was now much weaker and we couldn't get over 4,000'. We didn't find anything over 200 fpm, and many thermals were quite a bit less. It still wasn't even 4 PM, but the lift had severely decreased. As we struggled over Osborn field two kilometers west of Quest we heard from Will on the radio that he was at 4,500' in 400 fpm. Somehow John and I were in the wrong territory.

John got a bit higher and got out ahead of me at this point. I had earlier considered just cutting the task short and heading for Quest as we were right next to it and within an easy glide, but John persisted, so I went with him. We headed over to the big nursery north of highway 50 after Will called out good lift by the chicken coops, which we did not find. John found better lift to the north but I didn't find it.

Three kilometers from the Center Hill turnpoint after a run through 600 fpm down I was down to 1,000' AGL. John was two kilometers ahead at 3,000'.

I thought I was landing but found 100 fpm, so I stuck with it with a three mph tail wind from the southeast. Fifteen minutes later I left it at 2,600'. Larry had just landed two kilometers behind me and soon after that John landed after making the turnpoint, leaving 150 fpm to come over me thinking I was going up fast, then finding 800 fpm down.

JD was down and so was Ken back by the Dean Still turnpoint. Will was still in the air and he had made the turnpoint and was flying with John but higher until John came over to me. I made the turnpoint with an L/D of 18 to 1 there and back to the thermal that I left. It was doing better and I found over 200 fpm to 3,500'. For some reason it didn't go any higher.

I worked bits and pieces of 100 fpm going back toward Quest to the southeast knowing that I needed more altitude to make it back. There was a pretty good-looking fire to the south due west of Quest and down to 2,500' I headed for it. I came over it at 1,000' but I missed any lift if there was any. I jumped over a forest and landed in a big field four kilometers from goal on Empire Grade road.

Will was able to make it back to goal, the only one. If he turns in his track log the results and the replay should be up on Airtribune, https://airtribune.com/2018-quest-air-cross-country/results/task3090/day/overall, https://airtribune.com/2018-quest-air-cross-country/blog__day_20.

https://www.xcontest.org/usa/flights/detail:davisstraub/5.3.2018/17:57

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We square the Green Swamp

February 28, 2018, 11:07:02 pm EST

We square the Green Swamp

Larry wants more distance, so no triangle

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Rob Clarkson|sailplane

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|John Simon|Rob Clarkson|sailplane

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|John Simon|Rob Clarkson|sailplane

https://airtribune.com/play/3085/2d

https://airtribune.com/2018-quest-air-cross-country/blog__day_17

The forecast was for light winds, and top of lift between 5,000' and 6,000'. Larry wanted us to take the longer route around the Green Swamp, so we added the intersection of Deen Still and highway 33.

A total of 113 kilometers.

With two tugs and Zhenya towing I was off first with Larry right behind me. We got together and climbed to 4,600'. As I was the first to tow I was higher and led out to the south down highway 33 toward our intersection turnpoint.

Will Ramsey had towed after us but was towed much higher so he was way out in front. I saw him with a sailplane to the south and raced toward him. Unfortunately he and the sailplane pilot took the lift with them. After searching around further south Larry down under 1,200' found something. I joined him at 1,400' and we got back up to 4,300'.

As we twirled up we watched Rob Clarkson pass us less than 1 km away just to our west at our altitude. We kept calling out to him on the radio but he seemed oblivious. He just kept going and going and going getting lower and lower as we climbed up. Finally he headed for the shaded ground southeast of the Seminole airfield, which was perplexing.

Larry and I headed for the sunlit western side of the clouds over the glider port and got ourselves back up to cloudbase. I led out heading south toward more good looking cu's south of highway 474. There were plenty of cu's ahead so I wasn't much bothered by long glides.

I found the thermal under a dark cu and Larry and I teamed up again and climbed up to 4,300'. Well, Larry was a bit lower but headed out first. This would be a pattern from now on, Larry leaving before we got to the top of the lift and leading out.

We heard from Will that he was struggling at the Dean Still turnpoint just ahead and was down to 900'. Larry veered a bit to the east, toward some cu's and a little over two kilometers from the turnpoint found 275+ fpm which we took to back to 4,200'.

Larry led out as we took the turnpoint and then found Will circling low to the west. We took a few turns and then headed southwest away from the course line toward cu's. Larry found the lift first then I found better lift a bit further on at the lip of the cloud. Larry joined me (heh, we were flying as a team as we often do) and again we climbed to 4,300'. John Simon came in underneath us.

We headed west and I lost track of Larry thinking that he was behind me. He was low and lost and in the visual clutter. John was behind and to our north heading for another cu which did him no good.

We were heading on a course south of the course line over open territory and away from the forested areas along the course line. I found lift behind Larry and he found some also. After a few turns I went over to him and we circled up to 4,400' with John just below us.

John led out from below with Larry just behind me as we approached the turnpoint at the intersection of highway 98 and 471, the north/south highway through the Green Swamp. We crossed Rockridge Road and Larry took the lead to the southwest getting us toward 98. Larry found the lift and the three of us feasted on it. I led out at 4,400' with John below and Larry above behind. It was a race to the turnpoint and then to the cu's to the northwest.

Larry took the lead past the turnpoint as we went toward the obvious cu.  This one was a winner as we climbed to 5,200' at over 300 fpm. We were now near the western edge of the Green Swamp and heading north.

Larry got to the top first and took a big lead. John and I left side by side within a few dozen feet of each other for a long glide, again with identical glide ratios. We were pretty deep still over the swamp but heading for the western edge on a northwest route. We stopped for a few turns in 200 fpm then John and I led out with Larry higher behind us.

With his extra 300' Larry soon caught us and went into the lead. West of Dade City he found lift with John right behind him. I had earlier decided to shade a bit to the left of their line to get on the sunny side of the cu that we were approaching and over some sunlit areas. As Larry started turning so did I. There was a light southwest wind which made my spot the upwind side of the cloud.

Now a conversation started as we both called out our climb rates on the radio. Mine started at 350 fpm and quickly rose to 500 fpm as did Larry's. Then mine went over 600 fpm and John and Larry came over to me.  A tiny bit to the north it was 900 fpm as John called it out and we all shaded in that direction. We climbed to 5,300'.

Larry took the lead but was lower out front. John and I were over 300 feet above him and not far behind. Larry likes to push hard. We let him. We stopped for some light lift that left Larry 600' below us. John led out on top and found 350 fpm. I was right with him and Larry was almost 1000' below.

John left then came back under me as we climbed back to 5,200'. I led out getting a good distance ahead but there was trouble ahead. We were flying through a blue hole and there was a large cloud part of a cloud street from west to east to our north by the turnpoint. There were mixed cu's north along the course line to the turnpoint that looked like they were being affected by the shade. I decided to head toward the sunlit area under the darkest cu, but off the course line to the northwest. This turned out to be an error.

John stayed to my east as I headed for what looked like an area of great lift, but I didn't find much. Meanwhile John called out a thermal 2 kilometers to my east. I turned and went toward him.  Meanwhile Larry had the same thoughts I did about avoiding the big shaded area but he was not having any luck either over the ground that looked like it should be producing.

I had to work weak lift just on the south side of the shaded area while John climbed up much higher to 5,000'. Larry was just to the west 800' below me. The lift was broken as well as weak but I did find bits of 200 fpm. John headed north to get on the north side of the Green Swamp along highway 50. I was looking at a dark thick cloud street heading east straight across the heart of the Green Swamp and trying to get up in it.

It was slow work as I was full of trepidation heading out into no man's lands. Thankfully there were a few nice fields half way across the swamp so I had an out, but I had no desire to land there. The street looked great but the lift was just so weak. Meanwhile Larry was just trying to stay up at 2,200' and moving north.

I found a bit of 200 fpm over the pastures and climbed from 4,200' to 5,600'. That felt a lot better. The street headed off to the east southeast and I needed to head east northeast back toward Quest. I could see some fields on the east side of the swamp being burned by the farmer and headed for the fires.

Meanwhile Larry had gone north on the west side of the swamp trying to get back into sunlit areas and back up. He was low. John was tooling along in the cu's along highway 50 to my north and not so worried about the lack of LZ's as there were plenty for him.

I made it to the eastern edge of the Green Swamp at 3,200', the first time I've gone completely over the Swamp. The fires were right there next to the Van Fleet trail and lift was 500 fpm 10 km from goal. John was about to make it in as I climbed up.

It was 9 to 1 to goal and I was able to fly at 55 mph air speed against the 4 mph northeast wind. Larry had to continue to struggle as Will made it in not too long after I did. Larry came in 45 minutes later and all because he pushed out in front a little too low, once too often. A rather huge penalty.

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Battling the west wind

February 17, 2018, 7:50:55 EST

Battling the west wind

All the pilots struggled yesterday

battery|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Ken Kinzie|Quest Air|Rob Clarkson|sailplane

The task was an out and return straight south to Fantasy of Flight and back. The forecast and reality showed a strong west wind. There were plenty of east/west cloud streets. Rob Clarkson abandoned the task about eight miles to the south of Quest Air and made it back to Quest. Larry Landed just south of the Seminole Sailplane port. Greg and I decided not to fly.

Ken Kinzie <<ken>> writes:

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:kenkinzie/16.02.2018/18:43

After going down on the last leg around the Green Swamp task yesterday I prepared for today's Quest Air Cross Country League crosswind task, Fantasy out and return.

The wind was west 10-12 mph so we headed over to the east end of the field. Great service here at Quest with Davis transporting harnesses, Evgeniya and Don shuttling gliders to the launch area. I launched last following Larry and Rob. Davis was not flying.

We entered a thermal crossing over highway 33 at the west end of the field. Just as I pushed out to climb up level behind April on the 914 my release disengaged prematurely at 430'. My first thought was to pull a 180 and set up for landing, but there was sufficient altitude to attempt to work the lift and drift back downwind over the field. Better to land after the thermal drifts through anyway.

Down to 260' over the field I saw April land and taxi back to the clubhouse area and park the tug. I took that as a vote of confidence, but I was not at all optimistic. However, eventually I blundered into increasingly stronger lift that allowed me to climb out for a personal best low save. Thanks April.

It wasn't a vote of confidence. No one thought that anyone could get up over the pond at that low an altitude but we admired the attempt.

Setting out on course, hoping better late than never, the lift was nice and smooth topping out at 4000', but after the first few clouds I was getting low and with shade and no good clouds in reach on course I turned around to get back in the sun. After eventually getting some altitude and going back on course, ended up with the same challenge again. Another u turn back to sun but lower than ever I finally got a slow climb from the transformer station a few miles south of Quest and drifted way to the east in the process.

That is when I decided to abandon the task and try to make it to the place that we rent to the south east instead. I encountered stronger sink than lift and low again I got a slow climb just when needed but I was fast approaching hwy 27. That is the eastern boundary of Orlando class B airspace so I made sure not to cross over and turned cross wind to my destination to the south. I bailed out of a potential climb as it drifted to 27 and with surprisingly little sink along the way made it to the baseball diamonds next to our resort with 1000' for an easy landing approach.

Only 30 kilometers straight line but it was one of the most challenging and rewarding flights that I've had in a long time.

The Orlando airspace starts at 6,000' MSL over highway 27 and goes up to 10,000'.

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Clockwise around the Green Swamp

February 15, 2018, 10:32:24 pm EST

Clockwise around the Green Swamp

Such a pleasant day to be in the air.

Belinda Boulter|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Larry Bunner|Rob Clarkson|sailplane

Belinda Boulter|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Greg Dinauer|Larry Bunner|Rob Clarkson|sailplane

Belinda Boulter|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Greg Dinauer|Larry Bunner|Rob Clarkson|sailplane

I called an FAI triangle around the Green Swamp, first heading southwest (intersection of highways 98 and 471) then north northwest (seven kilometer circle around the intersection of highway 98 and Interstate 75), and finally back to Quest. Five pilots were ready for the challenge, Larry Bunner, Greg Dinauer, Rob Clarkson, Ken Kenzie, and me.

The forecast was for light winds which is why I chose the Green Swamp task. The RAP 13 forecast for lift showed little to none, so I just went with the NAM 3 forecast which showed good lift. It seemed like it would be a good day at 10 AM when I made the call on the task, so why not choose the strongest forecast. The cu's started forming around noon starting from the south.

Greg was off first and I was right behind him at 1:05 PM. I hung in light lift under a dark flat cu as Greg climbed to the east of me. He headed southwest as I climbed to 3,300'. Cloud base was a bit low for a romp around the swamp.

As I headed southwest Greg was coming back having fallen down to less than 2,000' AGL. There were plenty of cu's ahead so it was a game of connecting the dots. It looked like Larry launched last after Rob and Ken, but we had two tugs running so everything was happening quickly.

I headed south along highway 33 not heading along the course line, staying over open territory until it looked like we could get a bit higher to make the big jumps. I came upon a number of sailplanes marking the lift near the Seminole Sailplane port as the cloud base rose.

I could see and hear Larry to my west a couple of kilometers closer to the course line and higher. Eleven kilometers from the first turnpoint Larry in front headed more south in the direction of the turnpoint as I decided to head further west under the cu's. I found 600 fpm and quickly got to over 4,100'. Since there were just trees below it was great to be that high.

I headed for the turnpoint and Larry came in under me  and 4 km from the turnpoint we climbed up. I left at 4,200' and Larry continued to climb.

There were small cu's  west of the turnpoint away from the course line. The cu's over the course line looked a bit too far away and over treed territory. I found 300 fpm to 4,300' and then headed north northwest toward the purple pond that stores the effluent from the chicken houses. You can smell the thermal there at over 300 fpm to 4,100'.

I was staying over the Green Swamp away from the landing areas. I saw a dark cloud further into the Swamp and decided to head in with a good chance to find good lift. Larry came in 200' over me and found the lift also.

The cu's were lined up heading right for the turnpoint and Larry was out in front leading the way. Seven kilometers before the optimized point on the 7 km radius we climbed to 4,600' 255 fpm. The cu's were dark, but very flat.

We quickly got to the turnpoint and headed northwest to get under a row of cu's going to the east. Larry was calling out the lift and I climbed to 5,000' right after he did. Larry headed to a good looking cu over the trees south of the lumber mill at 50 and 471. As I approached him I spotted a bird and stopped to climb. Larry saw this and came back quickly to get under me.

Larry headed out below me as I climbed to over 4,900'. I followed him east as we flew over the Green Swamp and headed for the edge and landable areas. Larry found 200 fpm over the Van Fleet trail and I came in over him. The lift was smooth and light and it looked like we had no problem making it back to Quest Air.

I let Larry go first far below me and just hung around to make sure that I would make it. We had no problem getting in. Just the two of us made it in.

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/15.2.2018/18:05#fd=route

Belinda, Davis, Larry, and Rob at goal. Photo by Evgeniya Laritskaya.

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We have another Russian tug pilot

February 12, 2018, 8:19:32 EST

We have another Russian tug pilot

Evgeniya Laritskaya was first, now her husband Andrey Solomykin

Andrey Solomykin|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

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Getting their spin endorsement

January 18, 2018, 7:42:51 EST

Getting their spin endorsement

Why not?

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook

Bobby Bailey|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook

Evgeniya Laritskaya writes:

There is an actual spin endorsement. Normally it is only a requirement for CFI's (i.e., instructors), and while Andrey and I are not instructors (yet), we just had to have that endorsement, because we can. Moreover, a spin endorsement will put Bobby Bailey's autograph in your log book.

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Newly certified aerotowing Dragonfly pilot

January 17, 2018, 8:06:32 EST

Newly certified aerotowing Dragonfly pilot

Evgeniya Laritskaya

Dragonfly|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Gary Osoba|Mitchell "Mitch" Shipley|Mitch Shipley|PG|sailplane

Dragonfly|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Gary Osoba|Mitchell "Mitch" Shipley|PG|sailplane

Bobby Bailey|Dragonfly|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Gary Osoba|Mitchell "Mitch" Shipley|Mitch Shipley|PG|sailplane

Bobby Bailey|Dragonfly|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Gary Osoba|Mitchell "Mitch" Shipley|PG|sailplane

She was certified on Tuesday. She will likely be doing some of the towing (and scorekeeping and pilot retrieval at the flight park) at the upcoming competitions.

Evgeniya Laritskaya towing Bobby Bailey

She writes:

In the USA, in order to become a tug pilot and tow hang gliders and/or sailplanes, a private pilot has to receive the Tow Endorsement, which in turn requires to have a minimum of 100 hours of airtime as a pilot in command in the same category aircraft used for towing plus receive ground and flight trainings from an authorized instructor. I've got the hours and I've received a lot of training. Now I am officially a tug pilot.

Andrey and I are really lucky here at Quest: Many of the best US Dragonfly instructors and tug pilots are here now: Bob Bailey, Jon Thompson, Rhett Redford, Jim Prahl, Mitch Shipley plus there are many experienced hang glider pilots I could practice on.

Towing is easy, but still there are so many nuances, which make it all so interesting! I want to tow during some hang gliding comps. This is where the fun begins.

In the photo I am towing Bobby Bailey. Nine years ago he towed me here for the first time. Yes, Bobby still flies hang gliders, and after release he rocks with aerobatics and lands in the spot right in front of the admiring spectators.

Gary Osoba writes:

When the FAA decided to create the Light Sport Aircraft category (where the Dragonfly resides) they invited private sector input via an industry working committee who would recommend the nature of regulation and actively work with the FAA to effect reasonable regulations. There was no longer a choice of no regulation, so the best option was to make sure the regulation properly reflected real world conditions and safety concerns without undue government interference.

There were a handful of us invited to participate on the working committee - originally chaired by Charles Pate, who was then chief of single engine production for Cessna, now retired. One of the things I chose to work on specifically as the only member doing so was the towing arrangements, because in the original FAA proposal there were not regulations that would allow the interface of newly regulated LSA aircraft with non-regulated aircraft (hang gliders and paragliders) as in a towing operation.

I pushed hard for this, wrote and rewrote sensible requirements, and the FAA finally allowed it after much interchange, debate, and difficulty. If it had not gone that way, the towing of hang gliders would have ended with the adoption of the LSA criteria.

On a related note, I recently offered to help Bobby Bailey design a version of the Dragonfly which could tow both hang gliders and paragliders. This would open up paraglider flight to existing aerotow flight parks and no doubt create many new ones as well. It would take someone with a monetary stake in paragliding to sponsor Bobby's build in this regard. I like Bobby very much and would enjoy working with him.

Discuss "Newly certified aerotowing Dragonfly pilot" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Dragonfly Washeteria Video

December 17, 2017, 7:34:32 pm EST

Dragonfly Washeteria Video

Evgeniya Lartiskaya

Dragonfly|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|video

https://youtu.be/TSp_EsFLuFI

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World Record Dragonfly Spins

December 1, 2017, 8:04:38 pm MST

World Record Dragonfly Spins

I wonder if Bobby or Rhett know about this

Dragonfly|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|record|video

Zhenya <<laritskaya.evgeniya>> writes:

Our Russian Dragonfly pilot Leonid Kulesh got in the Guinness World Records book with the "Most flat spins in an aircraft" record after doing 100 spins on his Dragonfly.

Here is the link to Guinness World Records book: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/102049-most-flat-spins-in-an-aircraft

Here is the video of spinning: https://youtu.be/GphzPRYJyh4

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And now the video

August 11, 2017, 12:41:40 pm MST -0600

And now the video

Not just the picture that we already published

Dragonfly|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|video

https://youtu.be/4iliFLmKvO4

Zhenya <<laritskaya.evgeniya>> writes:

I saw you published photo of Leonid and his Dragonfly with LED lights. Watch to the end: there will be some cool fireworks fired from the sky. It was Leonid's Birthday :)

Discuss "And now the video" at the Oz Report forum   link»

2017 Russian Hang Gliding Calendar

Mon, Jan 9 2017, 8:03:40 am EST

Russian, Kazakhstan and Ukrainian pilots

Alexandra "Sasha" Serebrennikova|Andrey Solomykin|calendar|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Julia Kucherenko|photo|Quest Air

Evgeniya Laritskaya «Evgeniya Laritskaya» writes:

Each month of the 2017 calendar is represented by four photos made by Russian, Kazakhstan and Ukrainian pilots in the same month of last year. Every month during 2016 we held a photo contest where our Russian-speaking hang gliding community voted for the four best photos of the month. You can see these winners in the 2017 calendar now!

Most photos were made in Russia, but some where made all around the globe by our traveling pilots. There's even a photo taken at Quest Air by Andrey Solomykin in April, a photo of Oz dunes taken by Sasha Serebrennikova in January, and a few photos from the European Alps. There's even one from Nepal.

The calendar is 11.7 x 16.5 in. (420 x 297 mm) and printed on white glossy paper. One calendar costs only $10 (the Russian ruble is low now).

If you are curious to see how and where our pilots are flying over the year, or just want to have a beautiful calendar on your wall, feel free to contact Nikolay Sushkov by e-mail: «deltacalendar2017». He will give you instructions for payment on PayPal and will mail the calendars (the postage fee will be cheaper if you buy a few at a time). Also, Nikolay and his wife, the well known Julia Kucherenko, will be coming to Quest Air Soaring center in Florida at the end of January, and they can bring a few calendars with them. Just make sure you reserve a calendar before they leave Russia!

Discuss "2017 Russian Hang Gliding Calendar" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

More on the Russian Mouth Release

December 21, 2016, 9:22:53 EST

More on the Russian Mouth release

Rings at the end of tow lines

Alexandra "Sasha" Serebrennikova|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

The earlier story: http://ozreport.com/20.250#0

Alexandra Serebrennikova  writes:

The guy is doing it wrong way altogether, we tow with a metal ring attached to the tow line, which is going to the release while towing. Apart from that the release itself is connected via a linchpin to the harness, not by a barrel type which has a long bridle, which might twist over in case of emergency.

I respond:

Thanks, Alexandra.

Our tow lines do not have metal rings but rather metal carabineers. The pro-tow bridle goes through the carabineer. The bridle is connected to the mouth release at one end (and, of course, the mouth release is connected to the harness as pictured below).

Here is an example with Bruno so that you can see the problem:

This is a few years ago from Evgeniya Laritskaya using a different mouth release and thereby not having a problem with a spectra bridle:

You can see the barrel release used as a secondary release.

Bridles seen here: http://ozreport.com/goodies.php.

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The Russians are back

December 2, 2016, 7:45:14 PST

The Russians are back

Andrey Solomykin and Evgeniya Laritskaya and the Swiss

Andrey Solomykin|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Quest Air|Timothy Ettridge

At Quest Air along with tug pilots Dolores Mordasini and Timothy Ettridge in his tiny house.

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Dream On

November 28, 2016, 7:38:58 PST

Dream On

Evgeniya Laritskaya

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|photo

Discuss "Dream On" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Honeymoon?

Tue, Jul 12 2016, 10:48:15 am MDT

Evgeniya Laritskaya and Andrey Solomykin

Andrey Solomykin|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook

Thanks to An.Petrovich.

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Evgeniya Laritskaya and Andrey Solomykin

July 11, 2016, 9:14:31 MST -0600

Evgeniya Laritskaya and Andrey Solomykin

Married this weekend

Andrey Solomykin|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook

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Dragonfly training

March 31, 2016, 9:14:50 EST -0400

Dragonfly training

The Russians trade work for training

Dragonfly|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook

Bobby Bailey|Dragonfly|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook

Evgeniya Laritskaya with Andrey Solomyki and Bobby Bailey.

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Up There

March 10, 2015, 8:32:45 EDT

Up There

What it's like

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Lehra Karmazina|video

Zhenya writes:

https://vimeo.com/118880817

Thanks to Lehra Karmazina and Michael Karmazin, now all interviews are with English subtitles (just click "CC" next to "HD" button)! Only the poem in the beginning was not translated.

Beautiful time-lapses, nice music, lots of interviews with Russian pilots about being up there.

Discuss "Up There" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Russian flying

October 30, 2014, 10:54:43 PDT

Russian flying

Know more about our friends there

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|video

Evgeniya Laritskaya <<laritskaya.evgeniya>> writes:

Movie made by Artur Dzamikhov about Chegem (Caucasus), one of the most beautiful flying places in Russia. The filming took place from 11th to 19th of October, 2014. 140 GB of footage, twenty six time lapses, eight interviews, ten nights of editing, and here is the result. Do not judge too strictly as Artur had only a simple camera, Sony NEX5T and a few Gopros. Besides, this is his first "full-length" documentary. Interviews are in Russian, but mountain views are international.

http://vimeo.com/110448983

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Gerolf's Adventure Flying Circus 2014

April 23, 2014, 8:34:56 EDT

Gerolf's Adventure Flying Circus 2014

Fly with Gerolf and Zhenya in Europe

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Gerolf Heinrichs|photo|video|weather

Gerolf Heinrichs <<gerolfontour>> writes:

With the European flying season on its way, our “Adventure Flying Project” is about to go into its third year. Originally starting out with only a small number of master classes in the very heart of Austria, Zhenya and I soon realized we would (a) have to expand our cross country flying play ground, and (b) extend our course variety to cope with the unexpectedly strong response.

In a nut shell: Our Adventure Flying courses aim at making non-alpine pilots familiar with the particularities of high Alpine cross country flying, and will introduce them to a remote and fascinating world of flying. A world, one would have a hard time, but to enter and enjoy without proper guidance or years of local experience.

“No alpine experience” now sure covers a lot of ground, and consequently requested us to offer and conduct courses for different skill levels. To this date we distinguish between “introductory” and “advanced” pilot levels. Yet, so far, we successfully managed to place everyone into their respective course – always trying to make sure pilots would neither get bored nor scared with the tasks I would have in mind on the given day.

If you feel you could be interested in one of these Adventure Flying courses, but worry this could be just another cross country clinic, you can already relax. My courses resemble very little similarity to the so-called cross country clinic concept.

Mostly, because I perceive my Adventure flying groups as gaggles of pilots which I just happen to lead and guide - and not as a number of patients who get charged to be diagnosed by Dr. HangGliding for their possibly “neurotic“ flying behavior :-)

Also, my own experience with cross country clinics is that they tend to be loaded with  “concern-talk”. While providing plenty of sitting together they often contain very little flying together.  But sitting out days on the hill and blaming imperfect conditions for it, is just not my idea of a great time.

As for the general course schedule now: Every Adventure Flying class runs over a period of a week, and – for the flying part of it – is conducted very similar to a typical National league competition training.

Starting with a morning briefing where the weather and the overall plan for the day was explained, we would eventually decide for a take-off location and meet there early enough to allow for an extensive weather analysis and task briefing. Setting tasks, working on alternatives and considering various safety outs in case wind and weather was not cooperating to plan would soon be a familiar procedure to the participants.

The flights themselves are conducted like air started races, with a pre-declared start time, a number of optional guiding points and some compulsory turn points as well as a final goal, of course. I fly every task with the group, giving hints and comments via radio. My aim is to explain WHY we go here and not there, and this way hopefully bring as many participants as possible around the course – but since the tasks can be challenging this is far from being a sure thing.

All participants are provided with 66-channel data loggers as to facilitate extensive flight analysis during evenly de-briefings. We also have heart rate monitors in use, which allow to link typical stress patterns to specific flying behavior and situations.

On the side we take photos and video footage from participants’ launches and landings (if possible), as well as lending out GoPro equipment and mounts, in order to acquire technical as well as scenic video material for later use.

Lectures and discussion on a vast variety of hang gliding related subjects - preferably held during evening sessions  - are rounding off the course activities.

If all this got you interested enough, please check out: http://adventure-flying.hginsider.com  for more detailed course information, or scroll through our Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Adventure-Flying/357094734407623.

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Cross Country Master Class

November 6, 2013, 8:12:54 PST

Cross Country Master Class

In Austria

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|weather

http://www.leagull.com/2013/10/advanced-master-class-in-greifenburg.html

From the 18th to the 24th of August, Gerolf and I conducted our third and last flying course for this year, this time for “topless” pilots who already fly cross country for a while, but want to experience the potential of Austrian Alpine mountain flying and log in a few really cool scenic flights.

Right from the very first flight, one could feel the advanced level of the pilots. On that day, the weather conditions in Greifenburg were particularly good: the ceiling was 3700 meters (the landing field at the campground is 600 meters), with almost no wind. Gerolf set up a beautiful task, introducing the area to the pilots.

Much more at the link above with lots of pictures.

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Eucla

May 30, 2013, 7:23:31 EDT

Eucla

The Australian Coast

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

http://ozreport.com/17.091#0

Now in English: http://www.leagull.com/2013/05/malibu-tour-part-2-eucla.html

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Eucla

May 7, 2013, 8:28:44 EDT

Eucla

The Australian Coast

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

http://www.leagull.com

In Russian, but plenty of pictures. English soon.

Discuss "Eucla" at the Oz Report forum   link»

“Adventure Flying” master classes

Tue, Mar 19 2013, 9:58:10 am EDT

Alpine instruction from Gerolf

Adventure Flying|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|weather

http://adventure-flying.hginsider.com/

Zhenya at Leagull «Zhenya at Leagull» writes:

Last summer Gerolf held a first series of “Adventure Flying” master classes in the center of the Austrian Alps. Gerolf knows how to teach, and flying with him is always a great flying lesson and a truly amazing hang gliding experience.

This year Gerolf will conduct several courses again. Among them, one in Laragne (France) and two in the “extended” Greifenburg area (Austria).

The purpose of these courses remains the same: making participants better suited for mountain flying, increase their general knowledge about various aspects of hang gliding and get them to realise and deal with personal “weaknesses” in their individual flying performance.

From the web site:

The main focus in these courses was to make pilots generally familiar with the specifics and tricks of alpine mountain flying, to introduce them to cruising along and crossing over some truly spectacular flying terrain, and to address potential skill deficits of the course participants on an individual level.

Originally located in Austria’s most famous flying site, Greifenburg/EmbergerAlm, the course would then venture deep into the Dolomite’s area (Bruneck) or the Julian Alps (Gemona) — just as weather conditions requested at times.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Adventure-Flying/357094734407623

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Princess Never-a-Smile - Spectrum Dance

February 22, 2013, 8:30:47 CST

Princess Never-a-Smile - Spectrum Dance

Rock and roll

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|music|video

Zhenya <<zhenya>> sends:

http://youtu.be/6sRfBAPfQzU

Forbes Flatlands - latest updates »

Forbes Flatlands - updates

No flying today

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Forbes Flatlands

http://www.forbesflatlands.com/results.html

http://leagull.blogspot.com/2012/01/by-way-fittings.html

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/2012/01/forbes-day-5-217-km-to-dunedoo.html

Discuss "Forbes Flatlands - updates" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Forbes Flatlands - day three wrangles »

Forbes Flatlands - day three

Who could get back into line where

Curt Warren|dust devil|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Forbes Flatlands|Scott Barrett|video

Curt Warren is blogging here: www.warrenwindsports.com.au/blog/curt-warren

Day May has a new video of interviews on launch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNLKpKeiOv8

Spoke briefly with Scott Barrett, the winner of day 2, on the launch situation. Seems that he got let off down wind in zero sink, when we were pretty clear that the tug pilots were required to tow everyone to 2,000' (maximum), upwind (north) of the launch area within 2 KM of the launch area. He landed, went to the back of the line, and then had to struggle with other pilots moving in front of him claiming weak link breaks, when perhaps that was not the full truth.

Scott was towed up again to over a dust devil and the line went slack at 300'. He was able to climb out from there, but now was late and started the race after 3 PM (the last start time), at 1000' AGL. He still made goal.

The issue of weak link breaks was discussed in a small committee today. The point is that pilots who have weak link breaks are slotted in behind the first four pilots (those on the dollies). If you just land for other reasons, you go to the end of the line. As there is not a good way for the launch crew to know who actually had a real weak link break, a new system will proposed tomorrow.

If you get off below 1,000' AGL for any reason you will be slotted in behind the sixth pilot after you land. Above that, you'll go to the end of the line. If you say that you got off at less than 1,000' AGL, get slotted in, and then when your track log is examined and it is found that you were above 1,000' AGL, you will receive a 30% penalty. Or perhaps another penalty like having to launch last (or is it first?).

http://leagull.blogspot.com/2012/01/preworlds-task-3-184-km.html

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Forbes Flatlands - day two »

Forbes Flatlands 2012

The results

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Forbes Flatlands|Jamie Shelden|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr


http://www.forbesflatlands.com/results.html

Minute by minute updates at Fly Moyes here.

Jamie's twitters here.

http://leagull.blogspot.com/2012/01/preworlds-task-1.html

http://www.kathrynoriordan.com/2012/01/05/forbes-2012-pre-worlds-practice-day-and-day-1/

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/2012/01/forbes-day-2-133km-around-3-tp.html

Jamie Shelden is on board with the organizers as the media person here at the pre-Worlds making sure that the World knows about what is happening here on a minute by minute basis. She's also driving but not flying in the competition. Follow Jamie's tweets at the link above or on Facebook at Fly Moyes at the link above.

I'll try to round up any other bloggers who may be posting:

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

http://www.kathrynoriordan.com/

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/

Hmm? All women!

Jonny's posting on Facebook, but he was perhaps too sick to do much on Friday (Australian time/day). Jonny was too sick to make goal.

Moyes Litespeed RX 3 - a review

For the light pilots

Litespeed RX 3 - a review

January 5, 2012, 8:24:16 AEDT

Dragonfly|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Moyes Litespeed RX

http://leagull.blogspot.com/2012/01/litespeed-rx3-review.html

Launch and landing

Foot launching is as easy as it was with my LitespeedS3. A nice feature of the glider is that it comes with the special A-frame, which has the standard length uprights, but a shorter basebar. It makes the A-frame a little more narrow in a shoulder area, so when a pilot with not very wide shoulders picks up the glider, the clearance between the basebar and the ground is bigger than it is with the standard A-frame. This certainly makes a foot launch in no wind easier.

Aerotowing with the Litespeed RX3 became easier for me. The RX3 picks up speed faster than any other glider I've flown before - I don't need to use a lot of VG for an aerotow now. Since it follows the Dragonfly very solidly, you don't need to work as much (which might make you too relaxed sometimes with towing, but...:).

Landings.

I didn't have any problems with landing my S3 - it lands kindly. But when I wanted to have a thorough stall on the S3, I always used some VG. On the RX3, the stall is more accurate - I don't need to use VG at all to have a clean break.

Read more at http://leagull.blogspot.com/2012/01/litespeed-rx3-review.html

The Bassano Spring Competition, day 5

April 25, 2011, 5:01:02 pm EDT

Trofeo Montegrappa

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Bassano Spring Competition 2011|Christian Ciech|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

The results

http://montegrappa2011.blogspot.com/

HG flex Ciech Ploner Reisinger
HG rigid Geppert Meier Kirchner
PG Donini Haller Wyss
PG sport Gugliemi Zanocco Cristoforetti

http://klemencicmatjaz.blogspot.com/

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

The Bassano Spring Competition, day 4

April 24, 2011, 5:27:23 pm EDT

The Bassano Spring Competition

Trofeo Montegrappa

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Bassano Spring Competition 2011|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

The results

http://montegrappa2011.blogspot.com/

http://klemencicmatjaz.blogspot.com/

About 20 pilots made goal with Ploner winning the task.

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

The Bassano Spring Competition, day 3

April 23, 2011, 10:34:46 pm EDT

The Bassano Spring Competition

Trofeo Montegrappa

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Bassano Spring Competition 2011|Christian Ciech|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Manfred Ruhmer

The results (they are behind the eight ball on these).

http://montegrappa2011.blogspot.com/

http://klemencicmatjaz.blogspot.com/

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

A leader-board reshuffling task. Some leaders didn't make it to the goal including the number one and three pilots: Manfred Ruhmer and Alex Ploner. Less than ten pilots made goal. Christian Ciech won the day with Primoz and Elio following. Full results will be available only tomorrow.

2010 Dutch Open »

August 13, 2010, 8:00:01 CDT

2010 Dutch Open

Less restrictive airspace

Dutch Open 2010|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Gerolf Heinrichs|Jamie Shelden|Trent Brown

www.zeilvliegen.nl

http://leagull.blogspot.com/
Jamie Shelden's blog here
http://rich-lovelace.blogspot.com/
http://flyingjochen.blogspot.com/

Koos de Keijzer <<koos>> writes:

The problems during the Pre-Words released a lobby among local politicians in the province. It looks like they understand the problem. But changing the rules will take a lot more time.

In the mean time, we (the Dutch) wanted to stretch the rules a bit to make task setting easier, and making flying to Gubbio also possible for sport class gliders. That's why we chose sticking to the rules and installing a big error margin of 500 meters. Going up to 1820m plus 500m meant a warning, second time (during the comp) a zero for the day. Maybe not the best solution, but having the local politicians already supporting us we took the chance. Possible for a Cat 2 event, probably not for a Cat 1.

It worked. About fifteen pilots got a warning, but luckily only one a zero for entering zone 2 the day after his first warning.

# Name Nat Total
1 Gerolf Heinrichs AUT 3811
2 Vladimir Leuskov RUS 3515
3 Jochen Zeischka BEL 3423
4 Trent Brown AUS 3397
5 Alexandre Trivelato BRA 3264
6 Koos de Keijzer NED 3236
7 Gerd Doenhuber GER 3181
8 Pedro Garcia ESP 3113
9 Rob In 't Groen NED 3058
10 Anton Struganov RUS 2896

Looks like the first four tasks were the only tasks, and the above are the final results.

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2010 Dutch Open »

August 12, 2010, 9:05:10 CDT

2010 Dutch Open

Starts off with three good days

Dutch Open 2010|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Francesco "Franco" Rinaldi|Franco Rinaldi|Jamie Shelden

www.zeilvliegen.nl

http://leagull.blogspot.com/
Jamie Shelden's blog here
http://rich-lovelace.blogspot.com/
http://flyingjochen.blogspot.com/

9th of August - the first task: 95 km with three turnpoints, just kind of ridge soaring back and forth. 37 pilots made goal. I made it to the goal, but flew very slow. The task winner was Brazilian pilot Alexandre Trivelato.

10th of August - the second task: 120 km with 5 turnpoints. The ridge soaring back and forth again, but now with the short part out in the valley. I made it to the goal but one of the last ones again, at least faster than yesterday:) Every part of my body hurts - for two month before it was not used to flying. But I must say it HAPPILY hurts, it hurts the way it SHOULD hurt:) The task winner was Belgian pilot Jochen Zeischka.

11th of August - another task, even better. 129 kilometers out into the other valley on the South and back. We haven't flown in that direction before. That is not an easy place to fly, I must say. One has got to work work work work there to make it back to the goal. Until the last thermal I didn't believe I'm gonna make it. But I did!!! Yeahawwwww!:) Gerolf won the day and after he made goal he climbed up and landed back on the launch (as every day, actually) to drive his car down.

Results for the first three days are up on the web site linked to above. The fourth day should be up soon. Fifteen pilots received altitude air space violations/warnings (no zeros) on the second day, including, I think, Franco Rinaldi, the meet director for the pre-Worlds.

The 2010 Women's and Rigid Wing Worlds at Neuschwanstein castle

Fri, May 21 2010, 8:40:29 am EDT

Day cancelled, meet over, no tasks

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden|Rigid Wing Worlds 2010|Women's Worlds 2010

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

Follow the tweets on this site.

www.mytb.org/katha-turbostern

http://ladeesse7.blogspot.com

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/

http://2010wm.blogspot.com/

http://gottafly.blogspot.com/

http://www.wmtegelberg2010.de/typo/

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The 2010 Women's and Rigid Wing Worlds at Neuschwanstein castle

Thu, May 20 2010, 8:47:57 am EDT

2nd to last day, and the task is cancelled

Bob Baier|Brian Porter|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Günther Tschurnig|Guenther Obweger|Jacques Bott|Jamie Shelden|Johannes Rengeling|John Bonvin|Manfred Ruhmer|Rigid Wing Worlds 2010|Steve Cox|Women's Worlds 2010

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

Task cancelled before even going up today. Forecast is for rain all day.

www.mytb.org/katha-turbostern

http://ladeesse7.blogspot.com

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/

Today again we have no chance to fly a task. I took my glider up to take off again and found more snow, it must be about half a meter now. More and more pressure if we can fly at least tomorrow or not. We will hope and see.

http://2010wm.blogspot.com/

http://gottafly.blogspot.com/

http://www.wmtegelberg2010.de/typo/

Class 2 results:

# Name Nat Glider T 1 T 2 Total
1 Ruhmer, Manfred Aut Swift Light 748 1000 1748
2 Cox, Steve Sui Swift Standard 742 955 1697
3 Baier, Bob Ger Swift Light 754 564 1318
4 Bott, Jacques Fra Swift Light 207 878 1085
5 Porter, Brian Usa Swift Light 140 883 1023
6 Rengeling, Johannes Ger Swift Light 411 411
7 Tschurnig, Günther Aut Swift Light 259 259
8 Obweger, Guenther Aut Swift Light 204 204
9 Bonvin, John Sui Swift Light 105 105

The XCSkies forecast for Friday, the last day of the competition, is for lift at 300-400 fpm, top of the lift 1000' to 2000' above the ground, 8 knot north northeast wind at 6,000', 90-100% high (non cumulus) cloud cover, 90-100% relative humidity, no chance of rain until after 5 PM, no cross country potential. A relatively good forecast compared to all the days before.

Saturday looks like a crackin' day with lift at 600-700 fpm, height of the lift above ground 4000' to 5000'.

So will this competition for the class 5 and class 1 pilots be an unmitigated disaster or one that is slightly mitigated?

You'll also notice that the only tasks that have been flown have been tasks that involved being towed. Towing takes place at 2,400' not over 5,000' where the foot launching takes place. The towed pilots get the advantage of flying when there is a lower cloud base that prevents launching.

Towing, it's the real thing.

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The 2010 Women's and Rigid Wing Worlds at Neuschwanstein castle

Wed, May 19 2010, 8:47:13 am EDT

Task cancelled

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden|Rigid Wing Worlds 2010|Women's Worlds 2010

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

At launch. Jamie writes:

You would not believe the snow up here, it’s amazing. Gorgeous if you want to ski, but not so nice for flying. Julia launched today after the task was canceled (along with quite a few others) and said she had to land because her hands were numb with two pairs of gloves on. She said her instrument said it was –11°C!

www.mytb.org/katha-turbostern

http://ladeesse7.blogspot.com

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/

http://2010wm.blogspot.com/

http://gottafly.blogspot.com/

http://www.wmtegelberg2010.de/typo/

The GFS forecast on XCSkies was a bit strange. It showed good lift (500-600 fpm) with lift to 3000' to 4000' above the ground (the best looking forecast for this area since the competition began), but 100% relative humidity, 100% sky cover.

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The 2010 Women's and Rigid Wing Worlds at Neuschwanstein castle

Tue, May 18 2010, 8:37:29 am EDT

Task cancelled

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden|Rigid Wing Worlds 2010|weather|Women's Worlds 2010

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

Now we are discussing the possibility of an extra task on Saturday in case we don't have a valid competition by then. The problem is that, according the rules, the last competition day is Friday, so some pilots have other plans, airplane tickets and are going to leave on Saturday morning, the jury is also leaving by Saturday, cable cars are not prepaid… Class 1 and Class 2 are ready to fly, but Italian and Swiss are still not convinced to extend competition.

Ok, they made a final decision: if competitions are not valid by Saturday, we will fly another task (if the weather conditions are conducive).

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

www.mytb.org/katha-turbostern

http://ladeesse7.blogspot.com

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/

http://2010wm.blogspot.com/

http://gottafly.blogspot.com/

http://www.wmtegelberg2010.de/typo/

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The 2010 Women's and Rigid Wing Worlds at Neuschwanstein castle

Mon, May 17 2010, 8:33:21 am EDT

Hope and fear, the rain comes and the task is cancelled

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden|Rigid Wing Worlds 2010|weather|Women's Worlds 2010

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

The weather conditions are the same as yesterday (even worse, actually), the forecast for the rest of the week is the same: bad… But the competition is coming to an end, so we haven't canceled the day yet… We will wait for 12 o'clock for the final decision.

There is 15 cm of snow on the take off:

www.mytb.org/katha-turbostern

http://ladeesse7.blogspot.com

See how we are torn between hope and fear. How even the weatherman one moment has hope and the other moment has not…

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/

Today it seems to clear up a little, the sky is still grey and take off in the cloud, but there is some hope so there will be another decision at 12.

http://2010wm.blogspot.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

It’s hard to get motivated to write much of anything around here. Day after day we wake up to dark skies and cloudbase near the ground. I understand all too well how hard it is for organizers in these situations. You spend so much time and effort making sure everything is prepared and together only to have no control over the one thing that can put a stop to it all. Some have given up and left already and I can only imagine how disheartening that must be. As of this morning, the forecast looks like we might have one day of flying, at best. I hope my read is wrong.

The task cancelled as the rain comes.

http://hadewych.blogspot.com/

http://gottafly.blogspot.com/

http://www.wmtegelberg2010.de/typo/

Joergy piles on:

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The 2010 Women's and Rigid Wing Worlds at Neuschwanstein castle

Sat, May 15 2010, 5:23:54 pm EDT

Saturday, eh, more rain?

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Rigid Wing Worlds 2010|video|Women's Worlds 2010

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

Another day canceled. Nothing changed. "Groundhog Day". Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow it will be not just rainy, but also very windy.

A video postcard to the Worlds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ilc3mkTeLc

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The 2010 Women's and Rigid Wing Worlds at Neuschwanstein castle

Fri, May 14 2010, 8:57:32 am EDT

Maybe they will get to fly next week

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden|Rigid Wing Worlds 2010|Women's Worlds 2010

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

http://mytb.org/katha-turbostern

http://ladeesse7.blogspot.com

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/

http://2010wm.blogspot.com/

http://hadewych.blogspot.com/

http://gottafly.blogspot.com/

http://sinoptic.blogspot.com/

http://www.wmtegelberg2010.de/typo/

There is a reason why it is green there.

Jamie Shelden writes:

I keep trying to find better forecasts. Some say snow, some say rain till Wednesday, some say rain until the meet is over. Shoot me now, please!

XCSkies says rain at least through Monday with the GFS model. That's as far out as it goes.

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The 2010 Women's and Rigid Wing Worlds at Neuschwanstein castle

Thu, May 13 2010, 8:59:04 am EDT

Fog and rain

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden|Rigid Wing Worlds 2010|Women's Worlds 2010

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/

www.mytb.org/katha-turbostern

http://ladeesse7.blogspot.com

http://2010wm.blogspot.com/

http://hadewych.blogspot.com/

http://gottafly.blogspot.com/

http://sinoptic.blogspot.com/

http://www.wmtegelberg2010.de/typo/

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A possible option for Evgeniya Laritskaya

Wed, May 12 2010, 11:04:26 am EDT

Add value

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

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The 2010 Women's and Rigid Wing Worlds at Neuschwanstein castle

Wed, May 12 2010, 9:09:28 am EDT

It's raining

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden|Rigid Wing Worlds 2010|weather|Women's Worlds 2010

http://2010wm.blogspot.com/

www.mytb.org/katha-turbostern

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

http://gottafly.blogspot.com/

http://www.wmtegelberg2010.de/typo/

http://hadewych.blogspot.com/

http://sinoptic.blogspot.com/

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

http://ladeesse7.blogspot.com

Only one task for the Swift's so far. See Jamie's blog about this. An Archaeopteryx also. They've got two weeks to get a task in for the women and ATOSes.

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/2010/05/day-3-rain-rain-rain-cancelled.html

I contacted Stefan Hoermann who is providing us with detailed weather predictions at Gleitsegelwetter - he sees a small chance of a very brief window for tomorrow and Friday, but in general there is a LOT of rain on the map. Some pilots are going to the Timezone Outlet in Rosenheim today, as shopping seems to be helping a lot of girls getting over weather depressions.

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Corporatism

Wed, May 12 2010, 9:07:55 am EDT

Hmm, reminds me of something

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya

http://leagull.blogspot.com/2010/05/women-world-day-1-registration.html

The registration for the comps. The organizers gave me a number to put on my glider's wing, a number with "Adidas" advertising. I didn't think about it but just cut the "Adidas" word out and attached only the number to my wing. Why would I put on my wing the advertising of the company which doesn't pay me any money, right? Would you do any differently? Oh, you've gotta see what it caused. Pilots were standing around me and saying that nobody is allowed to fly this comp without this advertising, but I didn't believe them. I was sure they were kidding:). I thought it couldn't be true:)

Then Corinna Schwiegershausen, one of the organizers, came along and told me that I have to put the advertising on my wings. Why is that? - I was surprised. The first answer was that nobody was allowed to fly without this advertising. It is like a nonwritten rule!

Later on I got the second answer that Adidas gave so much money (to whom? Not to me, really) and so many prizes for the comp that, without Adidas help, I would need to pay an entry fee four times bigger (so, it would be like 4*€450 = €1800). The first question here about those prizes: they said that the winners of the tasks will get the prizes. Why, then, should the other pilots who will not win the task advertize this company? Is this fair? So far I see that only the German team has got all the clothes and things from Adidas, but all the other pilots are also advertising it.

As for the second question, is that really so? Would we really need to pay an €1800 entry fee to take part in the Women's Worlds? Where does all that money go? How did they manage to make such a good Women-Rigid-Swift Worlds in Monte-Cucco then?

The third answer was that Adidas just gives a lot of money and we SHOULD put this advertizing to show our RESPECT to the company. Maybe the people who get that money, those clothes and such COULD show their respect. But I also paid almost 500 euro to this competition. Could I also have a bit of respect:)))?

Hm. Ok, I gave up. If it had not of been a World Championship where I am on the national team, I would have taken my entry fee back, turned around and gone away.

But - here I am, showing my respect.

Does it seem like I respect it that much, do you think?

Reminds me of something.

BTW, €1800? Well, I guess that puts the price of other Worlds that were without corporate sponsorship in perspective.

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The 2010 Women's and Rigid Wing Worlds at Neuschwanstein castle

Tue, May 11 2010, 8:47:24 am EDT

The no sprogs measurements

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden

http://2010wm.blogspot.com/

www.mytb.org/katha-turbostern

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

http://gottafly.blogspot.com/

http://www.wmtegelberg2010.de/typo/

http://hadewych.blogspot.com/

http://sinoptic.blogspot.com/

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

Hadewych van Kempen «Hadewych van Kempen» writes:

I figured I'd already said what I had to say in the sprog debate (mainly that safety is not enhanced by enforcing certain sprog settings on comp pilots, punishing them severely if they don't comply with some unknown norms that have an unknown effect on pitch stability). But what happened here at the start of the women's worlds in Germany is so bizarre that I just couldn't resist taking a photo and send it to you.

For personal reasons (still can't land properly) I entered the comp with an Airborne Sting3, which is very much an intermediate glider. It has no sprogs. I arrived late in the afternoon, after a long and tiring trip, and sure enough they had me rig the glider for measurement.

When I asked what they would measure, I was told there is enough to measure on a Sting. Of course, there is, I am just very curious to see the point. If a pilot shows up for a comp with an intermediate glider, does anyone really expect her to fiddle with the settings outside the margins of safety, to lengthen the lufflines or to straighten the battens or something odd, compromising her own safety, to gain performance? I should be that happily ignorant!

This is where sprogs measurements have "jumped the shark" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark) and that's assuming that sprog measurements were ever a successful undertaking. Or is this just another sad example of Germans gone wild (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_Gone_Wild)? Is it first the case that the DHV calls for something that maybe could be possibly somewhat reasonable (never my position), and then at the first chance they get they go hog wild?

Isn't this why these kinds of requests (oh, just let us make a few sprog measurements to be sure everyone is safe) are treated with such suspicion? That everyone knows once the camel gets his nose in the tent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel's_nose) the body will follow?

How about an abject apology from the officials for even considering taking these actions? Or will they be so blind as to not see what they have done?

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The Women's and Rigid Wing Worlds at Neuschwanstein castle

Mon, May 10 2010, 8:32:44 am EDT

Flying only on the practice day, not the first day (Monday).

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden|Katharina Lochner|video

http://2010wm.blogspot.com/

www.mytb.org/katha-turbostern

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

http://gottafly.blogspot.com/

http://www.wmtegelberg2010.de/typo/

http://hadewych.blogspot.com/

http://sinoptic.blogspot.com/

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

Katharina Lochner«Katharina.Lochner» writes:

I'm currently at the Women's and Rigids' Worlds at Tegelberg. My friend Rebi made a nice little video of the day before yesterday, this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZp5ZkDMoo0

By the way, Rebi also made a blog for this comp, the address is http://2010wm.blogspot.com/

I will also be updating my blog at regular intervals (see above).

No flying on the first day.

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2010 Bogong Cup - day seven »

January 22, 2010, 10:59:48 AEDT

2010 Bogong Cup

Yet again on the ground

Bogong Cup 2010|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|weather

I called the day early again with strong winds on Mt. Hotham doubling between 5 AM and 8 AM. The models were contradicting each other (even those they supposedly use the same GFS modeled "data"). The satellite picture shows us on the northern edge of a cloud band stretching across Australia. The XCSkies says we'll have 100% cloud cover and no lift at 2 PM. Aus RASP shows good lift then. The version of XCSkies shown here (for Mystic Hill) says that we we have good lift. Hard to say why the two versions of XCSkies disagree. I assume that it depends on which side of the cloud cover line the models put us.

Well, the latest version of XCSkies for Mystic now agreed more or less with the standard presentation.

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2010 Bogong Cup - day six »

January 21, 2010, 8:42:42 pm AEDT

2010 Bogong Cup

We gave it a go, but the winds didn't cooperate

Bogong Cup 2010|Cameron Tunbridge|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Rohan Taylor|sailplane|weather

While XCSkies said that we would have eighteen knot winds at 4,000' (launch level) at 2 PM, it was very quiet down in Mt. Beauty and we didn't have any clouds to give us an indication of the actual winds up above (the forecast was for winds four knots higher than yesterday). We didn't get a good answer on whether we should have acted on the weather models from yesterday from the pilots who did fly, so there was some uncertainty about how much trust to put in them today.

Going up the hill to check out the conditions was a low cost option. What did we have to lose? We are here to fly after all.

The safety committee asked us to come back at noon to make the decision. We did and I decided to send us up to Emu to see if we could fly.

The launching conditions seemed fine. The task committee came up with a task, but only two members were there. Olli was flying the sailplane. Lukas wasn't set up. Rohan wanted to go big over the back.

Cameron Tunbridge took off to show us the conditions. There were cumulus clouds now and we could see some for ourselves. He reported 18 knot winds as forecast and rough conditions. Corinna on the safety committee was also getting reports from Olli in the sailplane.

The winds picked up on launch., We started seeing lenticular clouds, one other the valley that Cameron was under. The safety committee was not happy with launch conditions, the turbulence in the air, and the task. I had the task committee change the task, well Rohan, as Lukas was against flying at all.

Finally I called the day when no one was making a move toward launch or indicating that they wanted to fly. The lenticulars continued to stack up throughout the area, a cloud mass moved in from the west, and now at 9 PM it is raining.

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2010 Bogong Cup - day five »

January 20, 2010, 2:49:30 pm AEDT

2010 Bogong Cup

High winds? We think so.

Bogong Cup 2010|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Jamie Shelden|Trent Brown|weather

I called off the fifth day of the Bogong Cup given the forecast for 14 knot winds at 4000' at 2 PM from the west (5 degrees north of west). A substantial inversion at 6,500'. High winds (50 knots) above the inversion.

In addition, the winds were double what they were yesterday at Falls Creek and Mount Hotham (in the mountains to the south) with westerly components. Aus RASP forecasted 30 knots west winds at the top of the lift.

After yesterday there was a concern that we were stupidly flying in conditions that were unsafe. Some pilots had pretty acceptable flights and other landed soon after launching because they felt it was not safe for them to fly. I measured no more than twelve mph winds, but that was enough given the inversion, the wind direction, and the hill sides, to create considerable turbulence. Out on the flats this would have been no problem.

After much discussion and soul searching, and a delayed decision with an additional pilot briefing at 11 AM, I decided to not send us up the hill. That was the decision that needed to be made. Whether or not to even go up the hill and have a look. I believe that this represents a turning point in having faith in the weather models.

I have been using the RASP, XCSkies, BLIPMAP, GFS, NAM, RUC models and representations for years and for many of those years I was a lonely voice in the wilderness. At this meeting this morning I saw as I have seen over the past few weeks many others who now have experience with these forecasts who find them generally reliable. They were persuaded by the forecasts that it was not worth the effort to do it the old fashion way and go up the hill and see what it was like.

We will see tonight if we should have relied so heavily on them.

Of course, we didn't rely completely on the models. The fact that there were lenticulars in the area was another indication that we might experience high winds even at our lower altitudes. Add to that the reported winds in the mountains.

Decisions are always emotional. You can have all the facts at hand, but without the emotional components of your brain functioning you won't be able to make a decision. This we know for neuroscience. I didn't know which decision I would make until I made it.

Check out Jamie's blog above for a look at the clouds above us.

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2010 Bogong Cup - day four »

January 19, 2010, 8:55:51 pm AEDT

2010 Bogong Cup

We finally get a day

Bogong Cup 2010|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Jamie Shelden|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Trent Brown

With a forecast for southwest winds at eleven knots at 4,000' we decide that we can go up Emu and likely fly. There is a forecast for a strong inversion below 7,000', a blue day, and very strong west southwesterly winds above the inversion. But if it really is a strong inversion then there will be no or little mixing, and the high winds will stay up above the inversion.

It is really cold when we get to launch. This is supposed to be summer, but it doesn't feel like it. A cold breeze makes pilots think about how to dress warmly after flying in Forbes where it is not necessary to have much on.

We can see the high winds in the high clouds off to the south. Steve Blenkisop and Corinna (two safety committee members) want to make sure that the high high winds haven't come down to affect our winds. Sometimes the conditions are strong on launch. The safety committee wants pilots to know that the task could be stopped at any minute, due to strong winds.

We can see little cu's forming and breaking up and swirling in a most unpleasant way as a taste of what we are in for when we get into the air. Very few pilots want to get on with it. We all hang back waiting for the others to go. A few do, but mostly they do poorly, so that is no draw.

Finally Cameron launches and starts thermaling right off of launch. This is the signal to get into the air. Jonny calls a push from twenty back and the launch is on. Although even with Jonny pushing most of us wait another five minutes before the tipping point is reached.

After such a long wait, we are now late for the start times. I launch at 2:32. The first start time was 2:20, and the last 3:00 PM. Many pilots won't get off until after the last start time.

The air isn't as bad as it looked and I climb out to 6,700' to the left of launch at Emu, just about the altitude that the forecast predicted. Instead of a totally blue day, there are just little wisps of clouds that form and dissipate quickly. They are much appreciated.

The start circle is a twenty five kilometer entry start circle six km down the ridge line to the north. A few pilots head that way, but no one down there seems very high. I hang back a bit staying in light lift, hoping to stay high as well as get to the start cylinder edge on time. That doesn't work out as well as I had hoped and I take the start at 5,000', 1:43 after the start window opens.

The start cylinder edge is at Coral Bank, a dip in the ridge line. I have to spend ten minutes getting up and out of there after I cross the gap, so I get behind Jonny and the crew following him. Oh, well.

The lift is weak, broken, and mixed up, with some nice shots of strong lift just to keep you on your toes. I'm being tossed around quite a bit, but staying away from the trees to make sure I don't have a problem. Once I get up out of Coral Bank it is a matter of racing along the mountain side hitting lots of little bits of lift until I find a coherent strong thermal and then stopping to core it. The little bits of lift are enough to keep you up, but you'll need the height later for the runs into the valley.

The wind is out of the west south west at about twelve mph. Our course takes us to the north northwest to the turnpoint at Gundowring North (out in the valley), then south back along the ridge line to Mongans bridge at Coral Bank, than back south to Upper Gandowring and finally into goal at Mt. Beauty airport.

As I approach the first turnpoint from five kilometers out, I see Jonny way below me coming back out ahead of everyone else. There are about six guys following him. I get the turnpoint high, but get low coming back to the hills to get upon the ridge. I race for a cu and it is working so I climb out of there fast.

Now it is a race back to Coral Bank. Nine kilometers out I see Jonny again out in front alone lower than his six or seven followers a kilometer behind. Did I just lose eight kilometers? It turns out this leg is fast and back at the north turnpoint I again see Jonny coming back, relatively low, five kilometers out from the turnpoint, but all his followers are now spread out from the difficulty of making the turnpoint.

I get it high again having found strong lift to over 6,000' on the hill side and dive back into the hills high and looking for good lift. I race up the ridge finding good lift and get high enough to make goal on a glide from twenty five kilometers out. I figure that I'll hit something along the way to make sure that I can make it in.

Maybe I left that lift too early, but I don't find any more lift in the next sixteen kilometers (after hitting lift all along the course line for the proceeding two hours) and land nine kilometers short. The results are up.

Julia was shot at three times. She heard the bullets whiz by her. A number of pilots felt that the conditions were unsafe. Dave Shields went and landed as did Gerolf after the bar was pulled from his hands and then he was slammed into the keel. I certainly felt pretty uncomfortable at times.

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2010 Bogong Cup - day three »

January 18, 2010, 5:40:08 pm AEDT

2010 Bogong Cup

Yet another called day

Belinda Boulter|Bogong Cup 2010|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Jamie Shelden|Trent Brown|weather

The forecast was again for winds, 19 - 23 knots at 4,000'. Emu launch (the only one facing somewhat west) is 4,500'. The cloud base was forecasted to not be much higher than the launch altitude. Rain (and snow) was also in the forecast. It was 50 degrees Fahrenheit when I road my bicycle to the pilot briefing at 8:30 AM. For the first time ever that I have been in the Victorian Alps, they felt like the European Alps.

The clouds filled in and there was 100% cu cloud cover at 9 AM. You could not see the top of Mt. Bogong (6,500'). The base was just 500'-1000' over the launch at Emu. It sure looked like it would snow up in the mountains. The temperature at Mt. Hotham was -3.4 Celsius.

Given the wind forecast and all the wind readings, especially those in the flats, the day was called. Later in the day there were only very brief periods of windy conditions. But we had periods of rain and continued low cloud base. Numerous times the clouds opened up, but then there was rain to accompany the sun. Cold, all day, of course.

I had a nice bike ride in down valley and back to the Ceccanti Winery where we had lunch the day before. Belinda feels that they have the best wine in Australia. Italian style wines. Less thick.

Other pilots took mountain bike rides up the hills behind Mount Beauty getting lifts up the road with a bike trailer riding down the bike paths, then going back up on the trailer again.

The forecast is better for tomorrow and maybe we will get a competition day.

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2010 Bogong Cup - day two »

2010 Bogong Cup

Too windy out in the flats

Bogong Cup 2010|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Jamie Shelden|Trent Brown

Nineteen knots gusting to twenty five at Wangaratta. Mt. Hotham was only thirteen knots gusting to twenty.

I called the day based on the task committee's report.

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2010 Forbes Flatlands - 10th day »

2010 Forbes Flatlands

Called due to pilot fatigue

Belinda Boulter|Ben Dunn|Bill Moyes|Dragonfly|dust devil|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Forbes Flatlands 2010|Jamie Shelden|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Trent Brown|weather


The day was called due to general pilot fatigue (which may represent a safety issue). The forecasts were mixed again with the BOM calling for 41 degrees and blowing dust (very windy on the ground) while the local Forbes forecast from RASP was for 36 and 8-10 knot surface winds.

Given the average wind through the boundary layer at fourteen knots out of the northwest all day long, we would have to have a task to the southeast. We came up with one zigzagging in that general direction and sent the sport class directly to Woodstock.

The forecast said that we would likely have few cu's and good climbs to 10,000'. The winds would most likely not be a problem unless the RASP was wrong or there were gusts. OD was not an issue.

Vicki and I held a straw poll and it was evenly spilt 20 to 20 for and against calling the last day. Some felt that there was a possible safety issue, due to weather or due to pilot fatigue. Vicki and I along with the safety committee had numerous discussions until I called the day and the safety committee agreed just before I announced it. I had voted to fly the day.

No one wanted to make such a decision given that there was such a split in the pilots' feelings about flying or not flying. Vicki reminded pilots earlier that when Bill Moyes put on the Worlds near Bright and Mt. Beauty they flew for seventeen days straight.

It was another great flying event at Forbes with wonderful tasks and many many hours in the air. Of course, we could have flown every day. Zac was able to move into third place after winning the last day. Jonny was firmly in first place.

I had thought that I had messed up by not flying to the end of the clouds off the course line on the 9th day. Juerg, who was with me under the clouds, said that he and Carl and a few other pilots followed the clouds and as soon as they left the clouds when they ended they went down and landed. So that wasn't the way to go after all.

Belinda and Davis in Forbes as pictured in the Forbes Advocate.

Vicki called to report that a dust devil came through the launch area around 1 PM, flipped over Leroy's Dragonfly and broke the fuselage. This is the time that we would have been launching. The tug was tied down.

2010 Forbes Flatlands - 9th day »

January 12, 2010, 0:53:58 AEDT

2010 Forbes Flatlands

Zac wins, no one at goal

Ben Dunn|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Forbes Flatlands 2010|Jamie Shelden|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Trent Brown|weather

The weather forecasting models were contradicting each other. The BOM said 41 in Forbes. The GFS/XCSkies and RASP said 35. A rather significant difference. But maybe they were both right. RASP showed no clouds, no chance of over development, low top of the lift.

The winds forecasts may have been contradicting each other also, but the BOM forecast is for too large an area to be sure. RASP showed the winds going from north to west later in the day, and slowing down (in Forbes).

The task committee called a dogleg task first 65 kilometers to the east to Toogong, and then 104 km to the north east to the airport past Wellington on the east side of the ridge. The best chance for lift was in the hills that we would be going over to get to the first turnpoint.

It was completely blue at the airfield as we towed up. Larry reported lift to 7,000', but he soon found himself down to 2,200' and no one was finding any good lift and no one was getting over about 5,400'. The thermals were quite weak and there continued to be no clouds. It looked like the RASP model was right and the BOM was wrong.

As the last start time approached (and we were all waiting for it as conditions were so weak), we waited in weak lift over Forbes, the town itself, at the edge of the start circle. Things were congested as we just couldn't climb.

Just as the start window was about to open we found strong lift. This meant that we would stay there and climb well to 7,100'. I was with Zippy and resolved to stay with him. He started later than the others (maybe three minutes behind the start clock) as we were still climbing. I was just above him.

I found that the right leading edge of the Airborne REV at the tip was broken this morning when I tried to put in the tip wand. I had noticed the night before that the tip wand seemed a bit high. I hadn't thought much about it as I've had perfect landings every flight. Did I mention that the REV is super easy to land?

The Moyes folks were around and Vicki and Jonny were happy to let me fly Jonny's RedBull glider, an RS 4, with a well worn sail, a glider that had been looped many times. It was a bit different to fly, and on the first fast glide I couldn't control the glider as I hadn't had a chance to retrain my reflexes and timing. After the first glide I had the timing back.

Also the bar position was different than what I had just gotten used to on the REV. I had to get used to that also. It took about an hour and a half to straighten all my reactions out.

As we headed east toward Toogong, there were clouds about another ten kilometers along the course line (after the first ten of the start cylinder). I was now far below Zippy as I couldn't control the glider at first, but we got into the same strong thermal and I climbed to over 8,500'. The day was much better now that we were in the hills and under the clouds.

A twenty kilometer glide and I was down to 2,500' again, but I found good lift just before the clouds again. Moving over to a better position under the cu's and over the hill sides after I gained a couple of thousand feet it was 700 fpm to cloud base at 9,980'. That was a smooth powerful thermal.

It was a quick run to the turnpoint, then back under the clouds to cloud base at 9,950'. I had to race to the blue to get away from the cloud suck. I was running away from the clouds, but they continued north for an another ten or twenty kilometers. Unfortunately, the task was to the north east and the clouds would start soon to be twenty kilometers off the course line. At some point we had to go out into the blue, which looked even worse than the tow paddock. There was a strong inversion.

I headed back to the clouds first but then left with 6,500' out into the blue. I was able to take 200 fpm to 5,000' in the first thermals gaggling up with about ten pilots. The wind was out of the north northwest, so our progress was impeded by the winds, the light lift, and the very low top of lift.

Coming in south of the village of Cumnock I worked 90 fpm to 3,800' while I watched five guys head out and essentially commit suicide, one after the other all landing in the same field on the south side of the town. Trent Brown wanted to stay with me and not commit suicide, so we hung in there. The next thermal averaged seven fpm.

We headed ninety degrees away from the village to get away from where those guys landed. We were able to take a couple more thermals and get about five kilometers into a head wind on those guys before landing.

Larry had landed previously just to the north of Cumnock. Jeff's radio wasn't working, but we found out that he had landed north of us twenty kilometers as he could radio Zippy after he landed.

Zippy hung in there and was able to get 2.4 km from goal to win the day. Check the results.

2010 Forbes Flatlands - 8th day »

January 10, 2010, 11:03:24 pm AEDT

2010 Forbes Flatlands

Six and a half hours in the air

Ben Dunn|Conrad Loten|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Forbes Flatlands 2010|Jamie Shelden|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Steve Blenkinsop|Trent Brown

The task committee, Gerolf, Dave May, and Conrad Loten, called a 206 km triangle to the north, given the forecast for light winds with the center of the high pressure moving south to the west of us during the day. The forecast for cu's was a bit weak with only thin cu's predicted, but the lift was seen to be reasonable if a bit weaker than the previous two days.

The lift, the height of cloud base, and the thickness of the cu's turned out to be better than predicted, but the winds were strong out of the southwest, but not on the ground. This made for a long and difficult task getting back to Forbes.

To avoid the heat I was ready to take off first, when the word came down that the task had been changed to just Tomingley and back, 188 kilometers. Most likely because there were no cu's showing up at the noon launch time (as forecasted). I quickly deleted the Trundal waypoint and launched.

While it was blue there was still plenty of lift and it was possible to get to over 8,000' in time for the first start time. Given the long task, I wanted to get going early. Cu's started forming during the hour between the launch and the first start time.

I raced out with Steve Blenkinsop and quickly found lift that averaged over 500 fpm. There were plenty of clouds on the course line and it was easy to find the lift. I was thirty kilometers north of the edge of the start circle when the last start time came around (forty minutes after the first start time).

Fifteen minutes later I was 40 kilometers north of the start cylinder at almost cloud base just above Steve Blenkinsop. I told myself (apparently not too convincingly) that I should just stay with Steve as he was doing well in the competition (much better than me). But as we raced down the cloud street, that was just about to end before Peak Hill, Steve stopped to work his way as high as possible.

For some reason I didn't see the point of this and charged on ahead. Forty five minutes later I was groveling east of Peak Hill as I heard Zac and Jeff behind me catching up.

Jeff got low a couple of times and slowed way down. Zac kept moving along as did Larry. I finally got back up past Peak Hill, but eleven kilometers from the turnpoint I saw a pilot going back. Jeez, I had already lost twenty two kilometers. Steve stayed high the whole way toward the turnpoint.

There was strong lift just before the turnpoint and I found 700 fpm to over 8,000'. It was easy to get the turnpoint as I hooked up with Larry. Jeff was working hard to stay up. Coming back into the head wind there was plenty of lift and good clouds and I stayed high for the next twenty kilometers.

Larry got stuck behind me and Jeff was fifteen kilometers back. Zippy was just out ahead a little.

After climbing to 8,500' south of Peak Hill I had a disastrous glide. Eighteen kilometers later I was down to 1,500' AGL next to the mine north of Parkes. I would spend the next hour there drifting backwards in the 14 mph head wind, just trying to get back up.

There was a cu-nimb back by the turnpoint but east of it. The sport class goal was at Tomingley. Four out of five made it for the longest sport class task of the competition. The one pilot was only two kilometers short.

There was another cu-nimb forming east and north of Parkes. I was on the western edge of it as it expanded going west. This provided some reasonable lift but I was already eight kilometers down wind of the course line so I didn't get too far under it.

The lift worked well, but when I got to Parkes I didn't find it again, and had to land. Jeff had been able to get back up while I was groveling. So did Larry. Zac had been really low just before I got low and was back in the game. Jeff was now climbing to 11,000'.

Zac and Jeff made it in. Larry was just 3 kilometers short. See the results page to see who won the day.

2010 Forbes Flatlands - 7th day »

January 9, 2010, 8:53:36 pm AEDT

2010 Forbes Flatlands

A tough day for the Americans

Ben Dunn|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Forbes Flatlands 2010|Jamie Shelden|Jeff Shapiro|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Ricky Duncan|Rohan Holtkamp|Rohan Taylor|Trent Brown|weather

Zac landed just past the first turnpoint. I hung in there for another half hour but landed near him. Larry almost landed just past Zac, but doing well Jeff Shapiro stayed high and made goal quickly. The Moyes team at the goal field was very happy to hear that Zac went down. It would not do for an American flying a Wills Wing glider to come to Australia and win the Forbes Flatlands, the premier Australian competition.

After Ricky Duncan beat Jonny at the Canungra Classic (and Rohan Holtkamp came in third) flying the Airborne REV 13.5 I would assume that the Moyes folks were not terribly happy. To have Zac beat all the pilots flying Moyes gliders for six days running here in Forbes, was a bitter pill.

There was a movement to have a rest day, and that came up for a straw poll at the pilot briefing. But before it did I presented the weather which showed that we again would have clouds, good lift, high cloud base and reasonably light winds. The task committee called a zig-zag task of 140 km to Grenfell, Eugowra, and then to Gooloogong. It basically consisted of three cross wind legs.

Then the proposal for a rest day came up with Gerolf making the motion. He presented his case and then there was some rather desultory discussion without anyone making a clear statement of their position (that could be understood, at least). I called for a "vote" and it was 16 in favor of a rest day today and 26 against.

I asked Vicky (the meet director) what she wanted to do, she shrugged her shoulders, essentially passing the decision back to me. I said that there was an obvious spilt and that no decision could please everyone, but that I would go with the majority. If the vote had been more equal Vicki probably would have gone with a rest day.

So we were off to the airfield. I have been riding a very nice carbon frame bicycle (Apollo) provided by Peter Holloway at Cycle Science. It is a joy to ride it everyday to the airfield.

On this day I made sure that I launched first to avoid having to wait in line in the heat fully dressed. The launching went quickly with everyone in the air in forty five minutes. The lift was good and we easily got to 8,200'.

All four of the team members, Zippy, Jeff, Larry, and I got together and were ready to go at the first start. We took it but came back for the second when no one went with us and we didn't find good lift right away under the first cu.

We went back and had a good second start all of us together with Larry in the lead. There weren't many other pilots around.

We hit a nice thermal and that was a bright spot for us. We headed out together after climbing up. After a few kilometers, Jeff spotted a pilot circling a little to our right and the three of them went toward the guy. I kept on the course line as there was a pilot racing out ahead and I figured that doubled my chances. There was a dark black cloud ahead also.

Zippy said later that their right turn was a mistake. I was out in front searching as the pilot below me wasn't getting anything under perfect looking cloud. I finally did find something useful as my teammates came in my direction. The sky was full of cu's.

I headed out toward a nice line of good looking black bottomed cu's. Down, down, down I went as I raced toward them. Looking ahead I saw a pilot low racing down the line in front of me. I was betting on that guy as I followed along. Suddenly Zippy came on the radio to report 600 fpm 1 km ahead of me, just as I saw the pilot turn and start to climb. The low pilot was Zippy and I joined him.

Jeff was way above us, and Larry came and joined me. We climbed at 400 fpm from pretty low as Jeff topped out and went on course toward Grenfell. Larry and I followed Zippy toward the foothills before Grenfell. Larry found something and I came in under him to find nothing. I went forward to Zippy and found nothing under him. Then forward to the next pilot and finally there was some reasonable lift from 2,000' AGL.

Back up over 5,000' Jeff was reporting strong lift 11 kilometers and then 8 kilometers from the Grenfell turnpoint. I raced along the hills and didn't find anything. Larry was high behind me and Zippy was near the turnpoint.

Not finding any lift I left the foothills and headed west away from the turnpoint to get under some clouds and over shaded ground running toward areas of sun searching for lift to get me well back over four thousand feet.

What I didn't know at the time was while Jeff went in high to the turnpoint, Larry and Zippy did not, not being over 4,000'. I was freaked to be as low as I was as I consider the turnpoint a sink hole. The sky conditions nearby did not look at all good.

I worked half a dozen light thermals trying to find one that lasted for more than a couple of minutes and was better than 100 fpm. Zippy had already landed having been down to 1,000' over the gold course. Jeff was still high. Larry found good lift just at the golf course and got back up into the game.

Jeff came in quickly in the top ten he thinks. Larry was late. The goal field was full. The sport class had the same goal and for the first time most of them made it to goal. They were a very happy crew.

2010 Forbes Flatlands - 6th day »

January 8, 2010, 7:34:44 pm AEDT

2010 Forbes Flatlands

The sack of potatoes task

Ben Dunn|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Facebook|Forbes Flatlands 2010|Jamie Shelden|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Trent Brown

After a hard task the day before, the task committee considered that maybe a shorter task was the go for today. With the forecast for light winds and cu's with a cloud base at 8,500' (later) they went with a "triangle" task of 127 km. First south southwest to Marsden intersection, then east to a point on the Henry Lawson highway, then twenty kilometers "upwind" to goal at the "World's" paddock.

The sky obliged us and started filling up with cu's as we set up our gliders ready for a tow to the north. I got a late start which never happens, but pilots were more than ready to launch after delaying their launches on the day before. It didn't matter when I launched as we weren't going to take the first clock anyway and there was plenty of lift to get up and get in position.

Jeff, Zippy and I were in good communication (first time so far in this meet) and we all got together in good lift near the edge of the start cylinder. We were just outside it as the second start time approached. We were at cloud base, so we headed back at the perfect time and got a great start. Zippy was in the lead, I just behind him, with Jeff just behind me. It was great to have three American pilots leading out, although Attila and Blay had taken the first start time.

The lift was good and well marked. We raced from thermal to thermal (cu to cu) and kept in the lead. I would lose about 200' on glide against them, and make up half of that in the thermal. I either have lighter wing loading (bigger glider, and Jeff has ballast), or greater drag (head pulley?) as I would fly at their speed but lose altitude relative to them.

We couldn't shake the guys behind us and slowly they caught up with me. By the time we got to the first turnpoint at 50 km out, Zac and Jeff were a kilometer ahead and higher. I had half a dozen pilot around me. I kept seeing Carl Wallbank.

It was another strong run to within fifteen kilometers of the next turnpoint with 700 fpm lift. Then we had to cross an area with weak lift before we could get to the obvious strong thermal just two kilometers past the turnpoint. I came in under it as Jeff and Zac were getting ready to leave with 8 to 1 to goal.

I climbed up in 700 fpm to 7,200' with 9.1 to goal, 18 kilometers away. The lift slowed down so I went on glide. Jeff and Zac were able to race to goal, but 5.5 kilometers out I had lost so much altitude in the sink that I wasn't going to make it down to 2,000' AGL. I had been getting 7 to 1.

I stayed in the lift that I found there and then had no problem getting to goal. Larry, who took the third clock, left the second turnpoint with eight to 1 and landed 100' short of the goal line. The winds were light. The sink going to goal for us was not.

Zac and Jeff were fast but Zac did not win the day. But I assume that he will hold onto his lead. Check out the results to see who won.

Rob In't Groen broke his arm on landing when he didn't get the glider around into the light wind. He stated that he was tired from all the flying. Today was basically a rest day with only a short fast task. Some of the younger pilots are complaining that they are flying too much. I'm perfectly happy to fly every day. We'll see what happens tomorrow at the pilot briefing.

2010 Forbes Flatlands »

2010 Forbes Flatlands

1st Practice Day

Bobby Bailey|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Forbes Flatlands 2010


Pilots arrived early for the Forbes Flatlands which begin on Sunday the 3rd of January 2010. Lukas Bader, Leroy, and Bobby Bailey flew Dragonflies in from Rylstone. Lukas said that they had hoped to fly low along the river course as Bobby had done last year, but it was too rough, too many gusts. They had all the cameras set up to film the adventure. There are seven Dragonflies here and seven tug pilots.

Pilots were getting towed up at the Forbes Airfield on the 31st, so the flying has already begun. Lots of cu's and mixed clouds yesterday. Green fields and standing water along the road side. It sure doesn't look like a drought here. There is a light rain this morning with a gray sky.

The Russians (Julia, Evgeniya, Anton) are here in the Apex caravan park with Tim Ettridge driving. He's driving for them at the Bogong Cup also. I'm trying to talk him into flying there instead.

Lukas arrived the first of December (as did Evgeniya) knowing that his Moyes Litespeed had been almost completely destroyed at the shipper's warehouse in Germany. He has a new glider (and now a few spare parts - the carbon outboard leading edges) out of which he still has to tune out the turn. He says that his broken glider was perfect.

Julia is flying an Aeros Combat 12L, the "Barbie" glider. She said that she had flown it in competition before.

Francisco Rinaldi, the 2011 World Organizer (along with Flavio), is here. He was a very generous donor to our efforts in Ecuador. I hope to have news for you all about the upcoming pre-Worlds soon.

Art Films

September 8, 2009, 8:52:37 MDT

Art Films

From Laragne and Volgograd

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|video

Evgeniya <<leagull>> sends:

There are two movies from Vladimir Leouskov in internet now:

Laragne World 2009

Russian Open 2009, flatlands, Volgograd - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMSIpE7_Epo

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British Nationals in Ager

July 25, 2009, 11:55:16 CDT

British Nationals in Ager

Last day blown out

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden

They launched but it was too windy up high.

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British Nationals in Ager

July 24, 2009, 5:47:17 pm CDT

British Nationals in Ager

Blown out

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden

Only two days out of six flyable. We'll see about Saturday.

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British Nationals in Ager

July 23, 2009, 8:41:31 CDT

British Nationals in Ager

Blown out

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden

Maybe tomorrow also.

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British Nationals in Ager

July 22, 2009, 7:52:45 CDT

British Nationals in Ager

Too windy again

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden

Maybe too windy tomorrow also.

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British Nationals in Ager

July 21, 2009, 8:19:08 CDT

British Nationals in Ager

Day called

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden

Too windy.

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British Nationals in Ager

July 20, 2009, 2:41:03 pm CDT

British Nationals in Ager

Well at least Carl is in goal

Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden

http://twitter.com/naughtylawyer

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

http://bhgc.wikidot.com/2009-news

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

Vladimir Leuskov in first

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The pre-Europeans »

July 18, 2009, 5:07:41 pm CDT

The pre-Europeans

Jonny falls down on the last day

Bruce Kavanagh|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Gerolf Heinrichs|Jamie Shelden|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Manfred Ruhmer|Martin Harri|Primoz Gricar|Richard Lovelace|Scott Barrett|Steve Blenkinsop|Tullio Gervasoni|Wills Wing T2C

Most recent news:

http://twitter.com/naughtylawyer

http://agerhanggliding.blogspot.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

After the race:

Jonny's blog

Corinna's blog

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

http://europehgcomps09.blogspot.com/

Results

Evgeniya wrote on Friday:

Corinna made the goal but crashed there: it was not a good landing field, she used her drougue chute too early, hit a tree and fell on the road. She feels good (maybe just broken ankle), but her glider is broken. Some pilots landed on the small fields, breaking uprights, base bars, tails.

Steve Blekinsop wrote on Friday:

...Corinna came in high and threw her drogue chute. Pilots watching from the landing were of the opinion she still needed to sideslip it in and unfortunately the chute makes it difficult to do this pulling the glider straight and tending pull the pilot back slowing the glider. She hit trees and came down on the edge of a road. We sprinted the 250m to her closely followed by the medical assistance. A helicopter took her to hospital where she was treated for concussion and a fractured ankle. Her parents took her home this morning, possibly for surgery on the ankle. Considering the proximity of the road she may be lucky.

Steve remembers pictures of himself that I took and posted (they have since been removed) on the Oz Report many years ago.

And what did Scott Barrett say to me a few weeks ago at the Worlds about Corinna's drogue chute? That it pulled her back, slowing down the glider and making it more difficult for her to flare.

So on the last day, check out Jamie's twitter posts.

Jonny lands 13 km from goal losing the meet on the last day, as Manfred did at the Worlds.

Overall:

#NameNatGliderTotal
1Blay jr Olmos QuesadaESPMoyes Litespeed S 3.55082
2Martin HarriSUIMoyes Litespeed RS 3.55077
3Carl WallbankGBRMoyes Litespeed RS 3.54946
4Primoz GricarSLOAeros Combat L 134921
5Jon Durand JnrAUSMoyes Litespeed RS 3.54862
6Balazs UjhelyiHUNMoyes Litespeed S 4.54710
7Vladimir LeuskovRUSMoyes Litespeed RS 3.54577
8Steve BlenkinsopAUSMoyes Litespeed S 3.54516
9Manfred TrimmelAUTAeros Combat 144505
10Tullio GervasoniITAMoyes Litespeed RS 3.54422

Last day:

#NameNatGliderTimeTotal
1Gerolf HeinrichsAUTMoyes Litespeed RS 401:31:54857
2Richard LovelaceGBRMoyes Litespeed RS 3.501:46:29780
3Carl WallbankGBRMoyes Litespeed RS 3.501:47:35772
4Bruce KavanaghGBRWills Wing T2C 14401:49:03764
5Balazs UjhelyiHUNMoyes Litespeed S 4.501:50:00756
6Vladimir LeuskovRUSMoyes Litespeed RS 3.501:50:19751
7Tullio GervasoniITAMoyes Litespeed RS 3.501:51:03748
8Marc UtrilloESPAeros Combat L01:51:22742
9Edoardo GiudiceandreaITAWills Wing T2C01:53:23738
10Blay jr Olmos QuesadaESPMoyes Litespeed S 3.501:53:40736

The pre-Europeans »

July 17, 2009, 8:09:25 CDT

The pre-Europeans

I hope that you've been watching Jonny's videos

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden|Jim Rooney|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|video

Most recent news:

http://twitter.com/naughtylawyer

http://agerhanggliding.blogspot.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

After the race:

Jonny's blog

Corinna's blog

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

http://europehgcomps09.blogspot.com/

Results

Quick and not so dirty editing. Jonny captures some of the excitement of competition. He shows that he is not always on top and has to deal with the fact that others get ahead of him. He can identify plenty of the pilots flying against/with him while in a thermal (pointing out that it makes sense to know what they look like in the air).

I think that he should get pilots to say more interesting things by saying something to them in advance of videoing, say just a few seconds before.

I'd also love to see him use Jim Rooney's setup with the GoPro camera.

It is the timeliness of the videos that is their key selling point as well as the skill of the pilot in making them relevant (you get to see others coming into goal). 

The Friday task has been canceled.

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The pre-Europeans »

July 16, 2009, 7:40:05 CDT

The pre-Europeans

No goal field at goal

CIVL|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr

Most recent news:

http://twitter.com/naughtylawyer

http://agerhanggliding.blogspot.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

After the race:

Jonny's blog

Corinna's blog

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

http://europehgcomps09.blogspot.com/

Results

Jamie is flying so the news will be slower today.

Jonny moves into first place coming in fourth into goal, beating Blay into goal. The goal field wasn't a field (it was a turnpoint) so folks had to find their own places to land. Some didn't do so well. Corinna suffered from a slight concussion. Ako took out his control frame on landing.

Gerolf apparently landed way short was seen in discussions with CIVL officials. The screw up on choosing a non landing zone for goal, may be the issue.

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The pre-Europeans »

July 15, 2009, 7:29:06 CDT

The pre-Europeans

Jonny wins, in second, Blay in first, still

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Gerolf Heinrichs|Icaro 2000|Jamie Shelden|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Manfred Ruhmer|Martin Harri|Primoz Gricar

http://twitter.com/naughtylawyer

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

Jonny's blog

Corinna's blog

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

http://agerhanggliding.blogspot.com/

http://europehgcomps09.blogspot.com/

Results

# Name Nat Glider Total
1 Blay jr Olmos Quesada ESP Moyes Litespeed S 3.5 3498
2 Jon Durand Jnr AUS Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5 3451
3 Martin Harri SUI Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5 3424
4 Primoz Gricar SLO Aeros Combat L 13 3418
5 Carl Wallbank GBR Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5 3334
6 Gianpietro Zin FRA Icaro 2000 Laminar Z9 3189
7 Manfred Trimmel AUT Aeros Combat 14 3163
8 Gerolf Heinrichs AUT Moyes Litespeed RS 4 3159
9 Vladimir Leuskov RUS Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5 3153
10 Jose Antonio(Ako) Abollado ESP Aeros Combat L 3078

Next to the last day?

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The pre-Europeans »

July 14, 2009, 10:10:39 EDT

The pre-Europeans

Gerolf in first again, Blay still in first place overall

Corinna Schwiegershausen|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Jamie Shelden|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr

http://twitter.com/naughtylawyer

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

Jonny's blog

Corinna's blog

http://leagull.blogspot.com/

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http://europehgcomps09.blogspot.com/

Results

Carl two points out of second place. The top eleven places, close. Kathleen well ahead of Corinna.

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East Coast Championship - day 7, task 5 »

Sat, Jun 6 2009, 9:40:27 pm EDT

East Coast Championship - - day 7, task 5

Cloudy, very very light lift

Charles Allen|David Glover|Davis Straub|East Coast Championships 2009|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Highland Aerosports Flight Park|Paris Williams|Terry Reynolds|Tom Lanning|Wills Wing T2C

The results: http://soaringspot.com/2009ecc

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http://www.leagull.blogspot.com/

The last day at the East Coast Championship turned out to be a very weak day in spite of the forecast for 400-500 fpm to 2,500'. The clouds didn't clear until 7 PM. The ground was shaded all day.

We twice postponed the start a half an hour, and left it at a 3 PM start time with the last start time at 3:45 PM. We postponed the launch close time finally to 5 PM.

Taking off just after 2 PM I didn't find any lift, and the other two pilots didn't either. Then we waited for another hour to launch again.

Two more launches and I found weak lift on the third flight leaving the six pilots circling in zero over the air strip and getting 10 fpm at 700' and climbing it for a total of 38 minutes for the second longest flight of the day. Jim Prahl got the longest duration flight at 53 minutes. Is this a duration contest?

I wasn't about to quit and at 4:51 I got towed up for a fourth flight. Zack took me to Tom, Paris and Mark who were turning under a thin cu. They had had lift there but when I got there there wasn't any and Paris headed out. I headed out and saw Paris. Mark and then Tom followed.

We just went on glide. Paris was hoping to find some lift but that seemed a bit unreal to me as I could see Terry Reynolds low out ahead and he wasn't finding anything. It was completely shaded.

We were veering to the right of the course line which went over the river and over the small town of Denton. There were trees around the river and few fields along the course line. We stayed over the open fields.

Terry Reynolds who was quite a bit lower landed at 7.4 km out. Tom and Mark landed with him. I was out in front having caught Paris who then turned to see if he could go up with some birds (but didn't). I kept going over a set of high tension power lines heading for highway 404.

There was another high voltage power line and then the highway with a muddy, newly planted corn field across the highway. I decided to turn and land in the grass just next to the highway instead.

Paris was behind me and saw some birds turning and going up fast just to the left of my glide path. He was headed for them but we were both too low to get up with the birds. He landed across the highway in the corn field. It wasn't that muddy after all.

# Pilot Glider Distance
km
Total
Points
1. Paris Williams Aeros Combat L 13 8.3 11
2. Davis Straub Wills Wing T2C 144 8.2 11
3. Terry Reynolds Wills Wing T2C 144 7.4 10
4. Tom Lanning Wills Wing T2C 144 7.4 10
5. Mark Frutiger Wills Wing T2 154 7.3 10
6. Charles Allen Icaro Z8 12.9 5.4 8

The final results can be found at the URL above.

The scoring with SeeYou went very well over the network. David Glover downloaded the GPSes and stored the IGC files automatically on my Public Downloads folder. I had instant access to them and I was continually updating the scoring on line on the Soaring Spot as new track logs showed up. It wasn't automatic on my part (as you can't quite do that with SeeYou), but it was pretty easy.

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East Coast Championship - day 6 »

Fri, Jun 5 2009, 10:31:49 am EDT

Rain all night and morning, no lift, low cloud base, day cancelled early

East Coast Championships 2009|Evgeniya "Zhenya" Laritskaya|Highland Aerosports Flight Park

The results: http://soaringspot.com/2009ecc

Tweets: https://OzReport.com/tweets.php

http://skyout.blogspot.com/

http://gottafly.blogspot.com/

http://www.leagull.blogspot.com/