Wills Wing
Flytec

Oz Report

topic: Flytec Championships 2005 (34 articles)

Flytec Championship Early Registration tomorrow

December 14, 2005, 9:46:19 PST

Flytec Championships

If you are in the top thirty flex wing pilots or a rigid wing pilot, register for the meet on the 15th.

Flytec Championships 2005|World Pilot Ranking Scheme

Early registration for the Flytec Championship opens on December 15th at noon EST. Rigid wing pilots, and the top thirty by NTSS rank US pilots and top fifty by WPRS points international pilots can register starting on Thursday. The registration opens up to every one else on January 1st.

http://www.flytec.com/Events/2006/Flytec_Championship/Registration.htm

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere »

Sat, Apr 23 2005, 5:30:01 pm EDT

Chatter in cyberspace.

Flytec

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere

Øyvind Ellefsen|Bernard Winkelmann|Dan Bereczki|Flytec Championships 2005|Jim Yocom|Kari Castle|Kevin Carter|Pre-Worlds 2005|Tom Lanning|US Nationals 2005|Vince Endter

You'll find some of the blogs and web pages covering the US Nationals and Pre-Worlds here:

The scoring http://www.flytec.com/flytec_usn_05/index.html
German Team http://www.dhv.de/typo/Pre-Worlds_Florida_2.2078.0.html
Øyvind Ellefsen http://www.ellefsen.net/
Flytec (audio blogs updated during the day) http://flytec.blogspot.com/
Jim Yocom http://www.rmhpa.org/xccontest/2005Florida.htm
Tom Lanning http://skyout.blogspot.com/
Dan Bereczki http://flexwing.org
Bernard Winkelmann www.benyl.com/Fly
Vince Endter http://www.flyatos.com/v/vince_report.html
Kevin Carter http://xckevin.blogspot.com
Kari Castle

Send me the URL for your blog if you are here at the Flytec Championship.

2005 Flytec Championship, day nine

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Bruce Barmakian|Chris Muller|Davis Straub|Dustin Martin|Flytec Championships 2005|Glen Volk|Jacques Bott|Johann Posch|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Kari Castle|Kevin Carter|Mike Barber|Oleg Bondarchuk|Paris Williams|Phill Bloom|photo|Ron Gleason|US Nationals

Sat, Apr 23 2005, 5:30:00 pm EDT

A front and rain.

Flytec Championship

The last day of the US Nationals was called on account of a forecast for rain and wind. The rain showed up, but the wind didn't.

Rigid final results:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 REISINGER Robert AIR Atos VR AUT 5806
2 GRICAR Primoz Aeros Phantom SVN 4807
3 BARMAKIAN Bruce AIR Atos VR USA 4533
4 ALMOND Neville AIR Atos V GBR 4449
5 BOTT Jacques AIR Atos VR FRA 4366
6 ENDTER Vincent AIR Atos VR USA 4265
7 YOCOM James AIR Atos VR USA 4195
8 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos VR USA 3904
9 POSCH Johann Helite Tsunami AUT 3806
10 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos VR USA 3448

Flex final results:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 BONDARCHUK Oleg Aeros Combat UKR 5540
2 DURAND Jonny Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 5505
3 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat L USA 5491
4 BLOOM Phill Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 4943
5 MARTIN Dustin Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 4827
6 OLSSON Andreas Wills Wing T2 154 SWE 4735
7 MULLER Chris Wills Wing T2 CAN 4557
8 VOLK Glen Moyes Litespeed USA 4544
9 BARBER Mike Moyes Litespeed USA 4502
10 CARTER Kevin Aeros Combat USA 4436

Kari Castle was doing well in twelfth place until she went down early on the last day, still she managed to be the US Women's National Champion and beat the current Women's World Champion. Kari loved flying in Florida (much better than Greifenburg). She was flying the Moyes Litespeed S4 that I was flying in Australia in January.

Flytec Championship photos.

Chris dies

Fri, Apr 22 2005, 8:00:08 pm GMT

A few minutes after I wrote the article above.

Chris Muller

Chris Muller|fatality|Flytec Championships 2005|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|US Nationals 2005

Chris Muller died tonight in the hospital a few minutes after I wrote the above article at around 7 PM. I'm assuming for internal injuries, and injuries to his neck and breathing passage. It took the EMT's five tries to intubate him in the ambulance, so you know that there was a problem.

We are all very sad here as many of us have known Chris since he was a young boy. Our hearts go out to Vincene, his mother.

Chris looping on Thursday in the start circle. Photos by Jonny Durand.

Discuss "Chris dies" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere »

Fri, Apr 22 2005, 4:00:01 pm EDT

Chatter in cyberspace.

Flytec

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere

Øyvind Ellefsen|Bernard Winkelmann|Dan Bereczki|Flytec Championships 2005|Jim Yocom|Kari Castle|Kevin Carter|Pre-Worlds 2005|Tom Lanning|US Nationals 2005|Vince Endter

You'll find some of the blogs and web pages covering the US Nationals and Pre-Worlds here:

The scoring http://www.flytec.com/flytec_usn_05/index.html
German Team http://www.dhv.de/typo/Pre-Worlds_Florida_2.2078.0.html
Øyvind Ellefsen http://www.ellefsen.net/
Flytec (audio blogs updated during the day) http://flytec.blogspot.com/
Jim Yocom http://www.rmhpa.org/xccontest/2005Florida.htm
Tom Lanning http://skyout.blogspot.com/
Dan Bereczki http://flexwing.org
Bernard Winkelmann www.benyl.com/Fly
Vince Endter http://www.flyatos.com/v/vince_report.html
Kevin Carter http://xckevin.blogspot.com
Kari Castle

Send me the URL for your blog if you are here at the Flytec Championship.

2005 Flytec Championship, day eight

Why did they want a short task? Well, the sea breeze for one thing.

Flytec Championship

2005 Flytec Championship, day eight

Fri, Apr 22 2005, 4:00:00 pm EDT

Øyvind Ellefsen|A.I.R. ATOS VR|Bruce Barmakian|Campbell Bowen|Chris Muller|Davis Straub|Dustin Martin|Flytec Championships 2005|Glen Volk|Greg Kendall|Jacques Bott|James Lamb|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Kevin Carter|Mike Barber|Oleg Bondarchuk|Paris Williams|Phill Bloom|Ron Gleason

The rigid wing flight and task

The forecast was for a twenty percent chance of rain after 4 PM, so we want to get every one back by then. I also forecasted a sea breeze, given the light west winds, and the Windcast showing what looks like convergence up the middle of the state. Pilots expressed the feeling that they were a little tired from the three hour task (plus one hour in the start circle) the day before, so a two and a half hour task sounded better.

Given the desire for a smaller task, we chose a run up and down highway 33 with a 64 mile task for the flex wings and 77 miles for the rigid wings. The cu's weren't happening when we rigids started to launch at 12:15, but after half an hour they began to appear nearby.

The flexies seeing the lack of clouds postponed their task 45 minutes. We rigids found the clouds and started our task on time. Soon the clouds were every where and we raced around the course. Our first turnpoint was at the intersection of highway 33 and the Turnpike north of Quest then back to the northeast corner of the Green Swamp and highway 50, down to I4 and 27, then back to Quest.

It was a nine mile glide to the second turnpoint after we got up at 700 fpm over the landfill just south of the Turnpike. Down to 1,400' I followed Bruce and a couple of other pilots into the Green Swamp to hit the lift than got us out of this hole. Primoz and Robert got away from me and were out in front.

With Ollie and Jacques in tow I headed southeast toward Wallaby Ranch, finding at first strong lift to 6,500', then weak lift under one thick black cloud after another. I only took a few turns under each cloud before I continued on looking for better lift. Twenty four miles later I finally found a strong core just past the intersection at 27 and I4 under a few wispies. Three miles out from the turnpoint I came in just under Primoz and Robert, but didn't find any lift there.

The gliders over Wallaby were a draw, for the leg back to Quest, and as I had no one who was flying with me, I chased after these guys to find that they were turning in nothing useful. Pushing west I finally got over a sunny spot with a nice black cloud over me that was working. After climbing I pushed northwest and found one more black cloud to 5,800' and went on glide from 15 miles out at 14:1 with an 8 mph cross wind.

It looked like there was a convergence line ahead paralleling highway 33 on the west side, so I got under it to got a little less sink or a little lift while gliding. It was enough to get me in.

Today Paris leaving early on the first clock won the day but not by enough to catch Jonny and Oleg. Oleg was second and had enough points to move ahead of Jonny into first place. Kevin Carter has been flying with wheels as he has a bad knee from an earlier bad landing and has to walk with a cane (yesterday it was crutches).

Rigids:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 Endter Vincent Air Atos Vr Usa 02:39:28 1000
2 Straub Davis Air Atos Vr Usa 02:42:52 929
3 Barmakian Bruce Air Atos Vr Usa 02:44:41 898
4 Parcellier Thierry Air Atos V Fra 02:50:46 838
5 Almond Neville Air Atos V Gbr 02:51:07 828
6 Bott Jacques Air Atos Vr Fra 02:52:29 812
7 Gleason Ron Air Atos Vr Usa 02:57:58 770
8 Chopard Patrick Helite Tsunami Fra 02:58:03 767
9 Bowen Campbell Flight Designs Axxess + Usa 03:04:56 723
10 Lamb James Air Atos Vr Usa 03:21:40 634

Rigid cumulative:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 Reisinger Robert Air Atos Vr Aut 4812
2 Barmakian Bruce Air Atos Vr Usa 4711
3 Almond Neville Air Atos V Gbr 4605
4 Bott Jacques Air Atos Vr Fra 4518
5 Endter Vincent Air Atos Vr Usa 4497
6 Yocom James Air Atos Vr Usa 4323
7 Straub Davis Air Atos Vr Usa 4095
8 Gricar Primoz Aeros Phantom Svn 3875
9 Gleason Ron Air Atos Vr Usa 3590
10 Bowen Campbell Flight Designs Axxess + Usa 3483

Flexies:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 Williams Paris Aeros Combat L Usa 01:56:59 963
2 Bondarchuk Oleg Aeros Combat Ukr 01:55:16 929
3 Carter Kevin Aeros Combat Usa 01:55:57 907
4 Olsson Andreas Wills Wing T2 154 Swe 01:56:31 895
5 Haywood John Aeros Combat L Usa 02:04:47 868
6 Durand Jonny Moyes Litespeed S4 Aus 01:58:16 866
7 Zabo Shawn Moyes Litespeed S4 Usa 02:06:15 851
8 Anderson Johan Wills Wing T2 144 Zaf 02:01:06 834
9 Kendall Greg Moyes Litespeed S4 Usa 02:09:50 818
10 Ellefsen Oyvind Moyes Litespeed 4 Nor 02:02:35 809

Cumulative flexies:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 Bondarchuk Oleg Aeros Combat Ukr 5539
2 Durand Jonny Moyes Litespeed S4 Aus 5503
3 Williams Paris Aeros Combat L Usa 5491
4 Bloom Phill Moyes Litespeed 4 Usa 4938
5 Martin Dustin Moyes Litespeed 4 Usa 4823
6 Olsson Andreas Wills Wing T2 154 Swe 4733
7 Muller Chris Wills Wing T2 Can 4553
8 Volk Glen Moyes Litespeed Usa 4541
9 Barber Mike Moyes Litespeed Usa 4498
10 Carter Kevin Aeros Combat Usa 4434

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere »

Thu, Apr 21 2005, 4:00:01 pm EDT

Chatter in cyberspace.

Flytec

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere

Øyvind Ellefsen|Bernard Winkelmann|Dan Bereczki|Flytec Championships 2005|Jim Yocom|Kari Castle|Kevin Carter|Pre-Worlds 2005|Tom Lanning|US Nationals 2005|Vince Endter

You'll find some of the blogs and web pages covering the US Nationals and Pre-Worlds here:

The scoring http://www.flytec.com/flytec_usn_05/index.html
German Team http://www.dhv.de/typo/Pre-Worlds_Florida_2.2078.0.html
Øyvind Ellefsen http://www.ellefsen.net/
Flytec (audio blogs updated during the day) http://flytec.blogspot.com/
Jim Yocom http://www.rmhpa.org/xccontest/2005Florida.htm
Tom Lanning http://skyout.blogspot.com/
Dan Bereczki http://flexwing.org
Bernard Winkelmann www.benyl.com/Fly
Vince Endter http://www.flyatos.com/v/vince_report.html
Kevin Carter http://xckevin.blogspot.com
Kari Castle

Send me the URL for your blog if you are here at the Flytec Championship.

2005 Flytec Championship, day seven

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Brett Hazlett|Brian Porter|Bruce Barmakian|Campbell Bowen|cart|Chris Muller|Davis Straub|Dr. John "Jack" Glendening|Dustin Martin|Flytec Championships 2005|Glen Volk|Jacques Bott|Jim Lamb|Johann Posch|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Kevin Carter|Mike Barber|Oleg Bondarchuk|Paris Williams|Phill Bloom|Ron Gleason|Tim Denton|weather

Thu, Apr 21 2005, 4:00:00 pm EDT

Ring around the swamp.

Flytec Championship

The flight and task today.

The weather models and the weather gods get it together for today, which we greatly appreciate. The National Weather Service local forecast (from some model) and the RUC model (that Dr. Jack uses) disagreed on the top surface temperature (79 degrees for Jack and 84 for the NWS). I liked the NWS number so went with that value. Therefore I predicted stronger lift and higher cloud bases than BLIPSPOT showed, and sure enough, that's what we got.

Cloudbase was over 5,000' at 1 PM and over 6,700' later in the day (around 4 PM). Dr. Jack called for nice coherent thermals, and sure enough they were perfect. At one point four of us were in a thermal going up at 1,800 fpm (according in Robert Resinger's instrument, mine showed 1000 fpm).

The clouds were predicted to be about 2,000' thick and they were about that. They were also quite plentiful starting early. We also got going 45 minutes earlier with long tasks to take advantage of the great conditions forecast for the day.

Both the flex wings and the rigid wings were tasked to go around the Green Swamp with different turnpoints and start times to keep them separated. The task for the rigids was a little over 90 miles and for the flexies a little over 80 miles.

The cu's formed early and the pilots got excited. The pilot Le Mans run across the runways to the setup area was especially grueling as it was much further than the case for the last few days. We opened  launch at 12:15 PM, so there was no time to waste.

The rigids got off quickly and after working some light lift, I joined the pilots who got hauled up after me and we climbed quickly to cloudbase at 5,000'. We (most of the pilots) actually drove south to the edge of the 15 mile entry start circle too early and had to find lift one mile within the circle. Luckily at 10 minutes before the second start time we were able to drive two miles back upwind to the north (the wind is 5 mph out of the north) to get under a very inviting cloud that sucked us back up to 5,500'.

I played a little trick. Most of the pilots were hanging out at the south end of the cloud just outside the start circle staying out of the cloud. I hung back to the north and went back under the cloud four minutes before the start time. I climbed up under the cloud to get above the pilots at the edge of the cloud. I was able to stay out of the cloud and get two hundred feet over every one else.

At 1:15 we all took off with Robert in the lead (flying faster). I had the imperial view two hundred feet over a dozen or so rigid wing pilots all just behind Robert. My strategy of following Robert (he didn't have the yellow jersey today so it was harder) seemed to be the preferred strategy. Or it was Robert's strategy to lead.

I've mentioned before how important getting into a good position at the start is in competition. I had the perfect position.

He found the first thermal six miles out and we regained the 2,000' that we had all lost on the glide. Robert took off a little over my head and I followed closely behind while the others were not following as fast.

Robert took a couple of turns in a thermal that I didn't notice as having much lift and continued through. Robert and I continued on a nine mile glide to the turnpoint at Dean Still and Rockridge Road. He came in five hundred over my head and continued to the west toward the next turnpoint over the Green Swamp.

I found 600 fpm just south of the intersection to 6,000' and headed west toward the slow burning swamp fire in the Green Swamp. What's this I see? There was Robert down below me turning in the smoke of the fires. I joined him and we slowly climbed up as blackened bits flew passed us.

We worked together in light lift under lots of clouds to catch up just before the Clinton turnpoint with Jim Lamb and Tim Denton who started at 1 PM. The lift was light until we got north of Dade City to find the strongest lift of the day with Brian Porter and Bruce Barmakian joining us. I was lower as we climbed out in the strong lift. I followed a mile behind at 6,700'.

I raced to catch up and caught Bruce about 7 miles out from the thermal right at his altitude. Robert was still 500 feet higher with Brian (who decided to stick with him). Within a mile Robert and Brian were showing another thermal and I joined them. Bruce came over lower, didn't find it and continued on getting very low.

The clouds were lined up to Coleman our next turnpoint, 33 miles from Clinton and the lift was plentiful as I raced to keep Robert and Brian in sight. Every one else was left behind. The cu's thinned out at Coleman, and it was a bit of a struggle to jump from thermal to thermal to the Turnpike and 33 intersection. I kept spotting Brian and Robert so I was feeling good.

With a northwest wind it was an easy glide back to Quest.

Not long after we landed the flexies came in from their task. Dustin was first in, with Jonny getting the bag once again.

Primoz had trouble with his control frame falling into pieces on the cart. According to Regina he seems to be having trouble landing the Phantom. I saw him take out one of his aluminum down tubes today (the one that replaced the damaged carbon fiber one) and the control frame was pretzeled. Primoz got a late start as he replaced his down tube and came in fast.

Rigids:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 REISINGER Robert AIR Atos VR AUT 03:00:43 1000
2 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos VR USA 03:04:48 927
3 ENDTER Vincent AIR Atos VR USA 03:12:25 855
4 ALMOND Neville AIR Atos V GBR 03:19:43 799
5 BOWEN Campbell Flight Designs Axxess + USA 03:23:21 771
6 YOCOM James AIR Atos VR USA 03:29:14 727
7 RUEHLE Felix AIR Atos VR DEU 03:30:18 718
8 BARMAKIAN Bruce AIR Atos VR USA 03:40:23 710
9 POSCH Johann Helite Tsunami AUT 03:31:14 709
10 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos VR USA 03:35:40 682

Cumulative Rigids:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 REISINGER Robert AIR Atos VR AUT 4812
2 BARMAKIAN Bruce AIR Atos VR USA 3820
3 ALMOND Neville AIR Atos V GBR 3778
4 YOCOM James AIR Atos VR USA 3701
5 GRICAR Primoz Aeros Phantom SVN 3519
6 ENDTER Vincent AIR Atos VR USA 3498
7 POSCH Johann Helite Tsunami AUT 3238
8 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos VR USA 3166
9 BOTT Jacques AIR Atos VR FRA 2958
10 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos VR USA 2827

Flexies:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 BONDARCHUK Oleg Aeros Combat L UKR 02:48:02 962
2 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat L USA 02:49:45 922
3 OLSSON Andreas Wills Wing T2 154 SWE 02:49:46 919
4 ROTOR Nene Wills Wing T2 144 BRA 02:50:21 909
5 MARTIN Dustin Moyes Litespeed S4 USA 03:02:03 890
6 DURAND Jonny Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 03:02:44 878
7 CARTER Kevin Aeros Combat USA 02:53:07 875
8 BARRETT Scott Airborne Climax2 13 AUS 03:03:37 863
9 HAZLETT Brett Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 03:04:38 852
10 HEANEY Grant Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 03:05:54 831

Brett is Australian and Canadian.

Cumulative Flexies:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 DURAND Jonny Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 4636
2 BONDARCHUK Oleg Aeros Combat L UKR 4609
3 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat L USA 4527
4 BLOOM Phill Moyes Litespeed S4 USA 4218
5 MARTIN Dustin Moyes Litespeed S4 USA 4076
6 VOLK Glen Moyes Litespeed S4 USA 3844
7 OLSSON Andreas Wills Wing T2 154 SWE 3838
8 MULLER Chris Wills Wing T2 CAN 3782
9 BARBER Mike Moyes Litespeed S4 USA 3750
10 ANDERSON Hakan Aeros Combat L13 SWE 3561

The weather is so fine as Jonny Durand shows in his photo:

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere »

Wed, Apr 20 2005, 5:00:01 pm EDT

Chatter in cyberspace.

Flytec

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere

Øyvind Ellefsen|Bernard Winkelmann|Dan Bereczki|Flytec Championships 2005|Jim Yocom|Kari Castle|Kevin Carter|Pre-Worlds 2005|Tom Lanning|US Nationals 2005|Vince Endter

You'll find some of the blogs and web pages covering the US Nationals and Pre-Worlds here:

The scoring http://www.flytec.com/flytec_usn_05/index.html

German Team http://www.dhv.de/typo/Pre-Worlds_Florida_2.2078.0.html

Øyvind Ellefsen http://www.ellefsen.net/

Flytec (audio blogs updated during the day) http://flytec.blogspot.com/

Jim Yocom http://www.rmhpa.org/xccontest/2005Florida.htm

Tom Lanning http://skyout.blogspot.com/

Dan Bereczki http://flexwing.org

Bernard Winkelmann www.benyl.com/Fly

Vince Endter http://www.flyatos.com/v/vince_report.html

Kevin Carter http://xckevin.blogspot.com

Kari Castle

Send me the URL for your blog if you are here at the Flytec Championship.

2005 Flytec Championship, day six

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Brett Hazlett|Bruce Barmakian|Chris Muller|Davis Straub|Dr. John "Jack" Glendening|Dustin Martin|Felix Ruehle|Flytec Championships 2005|Glen Volk|Jacques Bott|Jim Lamb|Johann Posch|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Kevin Carter|Mike Barber|Nichele Roberto|Oleg Bondarchuk|Paris Williams|Phill Bloom|Robert Reisinger|Ron Gleason|Russell "Russ" Brown|weather

Wed, Apr 20 2005, 5:00:00 pm EDT

Under called on a great day, but that makes most happy.

Flytec Championship

Today's flight and rigid wing task

The day started with thick clouds covering the sky until mid morning. This made the pilots wary. I knew from the forecast that these clouds would go away and the day would be sunny.

Dr. Jack, using the RUC (Rapid Update Cycle) model, called for a day like any other here recently with lighter winds (5 mph) out of the southeast, and maybe a cloud or two unlike the previous days where we saw nothing but wispies. The National Weather Service mentioned cirrus again, as we've had for the last two days. But there was a fly in the ointment.

The FSL chart completely disagreed with the RUC model. It called for cunimbs,and strong lift (even though the local forecast showed no rain). The winds on the FSL chart also rotated ninety degrees from northeast on the ground to southeast at 6,000' cloud base. But we were seeing light southeast on the ground.

Given the conflict in the models, the task committee called for a task that was 20% longer than the day before hoping for a three hour task. The winds in the launch field were switchy with a few bad tows.

Later in the morning the cirrus began to disappear and it looked like it would clear off completely. The satellite also showed this with clearing to the west.

The cu's were forming nicely and thickly throughout the sky (give that one to the FSL model) and this was very inviting. The winds were light. Lots of pilots wanted to launch early so I had to wait a bit to get launched. The lift over the field was not that great and all the lift we found in the start circle was weak. Jim Lamb was pulled way north, found 700 fpm, unlike the rest of us, and climbed to cloudbase immediately. He had to come back and hang with the rest of us who worked less than 100 fpm to get to cloud base. The clouds looked great, but it felt like they were faking it. The lift was so weak we struggled to get to cloudbase at 5,200'.

We were five miles north of Quest at the edge of the start circle. The course line was to our west.  It was unclear what would happen at 1:45 the first start time. A few people headed out. I headed out then came back. More people headed out. I followed Robert Reisinger as he headed out, as my strategy for the day was to stick to Robert. Then he turned around and came back. Now there were only three of us left out of the main gaggle: Robert, Ron Gleason, and me.

We promptly fell down to 3,000' before we found 200 fpm (what luck) at the same spot we started with the original gaggle. As fifteen minutes slipped by we climbed back up to 4,800', all three of us very near each other in altitude. It looked like everyone else took the early start clock. We were feeling pretty darn smart.

Felix Ruehle, who was on top at 1:45, also turned around after going out a bit, but didn't find any lift and had to land back at Quest and relaunch fourteen minutes after the last start time. He would be on his own after that.

At 2 PM we headed off together spreading out to help each other find the lift. With the mostly weak lift that we'd experienced we were not expecting much out on the course. We quickly caught up with a couple of stragglers from the earlier clock. 

The lift wasn't all that great. I was gliding and climbing with Robert, but Ron couldn't glide with us. Something is wrong with his setup. Robert and Ron will swap gliders in the morning and do some side by side comparisons to get to the root of the problem.

I had no worries staying with the Robert all the way to the turnpoint as we caught one pilot after another. The lift wasn't strong at all, but we were moving quickly from thermal to thermal.

Finally, after the turnpoint 34 miles north northwest of Quest at Savana air strip, I found the first good core and climbed from 2,600' at 600 fpm with Robert twenty feet over my head. I lost track of him in this thermal and I was on my own to get back home. Ron Gleason took a different line and met us there.

A few miles out from the turnpoint there was a cloud street paralleling the Florida Turnpike heading back toward Groveland. I got under it, climbed up fast and road that sucker all the way home. Johann Posch and Ron Gleason as well as a few others followed behind.

After I landed I found out that we weren't the only ones to take the later clock. The others were hiding more on the course line to our west. Robert apologized for not finding better lift. The others had a much better run down to the turnpoint than we did. Robert would pick this day to go slower (well, it wasn't that bad).

Rigids today:

Place Name Glider Nation Start Time Total
1 GRICAR Primoz Aeros Phantom SVN 14:00:00 02:05:02 948
2 REISINGER Robert AIR Atos VR AUT 14:00:00 02:05:55 913
3 YOCOM James AIR Atos VR USA 14:00:00 02:07:07 890
4 ENDTER Vincent AIR Atos VR USA 13:45:00 02:17:34 877
5 BARMAKIAN Bruce AIR Atos VR USA 14:00:00 02:10:28 847
6 ALMOND Neville AIR Atos V GBR 13:45:00 02:19:55 844
7 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos VR USA 14:00:00 02:10:51 839
8 BROWN Russell AIR Atos V USA 13:45:00 02:20:28 826
9 POSCH Johann Helite Tsunami AUT 14:00:00 02:14:50 800
10 BOTT Jacques AIR Atos VR FRA 14:00:00 02:14:54 796
11 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos VR USA 14:00:00 02:16:45 778

Rigid cumulative:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 REISINGER Robert AIR Atos VR AUT 3812
2 GRICAR Primoz Aeros Phantom SVN 3139
3 BARMAKIAN Bruce AIR Atos VR USA 3110
4 ALMOND Neville AIR Atos C GBR 2979
5 YOCOM James AIR Atos VR USA 2974
6 BOTT Jacques AIR Atos VR FRA 2928
7 ENDTER Vincent AIR Atos VR USA 2643
8 POSCH Johann Helite Tsunami AUT 2529
9 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos VR USA 2239
10 BUNNER Larry AIR Atos V USA 2166

Oleg Bondarchuck on an Aeros Combat won the day taking the second start time coming in first thirty seconds in front of Kevin Carter also on an Aeros Combat, who took the first start time. A couple of Wills Wing pilots made the top ten today with Nick in second. Jonny grabbed the bag at the finish line for the third day in a row, coming in third. He won one hundred dollars grabbing the bag on the first day.

Kevin hyper extended his leg on landing, so we'll see what happens tomorrow. Russell Brown broke a couple of toes before the meet and is still flying.

Paris Williams after not flying for a while, is doing very well.

The task for the flex wings was shorter at 60 miles. They flew northwest out to Coleman, south back to the top of the Green Swamp, north again to Center Hill and then 12 miles southeast to Quest.

Flex wings:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 BONDARCHUK Oleg Aeros Combat UKR 01:51:35 957
2 NICHELE Roberto Wills Wing T2 144 CHE 01:53:48 908
3 DURAND Jonny Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 01:53:57 903
4 HAZLETT Brett Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 01:54:25 892
5 ZANETTI Marcelo Moyes Litespeed S5 USA 01:54:26 889
6 OLSSON Andreas Wills Wing T2 154 SWE 01:56:45 860
7 BAJEWSKI Joerg Moyes LS 4.5 DEU 01:57:57 841
7 CARTER Kevin Aeros Combat USA 02:07:06 841
9 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat L USA 01:58:06 838
10 VOLK Glen Moyes Litespeed USA 01:58:17 832

Flex wings cumulative:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 DURAND Jonny Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 3752
2 BONDARCHUK Oleg Aeros Combat UKR 3647
3 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat L USA 3602
4 BLOOM Phill Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 3534
5 MARTIN Dustin Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 3186
6 VOLK Glen Moyes Litespeed USA 3096
7 BARBER Mike Moyes Litespeed USA 3078
8 MULLER Chris Wills Wing T2 CAN 2971
9 OLSSON Andreas Wills Wing T2 154 SWE 2918
10 BAJEWSKI Joerg Moyes LS 4.5 DEU 2869

As you can see from the times above, the tasks were under called given the great conditions. The clouds were much better than we thought at first. There was no over development. There were no cunimbs. Here's the BLIPSPOT for 4 PM at Groveland that I called up after I got back:

Dr. Jack is calling for zero lift at 4 PM and a high level of convergence and no surface heating (shade). The height of the -3 at 120 feet. In fact it was beautiful, sunny, warm, cu's every where. Pilots were piling into goal. Sixty flex wings made it back. All but one rigid wing made it back.

Here's the satellite photo showing cu's well up into Georgia:

Joerg Bajewski sends this photo from the air over Quest:

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere »

Tue, Apr 19 2005, 5:00:01 pm EDT

Chatter in cyberspace.

Flytec

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere

Øyvind Ellefsen|Bernard Winkelmann|Dan Bereczki|Flytec Championships 2005|Jim Yocom|Kari Castle|Kevin Carter|Pre-Worlds 2005|Tom Lanning|US Nationals 2005|Vince Endter

You'll find some of the blogs and web pages covering the US Nationals and Pre-Worlds here:

The scoring http://www.flytec.com/flytec_usn_05/index.html

German Team http://www.dhv.de/typo/Pre-Worlds_Florida_2.2078.0.html

Øyvind Ellefsen http://www.ellefsen.net/

Flytec (audio blogs updated during the day) http://flytec.blogspot.com/

Jim Yocom http://www.rmhpa.org/xccontest/2005Florida.htm

Tom Lanning http://skyout.blogspot.com/

Dan Bereczki http://flexwing.org

Bernard Winkelmann www.benyl.com/Fly

Vince Endter http://www.flyatos.com/v/vince_report.html

Kevin Carter http://xckevin.blogspot.com

Kari Castle

Send me the URL for your blog if you are here at the Flytec Championship.

2005 Flytec Championship, day five

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Brett Hazlett|Brian Porter|Bruce Barmakian|Chris Muller|Chris Zimmerman|Davis Straub|Dustin Martin|Flytec Championships 2005|Glen Volk|Jacques Bott|Jim Rooney|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Mike Barber|Nichele Roberto|Oleg Bondarchuk|Paris Williams|Phill Bloom|photo|Ron Gleason|sailplane|US Nationals|weather

Tue, Apr 19 2005, 5:00:00 pm EDT

We braved the east winds and the cirrus and go south east for an out and return.

Flytec Championship

Monday's flight and task

Tuesday flight and task

The weather service called for east south east winds at 8 to 10 mph (here in Groveland) all the way up to cloud base at 5,800'. Here's what we got:

We on the task committee (Jonny, Curt and I) wanted to do a two hour task to balance the three hour one the day before so we sent the rigid wings on a 60 mile out and return to Gore (spot on highway 27 south of Interstate 4), and the flexies 50 miles out and back to an intersection southwest of Wallaby Ranch. We made the first leg an upwind leg because we wanted to stay away from the weaker areas to the north which suffer from cooler air coming off the big lakes up that way (there are lakes every where, here in Florida).

We separated the  rigid wings and flexies by at least a half an hour and sent them on separate courses so that there was no special help for the flexies who took the first start time.

There was plenty of cirrus around but wispy cu's were forming underneath it just like during the last two days. Pilots wanted to get going early so that they wouldn't get shut down as the sun got lower and therefore behind the cirrus to the west.

Bruce Barmakian was off first this day which was good as he got a trike, and I, right behind him, got a tug. Jim Rooney, flying the tug, whipped me around in a tight circle right right over the launch area and as we came around again, Primoz was taking off underneath me. Unfortunately he had a tug with a four stroke engine and they powered right through us. I was trying to hold on so that I could get let off above Primoz. I signal to Jim to follow Primoz, but Jim waved me off 500 feet below him. Shucks. It will stay that way all day.

There was lift right away and after climbing to 4,600' I forced the issue and headed east, trying to bring as many as I could with me as far as east as possible inside the start circle. I'd heard talk about taking the early start (cirrus is the issue) so I wanted to get east as far as possible as quick as possible. So now we know why Bruce was off early.

A bunch of us got together near the start circle circumference at 4,800' at 1:48 so it just seemed natural to leave and not wait around. Ron Gleason and I took first off with Primoz above and just behind us. We were heading for highway 27 to get the upwind part of this leg over early.

There were about eight pilots in the group. I took chances as the clouds in front looked good, and I found good lift, but the guys behind me caught up quickly and Primoz was on top along with a VR pilot (Ron at first). We found 700 fpm near 474 and got to 5,600'. This was a real core (unlike most of the lift) and it was great to just put the VR up on a tip and go up fast.

Primoz and the VR lead us out to 27 and we were finding lots of cu's as we headed south. I glided side by side (right next to each other) with Neville for a few minutes and we didn't notice any difference between the VR and the V in glide. Who knows.

I went out in front at the intersection of 27 and I4 to find better lift over the former Baseball City and three or four pilots came and joined me. Primoz went out in front south along 27 along the west side. We climbed to 4,800' and I headed out along the east side of 27, upwind and nearer the clouds (or so I think). It was light sink for a couple of miles to four miles out and it looked good when suddenly the bottom fell out.

I was racing to get out of the sink toward a pond that looked like it had a monster devil coming out of it. It turned out to be an aerator fountain. Rounding the turnpoint sinking fast all the way I was down to 1,400' when I finally got to the clouds and spent the next ten minutes climbing out of that hole as I drifted west and then forced my way back east to the highway.

We had a great close knit group of six pilots going down to the turnpoint but all that was gone now (at least for me). I spotted a couple of stragglers and used them to spot the next two thermals south and east of Wallaby for me. The cirrus had come over and that just added to the sense of woe.

I saw the guys I was with now just ahead of me north east of Wallaby next to 27. I raced in under them at 1,400' and climed at 500 fpm. The sun was out here and the cu above me was inviting as was the sailplane next to me.

I left early and raced six miles in light sink chasing the four pilots in front of me to south of 474. After a few miles of racing and watching the glide paths of the pilots four miles ahead I saw Brian Porter turning in his Swift and I came in under him over a burnt field. It was fourteen miles back to Quest, but this was all it would take to get there given the cross tail component of the wind and the strong lift. I flew through the next thermal catching Ron Gleason and kept it at 50 mph (or more) the rest of the way in bright sunlight with lots of hits of lift.

Meanwhile the flexies were on their route to our west. No interference between the flexies and the rigids today. Most flex wing pilots left early to try to avoid having to the deal with the late cirrus, but their first start time was 2:30, 45 minutes after most of the rigids had left.

It wasn't too long after we came into goal that the flexies started arriving with Jonny Durand in the lead.

Rigid wing results:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 REISINGER Robert AIR Atos VR AUT 01:46:39 955
2 BARMAKIAN Bruce AIR Atos VR USA 02:06:28 800
3 ENDTER Vincent AIR Atos VR USA 02:08:35 770
4 BOTT Jacques AIR Atos VR FRA 02:16:40 702
5 ALMOND Neville AIR Atos V GBR 02:16:47 695
6 PARCELLIER Thierry AIR Atos V FRA 02:17:57 681
7 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos VR USA 02:20:25 660
8 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos VR USA 02:20:43 654
9 YOCOM James AIR Atos VR USA 02:28:58 568
10 BUNNER Larry AIR Atos V USA 02:32:26 546

Cumulative:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 REISINGER Robert AIR Atos VR AUT 2900
2 BARMAKIAN Bruce AIR Atos VR USA 2270
3 BOTT Jacques  AIR Atos VR FRA 2136
4 ALMOND Neville AIR Atos V GBR 2126
5 YOCOM James AIR Atos VR USA 2079
6 PARCELLIER Thierry AIR Atos V FRA 1940
7 ENDTER Vincent AIR Atos VR USA 1766
8 LANSER Pascal  Tsunami FRA 1592
9 BUNNER Larry AIR Atos V USA 1477
10 LUCZYNSKY Thomis AIR Atos VX DEU 1464

Flexies:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 DURAND Jonny Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 01:46:57 981
2 BONDARCHUK Oleg Aeros Combat UKR 01:47:01 972
3 BLOOM Phill Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 01:47:19 958
4 MARTIN Dustin Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 01:49:43 913
5 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat L USA 01:52:38 876
6 MULLER Chris Wills Wing T2 CAN 01:52:39 872
7 HAZLETT Brett Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 01:52:43 868
8 BARBER Mike Moyes Litespeed USA 01:55:55 834
9 NICHELE Roberto Wills Wing T2 CHE 01:56:46 823
10 ANDERSON Hakan Aeros Combat L13 SWE 01:58:18 808

Cumulative flexies:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 DURAND Jonny Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 2849
2 BLOOM Phill Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 2760
3 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat L USA 2754
4 BONDARCHUK Oleg Aeros Combat UKR 2689
5 MARTIN Dustin Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 2436
6 MULLER Chris Wills Wing T2 CAN 2281
7 VOLK Glen Moyes Litespeed USA 2239
8 BARBER Mike Moyes Litespeed USA 2237
9 ANDERSON Hakan Aeros Combat L13 SWE 2093
10 ZIMMERMAN Chris Wills Wing Talon 140 USA 2091

The US Nationals slide show with Chris Muller's loop from 150 feet. The set of photos here.

The Wills Wing Team:

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere »

Mon, Apr 18 2005, 4:00:01 pm EDT

Chatter in cyberspace.

Flytec

Ø|Øyvind Ellefsen|Bernard Winkelmann|Dan Bereczki|Flytec Championships 2005|Jim Yocom|Kevin Carter|Pre-Worlds 2005|Tom Lanning|US Nationals 2005|Vince Endter

You'll find some of the blogs and web pages covering the US Nationals and Pre-Worlds here:

The scoring http://www.flytec.com/flytec_usn_05/index.html

German Team http://www.dhv.de/typo/Pre-Worlds_Florida_2.2078.0.html

Øyvind Ellefsen http://www.ellefsen.net/

Flytec http://flytec.blogspot.com/

Jim Yocom http://www.rmhpa.org/xccontest/2005Florida.htm

Tom Lanning http://skyout.blogspot.com/

Dan Bereczki http://flexwing.org

Bernard Winkelmann www.benyl.com/Fly

Vince Endter http://www.flyatos.com/v/vince_report.html

Kevin Carter http://xckevin.blogspot.com

Send me the URL for your blog if you are here at the Flytec Championship.

2005 Flytec Championship, day four

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Bruce Barmakian|Chris Muller|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Dustin Martin|Flytec Championships 2005|Glen Volk|Jacques Bott|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Kevin Carter|Mike Barber|Neville Almond|Oleg Bondarchuk|Paris Williams|Phill Bloom

Mon, Apr 18 2005, 4:00:00 pm EDT

Winds out of the east so we go south and back.

Flytec Championship

The call was for winds at 10 mph out of the east today, so the task committee decided to go for a task that was cross wind in both directions. We sent the pilots 33 miles south to the Winter Haven airport and back to Quest.

I'm off first again and find light lift to the northeast of Quest to 4,000'.  With the wind forecast (along with the prediction of no or very few clouds, and 500 fpm lift), my tactic is to try to get as far up wind as possible. I find a good line of clouds and soon find myself three miles upwind of highway 33 with most pilots to my west. I've got wisps of cu's to tell me where the lift is, so it's pretty safe.

I'm almost at the edge of the 5 mile start circle and as I wait for the start clock to turn 2 PM, six more rigids come over and join me just before it opens. As we head off I keep an upwind line and watch Neville Almond to my right. I take a couple of turns and Primoz and a couple of other ATOS pilots join continue with Neville to my west. I continue south southeast and find another better core as the four pilots now in front continue diving toward highway 474 eleven miles out from Quest, and getting low.

I continue to work to the south east toward highway 27 to get under the clouds and hopefully stay upwind all the way to the turnpoint south of I 4. Another AIR ATOS VR pilot joins me and we head south along 27 over Wallaby. Not finding any lift in the blue I have to head south west to get up again.

The turnpoint at Winter Haven is surrounded by lakes, and I am able to keep upwind of it and get high enough to come in and take the turnpoint and find lift to get out of there. I see the four pilots in the lead just downwind of me before I get to the turnpoint, but they are higher and get ahead of me.

After making the turnpoint I notice that cirrus clouds have come in and cut down the solar heating. I take anything I can find then head north to find Mark in the Swift turning in crummy lift by the juvenile prisons north of I 4. I move ahead and become Mark' sniffer dog finding all the next thermals for him.

With weak lift and dark ground it is slow and tricky heading north of 33. The flex wing pilots behind us also took 27 north and then headed back to 27 to get better lift going back.

Just north of Dean Still Road I catch up with Chris Muller, and an ATOS pilot.  Together we start finding lift and and helping each other out as we move north. At the Seminole Lake Glider Port, we're eleven miles out and almost 5,000' high as we go on glide. Chris will take a few more thermals and I'll have to take a few turns when I'm two miles out and down to 900'. Mark will just glide in. Chris will come in third in flex wings, just behind me.

I was slow getting killed by the shade. Twenty one out of eighty flex wings pilots made it to goal. Many went down by the turnpoint.

Flex wings day one:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 WILLIAMS Paris  Aeros Combat L USA 01:56:43 997
2 DURAND Jonny Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 02:08:58 870
3 BONDARCHUK Oleg Aeros Combat UKR 02:07:30 831
4 OLSSON Andreas Wills Wing T2 150 SWE 02:14:37 830
5 ROTOR Nene Wills Wing T2 BRA 02:07:37 827
6 MARTIN Dustin Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 02:07:44 823
6 BLOOM Phill Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 02:15:05 823
8 CARTER Kevin Aeros Combat USA 02:09:49 807
9 VOLK Glen Moyes Litespeed USA 02:17:53 803
10 BARBER Mike Moyes Litespeed USA 02:25:39 74

Flex wings day two:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 DURAND Jonny Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 02:48:36 1000
2 BLOOM Phill Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 02:49:10 981
3 MULLER Chris Wills Wing T2 CAN 02:55:28 920
4 SCHWIEGERSHAUSER Corinna Moyes Litespeed DEU 02:56:12 910
5 BONDARCHUK Oleg Aeros Combat UKR 02:54:41 883
6 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat L USA 02:54:59 877
7 BAJEWSKI Joerg Moyes LS 4.5 DEU 03:05:50 852
8 OLSSON Andreas Wills Wing T2 150 SWE 03:19:53 758
9 CARTER Kevin Aeros Combat USA 03:26:46 729
10 VOLK Glen Moyes Litespeed USA 03:37:09 690

Overall flex wing:

Place Name Glider Nation T1 T2 Total
1 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat L USA 997 877 1874
2 DURAND Jonny Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 870 1000 1870
3 BLOOM Phill Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 823 981 1804
4 BONDARCHUK Oleg Aeros Combat UKR 831 883 1714
5 OLSSON Andreas Wills Wing T2 150 SWE 830 758 1588
6 CARTER Kevin Aeros Combat USA 807 729 1536
7 MARTIN Dustin Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 823 687 1510
8 VOLK Glen Moyes Litespeed USA 803 690 1493
9 MULLER Chris Wills Wing T2 CAN 487 920 1407
10 BARBER Mike Moyes Litespeed USA 747 642 1389

Rigids (the results from the second day aren't up on the Flytec web site so I've published the overall score):

Place Name Glider Nation T1 T2 Total
1 REISINGER Robert AIR Atos VR AUT 971 974 1945
2 YOCOM James AIR Atos VR USA 691 820 1511
3 BARMAKIAN Bruce AIR Atos C USA 858 612 1470
4 BOTT Jacques AIR Atos VR FRA 700 734 1434
5 ALMOND Neville AIR Atos C GBR 775 656 1431

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere »

Sun, Apr 17 2005, 4:00:01 pm EDT

Chatter in cyberspace.

Flytec

Ø|Øyvind Ellefsen|Bernard Winkelmann|Dan Bereczki|Flytec Championships 2005|Jim Yocom|Pre-Worlds 2005|Tom Lanning|US Nationals 2005|Vince Endter

You'll find some of the blogs and web pages covering the US Nationals and Pre-Worlds here:

The scoring http://www.flytec.com/flytec_usn_05/index.html

German Team http://www.dhv.de/typo/Pre-Worlds_Florida_2.2078.0.html

Øyvind Ellefsen http://www.ellefsen.net/

Flytec with updated (during the day) audio posts http://flytec.blogspot.com/

Jim Yocom http://www.rmhpa.org/xccontest/2005Florida.htm

Tom Lanning http://skyout.blogspot.com/

Dan Bereczki http://flexwing.org

Bernard Winkelmann www.benyl.com/Fly

Vince Endter http://www.flyatos.com/v/vince_report.html

Send me the URL for your blog if you are here at the Flytec Championship.

2005 Flytec Championship, day three

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Flytec Championships 2005|Johann Posch|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|sailplane

Sun, Apr 17 2005, 4:00:00 pm EDT

The winds lighten up and we go flying to the south.

Flytec Championship

One flight (not to goal)

Twenty five pilots in goal (I'm told as I landed at the first rigid wing turnpoint). Seven or eight rigids, a Swift or two (Mark Mullholland first), and the rest flexies. Paris may have won the day in flexies as he came in first with the earliest start clock twelve minutes in front of Jonny Durand. Primoz on the Aeros Phantom led the rigids in.

Preliminary scores may not be up tonight as the tasks were to Avon Park, 68 miles to the south. The rigids had a couple of extra turnpoints to make to get to the goal.

It was nerve wracking for some in the launch area as the winds were about 10 mph out of the north with no cu's. Cold winds and no cu's always seem to dampen enthusiasm. I was off first and after a few bumps down low found very smooth air above. It was a delight to fly in and I'm really enjoying the AIR ATOS VR (then again I seem to enjoy anything I fly).

Most of the rigid wings gaggled late over Quest but two were seen near the start circle radius and we headed for them a little late to make the 12 km start circle in a timely fashion. Primoz came and joined me and a sailplane over the Seminole Lake Glider port after we started out on course. The lift had been marginal and wasn't getting us too high. There were cu's over by highway 27, but none near us.

Slow going heading south east over to 474, until I found good lift a few miles to the south toward Wallaby Ranch and as I beamed twelve pilots came in under me. There was a rigid wing turning under a cloud down by Wallaby and I ran away from the gaggle to join him to cloud base.

We headed off together and I made the almost fatal error of not going down wind a half mile to him when he got lift under the next cu. There were cu's just ahead and a couple of pilots turning under them so I went for them instead. I almost landed on highway twenty seven five miles south of I4 by the hospital. I spent the next forty minutes groveling in the northeast wind (going away from the turnpoint), when I could have easily passed through this territory, stayed high and stayed up wind. I hate when I do that.

Johann Posch came in under me after a while, but I left him to to go west under some wispy cu's only to have Johann find it and get up and I continued to grovel. Finally I worked myself into some reasonable lift and got out of that hole and heading southwest to get back on track for the turnpoint eight miles east of Lake Wales. I didn't get high in some lift that Johann had worked over a sand mine, and got too low coming into the turnpoint. I had to turn and run for lift only to not find it. Johann was high coming in a little later and found lift at the turnpoint.

The cu's did show up but very wispy today. The tasks required a lot of work on the pilot's part given the cross wind conditions. The rigids had a longer task that required them coming into goal in a cross wind.

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere »

Sat, Apr 16 2005, 4:00:01 pm EDT

Chatter in cyberspace.

Flytec

Ø|Øyvind Ellefsen|Bernard Winkelmann|Dan Bereczki|Flytec Championships 2005|Jim Yocom|Pre-Worlds 2005|Tom Lanning|US Nationals 2005|Vince Endter

You'll find some of the blogs and web pages covering the US Nationals and Pre-Worlds here:

The scoring http://www.flytec.com/flytec_usn_05/index.html

German Team http://www.dhv.de/typo/Pre-Worlds_Florida_2.2078.0.html

Øyvind Ellefsen http://www.ellefsen.net/

Flytec http://flytec.blogspot.com/

Jim Yocom http://www.rmhpa.org/xccontest/2005Florida.htm

Tom Lanning http://skyout.blogspot.com/

Dan Bereczki http://flexwing.org

Bernard Winkelmann www.benyl.com/Fly

Vince Endter http://www.flyatos.com/v/vince_report.html

Send me the URL for your blog if you are here at the Flytec Championship.

2005 Flytec Championship, day two

Sat, Apr 16 2005, 4:00:00 pm EDT

Waiting for the beginning.

Flytec Championships 2005|Kraig Coomber

Flytec Championship

Kraig Coomber left as Shelby's water broke a month early. This was part of an elaborate ruse to get out of his obligations on the task committee. Here's Kraig talking about his projected new baby:

this is an audio post - click to play

The winds blew again today (as they are predicted to do so again tomorrow before backing off), so that task was canceled. We went canoeing on the Withlacoochee River.

Flytec Championship, the Blogosphere »

Fri, Apr 15 2005, 4:00:01 pm EDT

Chatter in cyberspace.

Flytec

Ø|Øyvind Ellefsen|Bernard Winkelmann|Dan Bereczki|Flytec Championships 2005|Jim Yocom|Pre-Worlds 2005|Tom Lanning|US Nationals 2005

You'll find some of the blogs and web pages covering the US Nationals and Pre-Worlds here:

The scoring http://www.flytec.com/flytec_usn_05/index.html

German Team http://www.dhv.de/typo/Pre-Worlds_Florida_2.2078.0.html

Øyvind Ellefsen http://www.ellefsen.net/

Flytec http://flytec.blogspot.com/

Jim Yocom http://www.rmhpa.org/xccontest/2005Florida.htm

Tom Lanning http://skyout.blogspot.com/

Dan Bereczki http://flexwing.org

Bernard Winkelmann www.benyl.com/Fly

Send me the URL for your blog if you are here at the Flytec Championship.

2005 Flytec Championship, day one

Fri, Apr 15 2005, 4:00:00 pm EDT

A cold north wind blows (and will stay around for a few days).

Dr. John "Jack" Glendening|Flytec Championships 2005|record|weather

Flytec Championship

Due to a 20 mph north wind the day was canceled.


The chart above is a record of winds near Quest today.


This chart is a wind forecast for tomorrow (mph). Check out this site. More on new weather sites pointed out to me by Diver Bob soon. Looks like there is a chance we might fly tomorrow. The forecast for today was for twenty two mph (RUC/Dr. Jack). The ETA forecast (Dr. Jack) for tomorrow is 10 mph (https://ozreport.com/seweather.php) .

Brett, a Moyes flex wing view of the Flytec Championship

Thu, Apr 29 2004, 6:00:03 am GMT

There will be a series of articles on the Moyes web site.

competition

Brett, a Moyes flex wing view of the Flytec Championship

Flytec Championships 2004|Flytec Championships 2005

The Moyes folks are overwhelmed at the moment, but they hope to have Brett's articles on the Flytec Championship up in May at http://www.moyes.com.au.

Flytec Championship - day four »

Sun, Apr 25 2004, 9:00:00 pm GMT

It's another great day of flying in Florida.

Flytec Championship 2004

The results are posted here: http://www.flytec.com/flytec_champ_04/index.html

Tim Meaney is having problems with the newest version of CompeGPS, so the results are coming out very slowly. The results are way behind and there are many problems with them. Much of what you see onthe web site is wrong.

The winds are beginning to die down, so we call a task that almost gets us back to Quest. It looks like starting tomorrow we can call triangles and out and returns. We do call a task around and a bit over the Green Swamp, so everyone gets a good look at the place and the lack of landing areas.

Everyday Dr. Jack's forecast and the FSL call for maybe wispy clouds at the most, still we get nice thin clouds every where early on and they are working. It sure seems that the weather models have a tough time getting the clouds right when they are thin.

The task calls for us to head southwest to the intersection of Rockridge and highway 98 just to the south of the Green Swamp, then we head northwest to the GA airport at Inverness. This puts us over the Green Swamp again but also over the open farming areas to the west of the Green Swamp.

We've got a 18 mile entry start cylinder set around the intersection, which puts the start area south of the Seminole sailplane port. With the east wind, we are pushed near the Green Swamp at the start but we are high so it's no problem to jump across and head south through open area.

The first gaggle is packed with a dozen gliders until we race into the intersection and suddenly after getting reasonable lift it all gives out and Jim Yocom and I are searching over a four square mile area of 10 fpm at 1,600' trying to find 100 fpm.

It takes a while to recover from this disaster as we move into better lift and work our way out of the hole that we've dug for ourselves (in this case Jim Yocom, Ron Gleason, Jamie Shelden, and I). Ron goes out over the swamp and stays over 5,000' for the rest of the flight to goal.

Jim Yocom and I head out to the west, get low and climb back up in weak lift. I get impatient, leave for better lift and go down. Everyone else waits it out and gets up and to goal.

It looks like most pilots do make it to goal. It's pretty blue by the time the flex wings make it there around 4:30 PM.

Mario Alonzi is leading the flex wing pilots. Here's a photo by Tim Ettridge.

The local is notified when we start showing up at the airport and the chubby photographer comes out and starts taking pictures.

Discuss the competition at the Oz Report forum

Flytec Championship - day nine »

A tough day, made that way by the task committee (on purpose).

competition

Sat, Apr 24 2004, 7:00:00 pm GMT

A.I.R. ATOS|A.I.R. ATOS VX|Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Aeros Ltd|Alex Ploner|Brett Hazlett|Brian Porter|cloud|competition|Eric Paquette|Flytec Championships 2004|Flytec Championships 2005|gaggle|Jacques Bott|Johann Posch|Just Fly|Kraig Coomber|Manfred Trimmel|Mario Alonzi|Ron Gleason|Swift|tandem|Worlds 2004

The results will be posted here: http://www.flytec.com/flytec_champ_04/index.html

We are back to east winds again like for most of the meet. The winds are forecasted to be higher at higher elevation, up to 19 knots. It also looks like the clouds will be thin or not there at all. The top of the lift is forecasted to be 7,400' with lift at 640 fpm, so it should be strong and high enough to come back into the wind.

We hold everything back half an hour as there are clouds forming and we want them to fill in a bit. The rigids will start at 2 PM and the flex wings at 2:30. The clouds do start to look good just on the north side of Quest.

The flex wing contest is very tight with Mario Alonzi in first by less then 40 points over Oleg Bondarchuck. Both these top two pilots are flying Aeros Combat L's. Of course, Bo who won yesterday, is flying the Aeros Combat 2 (not the L). So this day could determine who wins the meet.

The rigid wing contest is not particularly tight (for first at least). Alex had hoped to be 1000 points ahead so that he could go tandem on the AIR ATOS VX today, but he was only 600 points ahead of Worlds Number 1, David Chaumet, on the Tsunami. Alex has won every task. Ron Gleason has a chance to move into fourth behind Eric Paquette (see below), if he does really well today.

We get reasonable climbs to cloud base at 5,000' staying out of the fourteen mile start circle centered around Kokee, 19 miles to the west, northwest. One flex wing, maybe Chris Chris Zimmermann is the only one to go with us, unlike Bo the day before. The rest of the flex wings will wait until later to start.

I'll go down early missing the second thermal, so I'll get a chance to see how the rest of the crew does waiting at goal. Alex Ploner is the first pilot in, with Mark and Brian closely behind him (starting fifteen minutes later). After a bit of a wait David Chaumet comes in, followed by Jacques Bott, Eric Paquette and later Ron Gleason. Then it is a long time until Kurt Schumann gets home and a long time later Johann Posch. The question remains whether Ron will gain enough points to pass Johann for forth.

Now it is time to wait for the flex wings to make it. The sky has been washed clean of clouds for the last hour, but Alex says that he find plenty of lift on the way home. He said he struggled getting to the second turn point, but the guys who came along a little alter timed it perfectly and had clouds form out in front of them as they made it to the second turnpoint to the north at Coleman.

The winds were switchy out on the last leg into Quest from Coleman. So it wasn't as hard making it in as we had thought.

As we break down Alex's VX, we catch site of four flex wings coming in low and fast. In the lead is Oleg Bondarchuck, with Antoine right behind, followed closely by Kraig Coomber and Brett Hazlett. These four are the first gaggle and they are a good ways in front of the next group that includes Mario coming in low and fast just over the trees.

It looks like Oleg has been able to grab the lead back from Mario. It looks like for the first time the Aeros Combat has been the glider selected by the top two place finishers in a major hang gliding meet (outside the Ukraine, that is). Congratulations to Oleg, Mario, Bo, and the folks at Just Fly and Aeros.

The new AIR ATOS -VX, with the very excellent Alex Ploner piloting, it has proven to be the glider to be in in light conditions. It is still not clear what he will be flying at the Worlds in the Alps. Manfred Trimmel won the first day at Bassano in a VX.

Alex, Christian, ad David Chaumet have to be the top favorites at the Worlds coming up in six weeks. Alex and Felix will have an interesting decision to make.

Brian Porter has been flying a very heavily customized Swift with a much smaller cage. He will be flying this in the Worlds. Will this be enough to beat Manfred? We'll see.

Discuss "Flytec Championship - day nine" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Flytec Championship - day eight »

Fri, Apr 23 2004, 9:00:00 pm GMT

A trip around the swamp.

competition

Flytec Championship - day eight

Aeros|Aeros Combat|Bo Hagewood|cloud|CompeGPS|competition|Flytec Championships 2004|Flytec Championships 2005|gaggle|Jim Yocom|Johann Posch|Kraig Coomber|Mario Alonzi|Mark Mullholland|photo|record|Ron Gleason|Tim Ettridge|track log|Vince Endter|XC

The results will be posted here: http://www.flytec.com/flytec_champ_04/index.html

Not the complete task, but you get the idea:

http://olc.onlinecontest.org/olcphp/2004/ausw_wertung.php?ein_kl=107&olc=holc-usa&spr=en&dclp=d541cda3b5bfd158c1613bcacda1b61e

After our long downwind task yesterday to set a new record for competition in Florida, we decide on a more difficult task in very light wind conditions, an eighty one miler (130 km) around the Green Swamp. The forecast for lift (600 fpm) and cloud base (6,000+) are good so we are willing to go far. The east winds are strong on the coast at the buoy's, but it sure looks like it will be lighter inland.

The winds have been blowing on the east coast all night, and in the morning they are still blowing at 9 AM when we have our task committee meeting. It's a concern, because yesterday the winds were stronger than predicted and when we saw that we changed the task.

There are clouds overhead and I notice that they are not moving at all. So we go with the light winds forecast. When I go back later and check to see what happened during the day at the buoy's, sure enough the winds had died down starting around 11 AM, going to zero in the afternoon.

There is good lift right at Quest and we climb out at an average of 400 fpm to cloudbase at 5,200.' There are cu's every where and I can see Johann Posch, Vince Endter, and Bo Hagewood on an Aeros Combat thermaling to the northwest by the edge of the start cylinder. I head over there and climb up as they head out for the 1:15 PM start time, the first start time.

The winds are very light, and the cloud at the edge of the start cylinder stays fixed, so it is possible to thermal in one location for fifteen minutes at cloud base and not drift down wind at all. Jim Yocom, Christoph, Alex, and David Chaumet are about a mile to our south near the Green Swamp, also waiting for the second start time.

Ron Gleason, Eric Pacquette and I are circling around waiting for the start time and trying to stay out of the clouds. The lift is light enough that it is not too difficult.

We're all off at 1:30 toward the first start point at Kokee, fourteen miles to the west. The clouds ahead are ragged, although I have to go around the cloud we were circling under as I had actually climbed up one side of it and needed to stay clear going on course.

Ron and I will fly together as Eric is a bit lower. We'll find ragged lift under the few clouds going to the first turnpoint, but enough to keep us interested. We'll find 500 fpm 4 miles from the turnpoint and the track log shows absolutely no drift in the thermal at all as we climb to 5,700'.

Johann has apparently moved his hang strap forward too much and can't slow down the glider. He later says that we pass right over him at the first turnpoint as he is down to 300'.

We can see Jim Yocom. Alex, David, and Christoph, just ahead of us and we get to pick out better lines as we evaluate their glides on the way to the second turnpoint at Fiddle, 10 miles to the southwest. We are catching up with them as they stop in weak lift for a few turns.

Jim gets low going into the second turnpoint and runs southeast over a big shaded area. Ron suggests that we turn and head east to get to the good looking clouds over the Green Swamp. Our next turnpoint is the sink hole at the intersection Rockridge and highway 98, 24 miles to the southeast.

The lift is good over the Green Swamp and Ron and I continue flying together. It looks like we are out in front now. Jim Yocom is low in the shaded area and lands near Dade City trying to keep up with Alex and David.

Flying to the east of Ron a bit I have to go back to get the lift he finds first and he gets three miles ahead after climbing to cloud base in 600 fpm. He is nice enough to tell me where it is, so I'm also quickly there and racing after him.

Seven miles out from Rockridge at 98, Ron find lift under most likely Vince, and Alex David and I join him, trying to get as high as we can before we head for the intersection. Eric Pacquette comes in underneath us, Brian has passed us on the north side, and Mark Mullholland will also join us.

The lift is crummy as always at the intersection but we are down to 3,000' so we take what we can get. After climbing slowly to 4,000 we head out toward the next turnpoint at highway 474 and 33.

There is a cloud street with thin but new clouds forming (it appears) heading upwind due east. There are more clouds to the north. On course line there is a blue hole for a long ways until some clouds way to the northeast.

I decide to take the cloud street to the east, Ron goes on course line with Eric and Mark following. I continue down the cloud street and do not find any lift.

Ron and his followers get low out in the blue but find some lift and get back up while I land at a very pleasant sod farm. Alex and David got up better just before Rockridge and are high going across the blue hole.

Ron has two more low saves then gets up good when he reaches the turnpoint on highway 33 at 11 miles out. He is able to go on glide from there from 5,000' and make goal easily.

Alex, David, Vince, Ron,. Eric, and much later Johann make goal (at least). Then we all sit down and watch to wait for the flex wings. But Bo has also made it to goal beating his flying partner, Vince, and now he's hoping that he has won the day.

He started at 1:17 and his flight will just be shifted to make it as though he started at 2 PM. So he has to hope that it takes the lead gaggle longer to make it to goal than it took him flying with Vince.

Bo crossing the line and grabbing the money bag. Photo by Tim Ettridge

We wait and wait, and then finally we see the flex wing lead gaggle coming in fast and low. It's Oleg in the lead, with a harness that he doesn't seem to be able to unzip, and Antoine just a few seconds behind him.

Mario Alonzi comes it soon after along with numerous French team pilots and Kraig Coomber. About fifteen flex wings will make it to goal.

It looks like Bo has won the day, although we can't tell for sure as we don't know when everyone started.

Although you wouldn't know it from the scores posted on the Flytec web site there is a very tight race for first place between Mario and Oleg. (Tim Meaney really is disgusted with the new version of CompeGPS. The previous version was much better according to him.)

Flytec Championship - day seven »

Thu, Apr 22 2004, 3:00:00 pm EDT

We go 200+ kilometers.

The forecast and reality don't exactly match. In fact, the FSL chart shows winds at twelve knots out of the southeast, which which we are noticing in the field. But Dr. Jack and the ADD Winds Aloft forecast are calling for light winds (five knots) out of the southeast. The Windcast is also calling for light winds, but we are very skeptical of that.

Before the winds come up the task committee calls a long out and return to the northwest, but with the advent of the winds we get back together and decide (based on the pilot survey) to go long down wind. We find an small airport 125 miles to the northwest near Branford, northwest of Gainesville, and call to get permission to land there.

It's been soarable since 10 AM and the clouds, as predicted, are already popping by ten. We keep the early start times so that pilots can get going as early as possible. I'm betting that many flex wing pilots will go with the rigid wings, who have start times that are forty five minutes and a half hour early than the first flex wing start time at 2 PM.

The lift is good right away over Quest. I'm not alone in climbing at 600 fpm to 5,500'. A bunch of us, including the early launching flex wings, then go out to the edge of the start circle at five miles out, and wait at cloud base for the 1:30 start time. Eight rigid wings have taken the early start clock.

I'll hold back with Cracky, Alex Ploner, David Chaumet, Jacques Bott, while Christoph, Ron, Jim Yocom, and others will get the 1:15 PM. It is funny to see the flex wings pilots flying with us.

There are clouds every where and the lift is well organized. We hang together for the first twenty miles or so and I'm enjoying flying with Cracky and others. It's strong lift to 6,000' at the intersection of the Florida Turnpike and I-75.

About thirty pilots made goal. Ron landed at 25 miles out. I landed sixty miles out. Alex Ploner was first into goal on the Air ATOS VX with Brian Porter close (maybe he was first). Alex got a ride back in the Sportster ultralight.

Many pilots had their longest flights ever including Cracky, Jamie Shelden, and Christoph Lohrmann.

Discuss competition at the Oz Report forum

Flytec Championship - day six »

Wed, Apr 21 2004, 7:00:00 pm GMT

A new air mass.

the competition

Flytec Championship - day six

Chris Muller|Christoph Lohrmann|cloud|communication|competition|Flytec Championships 2004|Flytec Championships 2005|Jim Lamb|Jim Yocom|Kevin Carter|Kraig Coomber|PG|photo|radio|Ron Gleason|Tim Ettridge|weather

http://olc.onlinecontest.org/olcphp/2004/ausw_fluginfo.php?ref3=4274&ueb=N&olc=holc-usa&spr=en&dclp=d541cda3b5bfd158c1613bcacda1b61e

Today my weather forecast was almost completely wrong. I got the fact that we had cirrus cloud overhead right (all I had to do was look up). I got the fact that there were plenty of bands of cirrus clouds on the way (I looked at the satellite photos). I got the fact that the winds were going to be out of the south a little than less than 10 mph.

But it appears that a whole different air mass came in than was forecast. I called for no clouds, and there were clouds soon after I called for that. The FSL chart must have been for another air mass as it showed the cloud base way above the top of the lift and the air being much drier than it appeared. I wonder what went wrong.

Dr. Jack, using the RUC model, also called for 600 fpm lift and top of the lift at 6,200' at 2 PM going to 7,500' at 5 PM. We did find some good lift, but I don't recall a lot of strong thermals.

As the launch open time approached the cirrus covered the sky, but there were cu's everywhere but especially to the south where the cirrus was just reaching. But even under the cirrus there were thick cu's.

The task committee has called a 120 kilometer out and return to the northwest, but we get back together again and decide that the day just looks too iffy for getting back against the wind for a long leg. We finally pick Coleman and back, 44 miles. It is great to have this flexibility to change the task based on the actual conditions that we are seeing.

As we get ready to launch at 1:15, the conditions change again with cirrus and dark clouds to our south, blue to the north with cu's forming well there. We are towed upwind under the dark cu's and cirrus, only to find light lift. Most of us climb up at 100 fpm for fifteen minutes drifting down wind to the north. This is the only thermal we'll take in the approximately five mil area before the start of the start cylinder.

Five of us including David Chaumet, Jim Yocom, and Jim Lamb head north and out of the start circle at 1:45 for the first start time. Jim Lamb goes out very low and finds lift lift at what must be about 500'. David is also low and searching over Jim. The rest of us huddle together and stay in zero sink for five minutes waiting for something to happen.

Finally it really turns on over Jim and we find the best thermal of the day at 600 fpm to cloud base at 5,200'. This allows us to go back at 2 PM and take the second start time. Ron Gleason is still over Quest trying to get over 3,000'. He'll end up spotting us sixteen miles.

It's up and down with no steady lift getting to Coleman twenty three miles to the northwest of Quest. It is not until we get close to Coleman that I find good lift and climb out with Jim Yocom. Our team is in radio contact so we've got an idea what's happening with the lift in the area.

Now its a struggle to get back up wind and we have to be cautious taking lift that just isn't that great. We find lift going over the prison and along the forest/swamp to the south of the prison, but it is broken and poor.

Christoph Lohrmann and I go on a four mile glide down to 900' over the sludge field where we towed up the paraglider pilots last year. You can tell that there is going to be lift there and we find it alright. This gets us to 4,500', not cloud base, but better than what we had behind us.

A five mile glide gets us and the flexies that have joined us eleven miles out, but we find weak lift. I'm still running and sliding to the east. Chris Muller is on my left and I don't see him. He sees me and decides to dive in under me to show me that he is there. He's about ten feet away under me when I see him. Pretty cool.

Chris and I go on a glide to the east and don't find anything. Christoph goes right and gets in with Jim Yocom, Ron Gleason, and Jim Lamb and others as they slowly climb out. It will take two more thermals for them to make it into goal. Nene and Kevin Carter will come in and join us in our big field.

It was great to be able to call a task that was very makeable, given the very iffy nature of the day. Kraig Coomber and Didier Mathurine are great to work with. Didier has provided great communication from the French team and I sure hope that they feel included.

Christopher Lohrmann from AIR is having a great time here. Photo by Tim Ettridge.

Flytec Championship - day five »

Tue, Apr 20 2004, 8:00:00 pm GMT

Flying in Florida is just about as much fun as it can get.

the competition

Flytec Championship - day five

Alex Ploner|Bo Hagewood|CompeGPS|competition|Flytec Championships 2004|Flytec Championships 2005|gaggle|Krzysztof "Krys/Kris" Grzyb|photo|Ron Gleason|sailplane|Steve Kroop|Tim Ettridge

The results will be posted here: http://www.flytec.com/flytec_champ_04/index.html

Task and Flight:

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olcphp/2004/ausw_fluginfo.php?ref3=4130&ueb=N&olc=holc-usa&spr=en&dclp=d541cda3b5bfd158c1613bcacda1b61e

For the fifth day in a row we have approximately the same forecast for lift (570 fpm) and height of the lift at 2 PM (5,200'). One difference is that today the winds are predicted to be light out of the east, down to eight knots or less. The other difference is that it looks like the clouds will be very few and very thin, if at all.

What we I don't find in the forecast and we don't see until later are the cirrus clouds that come over around 11 PM and reduce the solar heating and therefore the lift values. The task committee meeting at 9 AM calls a 90 mile task with an 80 mile secondary task, assuming the conditions will be similar to the previous day, although we are concerned about the forecast for no clouds.

When the cirrus clouds come in we drop back to the secondary task and then back even further to a shorter version of the task. It's south south east over Wallaby Ranch to a little grass air strip across from the Wal-Mart on highway 27, then back up to the northwest to Dean Still and highway 33, then straight north back to Quest along 33.

The times get pushed back also as we assume that the day will turn on a bit later, so the rigids will start at 2 PM. The lift is light right over Quest so we spend a long time thermaling up to 4,900'. All the rigid pilots are huddling together given the truly dim prospects out on the horizon with a few miserable looking cu's scattered about under the cirrus and a pronounced visible inversion starting at about 5,000' (just as forecast).

We creep out to the start cylinder circumference and all get the start time about fifteen minutes late. This will give the flex wing pilots a chance to catch us as their first start time is half an hour behind ours, and now they are only fifteen minutes behind us. They can also start early if they want.

We continue to cautiously proceed along the course line with no one wanting to take any great chances and lots of gaggling to find the needed help to make it along without any thermal markers. Five miles northwest of Wallaby Ranch we hit a good one and I climb up with Johann to 5,500'. Johann and I do on a seven mile glide spread out to find lift south of Wallaby that gets us out in front and makes us very attractive to the flex wings and the previously leading gaggle of rigid wings.

We don't find much lift going into Gore, a little grass airstrip just northwest of Haynes City and there isn't much going out of there either, so we have to work light stuff just to stay in the air. I'm in contact with Ron Gleason and he's gone out ahead now and is getting low approaching Dean Still with the lead gaggle, so I hold back and work 100 fpm before heading out to find them low and circling, but in good lift.

We're back in the strong lift regions when we get back to highway 33 and Dean Still. The lead gaggle including the fast flex wings are there, so we climb up to over 5,500' and head north from 16 miles out.

At 10 miles out I've only lost 800 feet in the last six miles and I'm zooming over the sailplane port. My required glide ratio has decreased from 14 to 1 down to almost 11 to 1 and it's looking pretty good.

The top guys in the lead gaggle are also on glide in front of me, and they've got about 500' on me. Ron is right behind about a mile and a half and at 5,000'. All I'm looking for is average moderate sink, but as I get lower the required glide ratio stops dropping, and I'm no longer 1000' over best glide line. My L/D goes to pot under 2,000'.

I come in at about 600' over the last good looking landing field 1.3 miles before Quest unwilling to take a chance on going through the trees. Right after I land, Ron comes over my head at 400' then hits 200' of lift just past me, climbs enough to make it 50' over the trees and into Quest, 30' past the goal line.

Alex Ploner wins the day again with Dave ("Show me the money"} Chaumet in second. It's been pretty consistent.

Krzysztof Grzyb will fly the longer secondary task, come in late, and miss goal by 50 feet. The spectators at Quest will see Bo Hagewood disappear behind the trees, then pop up and over them into the slot at the south end of the field, then glide in ground effect for hundreds of yards to make the goal by fifteen feet.

There are many pilots who make goal, though the times are way spread out, with many pilots coming in much later.

The new competition version of CompeGPS seems to be in terrible shape and Tim is having to do pretty much everything manually. One example, they could see my flight from a few days ago in the folder with all the other flights using Windows Explorer, but CompeGPS could not see it. Tim is use to beating this buggy program into submission, but now it is paying him back for all the bad things he says about it.

The ground conditions are superb here at Quest, the best ever, with lots of heads up coordination from the Quest regulars handling all the volunteer effort. There are absolutely no dramas with the rigid wing towing, and that gets us out of the way of all the flex wing pilots and makes it easier and quicker for them to get into the air.

Some times you forget when everything just goes like it should that a lot of people have to think and work to make it happen that way. Steve Kroop told me that he was feeling very relaxed as he had such knowledgeable help from Flavia, Drew, and Mike.

GW Meadows filming the action. Photo by Tim Ettridge.

Flytec Championship - day three »

Sun, Apr 18 2004, 8:00:00 pm GMT

It's a blue day with a few wisps that give us the dots for us to connect.

competition

Flytec Championship - day three

Alex Ploner|cloud|competition|Eric Paquette|Flytec Championships 2004|Flytec Championships 2005|gaggle|GPS|Jim Yocom|Mario Alonzi|Ron Gleason|trike

The results are posted here: http://www.flytec.com/flytec_champ_04/index.html

Saturday's flight:

http://olc.onlinecontest.org/olcphp/2004/ausw_fluginfo.php?ref3=3924&ueb=N&olc=holc-usa&spr=en&dclp=d541cda3b5bfd158c1613bcacda1b61e

Sunday's task and flight:

http://olc.onlinecontest.org/olcphp/2004/ausw_fluginfo.php?ref3=4002&ueb=N&olc=holc-usa&spr=en&dclp=d541cda3b5bfd158c1613bcacda1b61e

The high pressure ridge which set up on the first day of the competition from the Gulf of Mexico out to the Atlantic off the Carolina coast will apparently be with us through at least Thursday, so we'll have east winds for a good number of days. The winds fortunately are not so strong that we can't call a task and accomplish it.

We again decide to go north west of Ocala for a cross wind task, because unlike yesterday the early clouds thin out and we get only a few wisps to provide an guidance. We also add a south leg cross wind into goal at Dunellon.

Dunellon is a huge sparsely used airfield built during World War II. It was raised out of the nearby swamps, so it is high and dry.

As the clouds thin out before the launch pilots are worrying about whether there will be any lift out on the course line. Didier comes to me to see if they should change the flex wing task.

Most of the rigid wing pilots are in the air already, but I'm waiting as David Chaumet and Alex Ploner seem to go near the end of the launch time. With strong winds and no clouds I figure why get going early when it is likely I'll be blown down wind. Besides maybe I can stick with Alex and David. And, besides, on the last two days we've had big problems with GPS coverage to the east over the cell tower, and I want to stay away from the area.

The trike pilot pulls me right to a wisp of a cloud to the east and I start climbing in 200 fpm. I just hang in there as who knows where there is any other lift. Soon Alex, David and Johann come in under me and we all slowly climb out.

I'm sticking with Alex and David if I can and we move north to try to stay as far east as we can. The entry start circle starts ten miles out, and there is no way that we are going to make it there at 1:30. Still most of the rigid wing pilots are down wind and low. I'm with the top two pilots, so when they start will be good enough.

As we move north, Ron Gleason and Jim Yocom are still over Quest trying to get up. Alex and David are 500 feet over us. Eric Paquette, Johann Posh and I were together just below them and that is where we would stay.

There were very few wisps of clouds to the north as we approached the start circle circumference. Everyone was being very cautious given the lack of visible thermal markers. We all stay together even though the three of us are below.

Just before the prisons (there are four of them now) a few miles south of the turnpike, I follow Alex on a seven mile glide to the next cloud north of the prisons. It's 500+ fpm from 1,500'.

Soon it will be my turn, as I also take a seven mile glide from the turnpike to the spot where I can see the next clouds forming and find 600 fpm from 1,500'. Eric was following behind me and everyone else was holding back but come to join me when they see what I've got.

The day has really turned on and even though there are very few clouds we are getting confident. We can keep track of Alex and David above us as we start racing in the strong lift not taking any long runs getting low.

Fifteen miles out from the north turnpoint Eric trailing Johann and I finds much better lift and gets above us. Johann misses a thermal and gets behind. We are all spread out now as we approach the turnpoint to the north. I can still keep Alex, David and Eric in view.

The flex wings launch behind us and have three start times starting at 2 PM, after our 1:30 PM start time. Given the tough conditions at launch no one is up and able to take the 2 PM start time.

A few get the 2:15 start, and the rest have to settle for the last time at 2:30 with only a few pilots in good position. They all quickly gaggle up given the conditions and cautiously work their way north.

They'll all stay together until five miles before the north turnpoint when Mario Alonzi finds a good thermal and gets above everyone. Mario will stay high around the turnpoint and head back south toward goal.

Alex will get to goal first, followed shortly by David, then Eric, me, and fifteen minutes later Johann. The Swifts will come in just behind me.

Alex Ploner at Quest

Half an hour later Mario will come in and later about fifteen flex wing pilots will make it in.

Flytec Championship - day two »

A cross wind task to Williston.

competition

Sat, Apr 17 2004, 9:00:00 pm GMT

A.I.R. ATOS VX|Alex Ploner|cloud|competition|Flytec Championships 2004|Flytec Championships 2005|gaggle|Garmin GPS|Ron Gleason|Steve Kroop|Swift|tug

Results at www.flytec.com

The winds continue out of the east, but the clouds start early, although they don't last all day. Yesterday, the un-forecasted clouds started late and lasted late.

Trying to match the day before we on the task committee call for later start times, when earlier would have been just fine. We also call a task over in the western part of the state to get away from the winds, but later change it to a cross wind task to the north northwest to Williston airport, 68 miles.

The ground and tug crew is very efficient and with the rigids going first, we are on the carts and out of there in a big hurry. We get completely out of the way of the flex wings, and everyone rigid is up in the air together.

The winds are about 15 mph out of the east up above, and the lift is streeted up, completely organized in lines. The clouds are marking the streets and there is no lift in between the clouds when you press north. The smart thing to do, which the Swift's did, would be to drive north to the northeast north of the seven mile start cylinder, but we rigids drift downwind to the western edge and huddle there waiting for the 2 PM start time.

This is a bad idea because there is apparently a cell phone tower near highway 50 seven miles from Quest. So there we are watching our GPSes and combined instruments and the cell tower is causing all sorts of havoc with our GPS signal reception. I lost GPS tracks for eight minutes yesterday when by happen stance we were at the same spot also. It goes out for fewer minutes today but I have to fly away back into sink to get a reading.

Steve Kroop writes about the track logs from yesterday:

I sat down with Tim Meaney (the meet scorekeeper) and looked at several 5030 track logs as well as track logs from Garmin and MLRs and we found something interesting. There were a lot of gaps in the track logs of all of the units and they were predominantly in two places along the route.

There were small gaps with all units at other places but the most of them were in these two places. It seems that there were three 5030s that had several minute outages at these locations (one was Davis’).

Just before the start window opens Ron and I run upwind to get a reading on our 5030's away from the cell phone tower. All the rigids were together near cloud base until then, but Alex Ploner on the ATOS VX is highest.

After the start window opens everyone is still hanging around climbing slowly as it looks blue to the north and no one wants to take the lead. Finally Alex and a few others head out as Ron and I climb back up to get high enough to join them. Alex stays sinking high and finds the lift first which gets him even higher.

The rest of us work the weak lift that we have to in the first thermal over the hamlet of Center as that's all there is to work. Ron and Johann tire of this ratty pathetic stuff and head north northeast only to find themselves over the forest at 800 feet. Alex has moved way ahead.

With the winds strong out of the east, we have to jump from street to street to find lift. We have to be sure to get high enough to make it to the next street and that means drifting downwind in weaker lift if necessary to get high enough.

There are plenty of clouds, but they are mostly thin and ragged. It's hard to find one with any mass to it, anything with a blacker bottom. They come and go in a few minutes. There also are extended gaps between the streets as apparently the lakes to the east influence the thermals downwind. The air down low is broken, but the smoothest thermals are the strongest ones.

The start gaggle has splintered and I will pretty much fly the task on my own which is true for most folks. Just south of Ocala, it turns on, or I finally find the real lift that has been there all along, and climb to 6,400'. It is cold up there.

The clouds are getting even thinner and on the long glide I don't find lift under the next cloud street, which will mean I come into the next one low and have to struggle for forty minutes to go eight miles, much of it low to the ground and downwind. Ron Gleason who was five miles behind me will get high and miss this particular struggle.

I finally find 200 fpm and get to 4,000' ten miles out when I hear from Ron who has now made goal that there is plenty of lift near goal. Yes indeed, just when you don't need it there is more lift then one can deal with and it gets us to goal.

As I'm landing, parachutists come in to land in the same field. I move over to next field to stay out of their way. We know that the airport a mile to our west is a drop zone, but apparently they also land at this field and just wanted to come in to say hello. Thank goodness that no one was orbiting around the goal.

As we break down the gliders we see the flexies coming in with Oleg leading the way. They were obviously flying close together as about fifteen all come in within a few minutes of each other, the first four within a few seconds of each other. Thankfully no GPS interference at goal as there is no goal crew.

So far two good flying days in Florida. No ill effects from the lakes to our east on conditions at Quest as we climb right out in good thermals.

Discuss "Flytec Championship - day two" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Flytec Championship - day one »

Fri, Apr 16 2004, 3:00:00 pm EDT

We're off to a great start.

www.flytec.com

Maybe the results are up there now.

We've got a few days of east winds and with the forecast for onshore flow on the west coast, we figure that the ticket would be to go to the west, downwind, and then fly over there in the convergence or at least lighter winds. The competition pilot survey calls for somewhat earlier launch than we've been doing lately, and with the forecast for no clouds, it means the rigids, which start earlier than the flex wings, may have a tougher time.

We start launching at 12:45 for a 1:30 Pm start time. The flexies have three 15 minutes intervals starting at 2 PM in order to keep the classes separate.

Alex Ploner got his ATOS VX last night and it looks great in the air today. He climbs right to the top. There are three Tsunami's also flying with us. We all climb up together to 4,000 as the flexies get ready to launch.

There are a few wispy cu's which were not in the forecast over launch, and later the clouds will fill in just before the rigids got to goal. The task is to head down wind 32 miles to to Chin, and then south southeast 25 miles to Zephyr Hills airport. We put a five mile goal radius around the airport at the last minute as they were doing big drops there and there was supposedly a lot of air traffic due to Sun 'n Fun.

Didier Mithun, from France, Kraig Coomber, and I are on the task committee and we'll have our hands full finding places to land for the next few days. There are plenty of little grass fields throughout Florida, but it would be nice to have permission to land at them. I flew over one today that had a sign mowed in the grass pointing toward Sun 'n Fun.

Jamie Shelden had an exciting flight today as she was at 3,400' when her pip pin on her corner bracket came out enough to release her side wire on her ATOS. By unintentionally stalling the glider at 1,400' she was finally able to grab the wire. Then she very carefully circled down holding the wire and landed in the big field below her.

Jamie getting ready.

After the rigids got out on course and found the strong easterly winds, the flexies started lining up. We had a twenty five mile entry start circle, so you have seven miles from Quest before you hit the start circle.

Despite the lack of clouds , there was reasonable lift to 4,000' and all the rigids struck together. Even the Swifts would come back and join us. It was gaggle flying. Take no chances flying. This is what happens with the race start in a place like Florida on a blue day.

Ten miles out from the first turnpoint, I break away with two other pilots, who then chicken out and turn back - must have been the force of gravity emanating from the gaggle. I press ahead over a long stretch of trees finding lift and doing okay. Some folks find lift to my north, ninety degrees to the course line, but I foolishly don't join them. Pressing on, as they climb, I'm down to 700', three miles in front and scratching at the turnpoint. I go from the front to the back as I dig my way out of the hole I've dug for myself.

Christian from Air has fixed up my ATOS and I am loving it. I had been really disliking it over the last few weeks, and he has turned it around completely. It actually has a little bar pressure now, which is quite reassuring.

The wind is still out of the east even over on the west side of the state. There are clouds forming up just too far away to get right to them, as they are upwind. Pilots are struggling against the wind to move southeast toward the goal. As they get close to the goal circumference, they get to the clouds and lift becomes plentiful, especially after they make goal. I unfortunately press too hard to catch up and land short.

Now with the sky filling with clouds the flex wing gliders start coming along the course line and find plenty of lift to get most of them to goal.

Brian in the Swift crosses the goal circumference at 4,000', and is able to work his way back to Quest to land, Junko in her Swift also tries to make it back over the Green Swamp and lands in a wildlife sanctuary along highway 471, the only road through the swamp.

Discuss competition at the Oz Report forum

Flytec Championship - it hurts to be popular »

Mon, Mar 1 2004, 9:00:01 pm GMT

The Flytec Championship is way over subscribed this year, many are on the waiting list and many have been turned away altogether.

competition

calendar|competition|Competition Committee|Florida Ridge|Flytec Championships 2004|Flytec Championships 2005|Oz Report|South Florida Championships 2004|Steve Kroop|Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge 2004|tow|USHGA

USHGA sanctioned meets are required to have an opening date and time for the beginning of registration. This is a requirement to ensure that pilots can register for the meet and be accepted on a first come first serve only basis. The USHGA feels that the system that is most fair to all the pilots is one with a stated registration date and time and first come first serve.

Also the USHGA requires that 66% of the available slots for a meet be set aside for US pilots, until there are no more US pilots on the waiting list.

The 2004 Flytec Championships registration date and time was 9 AM EST on December 15th. Within two hours the thirty one foreign pilot slots were filled up. The ever organized French team had taken twelve of those precious spots.

Within two days the fifty nine US pilot slots were full. Currently that are nine US pilots on the waiting list and twenty nine foreign pilots. There are twenty five class five rigid wing pilots in the meet.

According to Steve Kroop this is the greatest demand by foreign pilots for any of the Flytec Championships. Perhaps the good word about how much fun it is to fly here in Florida has gotten around. This level of enthusiasm has been sustained even though originally when these guys signed up there was no talk about a second meet in Florida, now there is the South Florida Championships at the Florida Ridge.

Steve had originally thought that foreign pilots would re reluctant to come to Florida for only one meet, but it seems not to be the case. Competition turns out to continue to be very popular.

So with a long waiting list it appears as though some pilots will be disappointed this year. Perhaps they can get into the South Florida Championships. As USHGA BOD Competition Committee Chairman I am working hard to get other US competitions USHGA sanctioned so that we can provide more high level competition opportunities.

Check out the ads here in the Oz Report for the Team Challenge and the South Florida Championship. Also check out the Oz Report calendar at https://OzReport.com/calendar.php.

Steve hopes to have additional towing resources at the upcoming meets so that he can allow for more competitors, but it is not clear that he will be able to do so. Perhaps tow pilots can piggy back on the South Florida Championships if enough people enter, so as to afford to come down to Florida.

Discuss "Flytec Championship - it hurts to be popular" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Flytec Championship – 70 mile fish bowl »

Sat, Apr 27 2002, 9:00:00 pm GMT

A.I.R. ATOS|Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Aeros Ltd|Alex Ploner|Chris Arai|Christian Ciech|cloud|competition|Curt Warren|David "Dave" Glover|Flytec Championships 2002|Flytec Championships 2005|gaggle|GAP|Gary Osoba|Ghostbuster|job|Mike Barber|Moyes Delta Gliders|Moyes Litespeed|Quest Air|Ron Gleason|Steve Kroop|tail|tracker|tug|video|weather|Wills Wing Talon

David Glover was very smart and every day as the meet went on he would drag up folks to thank them for their help at the Flytec Championship. During the week he thanked the tug pilots, the volunteers, the ground crew, the Quest Air crew, the people who put the dinners together, Frank and Steve Kroop, the registration crew, etc. Because it happened every day everyone got more applause and more attention than if he had put it off until the last night, when everyone gets crammed together.

David and Steve did something also very clever, they had GW create a video taking footage and shots during the week. On Saturday night, the last night of the Flytec Championship, the video was ready to go and we got to see the whole video with the sound track. It was amazing that it had been done so quickly, all the while GW just looked like he was hanging out taking pictures and having fun.

But, not only did we get to see the video, all the pilots and tug pilots got a copy of the video last night. It really showed off what we do at a Floridaaerotow competition and we’ll be able to take it around and show it to our friends (if we have any outside of hang gliding).

Dave was a kick all week making announcements, telling jokes, getting pilots to come to the pilot meetings because they were so much fun. Belinda commented that we hadn’t seen Dave in his element in quite a while. While there were many many people who played keys roles in making the Flytec Championship such a great meet, I’ve got to feel that it was Dave Glover that really put it over the top and made it so much fun.

One of the key elements to its success (I feel), is that he was able to delegate responsibility to others, and in this case I’m referring to the task committee. I had written to him early on stating how giving the task committee the complete responsibility for calling the task was one of the keys to Tove’s great meets in Australia. David, like Tove, had the personality that allowed him to delegate responsibility and not get tied up into knots about it.

Chris Arai, Revo, and I had complete authority to choose the task each day, we took lots of pilot input and we did our best for the pilots to make the meet fair and fun. I can tell you that there was no barbeque task on the last day (although we did come back to Quest Air) as there has been in the past.

Having a task committee made up exclusively of pilots who without prodding from the meet director or organizer (well, we kept Dave away almost all of the time), is a key to having a meet (there are other ways to do it, but there are very very few individuals who can pull it off, and I can think of only one, Mad Dog, in Australia) that satisfies the pilots. This will continue to be a difficult issue and I hope that there will be a way to work this out at the upcoming worlds in Chelan.

Oh, yes, we did have a task on day seven. First, we heard from Gary Osoba:

Looks like a 7 day meet, thanks to the task planners, meet administrators, and reasonably good weather. Congratulations!

For a change, the entire soaring window today should provide for relatively consistent wind directions and strengths. Should make the planning a little bit easier. Here's how it stacks up:

11am Weak lift. Probably a bit early for clouds to be forming yet. When then do (likely closer tonoon), they should be around 2500'. Surface winds sse around 6. Winds aloft a little bit more southerly at 10-12.

2pm Good lift, strong in spots. Cb 5000' to 5300'. Surface winds sse 5-8, aloft sse 12-14.

5pm Moderate lift, good in spots. Cb could go to around 6000". Surface winds sse 8-10, aloft sse about 12.

"Only a fool would try to predict the weather"!

So we’ve got strong winds aloft out of the south, but good lift also. With the good lift we can come back against the strong winds, and that is exactly what we plan to do. We have really been counting on Gary’s forecasts, and he has done a great job for us. We really pick the tasks based on his weather predictions.

We call a 70 mile task (no barbeque task this one) that will first take us downwind 17 miles to the west, northwest to Bushnell, back against the head wind to Quest, south into the head wind to the intersection of highways 33 and 474, then north, downwind past Quest to Gator field, then 7 miles upwind for the final glide to goal.

The task keeps us near Quest, while at the same time making it difficult to complete. We come back over Quest to get everyone on the ground excited and it keeps us out of the swamp.

There are plenty of clouds when we start taking off, and it looks like maybe there are too many, maybe it will over develop after all. The wind seems awfully strong also, but it’s too late now to come up with an other task.

We hang around until the middle start time at 1:15although everyone is in the air in half an hour. We just stay at cloud base for an extra 15 minutes. GAP gives one very little reason to go out in front and leave the gaggle behind. Johann and I have already made up our minds that we will take the middle start time, and maybe everyone else felt that way also, or, when two pilots left, they all decided to go with us.

We can see all the darkness out to our northwest and it looks like we are jumping into a black hole. There are high cirrus clouds that dull the areas on the ground where the cu’s don’t block out the sun.

We spot the guys who took the 1 PMstart time and that makes it easier to make our way to the turnpoint through all this very gloomy looking area. Still we’re down below 1,400’ before we connect with the big lift that gets us to the turnpoint and back out again.

Well, that was a downwind task, but we averaged only 27 mph getting there, so the south wind didn’t help that much. Coming back will prove to be much more difficult (and most if not all of the pilots who don’t make it will drop out here), as the average speed will go down to 15 mph.

I’ll charge across some blue areas to get under what seems to be a cloud street, find nothing then push up wind to get under some pilots turning at 8 miles out from Quest, only to find myself at 450’ and working lift that averages 140 fpm, starting out at a much lower value. It turns out that every one will have difficulty making it back to Quest and will get low on this leg.

Christian Ciech and Alex Ploner are doing much better in this meet than the rest of us, and they have zoomed out ahead. They were half a mile ahead at the turnpoint, and I lost them coming back as I went more easterly, but they will also get quite low. They are flying together.

I’m flying with Johann, but I’ve lost him also. Given how weak the conditions are we are all struggling and it looks like a long day if we can stay up. I’ve got quite a few other gliders here with me, so we hang on and the lift improves, as we drift north away from Quest, but with stronger lift it is no problem. Twenty minutes after coming in low, I’m up to 4,000’ and on my way to Quest with Curt, Paris, Ron Gleason, and some other ATOSes.

We are styling now, hitting good lift and staying high as we come into Quest. We can see a gaggle forming to our south that includes the Swifts, so they must have struggled also. I can see Alex and Christian in the gaggle also.

Johann will lose it here and head off to the west to get under better looking clouds, while I’ll continue to the south to join up with the gaggle. Johann, who is in second place, will almost land at Quest.

I catch up with the lead gaggle, which is putzing along. I guess they don’t see any need to probe out into the blue to the south. All the clouds that we had by Bushnell have not come down here in the late afternoon, and there are mere wisps to our south.

With a bunch of rigid wings, Curt Warren, and above us all the two Italian rigid wing pilots, we start punching our way south only to find good lift, light sink in between, and long patches of buoyant air. We stay high and work light lift to get to 5,000’.

We are still running into the wind, so it takes a while, but we have no problems getting down to the south to get the turnpoint with Alex and Christian leading the way. The Swifts start to get ahead of us now, with Manfred taking the third turnpoint and coming back to greet us when we are 2 miles out from it.

As soon as we get the turnpoint, we can drift back north along 33 in strong tail winds and buoyant air. With the lift averaging less than 200 fpm in the cores, we are just taking a little bit here and there. After the long up wind grind it is a joy to drift toward the Gator turnpoint.

Now there are only rigid wings in the lead as we come into the Gator turnpoint and turn to get back to Quest. It’s been a long glide into Gator before our upwind final glide. My IQ/Comp has been acting up and not reporting any final glide info, so I’m just hanging with the four other rigid pilots. Heiner goes on glide and we all just speed up as it becomes clear that no matter that fact that we are going into a strong head wind, we will make it back to Quest without a problem.

Mike Barber who bombed out on the previous day (after passing up lots of lift trying to go faster) goes all out and will win in Class 1 as the flex wings will come in about 20 minutes behind Alex Ploner who takes first in the rigid wings. Then again he'll start fifteen minutes behind us, so you can see how much Alex and Christian were holding back, just tracking the rigids below them.

Class 5 on the last day:

1 Ploner, Alex, 65 Air Atos C Ita 13:15:00 16:20:00 03:05:00 953
2 Ciech, Christian, 47 Icaro Stratos Ita 13:15:00 16:20:11 03:05:11 935
3 Biesel, Heiner, 101 Air Atos Usa 13:15:00 16:28:30 03:13:30 848
4 Gleason, Ron, 300 Air Atos Usa 13:15:00 16:28:35 03:13:35 839
5 Endter, Vincent, 43 Air Atos Usa 13:15:00 16:28:36 03:13:36 832
6 Straub, Davis, 50 Air Atos C Usa 13:15:00 16:28:55 03:13:55 825
7 Zeiset, Jim, 66 Air Atos Usa 13:15:00 16:38:43 03:23:43 762
8 Barmakian, Bruce, 17 Air Atos Usa 13:00:00 16:34:50 03:34:50 741
9 Brandt, Dave, 60 Air Atos Usa 13:15:00 16:48:51 03:33:51 713
10 Posch, Johann, 112 Air Atos Aut 13:15:00 16:54:20 03:39:20 689
11 Campanella, Mario, 186 Flight Designs Ghostbuster Bra 13:15:00 16:54:52 03:39:52 685
12 Almond, Neville, 116 Flight Designs Ghostbuster Gbr 13:00:00 17:45:14 04:45:14 469

Class 5 finals:

1 Ciech, Christian, 47 Icaro Stratos Ita 5804
2 Posch, Johann, 112 Air Atos Aut 5354
3 Ploner, Alex, 65 Air Atos C Ita 5272
4 Straub, Davis, 50 Air Atos C Usa 4994
5 Gleason, Ron, 300 Air Atos Usa 4983

Class 1 last day:

1 Barber, Mike, 2 Moyes Litespeed Usa 13:30:00 16:41:15 03:11:15 915
2 Wirdnam, Gary , 39 Aeros Combat 2 Gbr 13:30:00 16:41:37 03:11:37 902
3 Bessa, Carlos, 155 Moyes Litespeed Bra 13:30:00 16:42:09 03:12:09 891
4 Warren, Curt, 73 Moyes Litespeed Usa 13:15:00 16:40:29 03:25:29 843
5 Zweckmayr, Josef, 18 Icaro Laminar Aut 13:00:00 16:33:16 03:33:16 841
6 Bondarchuk, Oleg, 107 Aeros Combat 2 13 Ukr 13:30:00 16:55:38 03:25:38 800
6 Agulhon, Dorival, 94 Icaro Mrx Bra 13:15:00 16:45:15 03:30:15 800
8 Harri, Martin, 31 Moyes Litespeed Che 13:30:00 16:55:41 03:25:41 797
9 Williams, Paris , 1 Icaro MR700WRE Usa 13:30:00 16:56:04 03:26:04 793
10 Bertok, Attila, 64 Moyes Litespeed Hun 13:30:00 16:56:08 03:26:08 790

Finals Class 1:

1 Bondarchuk, Oleg, 107 Aeros Combat 2 13 Ukr 5841
2 Williams, Paris , 1 Icaro MR700WRE Usa 5644
3 Volk, Glen, 5 Moyes Litespeed Usa 5584
4 Hamilton, Robin, 30 Icaro MR700WRE Gbr 5515
5 Warren, Curt, 73 Moyes Litespeed Usa 5440
6 Hazlett, Brett, 90 Moyes Litespeed Can 5437
7 Wirdnam, Gary , 39 Aeros Combat 2 Gbr 5434
8 Wolf, Andre, 117 Moyes Litespeed Bra 5389
9 Olsson, Andreas, 27 Moyes Litespeed Swe 5369
10 Rotor, Nene, 77 Wills Wing Talon Bra 5348

Preliminary results are up on the www.flytec.com web site.

Discuss "Flytec Championship – 70 mile fish bowl" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Flytec Championship – I think we are having fun yet »

Wed, Apr 24 2002, 9:00:00 pm GMT

A.I.R. ATOS|Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Aeros Ltd|Andrew "Andy" Hollidge|Chris Arai|Christian Ciech|cloud|comic|competition|Curt Warren|David "Dave" Glover|Dragonfly|Flytec Championships 2002|Flytec Championships 2005|gaggle|Moyes Delta Gliders|Moyes Litespeed|Nene Rotor|Quest Air|Robert Reisinger|tow|tug|weaklink|weather|Wills Wing Talon

Many pilots were excited about the short task yesterday and getting to goal for the first time. This really upped the mood of the competitors and brought everyone one into the fold. The new guys wanted to be included also.

I wrote a while back about Tove’s meet in Deniliquin and how she organized it so that it encouraged new pilots to join in competition. No one has taken her example and run with it yet, but maybe we’ll see more of that. We on the task committee have to set tasks for the major racers, so it would be nice to have a meet where we could see tasks for the great middle of the field.

Did I say that we were having fun yet? Seems like the competitors are really liking the tasks and enjoying the facilities here at Quest Air. Good weather helps, of course, and Floridais doing its best to makes us all happy.

There is a lot going on at Quest in addition to the meet. A new turbine Dragonfly flew tonight, so that’s bringing a lot of excitement to all the motor heads. With so many Dragonflies and trikes here, not only do we get in the air in a real big hurry, but all the tug pilots get to talk to one another and encourage each other.

With an east-northeast wind prediction and difficulty forecasting the lift, we call a straight run, 68 miles, out to the WillistonAirportto the north, northwest. We want folks to see a little bit of Florida, if they happen to look down at all. A little cross country flying wouldn’t hurt either.

There is a strong east wind on the ground, and in the air (I’ll measure 60° at 14 mph throughout the flight), so launches prove to be a bit tricky. I’ll break two weak links, which will start me off in a fine mood, nervous as possible.

With the high pressure and shearing winds, the lift above Quest is quite a handful. I’m getting tossed around something fierce and frankly I’m totally terrified. I’m thinking of landing, but the competition spirit keeps me in the air.

We’re waiting for the 2:15 PMstart time, and even with my late start because of the multiple weaklink breaks due to the action at tree top level, I’ve plenty of time to get to cloud base. Russell takes me up on the third tow and it is as smooth as can be. He deposits me under a small cloud that is working at 200 fpm, and I much appreciate it.

All the rigids were out near the start circle circumference, but they come back to join me as we wait until the last start time. I assume that they are thinking like me that we want the full heating of the day to fly our reasonably short task in.

I’m at cloud base at a little over 5,000’ and given that we are all back a mile and a half from the start circle circumference I decide to leave in time to make it there as the start time starts. Seems like some other pilots want to keep working to stay out of the clouds close to Quest.

There are lots of high clouds, and thin cu’s with cloud base at 5,000’ out in front of us. There is very little development today in the clouds, but they are numerous. They are mostly just wisps.

I go on an eight mile glide to 2,300’ and find some lift with a few other pilots under very marginal clouds. It’s 400 fpm back to 4,700’ so I’m happy to be high. I guess I only need to say this once more here. I’ll be terrified for about 75% of the flight. I experience it has very turbulent, and I can’t help thinking that the glider to going to go over at any minute. Other pilots will mention how turbulent it was.

There are flex wings who’ve taken the 2 PM start gate out in front of us, along with a couple of rigid wing pilots who also took the earlier start time. I’m falling behind as I keep leaving uncomfortable lift, and hoping to find lighter, but more comfortable climbs.

At around Wildwood I start chasing the lead gaggle – a gaggle of mixed rigids and flex wings. They are moving very fast, racing from thermal to thermal, but I’ve got the advantage that I’m following and can see where they find lift.

There is a tough stretch right around Wildwood as we head toward I-75, then things start to improve and folks get more and more into the racing mode. I’m still way behind many of the other rigids, and the top flex wings are spread all around. We’ve probably got 20 to 30 pilots in the front of this race, within two miles of each other.

Southwest of Ocalawe get under a cloud street that lasts for maybe 3 or 4 miles, and I’m somehow able to catch up with the top few pilots. We al decide to go on glide from over 5,000’ and this will turn into a ten mile glide down to 1,700 until a flex wing pilot way to my right is the first to find the lift. For the first time during the flight I’m happy to be in a thermal because it is completely smooth and takes us back to over 5,000’.

At 15 miles out my IQ/Comp is telling me to go on final. I’ve got it at 15/1. I head out, but find a small gaggle to my left that is climbing well, and make the mistake to go join them. I really didn’t need the lift and this would have been my opportunity to pass Christian and just go into goal.

The last twelve miles in are full race mode. I can see Andy Hollidge in his Top Secret way in front of me and higher, but I’m pulling in much more than he and catching him. There is little chance to go down before goal, so the only reason to slow down is to absorb the bumps from all the lift we are flying through. Andy can’t pull in any more, so he’s at a big disadvantage.

Christian Ciech is just in front of me, and there is no catching him. I’m surrounded by (but soon they are below and a little bit in front of me) Nene Rotor and Chris Arai (who took the 2 PM start time) and Robert Reisinger and Joseph Zweckmayr who took that last start clock. The first four flexies get in just a few seconds before I cross the goal, second for the day. Curt Warren started much early and came in between Manfred and Brian.

Class 2:

1 Ciech, Christian, 47 Icaro Stratos Ita 14:15:00 16:16:23 02:01:23 906
2 Straub, Davis, 50 Air Atos C Usa 14:15:00 16:17:16 02:02:16 875
3 Barmakian, Bruce, 17 Air Atos Usa 14:15:00 16:19:12 02:04:12 841
4 Posch, Johann, 112 Air Atos Aut 14:15:00 16:19:56 02:04:56 826
5 Biesel, Heiner, 101 Air Atos Usa 14:00:00 16:12:01 02:12:01 822

Class 1:

1 Reisinger, Robert, 72 Wills Wing Talon Aut 14:15:00 16:17:06 02:02:06 909
2 Zweckmayr, Josef, 18 Icaro Laminar Aut 14:15:00 16:17:07 02:02:07 903
3 Rossignol, Jerz, 6 Aeros Combat 2 Usa 14:15:00 16:19:05 02:04:05 856
4 Williams, Paris , 1 Icaro MR700WRE Usa 14:15:00 16:19:33 02:04:33 841
5 Bondarchuk, Oleg, 107 Aeros Combat 2 13 Ukr 14:15:00 16:20:12 02:05:12 830
6 Warren, Curt, 73 Moyes Litespeed Usa 13:45:00 16:04:17 02:19:17 821
7 Hamilton, Robin, 30 Icaro Laminar Gbr 14:15:00 16:23:07 02:08:07 800
8 Rotor, Nene, 77 Wills Wing Talon Col 14:00:00 16:16:57 02:16:57 799
9 Arai, Chris, 57 Wills Wing Talon Usa 14:00:00 16:16:58 02:16:58 795
10 Wolf, Andre, 117 Moyes Litespeed Bra 14:00:00 16:17:16 02:17:16 782

Manfred made the task in an hour and a half. Brian in an hour and fifty minutes. Manfred leads overall.

Christian Ciech has to fall down for anyone to catch him in Class 5.

Cumulative in Class 1:

1 Bondarchuk, Oleg, 107 Aeros Combat 2 13 Ukr 3498
2 Williams, Paris , 1 Icaro MR700WRE Usa 3443
3 Hamilton, Robin, 30 Icaro Laminar Gbr 3333
4 Hazlett, Brett, 90 Moyes Litespeed Can 3250
5 Wolf, Andre, 117 Moyes Litespeed Bra 3244
6 Warren, Curt, 73 Moyes Litespeed Usa 3238
7 Reisinger, Robert, 72 Wills Wing Talon Aut 3223
8 Wirdnam, Gary , 39 Aeros Combat 2 Gbr 3195
9 Olsson, Andreas, 27 Moyes Litespeed Swe 3179
10 Zweckmayr, Josef, 18 Icaro Laminar Aut 3062

Preliminary results are up on the www.flytec.com web site. Dave Glover had them up by about 10:30 PM. This is the fastest I can recall the results going up on the web in a major competition.

Discuss "Flytec Championship – I think we are having fun yet" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Flytec Championship – the sea breeze »

Mon, Apr 22 2002, 8:00:00 pm GMT

Flytec Championship – the sea breeze

Alex Ploner|altitude|Christian Ciech|cloud|David Glover|Fantasy of Flight|flight park|Flytec Championships 2002|Flytec Championships 2005|gaggle|Johann Posch|John Vernon|Mike Barber|Quest Air|Swift|tail|track log|weather

The weather forecast calls for west winds at 10 mph, no cu’s, moderate lift. The task committee wrangles over a 66 mile task down to the south to the Winter Havenairport and back Vs. a 50 mile task to the Fantasy of Flight, also down 33, and back. I’m pushing for the shorter task, given the winds, and lack of cu’s. With a seven mile start circle for the flexies (4 for the rigids) it seems a bit short to the other task committee members, so we go for the longer task.

This will put us in an area of weak lift at the Winter Havenairport which is surrounded by lakes. It could prove to be a tough task. A major concern is the likelihood of a sea breeze from the west setting up in the afternoon. This would kill the lift.

We push back the start times given the prognosis of weak lift and no cu’s early assuming that pilots will not be eager to launch while things look weak. Then at 11:30 AMthe first cu’s start popping a little off to our east and we are taken by surprise.

The cu’s build and spread and within an hour there are cu’s every where. They aren’t getting high, but they are definitely there. This is plenty of encouragement and pilots are talking about starting at the first start time, 1:45 PM.

Mike Barber calls Patty on the west coast and finds out that the sea breeze hasn’t started by noon, and the report is 5 mph out of the north. Maybe we won’t get the sea breeze after all.

Pilots are eager to go and we get a lot of pilots in the air quickly. With the strong winds out of the west, its pretty easy to get under a cloud on the west side and climb up. The lift is light to the west of Quest and strong downwind to the east.

A couple of flex wing pilots head almost straight upwind toward the GreenSwampand I join them. We work our way forward against the wind and toward the western edge of the start circle (smaller for me) climbing in lift that averages less than 200 fpm. With cloud base at 4,000’ it isn’t hard to stay high enough to stay near cloud base.

We’re thinking about the earliest start time (1:45) but I’m only at 3,500’ at the start time, so I continue to head west until I’m almost 6 miles out and work the light lift. I’m figuring that I’ll get under a cloud, hang with it and drift back into the start circle just as the next start time rolls around. Fortunately I’m just able to do this, see the graphics:

The track log shows me circling and drifting to the east to get into the 4 mile radius start circle just in time.

The altitude graph shows me topping out at 14:00(2 PM) right at the edge of the start circle just as the start time begins on the fifteen minute interval. Couldn’t have worked out better.

Alex Ploner, Johann Posch, Christian Ciech and I take the 2 PMstart time. Some flexie and rigid wing pilots have already taken the 1:45start time and are out in front of us. There are also flex wing pilots taking the 2 PMstart time starting 3 miles further south of us, so there is plenty of activity in the air.

Christian comes in under me at the intersection of 474 and 33 as I enter a gaggle with the earlier rigid wings and 2 PMflexies. I’ve taken the tail off to check out whether the T-tail with the wrong pitch angle is the source of all my extra drag from the Wallaby Open and the first day of the Flytec Championship.

Christian and I climb at 200 fpm to 3,800’ and go on glide. Hmmm! Unlike the previous day, now I’m gliding right with him. It sure looks like my misaligned tail was causing the problems. I will go on two more four mile glides with him, and I find myself now able to glide with him.

John Vernon will be sending a new fin for the T-tail that will allow the tail to make a -1° angle with the mean chord line, instead of -6. Should be here on Wednesday. We’ll try the tail again then.

Christian gets me on the fourth climb and gets a few hundred feet over my head. We have completely caught up with all the pilots in front of us. The run south down highway 33 has been consistently good with climb rates at about 400 fpm, and our top out heights rising.

We climb out south of I-4, 5 miles out from the turnpoint at Winter Haven to 4,400’ and go on glide due south hoping to come up on the airport from the west. There are about a dozen gliders in this first gaggle. Christian is on top heading more toward the turnpoint. A number of rigids are heading with me and the flexies to the south.

We are surrounded by lakes, so we are looking for areas of dry land that are continuous to the west, hoping that the cloud streets are setting up over the land.

It doesn’t happen and by the time we are all at the airport turnpoint we are down to 2,300’. This is in an area of weak lift so things look bad. It is at this point that I make a crucial error, but the gaggle doesn’t.

I head back to the northwest to get on the west side of a small lake. The gaggle heads straight north downwind of me. The error – don’t try to go upwind when you are relatively low, find lift first. I choose to ignore the gaggle, also not a good idea when you are relatively low, and then ignore them again when I see them start turning, thinking I can find my own lift. I don’t and soon land.

The gaggle continues north toward I 4 and back toward 33. Meanwhile back at Quest Air, the sea breeze has kicked in and the wind has increased to 15 mph on the ground. All the clouds are wiped away in the area near the flight park. We don’t see this yet further to the south.

As the pilots move north, it becomes clear that the clouds that they are flying under are ending to their north. Some pilots drift east toward Wallaby Ranch to stay under the clouds. Others venture out in the blue to find weak lift.

We made the turnpoint at about 3:10. Christian is able to make it back to Quest first (after the Swift’s) in a total time of 2:30 hours, so it only takes him 10 minutes longer (with four additional miles) to get back to Quest.

Other pilots will dribble into Quest working their way slowly through the blue.

The rigid results so far:

Today – Ciech, Mario, Ron, Heiner (make goal). We will see Johann land about one mile due east of goal.

Cumulative - Christian, Mario, Ron, Alex

The flex results so far:

Today – Hamilton, Paris, Oleg, Wirdham, Reisinger, Bolt, Arai, Olsson, Hazlett, Wolf (first ten into goal) Zwecky will land 2400 feet away from goal in a small yard. Barber lands 150 feet short.

Cumulative – Oleg, Paris, Hazlett, Hamilton, Wirdham, Wolf, Warren, Reisinger, Olsson

Not quite 25 percent into goal.

David Glover is remiss in not putting up preliminary results on the www.flytec.com web site. They should be up some time tomorrow.

Day one finish position by Class:

Flex, Rigid, Swift

Warren, Ciech, Porter
Gerolf, Ploner, Ruhmer
Oleg, Posch
Hazlett, Straub
Wolfe, Gunter
Harri,Campenalla
Jerz, Gleason
Rotor, Hollidge
Walbec, Dinauer
Paris, Barmakian
Dorval, Ferris
Zwecy, Trimmel
Attila
Bessa
Castle
Ollson
Wirdnam
Richardson
Hamilton
Shipley
Reisinger
Holtcamp
Volk
Sugarman
Barber
Pagen D.
Presley