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topic: Gary Osoba

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Passing of Payout Winch Co-Inventor

May 17, 2021, 3:58:55 pm MDT

Passing of Payout Winch Co-Inventor

Tom Dolsky

Gary Osoba|PG|record

Gary Osoba <<osobagary>> writes:

Tom Dolsky, an early hang gliding Dealer and Instructor for Pliable Moose Hang Gliders, passed away May 11th in Topeka, KS. Shown here water towing in his first glider, an 18’ Standard Pliable Moose.

Photo by Leeta Dolsky.

He was a talented and innovative machinist and practical engineer. Along with Dr. Dave Prevatt and with some minor input from myself, he co-invented the first payout winch which has developed into the systems used today for both hang gliding and paragliding. Donell Hewitt of west TX has often been credited with this development (incorrectly), when in fact Donnel purchased his first winch from Tom Dolsky and was trained by him in its proper use. Donnell later popularized and publicized the concept, also improving on it somewhat. In 1978, Gary Whitman significantly expanded the towing height records of the time by reaching 7800’ agl using a Dolsky winch, step towing methods, and poly rope - long before the introduction of lower drag Spectra line.

Tom and I also worked together with him fabricating a natural rubber powered motor unit for hang gliding which I had designed in 1974. We were able to obtain power and torque numbers sufficient for a reasonable launch from less than 10 lbs. of rubber. But after bending the steel I-beam the unit was attached to for testing, the idea was abandoned as the housing necessary for safety would have been too heavy for use.

Tom loved hang gliding flight, taught many others to fly, and will be missed by all who knew him.

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Gary Flies out of New Mexico

July 7, 2020, 8:27:58 pm MDT

Gary Flies out of New Mexico

You can follow him

Gary Osoba

https://ayvri.com/scene/d9kd8vlej2/ckc9o2dw700013h696y8wmkdi

Forecasting Using Patterns in the Data

January 21, 2020, 8:05:38 EST

Forecasting Using Patterns in the Data

Not using models of physical processes

Gary Osoba

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.12132.pdf

In this paper, we focus on the sub problem of predicting the instantaneous rate of precipitation one hour into the future from Doppler radar. Specifically, we provide three binary classifications that indicate whether the rate exceeds thresholds that roughly correspond to  trace rain, light rain, and moderate rain. Our forecasts are at 1km spatial resolution, are within the continental United States and are based on data from NEXRAD.

We treat forecasting as an image-to-image translation problem where we are given a sequence of (n) input radar images that start at some point of time, t(in1), and end at t(inn). Our task is to generate the radar image at some point in the future, t(out). At the time scales we are working with, horizontal atmospheric advection is the primary driver for changes in the radar images, which represent the dynamics we are capturing in our neural network model.

Conclusion:

We explore the efficacy of treating precipitation nowcasting (very short term forecasting) as an image-to-image translation problem. Instead of modeling the complex physics involved in atmospheric evolution of precipitation, a time consuming and computational intensive practice, we treat this as a data-driven input/output problem.

The input is a sequence of MRMS (multi-radar multi-sensor) images providing a short history of rain in a given region and the output is the state of rain one hour afterwards. We leverage the power of U-Nets, a type of Convolutional Neural Network commonly used in image translation problems, and demonstrate that straight-forward uses can make better predictions than traditional numerical methods, such as HRRR, for short-term nowcasting predictions presuming the window for the prediction is on the order of a few hours.

An open question remains as to whether pure Machine Learning data-driven approaches can outperform the traditional numerical methods, or perhaps ultimately, the best predictions will need to come from a combination of both approaches.

Thanks to Gary Osoba.

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2019 Big Spring Nationals

August 10, 2019, 11:00:10 pm CDT

2019 Big Spring Nationals

The Welcome Dinner

Gary Osoba|US Nationals 2019

Photo by Gary Osoba.

Gary Osoba in competition

July 29, 2019, 3:09:50 pm MDT

Gary Osoba in competition

Just before the Big Spring Nationals

Gary Osoba

https://www.ssa.org/Contests?cid=2447

In Uvalde.

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Jet Power

January 24, 2019, 9:28:51 EST

Jet Power

A little jet pod on the top

Gary Osoba|video

Gary Osoba writes:

I sold my ASW27B last week and made an agreement this week to purchase a JS1CJ. It has interchangeable wing tips with two spans. The 21m Open configuration has a max L/D 60:1. The photo is of it in 18m configuration with L/D max 53:1. The photo also shows the turbine sustainer deployed- a little jet that works with either span.

It is designed to get you somewhere if you need to or get home late if you make a dumb mistake. It’s not designed with enough size to self-launch although you can do so on a long runway. Turbine has a range of 150 miles using sawtooth method of a few climbs at 73 knots indicated and then glides. Flies level at 104 knots indicated cruising speed with turbine but uses more fuel which reduces range to about 90-100 miles. Diesel or Jet fuel both OK. One switch deploys and starts the turbine or shuts it and retracts when you’re done with it. Another knob for variable thrust. Very simple and reliable. No drag when stowed, very little when deployed.

This design really goes well at high speeds and with the polyhedral, handles and climbs beautifully. With water ballast in the wings it gets up to 720 kg MAUW so lots of inertia for dynamic soaring maneuvers.

https://youtu.be/I67dMh7gYkg

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Old timey hang gliding

January 23, 2019, 8:36:40 EST

Old timey hang gliding

1920's

Gary Osoba|sailplane|video

Gary Osoba <<osobagary>> writes:

1920’s newsreel showing some hang gliding in Lilienthal-type hang gliders (and others) early in video, various sailplane activities, and an early aero-tow near San Francisco that ended in a fatality.

https://youtu.be/sd-2RGM0SG8

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We're flying faster than you think

January 9, 2019, 8:27:32 EST

We're flying faster than you think

Or at least faster than your instrument tells you

Gary Osoba

https://ozreport.com/23.002#1

Gary Osoba writes in response to the article linked to above:

Regarding "as slow as 40 kmph"- that's not as slow as it should be and will hinder your climbing ability, which is something this design really excels at. You should be able to get down into the 36-37 kmh true range, and with the way most instruments are set up even lower indicated values since they will read artificially low. This is due to the pressure field influence from the wing. The same is true for flex wings and rigids. PG's get more accurate readings from instruments because they are further displaced from the wing vertically. To get accurate numbers requires a static source more than a span displaced. This can be done for calibration purposes by flying a trailing static bomb.

Two thoughts on lowering your velocity:

1) The CD was originally designed for Jim Maupin's weight and he was a small man- something like 135 lbs. Most C.D.'s need trim mass in the tail to get the C.G. in a good spot for climbing. Shoot for say 75-80% of the allowable range, toward the aft, and see how that works for you. Maybe your C.G. is already back there. But also be advised that CD's will spin and with the 55 square foot flap in thermalling position they can go over the top quickly when they do. There is a very dramatic q-factor delta spanwise at low speeds. Recovery is quick with stick forward but be advised.

2) That odd windscreen is likely promoting airflow separation at the wing root, altering your lift distribution in the center where it hurts the most. Maybe you can change it to something more similar to what is shown in the plans?

How are the twin small spoilers working? Have you been able to measure approach L/D's with them fully deployed?

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Landspouts

August 14, 2018, 7:52:43 MDT

Landspouts

Ten in a row

Carbon Dragon|Gary Osoba|record

Gary Osoba <<osobagary>> writes:

Once I was flying the prototype Carbon Dragon for Straight Distance World Records out of Hobbs, New Mexico. On one flight I was north of Tucumcari, New Mexico when an approaching front was accelerating toward me from the west. Due to the typically good visibility over the New Mexican desert, I could see this approach for several hours and was trying to get as far north as I could quickly.

When it accelerated, I was climbing at about 12,000’ and a series of cumulus clouds started forming quickly underneath me at about 9,000’, preceding the frontal line. These began to fill in and eventually did so completely.

As I prepared to top out and dive through the segment of the front toward the north, my wife and kids were chasing on the ground and about 15 miles behind. As the front approached her, my wife reported seeing a “wall of tornadoes” about 3 miles long” advancing rapidly across the desertscape. I couldn’t see this from my position, but it terrified her.

These were landspouts, such as the one seen near Big Spring. Later she said that there were at least 10 of these, spaced pretty evenly and extending into the frontal clouds.

After diving into the stable side of the front, I flew against a strong headwind as far to the north as I could before landing near Nara Visa, New Mexico. We quickly loaded the glider onto the open trailer and found helpful hangar owner further north at the Dalhart, Texas airport. He allowed us to store the glider there overnight. Within minutes of getting the glider inside, a huge thunderstorm hit and caused localized flash flooding.

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Out and return tasks

August 13, 2018, 8:50:59 CDT

Out and return tasks

Draw a 40 kilometer cylinder around the start point, go any direction, come back

Gary Osoba|Larry Bunner|weather

Larry Bunner <<lbunner>> writes:

The last two days of the 2018 Big Spring Nationals were quite difficult to predict weather wise for me. Even Gary Osoba was reluctant to offer his insights on the last day. I am still convinced that an out and return with a large radius exit cylinder that allows pilots to fly the task in the direction with the good weather would be the best answer on hard to predict days.

We wouldn’t have to change the task on the flight line as the weather conditions changed. In addition, it offers a new element of decision making to the race to goal format that is used all of the time in free flying. Unfortunately we couldn’t test it out.

Some pilots think there would be too much luck involved in such a task, but I think that is overreacting a bit. Sure there is an element of luck where a “lesser” pilot could take a line that produces a result better than the top pilots, but I think that would be an anomaly rather than the rule.

As you stated in the weekend's Oz Report there is luck involved already and this system has been in place for the past 40+ years. It is time to shake things up a bit and migrate toward tasks that reward individual decision making and less on the ability to follow other pilots.

It’s too bad that Florida isn’t conducive to this type of task. I doubt if I could convince the meet director to do this at SCFR but I’m gonna bring it up there.

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More flying at the 2018 Big Spring Nationals

August 9, 2018, 8:33:20 pm CDT

More flying at the 2018 Big Spring Nationals

A later start time

Gary Osoba|Larry Bunner

On this day (Tuesday, the second task day) I was not quite as fortunate as I was on the first task. I had been at 9,400' waiting for the start window to open but was lower at 8,300' but 4 km from the edge of the start cylinder at the first start time. I decided to wait for the second start as only one pilot had headed out. By the time the second start window came around I was down to 5,900' and 2.5 km for the edge of the start cylinder. Larry Bunner would take off but I would have to wait again for the third clock.

I spotted a cu to the south east with Gary Osoba circling in his Stemme (glider) near it. I wanted to go that direction anyway to get upwind of the course line so off I went.

I got in under the cu at 6,300' at just before the third start window opened, half a kilometer away from the edge of the start cylinder and climbed out at 550 fpm through the edge to 9,300'. I was very lucky to get that lift in exactly the right spot, even if I was five minutes late to going on glide.

The task line was right down wind to the north northwest and with cu's along the course line, unlike the area to the west where most of the pilots were. I was able to make great time and start catching up with the pilots who took the second clock.

The second leg was to the west northwest which still offered some tail wind component. It was a bit soft and I was down below 5,000' before I found the core of 530 fpm thermal near highway 87 back to over 9,200'.

The cu's had mostly disappeared and it was a bit trickier finding lift heading to the turnpoint. I was close to Larry Bunner but he was getting reasonable lift upwind a few kilometers south of the turnpoint. I went into the turnpoint 2 km radius cylinder over the small town and found 440 fpm just north of the small town. This put me downwind of the course line but back to 9,000' up from 5,200'. The wind was 16 mph at 162 degrees.

Reflecting on the lesson from the day before I was actually able to head east and get upwind of the course line and find lift from 5,000'. I had to work some thermals averaging around 300 fpm, but I had positioned myself correctly and when the 19 mph wind took me back to the course line I was still in a good position.  The course line was to the north northwest which was perfect for the now south southeast winds.

There was light sink along the the course line so I was able to glide for ten kilometers until just before the turnpoint and enter the thermal at 7,400'.  This beaut of the thermal averaged 4440 fpm and got me to 10,800' just in time to nick the 8KM turnpoint around the Tahoka airfield.

The wind was 19 mph at 166 degrees I headed due west for 27 kilometers toward the Brownfield airfield. I was north of the course line but it looked good.

At 22 kilometers out from goal I climbed back to 10,300'. That made it plenty of altitude to make it to goal.

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Microbursts without the rain

July 5, 2018, 6:53:08 MDT

Microbursts without the rain

In the high desert

Gary Osoba

Gary Osoba writes:

A very localized micro-burst in the high desert. There are updrafts at the outer edges as it propagates, but it's mostly turbulence. While most micro-bursts are associated with significant rain events and the rapid cooling of air that forms downdraft columns, in very dry areas (such as this one) the cool shaft may descend from cloud to ground long after any precipitation has evaporated.

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Diffusion tip glider

June 13, 2018, 6:20:28 pm MDT

Diffusion tip glider

Correcting an error on my part

Gary Osoba

http://ozreport.com/22.116#1

Gary Osoba wrote:

Experimental Pliable Moose Shearwater, circa late '74. 38% higher AR than anything at the time.

I asked him compared to what exactly. He wrote back:

Wills Wing SST, the Electra-Flyer version, which was essentially an exact copy of the SST. I was at Torrey Pines the day that Larry Newman shamelessly took a tape measure to the Wills Wing SST and within a month he was selling his version. The Bennett Phoenix came along about the same time and these three had very similar planforms.

The second paragraph in the article linked to above should refer to the Diffusion Tip glider from Gary not the Shearwater. Gary writes:

Pliable Moose Delta Wings, Inc. Diffusion Tip hang glider

This picture is of the Diffusion Tip, manufactured by my company - Pliable Moose Delta Wings, Inc. The Shearwater was also a model produced by my company. There were many features of the Diffusion Tip design that were cutting edge at the time.

Another example was the enlarged leading edge which produced more acceleration of airflow in the initial region of the airfoils employed. In this case, it was quite effective and modifications to this area of the airfoils can lead to appreciable deltas in the maximum airfoil coefficient of lift. This results in better take off, landing, and thermalling characteristics and allows a designer additional degrees of freedom in design.

In this case, we held the stall speeds constant relative to gliders with lesser max CsubL’s, and used the extra performance to reduce the total sail area. This expanded the speed range. With the Diffusion Tip design, we used a relatively soft foam sleeve around the leading edges to build up the diameter. This sort of approach was not seen again until UP’s Comet some 6 years later, with the stiff plastic leading edge insert being utilized. This has evolved into what is utilized in current gliders.

Speed gliding in Moriarty

May 31, 2018, 10:54:37 MDT

Speed gliding in Moriarty

Gary Osoba using dynamic soaring

Gary Osoba|sailplane

Gary's ASW 27 and Stemme in his hangar in Moriarty:

Gary Osoba <<osobagary>> writes:

Had a pretty good day yesterday. Still working through some instrument problems and very poor total energy indicator which is a major problem given the dynamic type of flying strategy that I employ.

The online contest runs total points based on distances and triangles, and a speed section which automatically calculates your fastest 2.5 hour segment. This is the ranking for May 30th based on the fastest 2.5 hour segment. I was number 1 out of the 496 sailplane flights in the world on that day and by a very large margin.

https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3.0/gliding/daily.html?rt=olc&sc=&sp=2018&st=olc-league&c=C0&df=2018-05-30

https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=6478854

Local pilot Mike Abernathy (#7 in speed yesterday) took top honors in the distance category by taking off way early and coming back way late. There are chances you take with an engine that are not so sensible in a pure glider.

https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=6478902

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Newly certified aerotowing Dragonfly pilot

January 17, 2018, 8:06:32 EST

Newly certified aerotowing Dragonfly pilot

Evgeniya Laritskaya

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

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

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

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

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

Evgeniya Laritskaya towing Bobby Bailey

She writes:

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

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

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

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

Gary Osoba writes:

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

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

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

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

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The tornado approaches

January 5, 2018, 7:40:52 EST

The tornado approaches

The horses react

Gary Osoba

Gary Osoba sends this:

A remarkable and large canvas (1.5m X .8m) by Frenchman André Lagrange. Glimpses the frantic moment when shepherds and herdsmen flee an oncoming storm. A tornado has just entered the panorama on the left horizon. Although rare, tornadoes do occur in Europe from time to time. I love the dynamism of the painting and how it captures the color and light of a pre-storm atmosphere. The artist was a bit of a French Thomas Hart Benton - he came to prominence in the post-depression 30’s and 40’s, painted many murals in public buildings (also panels at Casinos on the Riviera), and often depicted humble working men in a rather proletariat caricature or style.

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Pliable Moose

November 20, 2017, 9:29:02 PST

Pliable Moose

Gary Osoba

Gary Osoba

Gary Osoba

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Gary Osoba on the Weather Channel

January 4, 2017, 7:35:48 EST

Gary Osoba on the Weather Channel

Harvesting energy

Facebook|Gary Osoba|video|weather

https://www.facebook.com/gary.osoba/posts/1348137225216998

https://youtu.be/comqWn6uZJU

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Thermal Shark

November 24, 2016, 8:34:21 PST

Thermal Shark

Breaking the Wright Brothers soaring record at Kitty Hawk

Gary Osoba|record|Wright Brothers

Gary Osoba writes:

Thanksgiving Day, 1974:

A call from John Harris of Kitty Hawk Kites, North Carolina reports that a hang glider pilot just broken the site record for endurance, the first flight ever over one hour. The original site and World Record was set by the Wright Brothers on October 24, 1911 and lasted 9 minutes and 45 seconds.

Here's a shot of me flying the original "Thermal Shark," which I designed and manufactured for several years during the 1970's. This was the model that broke the Wright Brothers original record.

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Shear lines

August 17, 2016, 1:26:20 pm MST -0600

Shear lines

You can see them. Gary Osoba sees this in New Mexico.

Facebook|Gary Osoba

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2016 Big Spring Nationals

August 10, 2016, 8:32:57 CST -0500

2016 Big Spring Nationals

The widely scattered rains came

Gary Osoba|US Nationals 2016

Gary Osoba's Stemme and the Flight for Life helicopter at the Big Spring Airport yesterday:

Wednesday and Thursday look very good.

2016 Big Spring Nationals

August 9, 2016, 7:12:13 pm CST -0500

2016 Big Spring Nationals

Day 3, cancelled

Belinda Boulter|Gary Osoba|US Nationals 2016

The first time ever that we've cancelled a task just based on the radar images.

This was the task that was called:

There was a sky full of left over clouds just after dawn. Later in the morning these gave way to cirrus clouds that suppressed the lift.  As we approached 1 PM cu's began to form under the cirrus clouds and we had the best looking cu's over the air field relative to the previous two days.

With good looking cu's Anna took off early but didn't stick.

I launched third after Bruce. He had pinned off early and was coming back to launch again. Gregg pulled me almost due south and I pinned off in light lift. There were plenty of cu's around me and I went under them to find 600 fpm to 9,000'.

There were soon five pilots in the air and getting high under the well formed cu's. Then Belinda came on the radio. Cory and I and Bruce are the safety committee and Belinda asked Cory and I how it looked to us. She was talking to Bruce who was first in line to launch. Gary Osoba were looking at the radar in their phones and it looked like there was a storm to the north northeast and to our west and approaching us.

It looked good to us, as we could not see the tops of the cu's. We said that we were doing fine and it was not up to us to cancel the day. Belinda took our input and the radar images and canceled the task.

Later there was rain, at least at our hotel on the north end of Big Spring.

2016 Big Spring Nationals

August 7, 2016, 11:52:49 pm CST -0500

2016 Big Spring Nationals

Task 1, cross wind to Fish

Bruce Barmakian|Facebook|Gary Osoba|Kevin Carter|Larry Bunner|PG|Tom McGowan|US Nationals 2016|video

https://www.facebook.com/lbunner/videos/vb.608622342/10153653592392343/?type=2&theater

The winds are predominantly south here in Big Spring and we come to fly in August when the winds are supposed to be a bit lighter. We have often had triangle and out and return tasks here, but it looks like we will have moderate south winds  (10 - 15 mph surface) for the next couple days at least.

The task committee ( Larry Bunner, Tom McGowan, and Derreck Turner) decided to send the sport class basically downwind 74 km on a dogleg to La Mesa. They sent those of us in open class on the secondary task 127 km east northeast to Winston airfield west of Snyder and then to the airfield Fish southeast of Rotan. So a cross wind task the whole way.

Gary Osoba is here flying his two place Stemme and checked out the region for us encouraging us to stay to the drier areas to the north east. More standing water up north of La Mesa and by Lubbock apparently as well as to the west and northwest.

With two trikes pulling the nineteen pilots (ten in open and nine in sport) we got everyone off in two hours. The wind was brisk out of the south but with a ten kilometer start cylinder it was not that difficult to stay within the radius waiting for the start time, an hour after the first launch at 2:00 PM. A second start at 2:20 PM for our race task. The sport class had an elapsed time task that starts their task when they individually cross the circumference of the start cylinder.

I was third off after Derreck and Larry with Bruce Barmakian just behind me. Trike tows can be pretty lively and mine was no exception. I pinned off early at 1,500' in light lift and climbed out at 115 fpm on average. Bruce was pulled over to me and we climbed together for the next forty five minutes to just below cloud base at 9,000'. Larry joined us just before the start window opened.

We had pushed our way further to the east and to the south east to get in a better position in the start cylinder for the course line that went to the east northeast. Still with the 16 mph south wind we were 5 km north of the course line at the start. I headed out and took a line heading easterly while Larry and Bruce went further to the north of me a bit more downwind of the course line toward the clouds that they thought looked better.  I didn't see them again until much later in the task.

I was in radio contact with Cory Barnwell who was upwind of the course line and we kept each other updated on our progress, which was about the same. The sky was full of cu's and it was a game of connect the dots down highway 350 to Snyder. I worked my way a little more upwind each chance I got to go to a particular cloud.

After climbs of 500 to 600 fpm to almost 10,000' I headed east for the town of Ira south of Snyder which had a nice looking cu over it. I lost significant altitude gliding toward it and found nothing organized as I approached it. I decided to turn south for a more solid looking cu.

This worked but only at 250 fpm and I had to give up on it after getting up a bit and being able to drift to the north to the original cu. Still only 250 fpm, so I had to go again looking for better cu's and better lift and finally found 460 fpm and got back in the game after wasting some time. Cory found it first and was now ahead of me.

Tagging the airfield I headed east to stay upwind of the course line and found strong lift, 400 - 600 fpm but the south wind pushed me downwind of the course line every time I thermalled up. That required going a bit upwind to get to goal.

Bruce won the day, with Derreck second, Cory third, I was fourth, Larry in next and then Kevin Carter, Tom McGowan, and David Whittle.  Anna was a little short.

The scores will be up in the morning as I am teaching Kelly Myrkle how to score.

The air was quite pleasant. The thermal were well formed despite the wind. Their strength was good and in some cases pilots found over 1000 fpm. We did see over development way to our north after the task. There were outstanding cu's in the sky after 7 PM.

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/flightinfo.html?flightId=1750982650

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/getScoring.html?scoringId=319

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/1472875

http://wxc.fai.org/module.php?id=22&l=en&date=20160324&contest=INT&gliderclass=hg1

http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/7.8.2016/18:39

http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/ranking-hg-open/

Gary Osoba on the Weather Channel

July 15, 2016, 7:58:30 MST -0600

Gary Osoba on the Weather Channel

Tornados

Gary Osoba|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|PG|weather

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

Weather Geeks episode at 10am Eastern. Dr. Shepherd and myself discussing atmospheric physics behind paraglider, hang gliders, and gliders.

Documentary on WRE and Jonny’s attempts at 10pm. Both on July 24th.

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Ben sets new world record for 100 km triangle

June 28, 2016, 6:09:54 pm MST -0600

Ben sets new world record for 100 km triangle

Zapata is great when the wind doesn't blow

Gary Osoba|record

Gary Osoba writes the Benjamin Herring set a new 100 km triangle world record on Monday.

Current record: http://www.fai.org/fai-record-file/?recordId=14927

Jean-François Violette (FRA)

Moreson Farm - Malta Hohe (Namibia)

46.3 km/h

2008-01-10

Ben's task:

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2016 World Record Encampment »

June 22, 2016, 1:59:54 pm MST -0600

2016 World Record Encampment

Out landings in the blue

Gary Osoba|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Niki Longshore|record|weather|World Record Encampment 2016

Gary Osoba writes:

Australian Jonny Durand, number one ranked Hang Glider pilot in the world, was launched about 9:40am today on a distance record attempt. Conditions dried out and he decided to deck it after a few hours to save energy for the next attempt. Niki Longshore launched around 1pm, attempting a personal best. We've had great film crews here from Red Bull North American and the Weather Channel, getting some outstanding shots which include drone footage. Yesterday I gave an interview to Popular Science about what we do here. More pilots on their way, and better conditions to come.

Weather Channel Documentary will air July 17th at 10pm eastern.

Jonny landed next to highway 83, our normal route north, north of Laredo, and north of the visitor center at the intersection of highway 83 and I35.

Niki landed south east of Laredo next to the Manango Heins dirt road. Should have an okay retrieve. Not super smooth, but better than behind locked gates.

Moisture to go along with the winds would be nice.

Note that where we fly was dry and the sky blue. So many cu's a little further east. 2:37 PM central daylight time.

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2016 World Record Encampment »

June 22, 2016, 9:13:22 MST -0600

2016 World Record Encampment

Cu's before sunrise

Gary Osoba|record|weather|World Record Encampment 2016

Gary Osoba writes:

I awoke at 3:30 am and have been busy looking at weather data since. First, a look at the classic Zapata Dry Line right at the Mexican border, picture taken at 3:40 am with the nearly full moon at the top. It's a little hard to see due to low light, but notice the nice line of cumulus clouds formed purely by mixing air masses, no solar heating.

Here’s a look at the 10am forecast Dry Line phenomenon which allows for such early starts out of the Zapata County Airport. Mapped is Relative Humidity in the Boundary Layer with winds plotted at 2000’- a good average for the layer below the top of the lift or clouds. Notice the excellent velocity and direction of the winds, and the compression of dry air from Mexico on the west mixing with the Gulf moisture from the east.

Yes, the cumulus clouds form in the dark in Zapata. The over running with a solid deck of cumulus clouds forms around sunrise if not earlier.

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2016 World Record Encampment »

June 21, 2016, 6:05:24 pm MST -0600

2016 World Record Encampment

Flight conditions

Gary Osoba|record|weather|World Record Encampment 2016

The visible satellite view on the 21st at 4:37:

The forecast for 4PM on the 22nd. Wind at top of lift in mph, strong lift:

Gary Osoba writes:

I’ve been studying the weather for the next two days very closely. As a result, right now tomorrow looks better than Thursday to me. Here’s why:

1) The moist airmass we enjoyed today was certainly sufficient to produce numerous cumulus clouds throughout the day. As we progress into the weekend, dew points will likely drop and cloud production will too. I am concerned that at some point, it will dry out and we will go cloudless over a significant part of our optimal course line.

2) Whereas previously it appeared that the winds would increase daily into the weekend, tomorrow may provide an exception with higher winds than the following day. This may prove particularly true toward the afternoon and evening portion of a record flight. A cold front will be moving down into Kansas, above the panhandle region, and this will influence winds throughout the TX and OK panhandle areas, strengthening them.

I will continue to check the weather between now and the availability of 4 am data tomorrow, and things could change. But what we often need most at the WRE is a strong recommendation to go on one day or another in a set of two or three candidate days. Right now, I am recommending that we be ready to launch and go as soon as conditions warrant on tomorrow, June 22nd. There will be a detailed forecast in the morning.

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2016 World Record Encampment »

June 20, 2016, 8:49:44 MST -0600

2016 World Record Encampment

It has started

Bobby Bailey|Dragonfly|Dustin Martin|Gary Osoba|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|record|weather|World Record Encampment 2016

Jonny Durand's attempt to break Dustin Martin's 475 mile world record for flex wing open distance is on in Zapata. Jonny is there. Bobby Bailey is there. Mick Howard with his Dragonfly and trike is there. The Red Bull filming crew is there.

They apparently don't have the liability insurance issue dealt with completely yet. But hopefully by Wednesday, when the conditions look good, it'll all the taken care of.

The Weather Channel filming crew isn't there yet. Maybe they are just going to rely on the Red Bull crew.

http://www.livescience.com/55117-hang-glider-attempts-record-breaking-flight.html

On or soon after Monday (June 20), Jonny Durand will attempt to glide from Zapata, in southern Texas, to Lorenzo, in northern Texas, a distance of about 475 miles (764 kilometers). Aiding him on his journey — on (or around) the summer solstice, the longest day of the year — are what may be the most ideal atmospheric conditions for long-distance hang-gliding on Earth.

Zapata is also home to winds "that blow in a pretty straight line for a long distance," Durand said. "It's why world hang-gliding records have been set here for the past 15, 16 years."

"[At] most places on Earth, weather systems change every few hundred miles or so, but by Zapata, the winds are very strong and steady for 500 miles or more in a straight line," said Gary Osoba, an aerospace engineer and atmospheric physicist who recently retired from Google. Osoba previously set numerous world gliding records himself.

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Gary Osoba at the Weather Channel

June 10, 2016, 7:27:14 MST -0600

Gary Osoba at the Weather Channel

Talking micro meteorology

Facebook|Gary Osoba|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|record|video|weather

https://www.facebook.com/TheWeatherChannel/videos/10154341360260921/

Dave Malkoff is speaking to astrophysicist Gary Osoba about how he plays a role in Jonny Durand's record breaking flight in a hang glider?

https://www.facebook.com/gary.osoba?fref=ts

BTW, Gary is not an astrophysicist. Atmospheric scientist.

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2016 World Record Encampment »

June 7, 2016, 8:48:51 MST -0600

2016 World Record Encampment

Jonny gets Red Bull to fund his attempt to break Dustin's world record

Dustin Martin|Facebook|Gary Osoba|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|record|video|weather|World Record Encampment 2016

The weather channel is interested in getting the video produced by the attempt and will send out a video team. Gary Osoba flies out to Atlanta on Wednesday to talk to the Weather Channel people.

https://www.facebook.com/TheWeatherChannel/videos/10154335291720921/

Exclusive LIVE interview with Jonny Durand, who is going to attempt to break the open distance hang gliding world record this summer with Red Bull. Get your questions ready!

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Moriarty

June 6, 2016, 10:47:22 pm MST -0600

Moriarty

Hanging out at the sailplane port

Gary Osoba|sailplane

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.9834666,-106.0042297,15.79z

http://www.omagdigital.com/article/Cross+Country+Online+Contest+Soaring+Camp+%E2%80%93+Moriarty%2C+NM/2223472/0/article.html

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightsOfAirfield.html?aa=MORIA1&st=olcp&rt=olc&c=C6&sc=&sp=2016

We are here near Moriarty, New Mexico hanging out with Gary Osoba and Mark Mocho.

The precursor for a day with Tornado warnings over the airfield. This shot taken next to the grid of sailplanes ready for the 2016 OLC Camp

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Leaving Big Spring

August 11, 2015, 7:18:18 MDT

Leaving Big Spring

A few photos

competition|Dragonfly|Gary Osoba|photo|Russell "Russ" Brown

https://airtribune.com/2015-big-spring-nationals/results

https://airtribune.com/2015-big-spring-nationals/blog__day_7

Gary Osoba fueling Russell Brown's Dragonfly, final day's launch sequence.

2015 Big Spring Nationals - task 5 »

August 6, 2015, 10:27:59 pm CDT

2015 Big Spring Nationals - task 5

Only a few pilots didn't make it

Gary Osoba|Robin Hamilton|US Nationals 2015|weather

Replay: https://airtribune.com/play/870/2d

Well, this certainly has been an unusual year in Big Spring. With all the rain that they have had the ground was wet out to the northwest yesterday so we weren't able to get up after the turnpoint. Gary Osoba is here and helped Larry with the weather and we got headed to the east where things should tend to be drier for the task today and the next few days.

The winds were out of the south again in the 10 to 15 mph range again. We come to Big Spring in August as we are looking for lighter winds that allowus to come back to the airport. So far this year (and last) no luck (we came back one day last year).

It looked like it wouldn't be good until later in the day today so the task committee called the launch at 2 PM and sent Gary up in his ASW 27at 1:30 PM to see what was up. He climbed to 6,700' feet but then said the inversion was strong (which was why we weren't seeing any cumulus clouds).

The task committee held us back until a 3:15 PM start with a task change that would take us more down wind. Shorter also, a mere 68 kilometers.

I launched early and climbed to 8,800' right away and as the lift reduced headed to a small gaggle to the south in the start cylinder but there was no lift when I got there and five or six pilots were now high over my head. I thought that I might not be able to make the first start clock at 4 PM now.

Went to the east over the park and the hospital on high ground and found enough lift to get me back to 8,000'. Larry was on the radio with me and told me where he was to the east north of the high school football field. We climbed to 8,500' at the edge of the start cylinder in a 8 mph downwind and took the second clock with Larry to the south.

Zac was to my north a bit and had seen Larry and I climbing but stopped for lift before he got to us and climbed higher. Larry and I headed out and I found a better line over highway 350 as Larry lost altitude to my south and off the course line.

I took the lead and apparently got in front of lots of folks who had taken the first start clock. There were no cu's but there was good lift and even though the wind turned to the south (as it had been before it was pretty easy to stay on the course line or just upwind of it.

Zac was high behind and above me and a little to my north. He caught to me about half way through the task and then came over me again at about 12 km from goal and passed me at that point. Robin Hamilton was high quite a ways behind.

I found good lift and climbed until I had goal by 2000' (after missing it a few days back with 1000'). Derrick Turned came in under me low.

I raced to goal but Robin was higher and behind me and I didn't know he was there. At the last moment I saw him on my left and we raced to the goal cylinder, second and third for the day.

Almost all the pilots made it to goal so it was a real race day.

Rattling the tin cup »

March 23, 2015, 8:25:45 EDT

Tin Cup

Spring has arrived (but it was already here)

Davis Straub|Gary Osoba|Quest Air|USHPA|video|weather

Northern pilots have arrived leaving the snow and salt behind. The weather, while mixed for the coming week, has been quite good, better than the forecast on Sunday.

Gary Osoba responds to my comments re on shore flow. You'll find them in the Oz Report forum, here. The USHPA sends an expulsion hearing notice to Bob K. You also find it in the forum here. The forum requires you to register and sign in.

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The Woodstock

January 22, 2015, 8:36:16 EST

The Woodstock

Gary and his record flight from Zapata

Gary Osoba|record

http://ozreport.com/12.143#11

http://www.ul-segelflug.de/f-a-e/433-woodstock-one-ultralight-elegance-in-pure-wood.html

Gary Osoba, a well known US and international recognized hang-glider and ultralight-glider pilot, made in his Woodstock One several US- and world-record-flights in the FAI-Class Ultralight-Glider (DU) since 1998. His most notable record flight, Osoba completed on July 19th, 2008, when he flew his Woodstock One from Zapata/Texas to Lubock/Texas with a distance of 815,48 km zin 09:01 hours. This was the longest "Free Distance" accomplished with a Woodstock so far. But the new FAI-record was not accepted by the FAI, as Gary used a Zander-Logger which was not recognized by FAI-Regulations.

http://www.fai.org/fai-record-file/?recordId=9636

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2014 Big Spring Nationals »

August 15, 2014, 6:17:36 MDT

2014 Big Spring Nationals

Surprise guests

David Glover|Gary Osoba|record|US Nationals 2014

David Glover showed up on the practice day for the welcome dinner and the first competition day. All the Big Spring folks in addition to the pilots were glad to see him. He ran the Big Spring Nationals for 11 years. We just took it over for him last year.

David was in Dallas and instead of heading straight back to Oklahoma City he headed west for Big Spring. It sure was great to see him.

Gary Osoba escaped the monsoons in New Mexico and came over with the Woodstock for a few hours soaring on the last two days. Also great to see him back in Texas. There was no World Record Encampment this year.

Gary and Christine now live in Cedar Crest and Gary works out of Moriarity for this company which was recently purchased by Google. Solar airplane in the stratosphere.

2014 Italian Nationals »

August 14, 2014, 7:50:42 MDT

2014 Italian Nationals

Final glide

Gary Osoba|Italian Nationals 2014|video

The video of the race between Alex and Pedro: http://youtu.be/qeqaRRL1zuc

Thanks to Gary Osoba.

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Hebbronville⁣ ATOS encampment »

Sat, Jul 12 2014, 11:27:37 am MDT

BJ going for the distance to goal record

Gary Osoba|PG|record

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0vogCqLETix64tlDeKj0N5CHeqsH3kg6o

No World Record Encampment this year due to overloaded work with Charlie at the Zapata County airport and Gary Osoba's work load. Next year Gary expects it to return. BJ ran down to Hebbronville for a few days and this is his last day. The goal is Big Spring. He's doing great after a bit of a late start.

Gary still likes Zapata better (but he knows that Hebbronville is better for the paraglider pilots, as I have pointed out in previous articles). He says that it has been raining near Hebbronville over the last week and the ground is wet. They've had low overcast clouds in the morning.

BJ currently holds the record: http://www.fai.org/fai-record-file/?recordId=15125

BJ landed just north of Sterling City along highway 87 about 40 miles south of Big Spring.

335 miles (539 km):

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Green sky

June 2, 2014, 7:26:58 EDT

Green sky

Iola, Kansas Supercell

Gary Osoba|video

http://vimeo.com/91237072

Gary Osoba writes:

Kansas "thermals". Note the characteristic green near the upper right from about 2:30 on. If you're in the air and you haven't already found enough reasons to get out of there or land, the green is produced by prismatic effects when large hail is present in the supercell. Get out of there.

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Birds, problem solvers

March 14, 2014, 9:36:07 EDT

Birds, problem solvers

Carry a big stick

Gary Osoba|video|wildlife|wildlife

http://youtu.be/AVaITA7eBZE

Thanks to Gary Osoba.

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NASA's Dr. Albion Bowers

January 24, 2014, 9:20:21 pm GMT+0900

NASA's Dr. Albion Bowers

Proverse

David Glover|Facebook|Gary Osoba|Paul MacCready|record|Richard Miller

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

Your piece on Al Bowers highlights the tip of a remarkable iceberg which Al inhabits. Your readers may not know that Al started in hang gliders, and his research quest for the most efficient wing has taken him through a century of past iterations and discovery, culminating in his own unique contributions. The proverse yaw studied by Dr. Bowers with this model incorporates earlier findings of Prandlt, the Hortens, American RT Jones, and even recent model work by Bob Hoey. However, the model utilizes a geometric configuration that results in the least induced drag for its design point when normal design considerations (such as structural weight and bending moment) are included. This is of bigger import than the proverse yaw, in my estimation.

Al from his Facebook page, flying what appears to be an early Seagull III.

Al has proven to be quite an historian as well, and has chronicled the developments through a century or so of time, always giving credit where it is due but usually refraining from taking any credit himself, although often due. I first met him when we were both guest lecturers at MIT for the last Symposium on Low Speed and Motorless Flight, arranged by Dr. Mark Drela. Other lecturers were our friend Dr. Paul MacCready, OSTIV President Prof. Loek Boermans, then Stanford's Prof. Ilan Kroo (of Swift fame), and a member or two of the MIT Daedelus Human Powered Aircraft project since the occasion was the 10th anniversary of its record flight. In my opinion, Al Bowers is at the top of a very refined list of people worldwide who truly understand flying wings.

Al is a bright, creative, competent and humble man, who like many others of his kind, loves hang gliders. I believe you met him when you and Dave Glover attended my lecture on dynamic soaring research at Tehachapi in 2000. In recent years, Al has been coordinating the lectures and presentations at that event, taking over these duties from the remarkable Bruce Carmichael, the man who designed and built Richard Miller's first Rogallo.

Al's slide show here.

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2013 World Record Encampment »

July 30, 2013, 11:43:46 CDT

2013 World Record Encampment

Update

Attila Bertok|Gary Osoba|record|World Record Encampment 2013

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

The three WRE goal pilots are making good time, and thermaling just east of Laredo at 11:20 am. Here's a shot taken live by BJ Herring on the Atos VX with his iPhone- at the top of the stack. Attila Bertok and Mike Bilyk climbing out below:

Nocona is east of Wichita Falls, 479 miles out, just south of the Oklahoma border. That is Attila's goal, hoping to capture both records. The others are tagging along.

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2013 World Record Encampment »

July 30, 2013, 11:16:59 CDT

2013 World Record Encampment

The day after

Gary Osoba|record|video|World Record Encampment 2013

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

Yesterday proved challenging and fulfilling for Mike Bilyk and BJ Herring. They flew for a combined distance of around 500 miles, with BJ going further than his current Distance to a Goal world record for Rigid Wing by forty percent, but not making his goal (386 miles out from Zapata). He had declared a goal at Sweetwater, TX and knew that cloud shading would come into play late afternoon and evening. As it turned out, one more high climb and glide would likely have allowed him to make goal but it was not to be. He landed in the thick shading, 321 miles out.

The remarkable thing is that the air mass dried out considerably and both he and Mike flew in the blue all day. Strong Zapata winds still added up the miles, and Mike Bilyk exceeded his personal distance record of 104 miles, logging about 163 miles before missing a thermal before the Hill Country. He raised the bar 160% on his personal best distance and was ready to go today right after Attila launched at 10:01 am. Mike was in the air at 10:11 and BJ, after driving back all night and sleeping a few hours was off by about 10:21 am.

Attila's launch on what could be a record day:

All three pilots have declared Nocona, TX as a goal and in the first half hour are making good times with a 3,000' cloudbase and 18-20 knot winds aloft.

http://www.flytrace.com/Tracker/map.aspx?group=155

Sylmar pilot OK Price is preparing to launch for personal best, and has provided another daily video of a Day in the Life at the WRE.

http://youtu.be/jjRrYAOnqqw

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2013 World Record Encampment »

July 29, 2013, 2:53:26 pm CDT

2013 World Record Encampment

Mike and BJ on the chase

Gary Osoba|record|video|World Record Encampment 2013

Bobby Bailey|Gary Osoba|record|video|World Record Encampment 2013

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

The past several days have seen some great local flying, as a rare mid- summer cold front made it all the way down to the gulf coast. Its influence precluded long distance flights but several triangle attempts with remarkably strong conditions at time were made. Pilots were late launching on Saturday, likely the best of these days, when some small OD cells grayed out the course.

Here's a video compilation of life in Zapata that day, along with a message from OK Price who shot it: "28th had climbs to 8700, My 10 second averager showed 1200 up. Too much wind for triangles. Fun abundant climbs."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6jyt9aETqA

After launching the pilots, I went up in the Silent 2 Electro and had some fun runs in the grayed out overdevelopment. It took a little while to get up, but after doing so I had four runs along a 25-30 mile line without circling at average speeds around 83 mph and top speeds about 125mph. A low speed low altitude pass before landing at 156 mph groundspeed was, well, Silent. The hour and a half flight was a blast.

Early on Saturday, Bobby bailey gave BJ Herring a tow in the tandem Falcon and both put on an aerobatic display for the Zapata Boy and Girls Club. BJ landed exactly to a spot at the Club's field.

Attila has launched at 12 pm after some glider tuning, and has declared Garden City, TX as a Goal today.

Attila landed nine miles out at the San Ygnacio road. At 3 PM Mike and BJ are about 150 miles out just south of Uvalde. BJ's goal is Sweetwater, Texas, west of Abilene.

A historical perspective here.

BJ's previous rigid wing distance to goal record here.

BJ has a 300+ mile flight landing just east northeast of San Angelo..

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2013 World Record Encampment »

Fri, Jul 26 2013, 5:02:58 pm CDT

The front cometh

B.J. Herring|Gary Osoba|Glen Volk|Jim Yocom|Mike Bilyk|Orion Price|record|Robin Hamilton|World Record Encampment 2013

Gary Osoba«wosoba» writes:

Thursday was a good day for flights of 100-175 miles, with frontal activity in the Hill Country and north limiting further distances. Local flying in the afternoon was spectacular, and might repeat today. As such, a task committee of Jim Yocum, Atilla Bertok and BJ Herring is calling an FAI 100km triangle task for possible World Speed records.

On Thursday, Jim Yokum and BJ Herring flew the route to Crystal City and landed early to make it back to recoup. BJ described a low save that started with a few turns at 700-800 fpm, followed by a solid 1000-1100 fpm to cloudbase. Robin Hamilton and Glen Volk flew on to Uvalde. Attila made two runs to the Laredo area and is continuing to tune his glider.

I flew locally along with Mike Bilyk and Orion Price. We found similar thermal strengths, close spacing, and CB at about 8500' agl later in the afternoon. Mike said most all of his climbs were 800-900 fpm, with several exceeding that including a short section peaking at 1400 fpm on the averager. Big, smooth lift with all of the clouds working.

Here's a cockpit shot I took mid-afternoon under one of the many streets:

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2013 World Record Encampment »

July 25, 2013, 11:54:59 CDT

2013 World Record Encampment

Into the danger zone

Gary Osoba|Glen Volk|Jim Yocom|record|Robin Hamilton|video|World Record Encampment 2013

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

This morning dawned in Zapata with nice winds and cumulus forming up by 8 am. At 9:23 I launched in the Electro Silent to check lift and winds aloft, switching off the electric propulsion system at about 800'. Cloudbase was 1900' agl with light but consistent lift. I was able to maintain and work upwind in a height band from 1200'-1700' until things switched on better about 9:45, when Attila launched in a Distance to Goal attempt with Garden City, TX as his goal.

 By 10:00, thermals were 500 fpm in the cores and all of the clouds were working. I did two downwind runs at about 100 mph groundspeeds, and the dynamic pullups in the downwind thermals regained lost altitude each time. The Electro Silent has surprisingly good high speed energy retention for the mass and span.

Glen Volk followed Attila, then BJ Herring and Jim Yocum. Robin Hamilton, current US National Flex Wing Champion, came in overnight and assembled his Swift for a launch around 11:00. No reports of pilots on the ground as of 11:30 am.

Here's video from OK Price, son of legendary early hang glider pilot Chris Price who along with the Wills Brothers, innovated many advancements in the early years. I haven't seen Chris for years, but being in his son's presence provides a vivid genetic reminder. The video shows Mike Bilyk with some radical RC helicopter moves, BJ on landing, and one of OK first tows and flights here at the WRE.

http://youtu.be/eWs4MLq7OOA

2013 World Record Encampment »

July 24, 2013, 12:41:23 pm CDT GMT-0500

2013 World Record Encampment

Into the blue

cart|Gary Osoba|Glen Volk|Jim Yocom|record|sailplane|World Record Encampment 2013

Gary Osoba <wosoba> writes:

Several pilots are attempting Distance to a Pre-Declared Goal World Records Today, despite blue conditions at the start. Here's BJ Herring coming off the cart at 10:19 am:

Glen Volk started his task shortly thereafter.

See their live SPOT track logs here.

And Attila's SPOT track log here.

Most pilots have declared Big Spring, TX and Attila has declared Garden City, TX after a relight to fetch his sunglasses.

The first few days of the WRE have seen pilots setting up, tuning gliders, and practice flying. The first day of full flying had some fabulous local conditions, allowing pilots to size up the terrain and the sky.

 I had a short practice flight in the Electro Silent Light Sailplane, connecting with the Zapata Coudstreet late afternoon. I ran it 4 times, about 20 miles each, after circling a few times at the beginning of the first run and none thereafter. Each run was faster with last 20 mile leg averaging 112 MPH and no appreciable altitude loss. After a low pass at 156 MPH and landing, I think I'm going to really like this one.

The next day all the pilots took a quick run up to Laredo to practice the early run and check out the Laredo airspace avoidance issue. A heavy rain the night before squashed distance beyond that point but after a rather long retrieve for BJ and Jim Yocom, all were back and ready to fly the next day.

Two of the first four days the mornings have the Zapata convergence zone evident - dry Pacific subsidence on the right contacting lively moist Atlantic/Gulf moisture on the left.

The final pilot for this year's WRE is on his way from Valle de Bravo, MX- -site of the next Hang Gliding World Championship. We expect Dutch-born Leon van Seeders to arrive tonight or tomorrow.

Update: Heavy Cirrus band moved in north around Laredo. Looks like its putting some pilots down early.

Looks like Attila made it about twelve miles to the San Ygnacio Road. Other pilots are in territories where it will take a bit to get out, but perhaps through the Mangana-Hein road, quite a bit south of Laredo.

BJ's landing spot here.

Looks like Mike Bilyk got a helicopter ride out:

2013 World Record Encampment »

July 17, 2013, 10:30:38 CDT

2013 World Record Encampment

Attila

Attila Bertok|Dustin Martin|Gary Osoba|Glen Volk|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Kraig Coomber|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|Mike Barber|Pete Lehmann|record|Robin Hamilton|sailplane|Wills Wing|World Record Encampment 2013

Gary Osoba<<wosoba>> writes:

WRE 2013- Who's Flying What?

When the World Championships were held at Big Spring, TX, USA in 2007, Attila Bertok proved to be the very best Flex Wing pilot in crankin' Texas conditions. He'll be picking up the latest Moyes racer from Kraig Coomber and traveling directly to the WRE. Word is he'll also be carrying a second hotly tuned racer for Glen Volk, former US National Champion. Glen flew very impressively at last year's WRE and is an outstanding distance pilot. Will he or Attila be the first to shatter the 500 mile barrier? Another Moyes pilot, current US National Champion Robin Hamilton plans to join the effort during key days. Robin's healing up from a recent shoulder surgery and it's not known yet whether he'll be flying in his Moyes or will bring his Swift.

Former World Record holders for Distance to Goal out of Zapata, Pete Lehmann and Mike Barber, both fly Wills Wing Talons. Of course, Dustin Martin raised the bar last year when he flew the new World Record distance of 475 miles in his T2C. Pete will be swinging for the fence after graciously coaching Jonny Durand on FAI record filings last year, helping him to submit the paperwork detailing the eclipse of his own long-standing record. Mike is trying to make this year's WRE but has had a tight schedule since recently returning from the UK. Up and coming comp pilot Mike Bilyk (11th at the recent Flytec Americus meet) will also be on a T2C for his first WRE. Engineer and pilot OK Price is another Wills pilot, coming fresh off flying trips to the Owens and southern Utah. He'll be "flying for personal bests", but who knows? Records are made to broken and with WRE conditions, anything is possible.

We're especially happy to see current World Record holder BJ Herring, US AIR importer, returning to the WRE to fly In the Rigid Class. He'll be joined by his mentor and current US National Champion, Jim Yokom. We understand that BJ and Jim will be flying the hottest Atos's, in BJ's case the high performance big one that's fast and flat- whether solo or tandem.

A couple of the pilots have asked what I'll be flying this year? I'm on the road and will pick up a fascinating new electrically powered sailplane- the Silent 2 Electro- tomorrow. Then trailer it to the WRE for a Friday arrival.

This auxiliary powered sailplane is the first of it's kind and the first in the US. After electric launch, the motor is switched off and flight as a pure glider begins, Specially approved loggers monitor any further motor use to preclude record filings. Of course in the case of poor pilot judgment and task abandonment, the convenience of a flip switch and the resultant "save" or cruise back home is a real luxury.

What makes the Electro unique is the integral folding prop, which is designed for max simplicity and reliability. It's cleverly engineered so as to contribute negligible drag to the high performing Silent 2 platform.

The original Silent 2 WR was built specially to meet the mass criteria and set World Records in the FAI DU light sailplane category. The prototype was debuted at a prior WRE, after Alisport engineers worked diligently to meet mass requirements including my flying weight- even employing special titanium fittings to trim the final few pounds. It was a great privilege to conduct the flight test program on this glider, then coach US importer Leo Benneti-Lhongini to his first World Records- flown in the prototype from the WRE. This platform has flown very impressively, as noted from the manufacturer's website:

We have an opening for one more pilot at this year's WRE. We keep it small and focused so that participants can max out their effort. Contact me if you'd like to come fly personal best distances, rub shoulders with some of the top pilots in the world, or attempt your own World Record: <wosoba>. There's still time.

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2013 World Record Encampment »

July 16, 2013, 8:30:36 CDT

2013 World Record Encampment

Waiting for the good weather to return

Gary Osoba|record|weather|World Record Encampment 2013

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

The 2013 WRE is nearly upon us. We have a couple of openings for pilots to fly for their personal best distances, or swing for the fence and the World Record 500 mile mark. We set up this Friday, start flying Saturday, and go through month end. Pilots can come for the first week, the second, all of it or anything in between. Contact me for details: <wosoba>.

The large-scale weather patterns which deliver consistently good results are moving into place nicely. Here's about as far out as we can look at the isobaric pressure patterns with any reliability. The remarkable tailwinds we have come to love in Zapata start setting up on Saturday, building Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. They all look very good right now. Strong, long, and from the right direction.

When the winds blow with these patterns, that's when the clouds and streets tend line up just right for incredibly long flights. It could change some but these stable, day after day patterns are what make the commitment worthwhile and the flying the best in the world. Here are next Monday’s forecast winds in the morning and evening at approximately 5,000’- roughly the middle of the lift band.

And here’s a view down the Zapata County Airport runway.

We're looking forward to some fabulous flying this year.

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2013 World Record Encampment »

July 12, 2013, 8:56:11 CDT

2013 World Record Encampment

Now without the BBC

Belinda Boulter|Dustin Martin|Gary Osoba|Jim Yocom|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|record|Russell "Russ" Brown|weather|World Record Encampment 2013

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

WRE 2013 ~ What's Happening & What's Not

The 2013 WRE's happening. Big time. The weather is shaping up beautifully- in fact at least one day this week looked very much like Dustin and Johnny's record days last year, and superb flying weather every day. According to Charlie Avaritt, Zapata County Airport Manager- and our gracious host for 14 years in a row without whose help and support there would be no WRE- the clouds are now lining up the way we love to see them.

There's still time to be included for record attempts or simply your own best-ever distance. Pilots can fly locally in remarkably consistent conditions that have produced numerous World Records for the fastest triangular courses. Contact me for more details: <wosoba>.

The WRE this year was going to be an Invitational for the first time- with a small group of carefully selected pilots of both genders flying both Flex and Rigid Wings. A nice mix of current and past National Champs, along with current and past World Record Holders. We had signed an agreement with the BBC to film an exciting documentary. US AIR importer and World Record holder BJ Herring would be featured in the central story, flying for tandem records along with a British atmospheric scientist who was the first woman to cross the Antarctic solo. Here's some info on the project from the cover letter to our agreement with the BBC:

The BBC is producing a two part series with the working title 'Cloud Lab' (the "Programme"). The Programme will follow the journey of the BBC team over a four week period in an airship flying across the North American continent - from Florida to California (and Operator confirms it is possible to do this trip within a four week period) - to carry out their research. Travelling west their route will take them over some stunning and diverse landscapes in the USA.

The Programme will examine the fact that we think we inhabit the surface of Earth - but this is an illusion. In reality we live submerged at the bottom of a vast ocean of air that's dynamic, fragile, and teeming with life. But the atmosphere that surrounds us is also one of the least understood parts of our planet. In the Programme an international team of experts study the skies from the airship. They will use a varietyof equipment to carry out a series of experiments to explore our planet's atmosphere. The BBC will use the airship as a base for filming and carrying out experiments, and in addition, to fly to various locations at which the BBC will carry out further filming on the ground. As part of this filming the BBC would like to include footage from your World Record Encampment event (the "WRE").

Thank you for agreeing to reschedule this event in order to coincide with the BBC's production schedule as per the terms and conditions as set out in the contract attached to this letter. Your help in making the BBC's Programme is very much appreciated.

Love that second paragraph! However, we now have learned that the US firm lined up to lease the BBC their airship is facing certification delays that will make it impossible to make this year's WRE. We had already rescheduled 3 times to allow for their schedule, but it's now out of reach. As a result of the rescheduling, we've also lost the talents of US National Women's Champ Lisa V. and at least one other pilot. So we have room for a few more pilots in this year's event. We will be setting up on July 19th, then flying over parts of 2 weeks until the 31st of July. Pilots can come for the first week, the second week, a few days, or the whole thing. Some may choose to fly to the Big Spring Nationals, run (no doubt characteristically superbly) by Davis this year, since there's a nice 3 day cushion between events for getting there, resting up, and practice flying if allowed.

So what's happening? The WRE and the weather that makes it consistently the event which has proven to host the best flying in the world. This year, we are especially appreciative of BJ Herring making the BBC project a possibility (even passed), Jim Yocum, current US National Rigid Champ for making his tug available for use, Bobby Baily & Moyes for help in the towing arrangements, and Zapata County and the Airport Authority for the great facilities.

Even though Russell Brown has taken a well deserved vacation in preparation for a towing marathon at Big Spring, we also appreciate his consistent support over the years that have allowed us to hold the event consecutively for the 14 year period.

What's not happening? The BBC due to circumstances beyond their control. Even so, it has been great working with their producers, logistical liaisons, and their legal and budgetary departments. Watch for possible future developments in this area.

Here are a few snips from the familiar Blipmaps site showing the winds, thermal strengths, and cloud bases from Tuesday's weather. In fact, I've been watching every day preliminary to our arrival and the morning winds were better than these; the evening winds in the region of record landing distances were also about 5 knots stronger than predicted. Oh…. The east central region of the State is where "Dancin' Davis" has been hanging with Belinda- extolling the virtues of the Austin night life as opposed to Zapata's comparatively benign social accoutrements. He's even ripped off a couple of 50 or 60 mile single surface gruelers in an attempt to beat his own Zapata record. (Distance we usually like to see before noon from the WRE).

What can I say? I'll have to side with the locals, who regard Zapata as the "Garden Spot of the Country". (Check with P. Lehmann for details).

On July 9th: 20 knot tailwinds: smooth 600-700 foot lift, never a tumble or deployment; cloudbases & streets to 12,500' later in the day. A word about last year's records- Dustin and Jonny weren't ready to launch when the conditions were on. Another hour to 1.5 was there for the taking.

What's not to like? Contact me and come fly the best conditions anywhere. We have a couple of spots open now.

http://ozreport.com/docs/WRE2013OR.pdf

2012/2013 World Record Encampment

January 12, 2013, 4:38:09 AEDT

2012/2013 World Record Encampment

The New York Times article

Dustin Martin|Gary Osoba|PG|record|sailplane|weather

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

This Sunday, January 13th, the New York Times will run a long article (2 pages) on the Zapata World Record Encampment. Some of the history of the event will be chronicled along with more of the outstanding World Record flights flown last year by Dustin Martin and Johnny Durand. I just spoke with Arthur Sulzberger, son of the Publisher and Chairman of the Times to obtain some details. The article will appear as the front page story in the Sports Section of the Sunday times, and will run in both the print edition and the online version. Print copies can be obtained in the United States and some international locations at many local Starbuck's locations, or possibly your favorite bookstore.

This article continues the excellent coverage that the WRE has received in many publications of international caliber. Although the policy of the NY Times precludes releasing entire articles for review prior to publication, many of the portions which I was able to review by phone sounded quite good in that they should acquaint the public with hang gliding in general and the remarkable flights that have been flown from the WRE. During its history, more world records for hang gliders, paragliders, and sailplanes have been set from the WRE than any other venue.

Last week, US climatological services released preliminary findings and forecasting outlooks for 2013 in the US. Based upon this information and other data I have been studying, it would appear that the 2013 season may be even better than the conditions we experienced last year. This very well may be the year that a human will break the 500 mile barrier in a flex wing. Indeed, on Dustin and Johnny's record breaking flights last year, 500 miles would have been possible as the conditions would have supported a launch time at least an hour earlier than when they left. If the conditions this year prove to be better, as forecasted, who knows how far pilots will be able to fly?

We are going to open registration for the event at this time, and depending upon the level of interest may have an expanded level of participation available. We plan to begin on June 20th, with the event running for a minimum of 2-3 weeks and a maximum of 5 weeks, depending upon the weather and other factors. Much planning remains but if you are inclined to attend, either for record attempts or simply personal bests in distance, please contact me for more details. I will be traveling to Middle America over road for the next several days but will have email access once I stop traveling.

I had extensive conversation with Arthur, who is a paraglider pilot, and have every hope that the article will be accurate and lauditory.

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Dynamic flying in a high performance sailplane

August 8, 2012, 6:39:47 MDT

Dynamic flying in a high performance sailplane

Energy harvesting

Gary Osoba|Jonathan Dietch|sailplane|video

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

During the WRE with the Jonkers JS-1, I practiced several early starts of the kind that would be necessary to meet the 1,000 mile goal I was after. Of course these occurred in weak, relatively low morning thermals. To fly 1,000 miles or more over a 10 hour period or so requires more than 100 mph average groundspeed, even early in the day when conditions are such that simply staying up is the accomplishment. How does one doe that and also achieve high cross country speeds?

On one of these mornings I did a direct comparison of two runs along the same early morning street using typical flight techniques and Macready theory on the first run, and the pitch-based dynamic maneuvering for energy harvesting, which I have continually refined since 1997, on the second run. The lift was so light that I could not sustain level flight in the first run but could run upwind for a while with minor altitude loss and then had to stop and circle to get back up to altitude. Similarly, when doing the dynamic maneuvering run I lost a little bit of altitude along the same street but converted the extra energy into much higher speeds against the wind (both runs were flown into the wind to remain near the airport).

Here's the first cut of a video put together by Jonathan Dietch which compares the two runs, generated from the flight log. The gains from the run shown in this video, which is not optimized because the dynamic run was so much faster that it included me crossing a sink street and contacting a lateral street, but stopped there before those benefits. Even so, the dynamic run is 155% faster with all things equal. The optimized comparison, that concludes along the same street, was nearly 200% faster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhfvyHr5ZSM

Soaring contests are often won by a few percentage points. This manifests the parity in top designs and similarity of skills among top pilots and the flight techniques they employ. However, such percentage gains are produced by logarithmic gains in total energy and efficiency. For an example, for one pilot to fly 5% faster than another, all things being equal, requires that he actually fly more than 10% better overall since his speed is a function of the square of the total energy for the flight. In the conservative case comparison shown in the video above, a 155% increase in speed requires harvesting more than 240% of the atmospheric energy than using traditional MacCready Speed-to-Fly theory and course variation to follow the best energy lines. These things are evident to a careful observer of Jonathan's video.

Jonathan is helping me refine the data so that I can share it at a lecture which I have been invited to give at the World Gliding Championships by a good friend, Loek Boermans, who is President of OSTIV- the scientific arm of the world gliding community. I hope to return to Uvalde in a couple of weeks to do that.

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Jonny Durand on a record pace

July 19, 2012, 11:58:30 CDT

Jonny Durand on a record pace

Started at 10:04

Dustin Martin|Facebook|Gary Osoba|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|Pete Lehmann|record|sailplane|weather

He's going faster than Dustin did two weeks ago.

http://tinyurl.com/jonzapata

http://tinyurl/timzpata

http://tinyurl.com/petezapata

http://www.facebook.com/timothy.ettridge/posts/10151958605735438

Gary Osoba writes:

We have yet another excellent Zapata day here- possibly best launch conditions this year.

I went up in the Woodstock light sailplane to check conditions early and reported the good results. Jonny was not set up yet, having returned from his recent World Record flight last night. He assembled quickly and was off at 10:04, about 19 minutes later than his launch time on Tuesday for the Goal record. I think launches at 9:30 am would have worked today as we had good clouds that were working at 2000' agl with 200-400 fpm lift. I measured winds at cloudbase at 157 degrees, 17 knots.

Pete Lehmann launched his earliest in a long time at approximately 10:19 am. Pete has an excellent strategy for the day, and has declared Sterling City as his goal. If he achieves it, his flight will exceed Jonny's on Tuesday since his release point is approximately 2 miles further away. I think if Pete exercises patience through any difficult areas and early, he has a very good chance of recapturing his World Record.

Jonny declared his goal where he landed two weeks ago on the flight with Dustin. He will be trying to make it, then overfly it more than 3 miles plus another kilometer to set a new Free Distance record. The day does not appear to have quite the potential that the record day two weeks back did, but Jonny is a gifted pilot who knows how to push to the extremes of circumstances. I have 14 World Records under my belt and know that this is what is required- not necessarily the best day or forecast all the time.

I did a full weather synopsis this morning, as I have on each record attempt day. The average winds today will likely be less than either the Free Distance day two weeks ago, and similar but slightly less than past Tuesday. The direction is not quite as favorable either, particularly up on the Edwards Plateau. Starting clouds and airmass that moved in overnight looks better to me than either of the other two record days, although the cloudbases will be lower than on the Dustin/Jonny day two weeks ago- similar to this past Tuesday. Lift strengths will be similar to both prior record days from Zapata to Uvalde, possibly improving and better after the Hill Country. Its hard to predict when and where streeting will set up but I expect it over some if not a significant portion of the flights today.

Both Jonny and Pete have landed. Jonny just east of Crystal City and Pete at Catarina.

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2012 World Record Encampment »

July 2, 2012, 1:15:01 pm CDT

2012 World Record Encampment

We hold off on a perfect day due to forecast for weak conditions by Uvalde

André Wolfe|André Wolfe|Dustin Martin|Gary Osoba|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|record|World Record Encampment 2012

http://chorlton.homeip.net/spotmap/zapata.html

http://www.jonnydurand.blogspot.com

http://wre500.blogspot.com/

The overrunning started at 3:15 AM. The cu's were there when I went outside at 7:19 AM. They stayed there all morning at least and probably all day. They were thick and streeting up at 9:30 AM. Gary Osoba was in the air reporting 200 fpm climbs, 2,200' AGL cloud base, 153 degree 25 knot winds at 10 AM.

The forecast says weak lift around Uvalde so the record attempters decide to wait until tomorrow. It is very windy on the runway, but that is fine here in Zapata where the strong winds don't shred the thermals.

Looks to be a bit over developed to the north.

Dustin, Davis, and Glen under a cloud street in Zapata. Photo by Jonny Durand:

Andre Wolf should be setup in the hangar by now.

2012 World Record Encampment »

July 2, 2012, 8:11:49 CDT

2012 World Record Encampment

Rain for the weekend, waiting for conditions to dry out

Dustin Martin|Gary Osoba|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|photo|record|World Record Encampment 2012

http://chorlton.homeip.net/spotmap/zapata.html

http://www.jonnydurand.blogspot.com

http://wre500.blogspot.com/

Saturday flying, Gary Osoba writes:

Enjoyed a short flight which began with a few lightning strikes to the NW. Moved SE for a while until lightning strikes and OD began in that sector, then to the NE for a bit. When lightning prevailed on three sides and things started filling in, I decided it was a good idea to land. Did so without incident, shortly before the sky fell in.


Photos by Jonny Durand.

The overrunning has returned. The conditions have set up superbly for the WRE. Total looks like weak lift to the north of Laredo, but Tuesday onward is set to be fantastic.

Dustin's here.

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2012 World Record Encampment »

June 28, 2012, 9:37:43 CDT

2012 World Record Encampment

We're here getting ready

André Wolfe|André Wolfe|David Glover|Dustin Martin|Gary Osoba|Glen Volk|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Mike Degtoff|record|Timothy Ettridge|Wills Wing|World Record Encampment 2012

The place is filling up, which of course we weren't sure of a few days ago. Glauco Pinto and driver from Brazil are here. Jonny Durand from Australia, with Timothy Ettridge, driver, is here. Pete Lehman, with David Glover driving, is here. Glen Volk, is flying in tomorrow, with Mike Degtoff his driver now in Austin. Andre Wolf is scheduled to come in Monday, he'll decide Sunday night. Dustin Martin was called by Jonny, and though he had no plans to come here, couldn't resist when he heard that Jonny was here.

We're looking hard for two more drivers, for Andre and Dustin. If you have any idea of who could drive for these guys send Gary a note at <wosoba>.

Pete Lehman on his Wills Wing T2 Wednesday at Zapata:

Gary writes:

As conditions for the coming week and beyond look highly prospective for world record attempts, several more world caliber pilots plan to join the 2012 World Record Encampment. We are in dire need of two or more drivers immediately, possibly one of these would also need a vehicle hire along with driving. Please phone Gary Osoba asap at (316) 393-5676 if you might be able to help a world record attempt by driving for a top pilot. Gary can discuss the logistics with you.

The 2012 World Record Encampment

June 13, 2012, 6:57:20 CDT

The World Record Encampment

Two slots open due to broken arm in the Owens

Gary Osoba|record|weather

The weather is looking good in south Texas. Two slots at the WRE have opened up. If you want to come for some long distance flying contact Gary Osoba <<wosoba>>.

http://ozreport.com/wre.php

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Dustin remembers his 410 miles from Zapata at the WRE

May 30, 2012, 8:05:44 EDT

Dustin remembers his 410 miles from Zapata at the WRE

Long flights are possible

Dustin Martin|Gary Osoba

http://www.willswing.com/blogs/PilotBlogs/tabid/38/BlogID/7/Default.aspx

A number of top pilots are looking to return this year.

If you want to come to Zapata this June contact Gary Osoba <<wosoba>>.

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Northern Arizona record attempt

May 14, 2012, 8:21:49 EDT

They went after the foot launch record

Dustin Martin|Gary Osoba|Jeff Johnson|PG|record|weather

Dustin, an ATOS pilot, Stan Roberts, and at least three paraglider pilots tried for the "unofficial" footlaunch record launching from a site near Seligman, Arizona on Saturday morning.

Gary Osoba, who was handling weather duties remotely writes:

Dustin went down early and back for relaunch at 2:00 PM. After his relaunch Dustin flew to Prescott, Arizona, east of Flagstaff, landing around 7 PM.

Conditions were weak at launch and Dustin sank out while the Stan and a paraglider were able to go down the ridge and get away. Stan didn't have any oxygen and cloud base was 20,000'. Apparently he was hypoxic from the first climb out soon claiming that he was ahead of where he could be.

Dustin was able to get off around 2 PM and land over 200 miles away at one minute after sundown. There was sleet in the virga under every cloud. He uses 1,800 pounds of his 2,000 pounds of oxygen.

Dustin's camelback froze on the first climb out and when he landed it was a solid brick of ice.

The 10,000' winds forecasted for 2 PM. No cu's and strong lift.

Dustin Martin <<flydustin>> writes:

There was one other flex pilot, Jeff Johnson. There were at least three paraglider pilots, one of which was the first off the hill at some time around 11:30 and he got away easily.

The forecast looked like it would give a chance for 500 km. Our plan was to team fly as far as we could stay together and my plan was to be off the hill no later than 11 am.

The localized conditions at launch screwed up those plans and after launching one hour behind schedule, I found myself on the ground after about a three minute flight. I was extremely lucky when the retrieve driver for the paraglider pilots and two new hang glider pilots showed up and waited a few minutes for me to pack up. I was able to divide my gear between the two rigs and was ready to go on launch again at about 2 pm.

On the way up the second time I was hearing radio reports that Stan, who had gotten away when I sunk out, was already past Flagstaff, the 80 mile mark, at 16 grand. I knew that I had missed the day, but decided to see if I could chase him down by sunset.

From my chronically bad radio set up, I was able to figure out that Stan had probably mistaken his position on some of his calls and was suffering a bit of hypoxia. His driver on 50 watts was coming through a little better and was able to relay some useful condition info, and that together with the sleet over the highway convinced me to veer south. Because of this we would never team up. The tracks tell the story.

Normally I wouldn't be so bummed about missing out on a good day, but from many WRE experiences, we know that even though awesome conditions seem common, in fact having conditions that line up in every respect without compromise, is very, very rare. To have those conditions on a Saturday is something that almost never happens. I think Saturday was sufficient to make the official foot launch record.

My first 'flight' http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/flightinfo.html?flightId=1283339214
my second flight http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/flightinfo.html?flightId=1211840384

Approximately 330 kilometers

Stan's flight http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/604676

270 kilometers

Paraglider who launched first http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/flightinfo.html?flightId=1150709938

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The World Record Encampment in pictures

May 11, 2012, 8:33:23 EDT

The World Record Encampment

Cloud streets

Gary Osoba|record

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> sends:

http://ozreport.com/wre.php.

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The 2012 World Record Encampment is Fully On!

May 4, 2012, 10:04:43 EDT

The World Record Encampment is Fully On!

A look at the weather

calendar|Curt Warren|Davis Straub|Dustin Martin|Gary Osoba|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|Manfred Ruhmer|Mike Barber|Paris Williams|Pete Lehmann|PG|Quest Air|record|Robin Hamilton|Russell "Russ" Brown|sailplane|weather|Zac Majors

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

With a couple of scheduled meets canceling recently, and others possibly having to do so, we're happy to report that things couldn't be looking any better for the 2012 World Record Encampment. The premiere annual long distance event is fully on, with weather looking better and better as the start date of June 20th approaches. We'll be happy to host world class pilots in their attempts at new world records, qualified recreational pilots in search of personal bests, and possibly an experimental program for mentoring.

Weather

The weather has been exceptional so far this spring. I do not recall days with record potential piling up this early. So far, I have counted 12 to 16 of such days, depending upon various criteria. May 1st was one example, the best of 3 days in a row. Here's some Blipmap info that allows the conditions to be easily grasped. First, the geography so that experienced and planning World Record Encampment pilots can get their bearings:

Our start point, Zapata, is off the map below the center, about 40 miles south of Laredo which can just be seen. Typical record flights follow a path north-northwestward toward Big Spring, with Manfred Ruhmer's official world record and Mike Barber's unofficial flight ending near LaMesa. However, other long flights have fanned out about 10-25 degrees into that region, depending upon weather for the given day. To understand the scale for those who are unfamiliar with the area, Texas is a big place. It's about 437 statute miles (705 km) to Manfred and Mike's landing points. For perspective, only a very small percentage of sailplane pilots have ever flown such a long free distance using high performance gliders. The remarkable conditions at Zapata and the World Record Encampment make these things possible for Flex Wings, Rigid Wings, and Paragliding World Records as well. See the Oz Report links on World Record Encampment and Records here:

http://ozreport.com/wre.php

Let's go on with the recent May 1st weather, examining the thermal updraft velocity map first:

Thermal strengths from 400 fpm to 800 fpm are evident, although experience tells us that there would be some 1000-1200 fpm cores over the course of a 9-11 hour flight. By June 20th, we expect the thermal strengths to increase to a more uniform and stronger level throughout the flight. A good strategy this day would likely be taking a little more westerly track over the Hill Country northwest of Uvalde, as there was thickening of clouds forecasted just north of Uvalde and a predicted lift strength of 300-400 fpm in a small area there. The more westerly course would miss this and also provide for an earlier intersection with a dynamic dry-line convergence- a truly exciting feature that we'll look at in just a moment. A note about the strong lift found in this region, particularly as the season develops into our scheduled time: There has never been a tuck, tumble, or deployment in the 11-year history of the World Record Encampment despite the many thousands of miles flown. The gulf moisture provides the type of smooth strength pilots seek, and the convergence that starts around Zapata on each good day provides the dependability necessary for regular distance attempts and outstanding local flying.

Now for a look at the winds through the boundary layer:

In a phrase, marvelous tailwinds!

Winds in the Zapata region were stronger in the morning and midday period than those shown in this 21Z forecast, in the range of 20 knots instead of 15 or so shown later in the day. This is a typical daily pattern with very good winds in the morning. Note the increasing winds over the Hill Country, around 20 knots or so, and how the direction from launch brings a pilot along the ideal path described above as a little west of Uvalde (site of the upcoming World Gliding Championships for sailplanes). Now here's what makes days like this really exciting: A strong convergence along the dry line which sets up north of the Hill Country on the Edwards Plateau. Contacting this convergence provides for reliable, strong, straight line lift that will reduce circling time and increase tailwinds. Expect solid lines of cloud streets and extremely fast cross country groundspeeds in conditions like these. From a region south of Big Spring and continuing clear up into Oklahoma and Kansas, the winds accelerate into 25 to 30 knot velocities with precise lift line delineation. These are the kind of conditions that make the difference between a 400 mile flight and a 550 miler, as the final 2-3 hours of the day (which often goes until sundown or after) can get extremely fast.

Another help is the consistent increase in climb altitudes from the point of launch at Zapata. The final 2-3 hours of the day should provide for 12,500'-14,500' cloud bases in the region of an optimal course line. This provides decreased air densities and even higher cruising speeds. Note the particulars below, which include a small area of sketchy cloud development transitioning up the Edwards Plateau and the very distinct dry side of the dry line west of our goal area.

Of course, with this kind of lift and dry-line delineation, a pilot must be cognizant of over development potential. So how does that stack up on this day? Here's the data:

With the maximum cumulus in our goal region building to around 15,000'-18,000', if over development occurs it should be very spotty and well west of the optimal flight line directly under the convergence where the best lift and winds are. That line is found about 20-25 miles east of the over development potential line plotted here (carefully note position of convergence on boundary layer wind map above). The nice thing about a setup like this is that if you want more lift and more streeting, you move westerly toward the higher vertical developments. If you find it starting to over development a little or graying out, you jump a street or two back east. Cloud streets like these in such good lift are compressed closely together and make lateral movements easy- plus you'll be 10,000' or more above the ground.

Texas has been experiencing a severe drought, which produces stronger than normal thermals and higher cloud bases. With relatively dry conditions anticipated, we have moved the event dates forward on the calendar in order to maximize lift and cloud development. In wetter than normal years, it has proven to be sensible to start later, in the heart of the summer which provides higher temps and some drying out. Our June 20th start this year is much earlier than normal, and the way the weather is shaping up already portends some very good flying.

Event Structure

The 2012 World Record Encampment will run for a 2 week minimum from June 20th to July 4th. Since this is not a venue like regular competitions, pilots can fly for a portion of the event or the whole thing. They can come and go if they wish. Robin Hamilton and some others have regularly done this in the past. There is a single event fee of $700 per pilot which includes all tows. Each year, we've had so much fun that we have decided to extend the event into a bonus period. The shortest extension has been another week and the longest 4 weeks for totals of 3-6 weeks. This has always been gifted to the pilots, with no additional charges for event or tows. We anticipate being able to do something like that again this year.

In the early years, the World Record Encampment hosted relatively large numbers of pilots. This was not optimal, since part of our goal is to provide a focused weather, mentoring, and flight strategy for each participant. So in recent years, we have hosted a relatively small group of pilots. This does not mean that you have to be a world class comp pilot seeking world records to attend. We often include recreational pilots who are seeking to expand their performance potential, and make a nice addition to the group. If you fall into this category, please do not hesitate to contact us about the possibilities. We'll let you know whether it's a realistic goal for you or something to work toward in the future. Don't sell yourself short on the possibilities- let's talk about it. We have expanded our capabilities and presently have room for a few more pilots.

Zapata, the proven longest distance site in the world may be located in the US, but performance knows no nationalistic boundaries. There are no lines, zones or political demarcations visible from our favorite vantage point- cloud base. We always welcome and encourage the participation of qualified pilots from any country, and view this as one of the unique pluses of the World Record Encampment which enriches the experience. It has often proven practical for a small group of pilots from a single country to visit and attend, sharing resources, costs, etc.

Experimental- Masters of the World Record Encampment

We've been working on something special for a couple of years now, and hope to initiate it this year or next on an experimental basis. If successful, it will allow a small group of selected up-and-coming cross country students to be mentored by Masters in the art. Here's how we envision the program working:

1) We secure underwriting to gift the event participation to select Master Pilots. These sponsored Masters will be invited based upon their proven cross country abilities, their abilities to instruct and mentor students, and prior experience at long distance world record attempts, especially at the World Record Encampment. Examples with World Record Encampment experience include pilots like Mike Barber, Jonny Durand, Dustin Martin, Paris Williams, Zac Majors, Curt Warren and several others. All of these pilots have valuable background and would be excellent mentors. Preference will be given to individuals who are actively instructing, or fully engaged in flying professionally.

2) The Masters who are invited and choose to attend will hand select a couple of pilots for mentoring. Their skill levels may vary, from newer pilots to those with many years of flight or comp experience but little or no experience at world record attempts or long distance personal bests. Each Master will make his own decisions.

3) Each Master and his pilots to be mentored will form a unit, sharing various duties and resources according to his or her direction. It is a difficult thing for Masters to pursue their profession exclusively. On the one hand, they want and deserve to be present at premiere competitions and performance events like the World Record Encampment. They are capable of world record performance at any given opportunity, but cannot be present at all opportunities. We want this opportunity to be theirs. We envision the mentored students helping the Masters with rooming, retrieve vehicles, etc. On the very best days when a Master may wish to pursue a world record, the Master may choose to go long and the mentored pilots will learn much in the support. Other days, the Master may switch roles with the students as one or more flies a personal distance best. Or, the Master may choose to coach them locally in outstanding cross country conditions. Again, the Masters will make their own decisions.

We should have an answer in the next week or so whether underwriting for such Masters will be available this year. If it is, our hope is that mentored pilots with great potential and appreciation for such Masters will also see the value of supporting them in this experimental program. We encourage potential Master pilots to contact us right away to discuss the possibilities this year. If you would like to be mentored by one of them, please contact us and let us know although they may already have some pilots in mind. If you cannot attend the World Record Encampment in either capacity, but would like to support Master participants in some way, please let us know about that as well. We're trying to give something back to them and facilitate increasing flight performances and knowledge in the flying community.

Russell, Davis, Pete & Charlie

Russell Brown, Davis Straub and Pete Lehmann deserve some mention here because of their long-standing support and participation in the World Record Encampment. Davis, as co-founder has been here from the beginning and has reported all the exciting record flights in great detail. He also helps educate new participants through his website- check out the World Record Encampment after clicking on Competition. Quest Air has supported the event from the beginning, with Russell being present every year shortly after the start. His towing and other expertise are invaluable. Sure, he gets a much needed rest from his increasing work load (top glider and other aircraft owners keep him more than busy) and he gets to spend some time with his good friend and local Rancher, Rick Walker. But without his love of the sport and willingness to do this for a very modest reimbursement, the World Record Encampment wouldn't be possible. Half a continent trek...two tugs...weeks of his time, you do the math. Pete Lehmann has been a stalwart participant every year since shortly after the start. Like Davis, he holds world records which he has set at the World Record Encampment and his advice and encouragement have proven invaluable to many a participant. His reasoned and disciplined approach is special, and the sardonic wit displayed at pivotal moments always lightens the mood at the right time.

Maybe you know all of these pilots, but what of Charlie Avaritt? Unless you've been to the World Record Encampment before, or chronicle these events carefully, the name might not ring a bell. Charlie is the Airport Manager who makes our annual event at the location possible. If there is a better airport manager who has proven to be a true friend to all stripes of soaring we don't know who that would be. Whether its flex wings, rigid wings, Swifts, pg's, sailplanes, or powered sailplanes- he's hosted them all. Charlie's heritage in aviation along with his welcoming, Texas hospitality make him truly special. Like Russell, the World Record Encampment wouldn't exist without Charlie.

That's it. Sorry for being so long winded, but we are very excited about this year's event. Come fly with us if you can. Far. Very very far.

Every so often, the World Record Encampment produces flights that are not simply flights of a lifetime. They are flights that make a lifetime.

Best Regards,

Gary Osoba
2012 World Record Encampment

Sailplane record attempt today

May 3, 2012, 9:56:14 EDT

Sailplane record attempt today

900 miles downwind in the US

Gary Osoba|record|sailplane|Tim Ettridge|weather

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N55LK

He launched at 6:04 AM PDT.

http://flightaware.com/live/airport_status_bigmap.rvt?airport=KMEV

Avweb received word late Wednesday that Gordon Boettger, who was honored by the NAA this year for his 2011 sailplane flight of 1,321 miles surfing a mountain wave, plans to aim for a record downwind flight, today (Thursday); and if he's up you can watch his progress online. The flight is weather-dependent and if it cooperates, Boettger will depart Minden, Nev., at 05:30 local time with his sights set on "somewhere east of the Rockies." According to Boettger, "Rapid City, S.D., would be fantastic." It would also cover more than 900 miles as the crow flies. If he's up, you can follow his progress online, here. Altitudes, which can get significant on Boettger's flights, will not be shown on that display. They will be shown at http://FlightAware.com -- just type in N55LK in the appropriate field on the left side of the screen. Boettger hopes the weather and his planning will one day conspire to allow him to reach his goal of achieving overnight flight in a glider, by "parking" in the lift from a mountain wave.

Thanks to Tim Ettridge.

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

He had a fabulous wave flight last year. This particular flight downwind in successive waves has been postulated by Joachim Kuettner for decades.

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World Record Encampment?

April 19, 2012, 8:24:58 EDT

World Record Encampment?

Looking north

Gary Osoba|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|record

Interested in flying very far, perhaps setting a world record? If you can join us in Zapata for the 2012 World Record Encampment contact Gary Osoba at <wosoba>.

Jonny Durand at the WRE.

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World Record Encampment?

April 16, 2012, 8:22:49 EDT

World Record Encampment?

Watching the wind patterns

record

Gary Osoba|record

Interested in flying very far, perhaps setting a world record? If you can join us in Zapata for the 2012 World Record Encampment contact Gary Osoba at <wosoba>.

Take a look at this map every day for a week focusing on Texas. See what you think about flying for long distances in Texas.

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World Record Encampment?

April 12, 2012, 9:03:14 EDT

World Record Encampment?

Thinking of heading to south Texas on June 21st?

record

Gary Osoba|record

Interested in flying very far, perhaps setting a world record? If you can join us in Zapata for the 2012 World Record Encampment contact Gary Osoba at <wosoba>.

Discuss "World Record Encampment?" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Glider Efficiency and Conservation of Momentum

March 15, 2012, 8:48:41 CDT

Glider Efficiency and Conservation of Momentum

Swooping

Gary Osoba

Gary Osoba sends:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=deb_1330753080

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Cloudsuck, Epilogue »

Mon, Mar 5 2012, 5:19:47 pm GMT

I serialize Cloudsuck for the winter season

Cloudsuck, Elipolgue

André Wolfe|Betinho Schmitz|Bo Hagewood|cart|Cloudsuck|Curt Warren|Dragonfly|Dustin Martin|Gary Osoba|Kari Castle|Kathleen Rigg|Manfred Ruhmer|Mark Poustinchian|Paris Williams|PG|record|video|weather

Many pilots wonder what it really takes to set a world record. Some wonder what it's like to fly at a place like Zapata or other world class sites. Cloudsuck answers these and other questions while telling the story of how I set the current Distance World Record for Rigid Wings. Over this winter, I am pleased to make the book available as a gift to my readers in serialized form. Each Monday, another chapter will be available for you to enjoy here on the Oz Report. The best read is the one in it's entirety, and both the soft cover book and an ebook are available to purchase here: https://OzReport.com/cloudsuck.php. You can find the Kindle version on Amazon.

If you enjoy the serialized installments, you may wish to skip the text below and jump directly to this week's chapter, including any graphics or pictures here: https://OzReport.com/docs/Epilogue.pdf

I hope you enjoy the book and this week's chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Success breeds more Success

The news of the new world records set in Zapata quickly spread throughout the worldwide hang gliding community. Of course I wrote about it in my online e-zine, the Oz Report(https://OzReport.com), but there were plenty of others who picked up the story. I wrote an article for Hang Gliding magazine, and the European hang and paragliding magazines published notices about the new records.

Betinho Schmitz, a top Brazilian hang glider pilot, resolved right away to come the following year to Zapata and set the flex wing world record. Red Bull energy drink was sponsoring him, so he started talking with them about a proposal to do a video of his record attempt.

Many U.S. pilots contacted me about coming in 2001, and I made up a list of potential invitees. I wanted to be sure that the top competition pilots were encouraged to attend our second World Record Encampment, especially some top European pilots.

We decided that with so many pilots coming to Zapata we'd have to get a Dragonfly to aerotow everyone up early in the morning. At the Florida meets the following April, I spoke with Manfred Ruhmer, the flex wing world champion. He hadn't seriously considered it before since he had never done any cross-country flying outside of competitions, but he quickly decided to come. We scheduled two two-week sessions, so that pilots attending the World Championships in Spain could fly to the U.S. in time for the second session.

The first session started off on June 23rd with weather that was conducive to long distance flying, and many of the participants exceeded their personal bests. On June 28th, Mark Poustinchian flew 369 miles to break my world record. He launched a little after 11 AM on a day that didn’t look that good — just a few cu's starting at 10:25, and strong winds out of the south — and ended up near Abilene.

On June 30th, things looked particularly interesting. We had gotten really excited looking at the forecast the night before, since the winds looked right. But there was one problem: high vertical air movements were predicted to occur in the afternoon northeast of Sonora, the signs of a cumulo-nimbus cloud.

I got off to a nice early start, and the conditions were the best I had ever experienced. I’d flown a hundred miles by noon and two hundred miles by 2:45 PM. I was hours ahead of my previous best flight. But as I approached Rock Springs up on the Edwards Plateau I could see clouds piling up on top of other clouds fifty miles to my north. This looked bad. A thunderhead could suck all the lift out of the sky for hundreds of square miles.

Hoping that the clouds would not continue to climb, I headed northwest toward Sonora. The clouds continued to climb high and I knew that I was going to lose my best day. My only hope was to go west and try to get around the storm. I took a sharp left turn to the west and flew forty miles along Interstate 10, hoping to outrun the clouds. Another cumulo-nimbus cloud formed to the west of the original cloud and there was just no way to get around both storms. All the other cu’s were wiped up and the lift disappeared. I landed in disappointment near the freeway.

The weather conditions deteriorated for the next couple of weeks as the first crew headed home and the pilots coming from the Worlds showed up. Every day the skies were blue with very few cumulus clouds. The winds were light.

These relatively poor conditions didn't stop Manfred Ruhmer, whose longest flight before he came to the World Record Encampment had been 130 miles — as a task in a competition. Manfred flew at every opportunity despite the poor prospects for a new world record, improving his personal best. He was able to build up to 224 miles in less than perfect conditions.

Manfred had just won his second world championship in a row, in Spain. Kathleen Rigg, the highest scoring female pilot in the Worlds, teamed up with Manfred and was getting long flights also, although not as long as Manfred's.

Paris Williams, the number one ranked pilot in the U.S., Bo Hagewood, the U.S. National Champion, and Kari Castle, the Women's World Champion, all arrived from the Worlds along with Andre Wolf and Betinho Schmitz, the top pilots from Brazil.

Of course we were all hoping that conditions would improve. And on the evening of July 16th, after two weeks of nice — but not very long — flights, it became clear that the next day would be the day.

On that night the predicted temperature soundings for Zapata, Del Rio, San Angelo, and Midland showed a strong push of moist air up from the Gulf of Mexico, spreading over Texas during the night. At dawn cumulus clouds were expected to start forming at Zapata and throughout the state. It looked as though the clouds would stay with us for the whole day.

The winds were predicted to continue blowing out of the southeast, as they had every day of our encampment. They wouldn't be wrapping around and coming from the south later in the day up near Uvalde, but rather stay straight south-southeast all day long.

When we got up before sunrise the cumulus clouds were forming right over the airport, just as predicted the night before. They continued to form in the early morning and this encouraged everyone to get to the airport early. We phoned Dustin Martin, who had flown 214 miles on the 16th and was still in Rocksprings. After his driver had turned around and left him he had been forced to spend the night sleeping in an abandoned storefront in his harness. He told us ruefully that the cu's were there and flying by over his head.

Although we pulled into the airport before eight that morning, we weren't sure when we should launch. One would hate to launch a little too early and miss the best day of the encampment by landing early in lift that was still too light. The weather conditions so far this year had not lived up to our high expectations, and we were really nervous about wasting a good day by making a bad decision.

Gary Osoba, my fellow WRE organizer, was bent on holding us back. Last year he had worked to get us going earlier each morning, but now he was worried that we were leaving too early in conditions that wouldn't keep us up.

We had been experimenting with our special Dragonfly, custom-built with an especially powerful engine. We were able to launch two hang gliders behind it, one of the pilots using a shorter rope to maintain separation.

Mark Poustinchian and I got into the air at 9:30 on a double tow to 6500 feet. I foot launched, hooked to the short rope on the right side of the airstrip, instead of taking off from the cart. There was a lot of tension about this early launch, and in the hurry and confusion I kicked my harness’ zipper, jamming it. After towing all the way up I had to dive back to the airport, land and fix the zipper.

Mark would land out near Laredo, so maybe that was a stroke of good luck for me. I didn't and still don't think of it that way.

Next up, Manfred and Paris Williams took a tow to cloudbase at 3300 feet and released at ten AM. The cloud base was the highest we'd had that year for so early in the morning — normally we would expect the clouds at that time to begin at two thousand feet or so. I waited on the ground for Bo Hagewood and Curt Warren and then Andre Wolf to tow. It was agony. I had wanted to be on course an hour earlier. I knew Manfred was ahead of me and that it would be hard to catch him.

My turn finally came at 10:30. But as I was pulled up I broke a weaklink at only 590 feet over the airport. No way did I want to land again, only to wait again for other pilots to launch in front of me. Kari Castle was all ready and waiting to launch next. I willed myself to stay up in the little dribbling thermal that was drifting quickly to the north away from the runway.

The clouds were streeted up — I could see six streets to my left in addition to the one over my head. All the streets were headed from Zapata right toward the Laredo airport and its controlled airspace. I knew I would have to circle up to near cloudbase, then immediately begin jumping streets to get to the east and around the airspace.

This was the first time during the 2001 WRE that we'd seen the kind of streeting that we had anticipated. As one of the WRE organizers I had been feeling very responsible for the unresponsive weather, and it was a great relief to finally see morning cloud streets.

Meanwhile Manfred and Paris were racing under and across the cloud streets as happy as pigs in mud, thinking that they had better get out there way in front. As they approached Laredo the streets and the clouds suddenly stopped and they had to put on the brakes. Quickly the race was not to the swift, but to the patient.

Continue reading here: https://OzReport.com/docs/EpilogueCloudsuck.pdf

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Cloudsuck, chapter 10 »

Mon, Feb 6 2012, 3:59:10 pm GMT

I serialize Cloudsuck for the winter season

Belinda Boulter|Carbon Dragon|Cloudsuck|David "Dave" Glover|David "Dave" Sharp|Gary Osoba|Kari Castle|record|sailplane|Tiki Mashy|weather|William "Gary" Osoba jr.

Many pilots wonder what it really takes to set a world record. Some wonder what it's like to fly at a place like Zapata or other world class sites. Cloudsuck answers these and other questions while telling the story of how I set the current Distance World Record for Rigid Wings. Over this winter, I am pleased to make the book available as a gift to my readers in serialized form. Each Monday, another chapter will be available for you to enjoy here on the Oz Report. The best read is the one in it's entirety, and both the soft cover book and an ebook are available to purchase here: https://OzReport.com/cloudsuck.php. You can find the Kindle version on Amazon.

If you enjoy the serialized installments, you may wish to skip the text below and jump directly to this week's chapter, including any graphics or pictures here: https://OzReport.com/docs/Cloudsuck10.pdf

I hope you enjoy the book and this week's chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Zapata – the World Record Encampment

“I think everyone is missing the boat going to Hobbs or Wyoming every year.” Gary Osoba had leaned forward in his chair on the patio of an East Wichita restaurant. “You can’t get started early enough, you can’t get a consistent enough tail wind, and it’s too easy to be shut down early by overdevelopment.”

That was back in June 1999, when Belinda, Dave Glover and I had stopped in Kansas on our way out to Hobbs. As we had pored over the map spread out among the remains of our meal, Gary had pointed to an area southeast of Hobbs. “I’ve been looking at the weather patterns, and I think you want to start from further east, over in Texas — maybe as far south as Brownsville. I think you could get some really long flights down there”

And so the seed had been planted for what Gary would later whimsically title the World Record Encampment, an expedition to an obscure place in southeastern Texas right on the Rio Grande — the small town of Zapata.

Gary had been studying Texas weather data for a several years. Although he already held more sailplane world records than any other glider pilot, he was hungry for more — and the intellectual challenge of finding the “perfect” place continued to intrigue him. Looking for a specific pattern that would provide the necessary conditions, he had noticed a large meteorological feature that develops in the Gulf of Mexico during the summer — the extension of the Bermuda high.

This high-pressure region is so big that it dominates the summer weather from Florida to West Texas and from the Yucatan to Oklahoma City. The center of the extension of the high pressure, when situated just right for world records, lies south of New Orleans and east of Brownsville, Texas.

The winds associated with the Bermuda High, as with any high pressure area in the northern hemisphere, circulate clockwise, bringing southeast winds to South Texas. And this high pressure system isn’t a once-every-couple-of-days kind of thing, but a consistent pattern. In the summer, day after day the high remains out over the Gulf of Mexico with the winds consistently rotating clockwise around it. Weather disturbances coming from the west and north generally bounce off it and go up through Kansas or the Dakotas. This consistency was important to Gary because it could dramatically increase his chances of setting a world record during a one- or two-week visit.

Earlier that year he had flown south out of Uvalde, a popular sailplane port just west of San Antonio, looking for the conditions it would take to fly his ultralight Carbon Dragon the 450 miles to set a world open-distance record for ultralight sailplanes (and Class 4 hang gliders). From Uvalde he had cruised toward Crystal City, but he hadn’t made it as far south as Laredo.

The terrain looked promising, he thought, but no one he knew of had ever flown a hang glider or a sailplane in extreme South Texas, so he didn’t have any local lore to provide guidance. He knew that moist winds would be flowing out of the Gulf of Mexico, and that cumulus clouds would mark the lift coming off the warm flat alluvial plain below. He wondered how far south it might be possible to start a cross-country flight.

Gary had spent some of his youth in east Texas, but he didn't have much on-the-ground familiarity with the areas on the border, around Laredo and McAllen. He didn't know if there would be suitable landing areas for a pilot who landed early. He didn't know if there was an airport that would let soaring pilots set up camp there.

Gary’s usual strategy was to get going very early in the morning — much, much earlier than most pilots thought it was possible to stay aloft. Once in the air, he would hang out in the lightest of lift, drifting with a favorable wind, and just hold on until the day got better. Gary had already used this strategy to his advantage in competitions, taking advantage of the Carbon Dragon’s low sink rate to get out on course ahead of all the others, making up for the fact that he couldn't fly nearly as fast in the heat of the day as they could. If he could get going early enough, he felt he stood a good chance of setting another world record.

The historical weather records indicated to Gary that cumulus clouds would start forming soon after dawn near Laredo to provide visual help, showing where the lift was early, when conditions were light. The extra help of the cumulus clouds would make it just that much more possible to stay up in the light morning lift. He figured that by afternoon he should be able to reach the Hill Country just to the north of Uvalde. Those hot, convoluted rocks the size of hills should be cooking by then, providing plenty of strong lift to get him up high and onto the Edwards Plateau in short order.

Despite the lack of previous long distance flights in sailplanes or hang gliders from South Texas, all the weather records indicated that this would be a very fruitful spot. Gary figured he should be able to make it to the Texas panhandle by late in the afternoon in his Carbon Dragon, into an area of high winds blowing north. With five hundred miles behind him, he believed he should be able to set a new ultralight sailplane record of over six hundred miles.

Ever since that evening in the Wichita restaurant, Gary and I had been e-mailing each other, mulling over the idea of a flying safari to South Texas, hashing over possible locations. Gary had intensified his review of twenty years worth of weather data, which was available thanks to the World Wide Web and the industrious National Weather Service. His analysis told him that south toward Brownsville he should indeed be able to find the world record place that he — and by now we — were looking for.

In spite of Michael's death in Hobbs, I felt that it would be worthwhile going to South Texas. I had really enjoyed my big flights in Australia, where I still thought it was possible to set a world record. Now, with Gary's enthusiasm and my trust in his ability to correctly read the weather data, I felt that South Texas was just a lot better than anywhere else in the world.

If breaking Larry's record really was possible — and I sure hadn’t believed that a year earlier — then trying for world records might not be such a futile exercise after all. I now had experience with a couple of two hundred-mile flights (well, one was 199.5 miles), so the impossible was now perhaps possible for me. If Texas was that much better than all the other sites people had tried, well then maybe it was a goer.

I'd been in contact with pilots around the world through the Oz Report who had a lot to say about their local versions of the world's best site to go long distances. The Brazilian pilots were especially enthusiastic about Andradas, a site in northeastern Brazil. As in South Texas, you could get an early start there because of the sea breezes, and there was always a steady tailwind. The problem was that this Brazilian site was too close to the equator, so the day length was too short. The thermals stopped at 5:30 in the afternoon, and it was dark by six. In Texas you could fly until 9:45 if you flew within a few weeks of the solstice.

South African pilots were convinced that Namibia was the hot spot. Of course, they didn't mention the difficulty of following and finding pilots flying across the desert. Maybe South Texas wasn't the most scenic spot in the world to set the distance world record, but just because it was conveniently located didn’t mean it wasn't exotic enough to be just that.

Now as the summer of 2000 approached, Gary had to nail down the actual launch site, with a place to tow, high early cloud bases, strong enough south to southeast winds, and at least basic amenities nearby. In June, as the high pressure in the Gulf of Mexico set up, he analyzed the hourly values for cloudbase, as well as wind speed on the ground and aloft. Picking two sites, one near McAllen and one further north on the highway to Laredo, he sent out the daily data to Dave Sharp, Kari Castle, Tiki Mashy, and me.

It soon became clear that Zapata, forty miles south of Laredo, had the best mix of higher early morning clouds and light winds on the ground with stronger winds aloft. Gary phoned the Zapata Chamber of Commerce as he tried to determine whether this was the spot. He reported to us on his conversation by e-mail:

I might be blowing it here. From my cyber-perspective, today looks about the worst weather-wise for quite a while with oppressive high pressure down there.

Even so, I just got off the phone with the Chamber of Commerce staff, and off-hand remarked that there's probably not a cloud in the sky. They looked outside, and said:

Zapata: "No, there are puffy clouds but they're just scattered around. They're not very much bunched up together, which is what I hear you want."

Gary: "Really…I'm surprised. But we do want them to line up together."

Zapata: "Yeah, they're kind of spread apart like a bunch of different lines across the sky. They just look like several lanes in straight lines. Maybe it will get better before you get here".

Gary: (To himself) "Fish in a barrel". (To Zapata) "I'll bet the wind's not blowing very strong today, is it?"

Zapata: "Yeah, that's the good thing because usually when the cloud lanes are everywhere it's just so windy. It's only blowing about 15 mph today. Maybe when you get here, there will be lots of clouds and the wind won't blow so hard."

Gary: "Righto".

Ooh, it looks like a perfect day. Too bad we aren't there yet, and won't be there for a while.

In addition to the consistency of the high that centered itself in the Gulf of Mexico, what made it unique was how big it was. Stability would give us the same good conditions day after day. But the size of this weather feature was what would make straight-line flight downwind possible.

Continue reading here: https://OzReport.com/docs/Cloudsuck10.pdf

Discuss "Cloudsuck, chapter 10" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Thermal Wave Glory

At Pine Mountain

Thermal Wave Glory

February 1, 2012, 11:47:54 PST

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Gary Osoba|Patrick Kruse|PG|record|sailplane|William "Billo" Olive

charles baughman <<big-bird>> writes:

The view was breathtaking. I was high, way above the clouds in very smooth, serene air and all alone. I was really glad I had a camera and hoped the shots were good. I saw Patrick climbing up to 8700' and I radioed to him, "Get your butt up here, this is incredible air." He responded, "I'm trying, I'm trying!” During the flight I had radioed to my flying friends several times how wonderful the conditions were and apparently sounded like an exuberant little kid at Christmas. The return reply could have easily been, “Shut up, I am busy.”

The forecast on Saturday, Oct 22, for Pine Mt. Oregon was for lift to 8000' and a 10 to 15 mph west wind which is straight in at launch. Pine Mt. is over forty miles east of the Cascade Range and the westerly winds put it in a lee side condition, which is very dry with very few trees. This is Central Oregon, categorized as a high desert area. These conditions make for good flying and cross country potential. There are many days of thermal flying in the summer with cloud base ranging from 10000‘ to 14000‘ and occasionally higher. Landing areas are plentiful at about 4300’ where the terrain is mostly flat and treeless but usually has sagebrush ranging from two to five feet tall. Pine Mt. is a big rocky volcanic mountain with several long ridges. There are four main upper launches of which the west launch, at 6100’, is the favorite launch for hang gliding. The paragliders use the four upper launches and very often use the convenient lower launches on the northwest facing ridge which are very close to a parking area.

I launched at 2:00 PM and found conditions to be good, especially for this late in the year. Five hang gliders and seven paragliders launched that day. Paragliders Steve Roti and Scott Maclowry said they got up to 7700’, where they found the wind to be at their maximum, so they flew out and down. I got high in good lift with light turbulence. The cumulus were dry and wispy at 10000'. I worked the lift back to the Antelope Launch area. I would have continued east but I saw no appetizing cumulus and decided to head back upwind to the ridge. I was able to make it back to the top of the ridge because of the superior performance of the Atos type glider.

My glider is an Atos VR11. It is classified as a rigid wing hang glider and has a very wide span, flaps, spoilerons, winglets, and a horizontal stabilizer. The flaps and stabilizer are coupled together and the setting can be changed in the air with a pull cord. Pitch and roll are controlled by weight shift movement. It has an excellent glide ratio, and that allows me to--- go places.

After I flew back to the launch area, I scratched for lift with Scott Michalek and Tim Reynolds and later circled up to Patrick Kruse. After some searching, I entered a strong smooth thermal with my climb averaging 700 fpm. I love fast climbs, especially when they are smooth. As I climbed higher and higher, I looked up for a cloud, which I could not find, and I topped out at 12100' and 2000' above the clouds. The entire climb was cloudless. As I was cruising around in the smooth upper layer, I noticed a glory on a cloud. The glory is an optical phenomena that falls into the "Water Droplet Arc" category similar to rainstorm rainbows. The physics of the glory are not fully understood but a basic explanation is that glories are rainbow-colored rings produced by backscattering, surface wave effects, and diffraction from small, uniformly sized water droplets such as those in clouds and fog. The colored rings are seen around the “anti solar” point, directly opposite the sun along a line running through the observer’s location. Droplet characteristics are important in the type of glory formation. Smaller droplets produce larger glories. Uniform droplets have more rings, and they are more distinct as well. The glory’s angular size depends only on the diameters of the cloud droplets. The distance from the cloud has no effect on how large it looks. All of the glories in my pictures look to be the same angular size even though I was at different distances from the clouds. The shadow itself can change size depending on the distance from the cloud. The glider shadow in my pictures is small and off center in the glory. The camera is not centered on the glider. it is on the left wingtip aimed to the right and forward and it “sees” its part of the shadow in the center of the glory.

The glory sighting was mesmerizing. I had seen these before, but this time I was able to stay up at cloud height for an extended period of time while taking pictures. Most of the clouds I used to make the glory shots were elongated and wedge shaped from west to east and the cloud top billows appeared to be rising and showing a wind increase. I flew along the sunny south side of the cloud to get multiple shots. There was continuous 300 to 500 fpm lift near the cloud in clear air. I had to dive to stay low enough to get the glory shots. It was as if I was making speedy ridge runs, except I was flying upwind taking shots, and downwind to line up for another shooting run. After I made multiple cloud passes, the conditions started to deteriorate as the clouds were dissipating. The magical air had lasted about 45 minutes. I flew back to the ridge and as I watched my altimeter unwind my thoughts turned to the camera. I really wanted the shots to be there when I uploaded, because no one would believe or could imagine and enjoy this story without pictures.

I have had discussions about this soaring condition with Gary Osoba, a hang glider designer back in the 70‘s when new designs were coming out monthly. Gary also had some very innovative designs and currently holds many sailplane records and makes attempts to break soaring records every year. Gary had an explanation for my soaring condition: “The condition that allowed you to climb to altitudes above the clouds and then fly along in front of them, as you might do in ridge lift, are rather uncommon. First, there appeared to be a convergence of two air masses with markedly differing moisture levels. Secondly, the winds aloft were such that once you climbed to a position in front of existing clouds, you could “surf” them in a thermal induced wave. As such, the clouds line up in a manner that results in the upper winds to flow over them, creating mild wave lift and sink in a pattern.” I would like to add to this that the elongated wedge shape of the clouds was very interesting, possibly indicating that a drier, colder, faster moving air mass was converging, and riding up the cloud top, which increased the instability and helped to form and pull the cloud into a wedge shape.

After many years of flying, this flight is a strong reminder that the potential for new experience and discovery is always there, just waiting to be realized. In my early days of flying I discovered, for myself, that even a primitive standard hang glider could go up in a thermal using the circling method. We have come a long way since then. Through the years advancements in equipment, improvements in technique, and overall knowledge have enhanced our enjoyment in all aspects of flying. This flight had some phenomenal firsts for me: I have never gained anywhere near 2000' above the lower thermal formed clouds. I have never flown next to a small cloud in clear air and consistently gained 500 fpm. I have never had such a euphoric glory experience. The pleasure of this adventure was magnified by the unbelievable smoothness and buoyancy of the upper layer.

Later that night, I expressed to my flying buddies, “I feel like a 1000 watts. You could plug a toaster into me.”

Cloudsuck, chapter 6 »

Mon, Jan 9 2012, 1:15:31 pm GMT

I serialize Cloudsuck for the winter season

Belinda Boulter|Carbon Dragon|CIVL|Cloudsuck|David "Dave" Glover|record|sailplane|weather|William "Gary" Osoba jr.

Many pilots wonder what it really takes to set a world record. Some wonder what it's like to fly at a place like Zapata or other world class sites. Cloudsuck answers these and other questions while telling the story of how I set the current Distance World Record for Rigid Wings. Over this winter, I am pleased to make the book available as a gift to my readers in serialized form. Each Monday, another chapter will be available for you to enjoy here on the Oz Report. The best read is the one in it's entirety, and both the soft cover book and an ebook are available to purchase here: https://OzReport.com/cloudsuck.php. You can find the Kindle version on Amazon.

If you enjoy the serialized installments, you may wish to skip the text below and jump directly to this week's chapter, including any graphics or pictures here: https://OzReport.com/docs/Cloudsuck6.pdf

I hope you enjoy the book and this week's chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

The Dry Line

Northeast of Wichita in Sunflower you'll find what remains of the Navy's biggest inland air base. Purchased by a sailplane pilot for the mere pittance of $10000, this was where Gary Osoba kept his six sailplanes, all given to him for experimental purposes.

We had driven up through Oklahoma late in the afternoon with our friend David Glover, and had set up camp south of the airport. There was a big storm brewing nearby, and the light was fading as the sun got low and a gigantic cumulonimbus cloud began to fill the sky. After dropping off the trailer the three of us drove north to check out the airport, lightening flashing off to our west.

Sunflower Field was a ghost airport, with a gutted tower and cracks in the apron and the runways. Every few hundred yards a semi trailer sat by itself — we found out later they were packed with fireworks. In the dark and the storm, the deserted airport was full of the ghosts of World War II Navy pilots.

But the next day, with Gary there and all the sailplane pilots hanging out, the airport wasn’t quite so weird. Belinda towed me up with the little static line setup we’d brought back from Australia, and I soon discovered that hang gliding over the flat fields of Kansas was as pleasant as it got. Nothing could be more beautiful than flying over the Mennonites’ cultivated fields of wheat, corn and milo. And after I landed I had a great time talking with the farmers, who really made me feel at home.

Gary Osoba had been a hang glider pilot and hang glider manufacturer back in the ‘seventies, in the infancy of our sport. He had designed and produced the successful Pliable Moose — a glider that, while not up to today’s standards, was quite a few steps forward from the original Rogallo wings. He’d also made it big and gone bust in the oil business. Now he was an independent consultant helping others start businesses based on his original ideas.

By the time I had started communicating with him via e-mail in 1997, Gary was also a sailplane pilot. Not only did he fly sailplanes, but he was dedicated to setting world records in them, especially in ultralight sailplanes. He was president of the Sailplane Homebuilders Association, an association of ultralight sailplane enthusiasts of all stripes, homebuilders and otherwise.

One of the sailplanes Gary owned and wrote about was the Carbon Dragon, a plane built by others that he had helped design. The Carbon Dragon was a one-off plane built by craftsmen who wanted something very light — which meant that it couldn’t be left out in the rain (paint would have made it too heavy), and it couldn’t handle strong conditions. In fact, only one other Carbon Dragon was ever built in the US, and that pilot had added paint so his glider wouldn’t be destroyed if it got caught in the rain. Of course, that one wasn’t really the light Carbon Dragon anymore.

The Carbon Dragon was of interest to hang glider pilots because it was so light, foot launchable, and designed to break hang gliding records. The designers had looked at the official definitions of the hang glider classes and created an ultralight sailplane that met the definition of a hang glider.

As soon as Gary had set a hang gliding world record in the Carbon Dragon, CIVL — the international committee that keeps the hang gliding world records — realized that a sailplane in the guise of a hang glider had snookered them. They quickly did the old switcheroo, changed the rules, and put the Carbon Dragon in a new class by itself so it wouldn't compete with other less capable hang gliders. Then they took away all of Gary’s Carbon Dragon world records.

By the time Belinda and I had first met him in person at the U.S. Hang Gliding Association's convention in Knoxville, Tennessee in March 1999, Gary was already formulating his plan for an assault on the ultralight sailplane world records. Right away he encouraged me to think about what it might take to set world records myself. At the time, though, that had seemed unimaginable.

Now it was June and a small group of us hang glider pilots had come to Kansas for the 1999 Ultralight Soaring Championship, a multi-class event Gary had organized. Belinda and I were on our way west, and I was looking forward to spending more time with Gary, learning more about his ideas.

Hang glider pilots were interested in Gary's theories and experience with "micro-lift" and dynamic soaring. Flying the ultralight Carbon Dragon, Gary was able to work small pieces of light lift down low, and to stay up for extended periods of time in the lightest lift. Gary claimed that he could "feel" the small pieces of lift coming off the ground and quickly turn into them to keep the Carbon Dragon from sinking, and perhaps to get a little higher. The Carbon Dragon's quick turning response was a necessary ingredient in taking advantage of these small pieces of lift. Regular hang gliders just couldn't turn that quickly.

Gary would fly the Carbon Dragon and other sailplanes in what looked like an erratic manner, going left and right and not following any apparent course line. He would be feeling out the course of the lift and following it. He said that he would sometimes be able to find lines of lift that continued for many miles. The lines were like sharp ridges; he had to carefully balance the Carbon Dragon to stay on top of them and not fall into the sink on each side.

Flying through an air mass affected by various winds and bits of lift and sink, Gary would continually pitch up or down and move from side to side as he felt the air. This could be quite difficult for any passengers that he had with him. They’d better bring along a plastic sack.

A few days later, as we headed toward Hobbs, Gary already had me thinking about other options. I had my doubts about Hobbs, and wasn’t even sure that I wanted to try for a world record, but Gary had encouraged me to think seriously about how one might go about it. What set him apart was that he had a method for seeking the very best weather conditions — he wasn’t just going back to the same spots where records were previously set. Gary’s methodical attack on the weather data certainly inspired confidence. I believed he could indeed spot the patterns that would make for world record weather.

Continue reading here: https://OzReport.com/docs/Cloudsuck6.pdf

Discuss "Cloudsuck, chapter 6" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Deviations

October 7, 2011, 8:54:10 MDT

Deviations

Go off course.

Gary Osoba|weather

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

Here is an excellent paper that John Cochrane has written about the value of course deviations. I did a similar analysis some years back, and presented parts of it in lectures at SSA Conventions and ESA gatherings during the late 90's and early 2000's. These featured themes and phrases such as "When Slower is Faster" and "The Shortest 'Distance' Between Two Points is Convoluted." Not implying curved space/time and speaking metaphorically about "Distance," of course.

Whereas MacCready theory as normally applied matches cruising speeds for straight glides in response to variable air masses, the approaches John’s paper explores introduce what is often a more useful variable, that of the varied course line.

The other grand regime for piloting strategy in a discontinuous atmosphere is dynamic maneuvering - this is the area I have been working in. This places the focus on when, how quickly, how frequently and in what manner to make changes from one cruising speed or another and one heading to another, optimized to harvest energy or minimize its losses. This strategy, for example, could allow for counterintuitive results when applied to Graph 1 of the paper with Pilot B arriving at his destination much more quickly than Pilot A when dynamic maneuvering is properly applied. This assumes that both pilots had a *reason* to make deviations where they did, according to the paper's impetus.

John has a writing style that is clear, concise, and cogent. He focuses on the key relationships in decision-making. The quantitative conclusions will shift due to lower performance in hang gliders, but the trigonometric analysis of polar graphs with an appropriate hang glider polar will obviously hold true. This is an excellent paper on the subject.

http://ozreport.com/docs/deviations_I.pdf

http://soaringcafe.com/2011/10/deviations-part-i/

John H. Cochrane writes:

I’ve been torn in my efforts to fly faster lately. For a few years, I’ve been working hard to learn to follow “energy lines,” and especially to stay out of the rivers of sink that seem to ruin too many race days. I’ve been trying to emulate my buddy Herb Kilian at the Chicago Glider Club, who is regularly wipes us all out of the sky by floating along in lift while I bore a hole in the sky. But then came Ephrata, and a long set of conversations with Bill Elliot. He’s been trying to go as straight as possible to minimize course deviations, and obviously that’s working great for him. Maybe I’m wandering too far around the sky? Who is right? Now that flying season has been replaced by goof-off-at-the-office season, it’s time to think it through. Here are some principles I’ve come up with:

1. Degrees matter, not miles. Many pilots measure their deviations by how many miles they have gone off course. This is a mistake. The only thing that matters is how many degrees you go off course.

2. Small deviations are cheap. Once past 45 degrees though, the costs start to spiral up dramatically. Going more than 45 degrees off course is really costly.

Small deviations are nearly costless. The lines each start at the thermal the pilot will find straight ahead, but they start moving horizontally to the right. It’s worth making small — 10-20 degree course deviations for even very slightly better thermals.

Make smaller deviations in stronger weather. If you can find a 5 knot thermal straight ahead, you need to know there is a 10 knot thermal to make a 30 degree course correction worthwhile! Bill is right at Ephrata, where thermals were strong but isolated.

Make big course deviations in weaker weather. Herb is right in Chicago. Here it is typical to find two knots straight ahead, but 3-4 knots if you go chasing clouds. That means up to 30-40 degree course deviations are ok.

Make really big course deviations in very weak weather. If you’re going to end up climbing at 1 knot, it’s worth really going anywhere to avoid that fate. Even 50 degrees off course for a 2 knot thermal is justifiable.

This is part of the general point: Avoid weak lift. It’s much better to climb at 3 knots always than to have half your thermals at 1 knot, and half your thermals at 5 knots. Minutes per foot matter, not feet per minute.

Don’t go past the wall. Each line explodes vertically off the chart at some point. If you fly 4 sufficiently far off course, you go slower than flying straight and taking a 2 knot thermal, even if you can find an infinitely strong thermal off course.

Discuss "Deviations" at the Oz Report forum   link»

The Theory of Dust Devils

September 27, 2011, 6:07:04 pm MDT

The Theory of Dust Devils

Heat engines

dust devil|Gary Osoba

Gary Osoba writes:

Here's a technical piece predicting frequency of occurrence, scaling, types of geographic distribution, and other helpful information relative to dust devils. The data presented was gathered in the Santa Cruz Flats region.

http://ozreport.com/docs/Renno.et.al.JAS.98DD.pdf

Based on the heat engine framework, a simple scaling theory for dust devils is proposed and compared to observations. This theory provides a simple physical interpretation for many of the observed characteristics of dust devils. In particular, it predicts the potential intensity and the diurnal variation of dust devil occurrence. It also predicts that the intensity of dust devils depends on the product of two thermodynamic efficiencies, corresponding respectively to vertical and horizontal temperature gradients.

Dust devils are low pressure, warm-core vortices with typical surface diameters between 1 and 50 m. Since they receive their vorticity from local wind shears that can be either due to the convective circulation itself or due to larger-scale phenomena, they rotate either cyclonically or anticyclonically with equal probability (Williams 1948; Sinclair 1966; Carroll and Ryan 1970).

To a first approximation, a dust devil moves with the speed of the ambient wind, typically at about 5 m s21. In general, dust devils slope with height in the wind shear direction. In environments of high wind speed (*10 m s21), dust devil diameters are biased toward large values. About 55% of the dust devils observed around Tucson, Arizona, have diameters between 3 and 15 m, and 15% have diameters larger than 15 m (Sinclair 1966, 1969, 1973).

Discuss "The Theory of Dust Devils" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Woodstock at Sandia

August 26, 2011, 8:27:39 MDT

Woodstock at Sandia

Flying fast

Carbon Dragon|Gary Osoba

Gary Osoba <<penetrx>> writes:

Everything clicked yesterday and I really hit a home run with my first flight this year in New Mexico. It's the first time I've brought the Woodstock here. The design is too light to do much good with pitch based dynamic maneuvering, but I have modified it to be very quick in lateral maneuvers. There were some very sharp shear lines working yesterday, and I was able to harvest a lot of energy by using dynamic maneuvering in and out of the shear lines. By doing so, I could cruise faster and more efficiently than by following the relatively constant lift lines inside the shear lines. Although I have about half the effective glide ratio of the other ships in the area, I managed the lowest percentage of time circling. And a very high effective glide ratio.

Here's how the flight compared to other flights flown here yesterday in the same conditions: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightsOfAirfield.html?aa=MORIA1&st=olcp&rt=olc&c=C0&sc=&sp=2011

Here's how the flight scored worldwide: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/daily.html?st=olc&rt=olc&df=2011-08-23&sp=2011&c=C0&sc=

Top scorer in the world again. I first started experimenting successfully with lateral dynamics in the Carbon Dragon. Although it will be difficult for Hang Gliders to benefit much from pitch based dynamic due to low inertia, I am convinced that the Hang Glider of the future- designed differently than today's models will be able to benefit from lateral dynamic energy harvesting. We had a discussion about such future designs at the party following Big Spring. What is needed to build a proof of concept is some donated funds, volunteer manpower, and a modestly equipped fabrication facility for volunteers to gather and work. I have designed and redesigned this one in my head for a very long time. I tested the stability and control as well as salient unique design point in a 1/3 scale UAV a few years back.

Discuss "Woodstock at Sandia" at the Oz Report forum   link»

The 2011 US National Hang Gliding Championships - Wednesday »

August 17, 2011, 9:22:26 pm CDT

The 2011 US National Hang Gliding Championships - Wednesday

A super fast triangle in outstanding conditions

dust devil|Flytec 6030|Gary Osoba|Glen Volk|photo|US Nationals 2011

http://soaringspot.com/2011bsn

The NAM and the RUC were in conflict about the strength of the wind forecasted for the afternoon. NAM said that the average wind at 2 PM would be 14-16 knots from the southeast. The RUC was calling for 6 to 10 knots. The task committee called a 145 kilometer triangle as the primary task based on the RUC forecast and what we were experiencing in real life at the airport and a task to the northwest if the winds were as the NAM forecasted.

Gary Osoba went up in his Woodstock and reported eight knot winds out of the southeast. It continued to be light on the ground.

The cu's started forming to our east around noon and they were soon over the airport and spreading to the northwest toward our first turnpoint at Patricia, 60 kilometers away. I launched about sixth and found weak lift. In fact I found weak lift the whole time I was in the start circle and it was hard to get up to cloud base, for me at least.

The start cylinder was only five kilometers in radius reflecting the RUC forecast for light winds. The idea was to clump up the pilots so that they could fly together. But this also made it hard to get up in weak lift because you were soon drifting out of the start cylinder given the actual fifteen mph winds.

Given the weak lift I could not get to cloud base in time for the second clock, but even though my competitors were at cloud base, 2000' over my head, I headed out then with them. I was immediately on my own, although apparently Alex Cuddy went with me, above me. I never saw him.

There were cu's all over the place, but of course I had just experienced forty minutes of weak lift under the cu's so it wasn't clear to me that the cu's would actually be working. I headed down the course line and felt the mixed up air that indicated broken lift was around.

I found 300 to 400 fpm in most of the thermals and the cu's were working. Fortunately the course line was directly down wind. It was all broken up so it was hard to center a thermal, but it kept me up and on the task.

Twenty kilometers out from the first turnpoint I knew that I had to get really high before I hit the turnpoint so that I could turn and race up into the wind to find lift upwind of the course line.  I could see a thick high cumulus ten kilometers south of the turnpoint marking a potential source of lift. But I also saw a dust devil six kilometers south the turnpoint and figured that dust devils were more reliable indicators of lift than the cu's.

I could see a pilot high above me going under the cu and not finding any lift. I headed for the dust devil gliding fourteen kilometers. As I approached the dust devil I went over a field where three dust devils formed as I came over it. I flew to the area in the middle of all three dust devils and found 700+ fpm. I climbed to 10,300'. Topping out five kilometers from the turnpoint.

High, I headed for the turnpoint and noticed four gliders belonging to some of those pilots who had been high above me coming back 4,000' and 5,000' below me. It sure looked like I could catch them now.

Tagging the turnpoint I raced back to get above one of the four gliders and climbed back to 9,400'. Ahead there is a cloud street right along the course line and it is at least twenty kilometers long. I pull out of the 300 fpm thermal and go to the cloud street where I find half a dozen pilots that started above me and they are turning in 600 fpm to cloud base, 10,000'. I join them in the fun.

I chase five of them including Glen Volk down the cloud street slowly gaining on them. Coming out at the end of the cloud street with more cu's ahead I'm caught up but just below the lead guys, including Glen, who is in second place just behind me in the overall scoring. I can't find Zippy who is in third overall.

We race to the turnpoint staying together, about four of us in the lead. I slowly climb on Glen as we work a number of thermals together. As we get near the turnpoint I see Zippy just over me. I wonder where he came from.

We have been fighting a head wind since we made the turnpoint, but instead of fifteen mph, it is eight mph. It is a quartering head wind from the southeast and this second turnpoint was east of the first one, fifty kilometers.

We take the turn point and Zippy, Glen and I go out front heading toward goal thirty six kilometers to the south, still into a head wind. Zippy is a bit higher and takes the lead. Glen and  I follow and stop with him in the lift that he finds.

Twenty five kilometers from goal we all spread out. We are all at the same altitude and have different ideas about where to go next. Zippy has been shading to the left of the course line upwind ever since we made the turnpoint. Glen heads out along the course line toward clouds that he feels look better. I split the difference.

Glen finds some lift first and I go over to join him. I find better lift a little further on and Glen is just over my head. I find 400 fpm, but he searches around a bit more and finds the real core at 900 fpm. It will take me a few minutes more and Alex Cuddy to come over for me to see where the good lift is.

Meanwhile Zippy got low but found good lift to our left. Glen goes on final from cloud base eighteen kilometers out. I climb up quickly and leave below cloud base with the Flytec 6030 showing that I have the numbers. I glide in as the required glide ratio stays lower than my glide ratio flying between 45 and 50 mph. As I get close to the airport I increase the speed to 55 mph.

Glen would have been first in but he slowed down a bit so Zippy was in ten second ahead of him. Alex was third in and I was in four minutes behind Zippy.

A number of pilots made it in today, and they were happy that they didn't have to setup their gliders, just leave them in the hangar.

The results are up at the link above as we got home early. I'm still leading the competition.

Our hangar.

Killer Bee ready to launch on Wednesday. Photos by Gary Osoba.

The 2011 US National Hang Gliding Championships - Sunday »

August 15, 2011, 7:56:51 CDT

The 2011 US National Hang Gliding Championships - Sunday

We fly the first day with challenging conditions

Belinda Boulter|Gary Osoba|Glen Volk|Joe Bostik|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Larry Bunner|Owen Morse|photo|US Nationals 2011|weather|Zac Majors

http://soaringspot.com/2011bsn

In the middle of the night on Friday, the rains came. The first rains in either six months or a year depending on which local you're talking to. Texas is drying up and blowing away (See here.) There was a substantial amount of rain (maybe a quarter of an inch), and it rained into the morning. But by Saturday afternoon it had cleared up and a good number of folks were able to get some practice flights in.

The remnants of that storm were hanging around on Sunday as we looked to the south in the morning and saw cu-nimb development maybe fifty miles away. The forecasts showed it coming close to us later maybe even going to our north. With a higher temperature predicted to be 89, six degrees lower than normal, and a low cloud base forecasted to be between 6,000' and 7,000' (ground level is 2,500'), it looked like a day for a shorter task.

Zac Majors, Larry Bunner, and Glen Volk, the task committee, called a zigzag task to the north with a turn thirty three kilometers to the north east at Ackerly then thirty kilometers to the northeast Gail and then back to the airport at La Mesa to the west. When I called the weather in the morning I noticed the cu's forming to the north and west of us in addition tot he cu-nimbs to the south, but didn't think deeply enough about them to realize that maybe we should set the task at an earlier time. On the first day of the competition things are still a bit disorganized. The cu's normally form here between noon and one o'clock, which is what we like. If they were forming at 9:30 that meant that we could expect over development (there was forecasted at a 30% chance of thunderstorms) and we should have got going early. I just missed that one as I wasn't thinking as clearly as I should have about the task.

A shelf of stratus clouds approached us from the cu-nimbs to the south as we waited for the launch to open at 1 PM. There were towering cu's also to our south and the stratus clouds were shading almost everything to our south. It look like we had a very iffy day and we weren't even sure that we would be able to launch. The wind was five to ten mph out of the east or southeast.

I decided to get going early even though the conditions might be a little unsettled. It could gust from the south, or the shade might shut us down, but there seemed to be little harm in trying. I was the first one to get to the launch box and that pulled four or five pilots behind me. It was just a couple of minutes after the launch open time at 1 PM that Jonny Thompson pulled me into the air and waved me off in a little lift at 2,000' AGL on the east side of the airport.

The stratus clouds were blocking the sun at the airport and as far south as I could see from my high vantage point. There was sunshine on the ground five km to the north and cu's over the hot fields. There was a wisp of sunshine on the ground near the park on the east side of the airport and I was in a light thermal going up at 140 fpm. I was watching the next pilots get towed into the gloom as I slowly climbed up trying to concentrate on getting as high as possible before possibly racing to the sunshine as it looked like the shade continued to move to the north. And I was also thinking about getting the earliest cleverest start at 1:19 and a few seconds which meant I would have to run to the sunshine perhaps sooner than I would hit cloud base. My head was spinning.

I stayed in the weak lift topped out at 5,800' and headed north toward the sunlight trying to make the edge of the start circle a little less than forty minutes before the opening of the start window in order to get my amended start time to be just past the last start time at 2:40 PM. If you start early your start time to shifted past the first start time (2 PM) by the amount that you start early.

Belinda told me that the four or five pilots that were towed up behind me did not get up and that no one was launching. I was the only one to get away from the airport before the shade shut it down. I raced toward the sunlight and went past the edge of the five km start circle with four seconds to spare. As I started 39 minutes and 56 seconds before the first start clock at 2 PM, I would have my start time (and my whole flight interval) shifted to forty minutes after 2 PM, the last start time. I had tried starting early a couple of times previously in competition, but it never did me any good. And it wasn't clear if this was going to do me any good as I was out on my own in very weak conditions. Also if the task was stopped I would have my time reduced by eighty minutes thereby significantly reducing my scored distance. It sure looked like the task would be stopped given the cu-nimbs nearby.

It was a nine kilometer glide from not very high before I found any lift at 600' AGL. It was weak at an average of 92 fpm, but I needed anything I could get. At first I had to keep searching for its core and at 600' that's a nerve racking task. There was a dispersed looking cu some where over my head, but no real clues other than the bits of lift to guide me. When I found something that I could actually turn in and keep going up for the whole turn I stayed with it for twenty minutes the whole time wondering whether I could get to the next thermal and whether I should search around for better.

An hour later Larry Bunner, Joe Bostik, Bruce Barmekian, and Owen Morse would be in the same dilemma, climbing very near where I was, rifting away from the course line and wondering whether to stay in the weak lift. Bruce and then Owen would bale on the lift and soon land. Joe and Larry would hold on for twenty five minutes and get out of there.

Six hundred feet is low when you don't really have a purchase on the lift, but it is not as low as Dave Gibson got today. He had a save from a genuine 200'. That's a real 200', not a perceived 200'. And he stayed at 200' for quite a while before he zoomed out of that hole. He said the secret was not to open his harness.

I was out on my own, and the airport was still shaded. There were no cu's above it. I heard from Belinda that no one was launching. I had just climbed back up to over 5,000', only 2,500' AGL, and I was being blown downwind of the course line by the southeast wind. There was a lot of shading all around from stratus clouds and a cu-nimb to my southwest. There were nice looking cu's ahead to the north toward Ackerly and patches of sunlight. More shading to the east and northeast. I was happy that the cu's and the sunlight were all on my course line. I was wondering if anyone was going to be flying behind me and whether the task would be stopped because of the rain to our west.

I knew that if I got further north I could out run the approaching shade from the cu-nimb and the shade from the east, but the lift was even worse under the next cu to the north at an average of 89 fpm and I hadn't found it until I was down to 800'. I had to stick with it until I was over 5,000' again so that I could get far enough to have a good chance of finding better lift in the sunny areas with cu's nearby. On the next thermal I finally found 300 fpm and climbed to 6,000'. The race had begun.

Seven kilometers south of the turnpoint at Ackerly I found lift under a cu that averaged 500 fpm with plenty of 700+ fpm to 7,800'.  Now things looked really good. It was easy to get the turnpoint and head northeast toward Gail. The cu were quite sparse ahead of me so I had to be careful. There was shading on all sides from stratus clouds but there were open areas with cu's along the way. It was raining to my south west in an area that appeared to be just west of the course going to Ackerly and it was all shaded in that direction. It appeared as though no one would be able to get very far behind me.

It was into the wind to Gail, but the winds were not that strong. I was able to glide at approximately 47 mph into the wind and find good lift under small cu's getting back over 7,000'. I heard from Belinda that pilots were being towed back up and while there were many relights, some pilots were sticking and would soon be out on course. I was about an hour ahead of every one else.

The course line from Ackerly to Gail was over Mesquite territory with just a few open roads so I wanted to be sure that I stayed high especially going into the wind. There were just enough cu's to keep me encouraged and going for it and not banking off toward some paved road.

Within ten kilometers of Gail I climbed up in 500 fpm lift, but I couldn't get as high as I wanted to as the cloud base was low. It had varied all over the place from the start of the flight. I left with 6,500'. I actually had climbed above some wispy clouds that were forming off to my side below me. I wanted lots of altitude because the turn point was in a shaded area. I could see a big shelf of stratus above the turnpoint and they had cooled the ground near there for a significant period. There were a line of cu's to the west of the course line that I was hoping would give me the altitude that I needed to make the turnpoint.

I flew under the cu's but there wasn't any lift. They were just too weak given the nearby shading. I was drifting north about to go downwind of the turnpoint and I turned up wind trying to get under another cu, but it didn't produce anything so I was forced to land in a nice big field by the highway with Belinda nearby to see me land.

I had had the option of continuing downwind to perhaps actual lift past the turnpoint and that's what I should have tried for. While I was showing fifteen mph winds at the wind pushing me sideways past the turnpoint, I would probably have been able to get up and make the turnpoint then head back west toward La Mesa.

After I had slowly packed up and was ready to leave Larry Killer Bee Bunner came and landed in the same field. He was about an hour behind me.

Joe Bostik was near us about ten minutes before Larry landed. He found a nice thermal to the west of Gail just where I would have drifted to about an hour earlier, and was able even after drifting away from the turn point to tag it and then head northwest. Given the deteriorating conditions by the time Joe got to us, he was not able to make it back to La mesa all the way to goal, but plenty far enough to win the day.

10 AM pilot meeting at the airport lounge.

Half an hour before the 1 PM launch start looking northeast into the sunshine and away from the gloom to the south.

Photos by Gary Osoba.

Big Spring, the best weather ever? »

August 8, 2011, 9:53:22 CDT

Big Spring, the best weather ever?

Get ready for great conditions

Big Spring 2011|Gary Osoba|US Nationals|weather

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

In a year when weather patterns have frustrated competition plans in many parts of the world, the US Nationals in Big Spring have a good chance of being the best ever. Of course, Big Spring is already known as a venue which produces maximum task calls and maximum flying days. A hard combination the beat. However, the weather patterns presently in place might very well produce the finest soaring yet for the site. Of course, it could all change and produce an average (good to excellent) year, or less. But right now, it is looking mighty fine.

Here are a few recommendations:

1) If you have never flown Big Spring and have a chance to rearrange your affairs to do so, this would be a time to pull out all stops and simply do it. Sign up quickly and come.

2) Consider bringing oxygen this time. There is a possibility that at least some time during the comp cloud bases will be higher than previously experienced in the task area. Of course, that means stronger lift, less circling and faster times. As our Australian friends would say, it's "All Good".

I say pull out at 12,000' (10,000' AGL) and pull the bar in. You just don't need this kind of altitude to fly fast. Besides it's cold up there.

Gary Osoba, flying the Woodstock in Kansas »

August 4, 2011, 7:42:34 CDT

Gary Osoba, flying the Woodstock in Kansas

It's hot there with high cloud bases

Gary Osoba

See flight here. Flights that day here.

What its like in Kansas:

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Heating up for the 2011 US Nationals in Big Spring

August 3, 2011, 7:57:45 CDT

Heating up for the 2011 US Nationals in Big Spring

It was 109 in Dallas yesterday

Gary Osoba|US Nationals|weather

Gary Osoba writes about the coming weather in Big Spring:

If we get seven degrees more then normal, that will give a cloudbase of about 2,000' higher than normal and thermal strengths about 150-250 fpm stronger than normal. The other change this year is less wind than normal, but enough to street things up some.

Big Spring forecast here.

This is the Texas sky:

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The World Record Encampment - Monday

July 4, 2011, 4:46:22 pm CDT

The World Record Encampment

The cu's come late

Gary Osoba|record|World Record Encampment 2011

We are addicted to early morning cumulus clouds here in Zapata. When they didn't come this morning, we didn't go out to the runway (we were in the hangar) to get ready to tow up.

The cu's did start appearing far away around 11:30 AM, and then as we packed up and headed out they started over the airfield. By then I had packed up the Northwing Freedom 170 to get ready to get out of town as the WRE was going to stop after Wednesday and the forecast was for mostly east southeast winds for the next three days.

Pete's cow:

Photo by Gary Osoba.

The World Record Encampment - Thursday

The World Record Encampment

Arlene arrives and brings rain

Gary Osoba|record|World Record Encampment 2011


Thanks to Gary Osoba for the rabbit shot.

The World Record Encampment - Tuesday

June 28, 2011, 5:08:33 pm CDT

The World Record Encampment

A sky full of cu's and light winds

Gary Osoba|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|Pete Lehmann|record|World Record Encampment 2011

With a forecast for east winds, no one was ready to head north of such a day. That didn't mean that the conditions here weren't excellent for flying, and Pete Lehmann, BJ Herring and Gary Osoba did go flying while the Brazilians went to Laredo.

 

The cu's were present only here in south Texas and along the coast. The winds were east below 10 mph in the morning. The winds increased in strength in the afternoon with strong east gusts.

The World Record Encampment

June 22, 2011, 10:00:59 CDT

The World Record Encampment

Yesterday cu's, today cu-nimbs

Gary Osoba|Mike Barber|record|weather

A few pictures of the cloud streets at the Zapata County Airport on Monday:

Mike Barber took this shot facing south:

Gary Osoba took this shot facing south:

Fay takes this shot to the north as Mike is being towed up:

Today the front has come through with rain, thunder, and lightning.

It looks like the weather improves quickly starting this afternoon and it looks great starting Friday and going on out into the future.

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Not yet heading for Zapata

June 20, 2011, 9:45:35 CDT

Not yet heading for Zapata

We've enjoyed our stay in Austin

David Glover|Gary Osoba|Mike Barber|Pete Lehmann|weather

David Glover|Gary Osoba|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|Mike Barber|Pete Lehmann|weather

David Glover|Gary Osoba|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|Mike Barber|weather

Has been hot, dry, blue, very windy with south southeast winds in south Texas. See here and more Texas weather here. Cu's throughout the state this morning with over running this morning in Zapata starting at 2:35 AM.

Mike Barber and Pete Lehmann are in Zapata (we're in Austin) with Gary Osoba and David Glover and are ready to go at 9 AM. The cloud base in Zapata is higher than what we've ever seen during the over running with the NAM forecast calling for a 4000' - 5000' cloud base at 10 AM when it is normally 3,000' by 10 AM and 2,000' at 9 AM.

For the last few days, it's been too dry for good cumulus development, although as I reported over the weekend there was good flying from the coast at Columbus which is northeast of Zapata, a couple of hours southwest from Houston.

With a south southeast wind, the wind in Zapata comes over Mexico instead of out of the Gulf. This occurs when the high pressure is centered just west of Fort Meyer, instead of south of New Orleans. But today the cu's are there.

The prognosis is not good for tomorrow and the next few days with a cold front coming deep into Texas on Monday evening and likely cutting flights short (after 300 miles) today.

The Brazilians are supposed to show up in Zapata on Monday. We'll see how it goes. We'll be heading down there soon, as the internet access has much improved at the Lakefront Lodge.

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2011 World Record Encampment »

June 17, 2011, 10:36:16 pm CDT

2011 World Record Encampment

We're in Austin, waiting in civilization for the good conditions in Zapata and Texas

David Glover|Gary Osoba|record|Russell "Russ" Brown|sailplane|weather|World Record Encampment 2011

It's blue in central and west Texas. We woke up in Texarkana in northeast Texas on Friday morning. Beautiful cumulus development, but the cu's were restricted to way eastern Texas and then later in the day to Louisiana and Arkansas.

It was very windy and blue over most of Texas. It is forecasted to be windy and gusty in Zapata at least through Tuesday. A chance of rain (and I'm looking for cu's) on Wednesday and later. Looks like it is too south to have early morning cu's there. Need more southeast.

Gary Osoba, Russell Brown, and David Glover are in Zapata. Gary has a sailplane there (I assume the Woodstock), after some troubles on the road with his trailer falling apart.

A contingent of Brazilians should be coming soon. The WRE runs through July 4th.

2011 World Record Encampment »

June 16, 2011, 9:44:06 pm CDT

2011 World Record Encampment

We're on our way

Belinda Boulter|Gary Osoba|record|weather|World Record Encampment 2011

Belinda and I are on the road, and tonight in Texarkana, Texas. We'll be in Austin tomorrow. Russell is in Zapata with the Dragonflies. Louie is there with him. Gary Osoba is there also. They are all there a few days early.

The wind is blowing out of the southeast in Zapata. Hot (105), dry (no cu's there, but cu's to the east), strong winds and gusting.

http://ozreport.com/txweather.php

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2011 World Record Encampment »

June 8, 2011, 3:05:04 pm GMT+0200

2011 World Record Encampment

Coming together

Gary Osoba|Jim Yocom|record|World Record Encampment 2011

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

Things are really shaping up big time in Zapata for our World Record Encampment. BJ Hearing and Jim Yocum have a driver, but some of the Brazilians might need one, also. If anyone knows of someone, please contact me immediately and we'll try to put the parties together.

We have room for two more pilots, then we'll have to cut things off in order to concentrate on the group we have and the record attempts. This year looks fabulous. The place is absolutely magic and we're getting the WRE off at the right time of the year.

Average lift for the three days that I recently checked, 900-1000 fpm. Big thermals, easily cored, never a deployment here.

Oceans of Air

June 6, 2011, 2:57:31 pm GMT+0200

Oceans of Air

Canary Islands

Gary Osoba|video

Gary Osoba sends:

https://vimeo.com/elcielodecanarias/tenerife

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Bach in the Forest

May 26, 2011, 8:14:11 CDT

Bach in the Forest

Bouncing ball

Gary Osoba|video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_CDLBTJD4M&feature=youtu.be

Thanks to Gary Osoba

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Otto Lilienthal's 163rd Birthday Picnic

May 19, 2011, 8:54:11 CDT

40th anniversary of the Otto Lilienthal Hang Glider meet

Gary Osoba|Michael Grisham|Paul MacCready|Richard Miller

Michael Grisham <<magenta_blue_sky>> writes:

There is an informal get-together picnic this Monday, May 23, 2011, 12 noon, at San Miguel Park (corner of San Miguel Drive and Sky Glass Hill Road, Newport Beach, California) in honor of Otto Lilienthal’s 163rd Birthday and the 40th anniversary of the Otto Lilienthal Hang Glider meet.

I heard about this though Ernest Feher, who was present at the original Otto Lilienthal Meet. (Ernest will not be able to attend as he will be in China on business.) He heard it from Frank Colver. The big deal is this is the 40th anniversary and a plaque has been made up to commemorate the site of the “First Hang Gliding Meet”. This is the start of getting this site recognized as a historical place which was the genesis of modern hang gliding on May 23, 1971 as far as meets and competitions go.

Strangely, the success of that meet was the dichotomy of personalities, age, experience, and approaches to personal flight. Present that day, representing the older engineer types were Irv Culver, Paul MacCready, Bruce Carmichael, along with the experienced soaring pilots of Jack Lambie, Volmer Jensen, Richard Miller, who were also adapt in mechanical skills in constructing flying craft verses the presence of youthful exuberant teenagers who were naive enough and nutty enough to be willing to fly those early contraptions.

Sadly the only one still with us of the older experienced group of that day is Bruce Carmichael. The ethos of the analytical mind set has passed on to the likes of Gary Osoba, Bob Trampenau, etc. The then youthful exuberant teenagers are now reaching retirement age and many may not be with us at the 50th anniversary of the Otto Lilienthal Meet. Putting personality differences aside, there is no better time to commemorate this anniversary.

Concerning our previous messages, the following quote out of context seems apropos:

“The foregoing is intended neither to be idle nor cynical commentary on modern man; his methods, his morals and his manifestations are so rich in ironies and contradictions that no contrived observations are necessary to illuminate them. The material speaks for itself. If the reader doubts this, he need only acquaint himself with history. Any history will do, his own as well as another’s.”

Richard Miller, Without Visible Means Of Support: “The foregoing is intended neither to be idle nor cynical commentary on modern man; his methods, his morals and his manifestations are so rich in ironies and contradictions that no contrived observations are necessary to illuminate them. The material speaks for itself. If the reader doubts this, he need only acquaint himself with history. Any history will do, his own as well as another’s.”

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WRE - the bonus seminar »

Wed, Apr 13 2011, 8:13:29 am EDT

Gary Osoba, a strange dude

Gary Osoba|World Record Encampment 2011

https://OzReport.com/pub/images/WREExtra.pdf

You can contact him here: Gary Osoba «wosoba»

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World Record Encampment »

March 24, 2011, 8:38:23 EDT

World Record Encampment

The Brazilians are coming

Gary Osoba|record

Gary Osoba, the organizer of the 2011 WRE, will be down at Quest Air and Wallaby Ranch for Wills Wing Demo Days and is happy to talk to pilots about coming to the 2011 World Record Encampment. A group of Brazilian pilots are coming to the WRE for a week to ten days on their way to the Worlds in Italy.

Come by and speak with Gary on Friday or Saturday. You can reach him at: 316-393-5676.

The 2011 World Record Encampment

February 16, 2011, 8:27:25 MST

The 2011 World Record Encampment

Why are we going back to Zapata?

Dustin Martin|Gary Osoba|record|weather

Because in spite of all the weather uncertainty (the chance of hurricanes like in 2010), all the logistics uncertainty (you have to arrange for retrieval), all the retrieval uncertainty (you may land behind a locked gate early in the morning - although this is less and less likely with more natural gas exploration), Zapata is the place for really long distance flights (far more World Records than any other site in the world). It is also the place for closed circuit World Records (amazingly strong, friendly and consistent conditions).

Gary Osoba is again organizing a World Record Encampment to start June 20th, 2011 in Zapata, Texas. You need to contact him to work out the details. You can contact him at <wosoba>. He hasn't told me how much it costs, or how long it will run for this year.

Now be aware. Zapata is not a great place to be on the ground in summer after noon. It can be quite hot and it does not have low humidity (not being that far from the Gulf of Mexico). If you don't get in the air on a given day (say the conditions aren't perfect for a world record flight), then it can be very very boring. It is not Austin. Bad food, no night (or day) life. Limited internet access at the RV Park (but easy at the airfield).

If the winds are light on a given day, then there is great flying to be had on closed circuit courses. Dustin Martin set the World Record for the 100 km triangle there in 2009. If you give a long distance flight a try, and don't go a World Record distance, you can still spend the whole day flying (and the whole night or the next day driving back) for a very long personal best. But, you might go say 50 or 60 miles and then stop back in Laredo, which has quite a few amenities, and relieve the boredom. Laredo is only 40 miles from Zapata.

It is an incredible feeling to fly from Zapata and to go for a long distance flight. Everyone who has gone there and had this opportunity has been completely thrilled. If you have the opportunity to go to the World Record Encampment for a week, then you should do so. But be aware that nothing is free. You have to be prepared to take your chances.

Me, starting June 16th or so I'm waiting in Austin until it looks good in Zapata and then head down there. There is an RV park and good motels (it is too hot to camp in a tent) in Zapata.

Contact Gary (see above) and tell him about your interest and what your concerns are.

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Gary on record flights

January 11, 2011, 8:09:23 pm AEDT

Gary on record flights

It's better in Texas

Gary Osoba|Jamie Shelden|Kari Castle|Manfred Ruhmer|Mike Barber|Pete Lehmann|record

Gary Osoba|Jamie Shelden|Kari Castle|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|Manfred Ruhmer|Mike Barber|Pete Lehmann|record

Gary Osoba|Jamie Shelden|Kari Castle|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|Manfred Ruhmer|Mike Barber|record

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

Peter Bolt wrote: I guess I won't be the only one to point out that, although the 318km task at Forbes was a great achievement, it wasn't the longest comp goal ever made in Aus. In 2009 at the Dalby "Big Air" comp, several pilots made the 338km goal . . .they were disappointed to find out soon afterwards that they'd missed the world record by about 10km.!

I may be the only one to point this out but Peter is, of course, talking about the longest distance to a goal which is declared in a contest, which is not an actual world record. Although both of these are great achievements, along with the Big Spring task with the longest of such flights, they all fall significantly short of the world record for distance to goal in a flex wing.

For that distinction, the 517.23km flights to a named goal of Pete Lehmann and Mike Barber from (where else?) the Zapata WRE were some 168% longer than the recent Forbes task. And Manfred Ruhmer's 700.6km straight distance world record flight from (where else) the WRE is more than twice as far as the the recent Forbes task and the 2009 Dalby task combined. Think about that.

A good question to ponder is "Who is going to be the pilot to break these official world records?" With so many great flights being had during the Forbes task (and we hope more long tasks down under in 2011) several pilots who had never gone truly far have now experienced the excitement that can only be had when good conditions and good tailwinds prevail over a wide geography. For the best of those conditions and outrageously long flights, we're hoping to have some pilots step up to the plate this year at the WRE and see if they can deliver. We are working to solidify the dates and arrangements and will, as always, make that information available through Davis and the Oz Report.

For now, Jamie Shelden's making that long goal at Forbes in a LiteSport might just have to take the cake. Her 308km Forbes flight was some 87% of the existing women's world record held by Kari Castle from ... well, you know. Way to go, Jamie, and all pilots who flew their longest flights ever that day! There's nothing like truly long distances in free flight. I wish I were down there flying with all of you.

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Thermaling with the masters

December 7, 2010, 8:50:27 PST

Thermaling with the masters

Changing direction to find the best thermal

Gary Osoba|video

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26103/?p1=Blogs

Today, Zsuzsa Ákos at Eötvös University in Hungary and a few pals suggest another approach inspired by videos and GPS tracking of peregrine falcons in flight. It turns out that these masters of thermal soaring employ a counter-intuitive strategy: instead of spiralling in one direction to stay with a single thermal, they constantly change the direction of their spirals.

At first glance, that seems odd. Change the direction of your spiral and you immediately fly out of a thermal. But Ákos and co have simulated this strategy and say there is a method in this madness.

The key is to recognise that the atmosphere is filled with thermals that are distributed in 3D space in complex ways. According to their simulation, the reason why the direction change works so well is that it allows the flier to sample the volume of the atmosphere more effectively, making it more likely that it will find a better thermal. Crucially, this works particularly well when turbulence is present.

Thanks to Gary Osoba

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A murder of crows

November 17, 2010, 7:55:42 PST

A murder of crows

Smart birds

Gary Osoba|video

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/full-episode/5977/

Although cultures around the world may regard the crow as a scavenger, bad omen, or simply a nuisance, this bad reputation might overshadow what could be regarded as the crow’s most striking characteristic – its intelligence. New research indicates that crows are among the brightest animals in the world. NATURE’s A Murder of Crows brings you these so-called feathered apes, as you have never seen them before.

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

My earliest memories in life involved things that fly- soap bubbles floating in the air, birds on the lawn as I crawled around in diapers trying to reach them. As a boy, I caught, tamed, and trained birds as diverse as Blue Jays, Falcons, and Owls. However, the Common Crow was my favorite due to their intelligence and personality. I repeated the experience with my children when they were toddlers. Here's a full length Nature documentary about the intelligence of Crows and how they rate within the context of the animal world. Be prepared for some big surprises.

Although the final experiment portrayed is (IMHO) suspect science, the production is worth watching. It's long but very enlightening. If nothing else, watch the valid experiment starting at about 14 minutes and lasting 5 or so.

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Lindbergh

November 15, 2010, 8:08:55 PST

Lindbergh

Archival footage

Gary Osoba

Gary Osoba <<wosoba>> writes:

Interesting mini-documentary on Lindbergh's flight. Although somewhat ponderous, lots of behind the scenes footage I've never seen anywhere. http://www.airportappraisals.com/contact/.

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The 2010 US Nationals at Big Spring

August 20, 2010, 10:14:49 pm CDT

The 2010 US Nationals at Big Spring

Back in the game

Gary Osoba|Jim Yocom|Larry Bunner|US Nationals

Gary Osoba|Jim Yocom|Larry Bunner|Mark Bolt|US Nationals

Gary Osoba|Jim Yocom|Larry Bunner|Mark Bolt|US Nationals

http://soaringspot.com/2010bsn/

It's Larry Bunner's competition to lose. He and Zac both made goal today, so it all depends on how well Larry does tomorrow.

When I went outside in the morning it windy and blue and dry. I could tell right away that it was likely that we would have a blue day, a tough day, a day that would send out down wind.

The forecasts showed that the wind would decrease somewhat later in the afternoon especially as we went north, so that was something. They also showed high thin cu's, but it sure looked like that wouldn't happen. The task committee called a 186 km dogleg to the north to Crosby with a turn at Tbar. The backup was straight to Town and Country airfield just south of the Lubbock airspace. We would call the secondary if the start time got pushed back because of new cu's.

We set the start time at 2:30 with launch at 1:30. It was clear before 1 PM that there would be no cu's so we pushed back the start time half an hour. Then we sent Gary Osoba up in his Woodstock to test the lift. He didn't find any before 2 PM, so we moved the start time back another half hour and changed the task to Tbar only, 110 km.

Gary went up again at 2:15 and again didn't find any lift. But we decided to leave things as they were and just tough it out. I was ready to launch into the blue void, so at 2:30 PM I was off down the runway.

I pinned off at 2,000' AGL at the end of the runway in 100 fpm. I figured at least it was lift. I climbed to 5,000', then flew back upwind to find another thermal on the west side of the field, climbed to 6,000'. Went back again upwind where I could see Ricker and Mark climbing in the same location that I had started out in, and climbed to 8,300'.

The start window was open as it was an open start, your time started when you went past the 10 km start cylinder. I headed out and Mark and Riker came with me and we found another thermal that got us to 8,800' still inside the start cylinder. as this was free altitude (our climb time was counted against us), we took it and then headed out on the course line.

I took the lead for the first run and after that Mark was in the lead showing Ricker, who was following me, and I where the better lift was. There were no cu's so we basically had to blunder into the lift. We quickly left the cultivated areas and went out over the rougher canyon areas marked with oil or gas wells. We were the lead gaggle, by far, as others were reluctant to launch after I did, and so it took a while for other folks to get going.

Mark marked a number of thermals for us then disappeared. Ricker was now following just me. We got to 8,400', 44 km along the 110 km task and lift had been 300 to 400 fpm. Not bad.

Another twenty kilometers further and Ricker and I were down to 1,100' AGL when I found 300+ fpm. I had been looking at the few roads and noticed that a paved one was ahead so I was bouncing along hoping to get to it at least when I found the lift.

The thermal was a rough one from so low, but I had to stay in it if I wanted to stay in the game. I climbed to 7,100' leaving Ricker behind and heading toward the plateau and the cultivated areas ahead. I was getting light sink and bits of lift so I took another climb to 7,500' just before leaving the scab lands.

It was an 11 kilometer glide out over the flats and it was clear that this would be a different area. Much weaker lift and very wet. There were ponds every where. I had never seen so many ponds in Texas.

I searched and found 200+ fpm, weaker that we had been experiencing, and spent thirteen minutes climbing to 8,100'. I basically just wanted to stay in this thermal as long as possible to get as high as possible, as it looked weak ahead. I left when the thermal petered out.

I also figured that with 30 kilometers ahead of me I would find some lift, even if weak. I was only 200 feet below best glide to goal, but 21:1. I had a 10 mph tail wind.

The short of it is, I didn't find enough lift to get me into goal. I turned for a few turns in lift but it was gone after four turns. Maybe I just got on the wrong side of it.

I circled low letting the wind carry me across the country side from about 800' AGL, losing 75 fpm, until I turned one more time and landed three kilometers from goal.

From there I got to watch four pilots make goal. Mark Bolt had landed earlier having hit sink before he got up on the plateau. Ricker was first into goal having found lift up on the plateau. Jim Yocom missed goal by 0.1 km.

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The 2010 US Nationals at Big Spring

August 17, 2010, 9:27:09 pm CDT

The 2010 US Nationals at Big Spring

A triangle in the blue and shadows

Gary Osoba|Larry Bunner|US Nationals

Chris Zimmerman|Gary Osoba|Larry Bunner|US Nationals

http://soaringspot.com/2010bsn/

The forecast was for light winds so the task committee called an 120 KM FAI triangle to the northwest, north, and back to Big Spring. The forecast was uncertain with a stalled front over us. Seems like it will be around here again tomorrow. Gary Osoba told us to wait as long as we could for the day to get better.

The cu's didn't start appearing at the airfield so we postponed the start of launch until 1:40 PM. I was off first and found lift at the end of the runway pinning off at 1,700' AGL. I thermalled almost continuously for almost the next hour before attempting to take the first clock with Zippy, Rodrigo, and Ricker at 2:40 PM, at 9,800'.

I was on the radio with Zippy and we agreed to take the first clock as we were plenty high and it looked good out in front. But after gliding three kilometers, Zippy turned back to get a later start and the rest of us went with him. This was disastrous as we lost 4,000' and went way south in the start circle (the opposite direction that we needed to go for the task) to get under some clouds.

I went to some small clouds and climbed up but Zippy and others went back to the runway and climbed up higher. I also later went back to the runway and climbed to 8,700' before heading out to get the start at only 6,500'. I was behind Zippy and others and on my own. There were plenty more behind me. It was a hard start.

There were nice looking cu's ahead and ten kilometers out I climbed to over 10,500' at over 500 fpm. From this vantage point I could see that I had 20 km of dark shaded ground ahead between me and the turnpoint, which was in sun. The scud in the sky blocking the sun did not look like it was producing any lift at all.

I was on the radio with Zippy and he was just ahead of me and going under the clouds over the shaded area. I was hoping that he would find something. About half way through it I saw Chris Zimmerman thermaling a bit below me over a small sunny patch, but when I got there it was less than 70 fpm and after a while it was negative. I headed on hearing from Zac that he had hit 300 fpm seven kilometers out.

I glided and glided but didn't find the 300 fpm, or any lift until I was down to 400' AGL at the turnpoint and found -75 fpm, instead of -300 fpm. I landed at the turnpoint with a number of other pilots nearby who also didn't make it through the shaded area.

Apparently the shaded area had been there for at least forty minutes as a pilot who took the first start clock said it was there when he went through it and was put on the ground.

Zippy made it through after finding lift in the shaded area and light lift at the turnpoint. Larry Bunner who was a bit over me with Chris Zimmerman slowly made it through behind me and got up slowly at the turnpoint as he was pushed northwest away from the next turnpoint to the east.

Zippy got low moving east but circling up over some pilots from a little over 1,000' got back up again. He continued on his way with us following in the car, and was able to make the next turnpoint in the blue, then catch an isolated cloud on the way back to get to goal at Big Spring. Larry Bunner came in about half an hour later (maybe more).

Those were the only two at goal by the time I left, late.

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WRE (wish we were there now) »

Tue, Jun 15 2010, 9:40:03 pm EDT

It looks so good

Gary Osoba|record|weather|World Record Encampment 2010

Gary Osoba «Gary Osoba» writes:

We still have room for a few more pilots at this year's WRE. With the relatively poor weather that has been experienced at the preceding North American (and European) comps in 2010, it's time for a radical improvement. As it so happens, the conditions in Zapata are shaping up wonderfully. Last week, there were three or four days that appeared better than any day at last year's event, and this week it's more of the same.

Here are today's conditions, starting with the 1 pm lift- the 600-700 fpm strength with smooth, consistent thermals from ground to cloudbase are legendary.

By 4 pm, the strong lift extended north over the flight course for world record distances.

The winds, which in this case are perfect tailwinds, were from the perfect direction and in the 18-24 knot range.

And the cloudbase was 8,500' to 10,500'. Not bad, when you consider the starting ground elevation is about 400' msl.

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