Oz Report

Day five SCFR

The dust gets to us.

(Francisco Grande, Casa Grande, AZ, USA)

dust devil|Jamie Shelden|Johann Posch|Santa Cruz Flats Race 2008

The flex wing results.

The rigid wing results.

The Swift result.

The blogs of pilots here:

http://skyout.blogspot.com/

http://www.goflyxc.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

There's been a bit too much dust here in the launch area, essentially due to our activities here, breaking the crust on top of the dirt. When the wind blows, as it did today, pilots get dirty, gliders get dirty, and pilots get discouraged.

Add to that that we got a report that rigid wings weren't getting high. Johann Posch came back and landed three times. Brian landed once in the Swift and BJ landed twice, so that was further discouragement.

A novice competition flex wing pilot (who almost ran into me yesterday coming into the thermal smack dab through the middle of the thermal), broke a weaklink on his second tow very low and got off at 300' on his tow. So that was further discouragement.

The pilots just didn't get going and no one pushed them by going in line. I did later, but by then it was a futile gesture. The safety committee decided to call the day, basically based on pilots' feelings, but then why not?

If the rigid wings had not circled around low over us for a while. If the dust hadn't kicked up. Then we would have gone.

The rigids went and made goal. See above.

Discuss "Dusty - Santa Cruz Flats Race" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Hay

The big failure in marketing Australia to hang glider pilots

(Hay, NSW, Australia)

CIVL|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|PG|Ron Gleason|video

150 paraglider pilots have showed up for the Manilla XC Open http://www.xcopen.org this last week at Mt. Borah, Manilla, NSW, Australia. There are ninety of them at the concurrent Bright 321 meet http://australian.pgcomps.net/comps/?d=1&op=view_comp&compID=171 in Bright, Victoria http://www.bright321.net/. This does not include the free flying paraglider pilots flying at these sites.

There will be 150 paraglider pilots flying in the 2007 Worlds at Manilla http://www.manilla2007.com/. All these pilots seem more than happy to come to Australia and fly while it is cold, damp, and windy back home in the northern latitudes. Even if there are cu-nimbs about.

What keeps the paraglider pilots happy and coming back when foreign hang glider pilots have vowed never to return? In a word, Hay.

Manfred Ruhmer refused to fly in the last flex wing worlds because it was held in Hay. Jerz Rossignol refused to come back to Hay. Ron Gleason and Johann Posch refused to come back because of their experiences at Hay.

Me, I don't mind so much, maybe because I've had some incredible, wonderful experiences flying in the air over Hay, but yes, the experience in the tow paddock at Hay is not attractive to almost anyone, including Australian pilots. I have been wrong in the past not to focus on this issue of how Oz can attract more, significantly more, hang glider pilots to its shores. I blamed the pilots for not being able to handle the conditions in Hay.

Australia has a great product - hang gliding in the northern hemisphere's winter, and wonderful flatland flying in mellow conditions, but it has terrible placement - Hay. And the price is a bit high (travel to and fro), in addition (the competitions are relatively inexpensive).

This year we had the opportunity to go to Forbes instead of Hay in January and while Forbes had been almost as bad as Hay (or a bit worse, perhaps) in the past, this year the on-the-ground, in-the-tow-paddock conditions were a big improvement over previous years.

First, it was a short drive to the tow paddock from town. Second, the temperatures were moderate, in the mid thirties. Third, the paddock was small so it was easy to get around and set up. Fourth, it was aerotow, so we didn't have to move around after we set up. Fifth, there was a sandwich wagon and a shade tent for the support personnel. Sixth, there were nearby hangers for the tugs, and tie downs outside the hangers. Seventh, we very quickly went from town, to the setup area to in the air, no waiting around getting overheated on the ground. Eighth, the tow pilots were professionals and got us in the air quickly. Ninth, the conditions in the air were mellow and comfortable above the tow paddock and throughout the tasks. Ten, the task committee called challenging and fun tasks, going long distance when the winds called for it. Eleventh, the pub treated us right with air conditioned meeting rooms, wifi, late hours, video access, good food and drink, and a supportive environment. Twelfth, the meet officials had a good attitude. They were relaxed and supportive of the pilots. They knew what customer service was about. Thirteen, great ground crew that set up the lanes early and got everything marked out as well as helped you on the carts.

Okay, so what are the draw backs from going to Forbes? First, no air conditioned lounge at the air strip. It can be hot out there. Second, no hangar for hang gliders, say on a day that you come back and want to put your hang glider in a hangar.

The meet organizers in Oz have to think seriously about how to attract foreign pilots to their meets. This is a huge opportunity to market to a select population. Three competitions, eight days each, two days in between. This is the big bang for the buck that foreign pilots are looking for. All the competitions CIVL Category 2 sanctioned.

Australia should dump its AAA, AAA, A system and restrictions. That system sucks. I see six meets in Australia that would be attractive to foreign pilots and they shouldn't be down graded for Australian pilots by this silly system. Just because there is an open launch at Manilla, doesn't meet it shouldn't be an AA or AAA competition. Get your heads out of the sand, people.

Look at the big picture. What does it take to attract your northern hemisphere brethren to your great country? Put three meets together in late December through January into the first of February. Maybe think about how to attract more folks to Canungra, Gulgong, and Dalby meets. Why don't we know about the great conditions in Dalby (and I've run a whole series of articles on how great it is there)?

Think about what it takes to really show the world what Australia has to offer. We're not talking shrimps on a barbie here. Hang gliding around the world will benefit from your efforts.

The first in a series of ongoing articles about marketing Australia to hang glider pilots.

Ring around the Green Swamp

Flytec, day 5

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Brett Hazlett|Campbell Bowen|Davis Straub|Flytec Championships 2006|Gary Osoba|Jacques Bott|James Lamb|Jim Lamb|Johann Posch|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Kevin Carter|Larry Bunner|Mark Stump|Oleg Bondarchuk|Oliver Gregory|Phill Bloom|photo|Quest Air|Robin Hamilton|Ron Gleason|Russell "Russ" Brown|Timothy Ettridge|weather

(Quest Air)

Scores

The flight and the task on the HOLC and on Google Earth.

On Wednesday thirty two gliders follow Jonnie here.

We under call the day again, as we thought we would. The forecast calls for cloud base between 6,500' and 7,000' in the afternoon, with sea breeze convergence setting up in the middle of the state. The lift was supposed to average 500-600 fpm.

We decide to go around the Green Swamp as Gary Osoba and the Tampa Bay National Weather Service guys are both calling for sea breeze convergence and Gary says he thinks that it will be west of Quest. The flexies have a 79 mile task and the rigid a 92 mile one. We want to make the tasks long enough to get full validity for the day, which means three hours for the rigids and two and a half for the flex wings.

We send the the rigids right over the Green Swamp to Dean Still and Rockridge intersection, but we are kind to the flexies and have their first turnpoint at Dean Still and highway 33 so that they don't have to cut across the swamp. Our collective next turnpoint is Clinton over the Green Swamp to the west, then thirty miles to the north to the Coleman and then back southeast to Quest. The flexies only have to go north to Kokee and then straight east to Quest.

With no clouds near us at noon we postpone the rigid launches until 1 PM, as pilots are reluctant to get launched when there aren't any visible signs of lift, especially on a day that calls for clouds. The rigids get launched within ten minutes and the flexies start launching fifteen minutes after we start. We've only got a fifteen minutes gap between the classes today, so it's good that we have different first turnpoints.

At 1 PM there are a few wispies around and cloud base is 4,500'. The lift is weak and only three rigids take the first start time at 1:30, a half hour after we open the launch. The rest of us take the second start time at 2 PM, fifteen minutes before the flex wings open their first start window. The start intervals are a half hour for them also.

I catch a little bit of lift just before the 2 PM start time and am able to head southwest with 4,000'. The lift is still weak but I'm heading for the Green Swamp and the cu's in that direction. I see that Jacques Bott is heading south instead, around the swamp, as I follow Johann on the course line. Then Johann heads south as I head into the swamp to get under some wispies.

I find more weak lift but a few pilots who are willing to head out over the swamp join me as we climb up. I get high enough to run deeper into the swamp to a black cloud and with no one in tow climb at 500 fpm to 5,200'. I'm feeling good.

There are plenty of clouds ahead on the way to the turnpoint, but I don't find much lift under them. Two miles from Dean Still and Rockeridge I meet up with Jacques, but don't find much of the lift he appears to be turning in. Then the bottom drops out from under me as I head into the swamp after the turnpoint. Larry Bunner is there with me and he is falling like a rock also. I go to the driest spot out in the swamp to find the lift and we start climbing from 1,400'. This allows all the guys behind to catch up with us.

They are awfully nice about it staying right above us as we work our way back to cloud base. I bet that this won't happen in the Worlds. Getting back to 5,000' I push hard to the west to get us under the nice black clouds out there before the second turnpoint at Clinton. If the lift isn't good I just keep going.

Four miles before Clinton I get under a nice dark cloud that is the beginning of a cloud street to Clinton. I work the 300 FPM until Campbell finds the 700 fpm right next to me. We climb to 6,000'. Tjaden got there above us and was out of there in a hurry. We see him running in front of us.

The convergence has set up and we are in it. We make the turnpoint going upwind against a 5 mph northwest wind under the street all the way, once we turn, the street continues for twenty miles directly on the course line to the north. It is about half a mile wide and on the west side, toward the Gulf of Mexico (thirty miles away), there are only a few cu's. The street is dark, thick and solid. We porpoise fly under it and then stop for the strong bits. We pass Jacques below us as we race together down the street.

Jim Lamb who started early is out in front but Johann and Tjaden soon catch and pass him. I'm right behind them with Kevin Dutt and now Jim following me. At the end of the street eleven miles from Coleman I catch up with Johann and Paul and we head out into the blue after finding weak lift in the last cloud.

Paul dives toward Coleman. There are clouds to the east of Coleman, but it is not clear that we can make it to the clouds after getting the turnpoint as the sink is strong. Johann is slowly following Paul and I'm keeping an eye on both of them. Three and a half miles out and down to 3,000' with my 5030 saying we'll arrive at Coleman at 1,700' I decide that they are diving into a hole that they might not get out of. I spot a tiny forming cu to my left over Lake Panasofskee to the northwest and get under it to climb back to 4,400'. I'm sure that I'm going to see two gliders on the ground by Coleman.

I head to Coleman and still get pounded but make the turnpoint with 2,800'. I'm still in search mode running downwind to find a thermal. Fortunately Jim Lamb gives me some directions and while it isn't right where he is climbing at 500 fpm I'm able to find the thermal at 1,400' in a ten mph west (downwind) wind. Russell comes and joins me and we slowly climb out. I earlier saw Johann and Paul climbing east of us but couldn't find that thermal. They got a strong thermal right after the turnpoint at 2,000'.

There is a set of cu's heading southeast paralleling the Florida turnpike going in the general direction of Quest Air. We climb to 5,800, fifteen miles out and I go on final glide, heading off the course line a little to the east to deal with the light north northeast wind (also forecasted) and get over the drier areas. There is plenty of lift on the final glide to goal.

Jacques Bott gets fitted for lead. Photo by Timothy Ettridge

Thirteen of fourteen ridge wings make goal:

Totals:

Flex wings (40+ in goal):

Totals:

Discuss "The Flytec Championships 2006, day 5, task 4" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Nine rigids in goal within three minutes and seven seconds

Results

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Brett Hazlett|Campbell Bowen|Davis Straub|Glen Volk|Jacques Bott|James Lamb|Johann Posch|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Kevin Carter|Mark Stump|Oleg Bondarchuk|Oliver Gregory|Phill Bloom|Quest Air|Robin Hamilton|Ron Gleason|Russell "Russ" Brown

(Quest Air)

Task 3:

Totals:

The first nine flex wings within three minutes and eleven seconds of each other:

Totals:

Flytec, day 1

With moderate to strong west winds we go north and south.

(Quest Air)

Campbell Bowen|David Glover|Flytec Championships 2006|Johann Posch|Russell "Russ" Brown

Scores

You really had to use your thinking cap today. No just bumbling on down wind to goal. The task committee called a 73 mile triangle task for the rigid wings and a 64 mile up and down task for the flex wings along highway 33.

The forecast was for 11 knots at 2 PM and 16 knots at 5 PM out of the west southwest. The top of the lift was forecast to be not much above 4,000' and there would be few if any clouds during the task, even though there were plenty of cu's during the pilot meeting.

Sure enough the cu's were much thinner by the noon launch for the rigid wings (the flexies would start to launch at 12:30PM). There would be a few wispy cu's out on the course until about 2 PM and then the dry layer of air above would dry every thing out.

The rigid wing task was a 13 mile leg to Center Hill to the northwest, 7 miles on the outside of a 10 km (6.21 mile) start circle. Then a 35 mile run down highway 33 to the Fantasy of Flight, and 25 miles back to Quest. There were only two start times, one a half hour after the first launch time and one a half hour later at 1 PM.

The flex wings have five start times, just to make sure that everyone has a chance to get going. They also have a 13 mile first leg north to the Florida Turnpike and highway 33, then due south 32 miles to the intersection of Dean Still and 33, and then back north to Quest. They get to start launching at 12:30 PM.

I'm second to launch right after Campbell Bowen, and once again the wing runner makes a valiant attempt to kill me. I've got to make sure that David Glover is on my wing instead. It wasn't his fault as he is experienced but was directed by one of the folks here at Quest to push down my wing. Don't ever follow that direction!

The winds are 12 mph out of the west southwest as we slowly (175 fpm) climb up drifting east from Quest. At 3,200' in about the middle of the gaggle I pull the gaggle forward with me to the northwest to the wispy cu's toward the first turnpoint.

I pull them a couple of more times getting to 3,900' but they don't follow me when I head southwest toward more cu's. I have noticed that there are no cu's on the path toward Center Hill, the first turnpoint, but there are cu's to the southwest. Given the strong west wind I figure it it worth a lot more to get west than it is to get north west.

With the rest of rigid wing pilots gaggling up to the northeast of me as I push forward to the west under cu's streeting up. I'm able to get outside the start circle just after the 1 PM start time and I'm soon almost due south of the turnpoint.

The streeting is incredible and regular and almost unmarked by any cu's. I head north and pick up a thermal over a sand mind following a vulture climbing just off the sand. I'm able to easily make the turnpoint jumping multiple streets separated by about two miles.

I get to the turnpoint first but there are a few pilots just below me as I turn south and head toward the Fantasy of Flight. Russell Brown comes in below me just north of highway 50 and it looks like I'll have someone to fly with.

I pull Russell for a while until near Seminole airfield he catches up having found a much better thermal behind me. We then fly together for the rest of the flight in the lead.

Kevin Dutt on the Aeros Phantom and another pilot on an AIR ATOS V come to join us, but we lose them after another thermal. I notice that the V pilot lands just south of 474. Kevin will get low and fall behind.

Russell is on the radio on my frequency and I get him to lead a few times and not just hang out a hundred feet over my head. We keep hitting the streets and thermalling up ninety degrees to the course line. Then it is a slog pushing back to get on course.

With the regular lift at the streets it is easy to get to the Fantasy of Flight, but we get low down to 1,200' AGL coming back but find 400 fpm back to 3,800'. We join up with Johann Posch and another pilot eight miles behind us and on their way to Fantasy. We fly back over a dry swamp area just north of Dean Still to a spot that we got good lift on the way down.

The lift is only 150 fpm, and I think that better is ahead. Russell is a little higher but heads out with me when I leave at 3,200'. I don't find any more lift and land 15 miles from Quest. Russell is able to get a bit further and find 300 fpm 12 miles out and get high enough to make it back to Quest after a few more thermals. He is the only one to make goal.

After he lands he passes out. He had been feeling bad the whole flight. He was unable to drink any water from his camel back during the flight.

Johann, Jacques, and Ron had harness problems.

The flex wings had a lot more difficulties than we did apparently. While most of the rigid wing pilots thought that their more difficult task was fine if challenging, the flex wing pilots I spoke with were complaining about the winds, although they thought the task was okay.

None of the flex wing pilots were able to make the second turnpoint at Dean Still and highway 33. They were often blown to the east to almost highway 27. Our task was worth 800 point to Russell for making goal, but the flex wing task was only worth 300+ points as no one got the second turnpoint.

Tomorrow looks like more west winds. (We had five days of too strong northeast winds at the Florida Ridge, but these winds are not that strong.)

Discuss "The Flytec Championships 2006, day 1" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Worlds

Make sure you are qualified and correctly registered

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Angelo Crapanzano|Christian Ciech|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Davis Straub|Flavio Tebaldi|Francoise Dieuzeide-Banet|Gil Souviron|Jacques Bott|Jamie Shelden|Jim Yocom|Johann Posch|Judy Hildebrand|Lauren Tjaden|Manfred Ruhmer|Michael Huppert|Mike Stephens|Oliver Schmidt|Ollie Gregory|Paul Tjaden|Primoz Gricar|Quest Air|Robert Reisinger|Vincent Endter|World Championships 2006

Lisa at Quest Air «questair»writes:

We have a list of pilots that have pre-registered for the 2006 Class 2/5/Women's Worlds now available on flytec.com: http://flytec.com/Events/2006/2_5_w_worlds/pilotlist.htm.

Competitors, this is important: You must register through your national aero club and submit a Pre-Registration Form here: http://flytec.com/Events/2006/2_5_w_worlds/entry_form.htm. If you have not done both, please do so immediately to avoid any last-minute disappointments. If you are not on our list, we don't know you are coming. If you have any questions or problems, please email «questair»or call 1-877-FLY-QUEST. See you on May 18^th at Quest!

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Big Spring Open 2005|Blue Sky|Bubba Goodman|Campbell Bowen|Chris Zimmerman|David Glover|Davis Straub|Dr. John "Jack" Glendening|Dustin Martin|Glen Volk|Greg Kendall|James Lamb|Johann Posch|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Kraig Coomber|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|Mike Barber|Paul Tjaden|Phill Bloom|photo|Robin Hamilton|Ron Gleason|Russell "Russ" Brown|Vince Endter

Sat, Aug 20 2005, 4:00:00 am EDT

A soft day with cu-nimbs under the blue sky.

The scores

The photos

The flight

More on the flex wings: http://jonnydurand.blogspot.com/,  http://skyout.blogspot.com http://kagelites.blogspot.com, and http://xckevin.blogspot.com.

We woke up Saturday to a very dark day. There was a thick middle layer of clouds with plenty of low lying cumulus scud whipping by at 30 mph. It sure didn't look like we would be flying, and the RUC along with Dr. Jack indicated that we wouldn't have any lift at 4 PM.

None the less we went out to the airport and the day was slightly improving with a bit of sunlight filtering through the multiple layers of clouds. The RUC is updated around 9 AM CDT, and the lift forecast improves markedly to 500 FPM at 4 PM with a good chance of over development, due to the sunlight hitting the ground and creating the lift.

The task committee had to come up with a task given the forecasted conditions, in spite of how un inspiring it looked at 10 in the morning. We called a 46 mile down wind to La Mesa given the 20 mph average winds at 10 that are supposed to drop off to 12 mph at 4 PM.

We called for a late start at 1:30 PM given the satellite photos showing blue to our south coming our way. Around noon we began to see the blue as the upper level clouds open up to our south, but cu-nims started to develop under the blue. At the airport it was still dark and overcast. We postponed the launched a half hour.

At the last minute we postponed the launch 15 minutes as Kraig Coomber reported no lift and then took off in the dark with the sunshine five miles to our south and the cu-nimbs ten miles to our southeast.

I was second off behind Vince. Drug to 3,000 AGL 2.5 miles out, I continued on for another 4.5 miles to the south against a seven mph head wind to get to a cloud and see if I can find any lift. There was zero sink there so I glided down wind back to just south of the airport to hook up with Russell over a bit of a landfill and climbed from 900' AGL to 1,500' AGL. At least we were still in the air. It was dark all around.

After not finding any lift under a cloud to the west, we spent the next ten minutes climbing at 15 fpm. Russell and Paul Tjaden landed and I spent another ten minutes climbing at 100 fpm. Russell was towed to the thermal next to me and we finally got to 5,300' at 200 fpm. It was time to get on course, half an hour after the last start time.

Campbell Bowen had already gone down having gone north and not made it out of the start circle. Danny Mallet and Vince Endter had given up and landed back at the air field to break down. The cu-nimb to the east had closed down the launch, but there were ten flex wings in the air with us and we were finally feeling good.

The sky was blue to the north and over us with a few cu's just to give us something to shoot for. We got on our way and we were ready for a great flight leaving the vast majority of the flex wings behind, but flying with the best ones.

After all that work (and it was great fun) we then heard on the radio that David Glover had called the day for both classes. It was confusing given that the conditions on course were great, and all he had to do was keep the launch closed as all the folks in the air were happy to be there and happy to be going on course. Dustin Martin didn't hear that the task was called and flew to La Mesa in an hour.

David needs to be more disciplined regarding these kinds of decisions or let someone else make them. The rules for the Worlds don't allow the meet director (only the safety director) to make this decision and only for conditions on the course line. The launch director/safety director can close the launch (which was already done).

We all landed safely back at the airport and had broken down in time to avoid the rain. The towns folks got to see us land, at least.

The task committee worked hard to get a task that was workable given the forecast. We chose a perfect task that could be done within the very narrow time window. Flex wing pilots chose not to launch when conditions were weak, but this did not stop rigid wing pilots from going up and working the lift that was available. There was plenty of time for most of the flex wings to get off and up in the air before the cu-nimb came close.

All our good work and hard thinking came to naught when the tasks were called erroneously. There certainly was no need to call the rigid wing task. When I asked David about this, he just said he made a bad call.

On Sunday it rains hard all day. West Texas is becoming Wet Texas.

The Results:

Rigids on the last day:

Finals for Rigids:

Last day for Flex Wings:

Totals for Flex Wings:

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Big Spring Open 2005|Davis Straub|Dustin Martin|Glen Volk|James Lamb|Johann Posch|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Mike Barber|Robin Hamilton|Ron Gleason|Russell "Russ" Brown

Fri, Aug 12 2005, 4:00:00 am EDT

Straight downwind to a goal 89 miles away.

The flight and task

The scores.

More on the flex wings: http://jonnydurand.blogspot.com/,  http://skyout.blogspot.com and http://kagelites.blogspot.com.

After the difficulty of yesterday's task and given the forecast for 10 to 15 mph south winds the task committee decided to send us all to the north 89 miles to the Town and Country airport on the south side of the Lubbock airspace. The lift forecast had risen to 600 fpm, 100 fpm greater than the day before, and the cloud base was supposed to rise to 9,000' MSL. The clouds were forecasted to be sparse at first but there was supposed to be some later in the day.

The idea was to get most of the pilots to goal. The goal is far away, but the conditions should put a good number of them at goal. If we get a lot of folks there, then we on the task committee will decide to go further on Friday.

We started the launch with no nearby cu's at 1 PM. The flex wing pilots were very happy on this day to see the rigid wings start first and act as wind dummies.

I was the first to tow up and I didn't find any lift until Russell Brown radioed that he was in 600 fpm over the hangar. I arrived at 500' AGL and drifted past the prison with the option of landing back at the airport. This one thermal got almost all of us up to 5,700' MSL out in the blue.

We were drifting pretty quickly to the north but, with the enlarged start circle at 10 KM, we were still able to take the second start time, forty five minutes after the launch opened. The lift was quite light and we were just trying to stay up as we waited for cu's to develop out on the course line.

The flex wings weren't launching even after they heard that we were getting to 6,000'. They would wait to almost 2 PM before launching (forty five minutes after their launch window opened). Many would take the 3 PM start time.

The rigid pilots started their task at 1:45 just as cu's started to form near them on the course line. Very fortuitous timing indeed. There were so few clouds that it was quite clear where you needed to fly to next.

The race was a game of going as fast as possible, but for me to also cover Johann who was in second place behind me. I had no need to go out in front like I did the day before and take all the risks. I tried to make sure that Johann was forced to go out in front.

We just went along from cu to cu and search for the best core under each cu. The cloud streets took us further and further to the west until we were almost seven miles to the west of the course line. Forty miles out I got to 8,500, while Johann who was about a mile ahead was 2,000' below me. This gave me a chance to jump ahead and try to lose him.

Twenty six miles out after we moved further to the west Johann caught up with me. I headed further west to get under some better clouds, while enroute Johann stopped for some lift. I got under the much better clouds to the west and found 600 fpm back to cloudbase at 8,400'. Johann, Denny and Russell came in under me by about 500'.

This cloud street continued to the north northwest until at fifteen miles out from the goal it ended. I found good lift under the clouds and right at the end over a dry lake bed. I was able to keep ahead of and over my pursuers.

I went on glide from fifteen miles out at 5,000' AGL. That would be a 15:1 glide ratio required to make goal. With the tail wind it was no problem during the final glide. Johann came in four minutes behind me. All the rigid wing pilots made goal, other than the one Exxtacy pilot.

The flex wings were pilling into goal as left. It looked like there were many happy pilots on this day.

 Day Five for Rigids:

Totals for Rigids:

Day Five for Flex Wings:

Tue, Aug 9 2005, 4:00:00 pm EDT

A straight line task to get away from the over development to the east and south.

Belinda Boulter|Big Spring Open 2005|Johann Posch|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Kraig Coomber|Larry Bunner|Robin Hamilton|Russell "Russ" Brown|Vince Endter|weather

The flight and task

The scores.

More on the flex wings: http://jonnydurand.blogspot.com/ and http://skyout.blogspot.com

More press coverage

Given that the flex wing task was canceled yesterday because the edge of a cu-nimb covered the first turnpoint, we, the task committee, decided to forego any turnpoints and head straight to the northwest to get away from the forecasted cu-nimb for today. We set the task as a straight line for the county airport at Brownfield, Texas, 76 miles to the northwest.

The rigid wing task from yesterday may go into protest mode, as the complaint from Vince Endter and Johann Posch was not accepted.  Vince felt that he heard someone (he didn't know who) on his radio tell him that the day was cancelled (not just for flex wing). We'll see if that goes to the protest committee or not.

The weather forecast was for wispy cu's and a ten mph south southeast wind. Dr. Jack and the RUC call for six degrees less surface temperature (85 degrees) than the NWS local forecast, which means a low cloud base and weak lift. My climb rate will turn out to average only 230 fpm.

I was the first pilot to launch and I held on to the tow until I got under a small cu wispy south the of airport. No lift there. There was a good inversion at 5,400'. I searched around for quite a while before picking up something at 4,200' with Johann and we proceeded to get back to cloud base at 5,400' and then a little less than 45 minutes after we launched we climbed to 6,100' just before the start window opened. With only a dozen rigid wings we had 15 minutes to launch and 45 minutes to get the last start gate (the first one was 30 minutes after launch opened).

The cu's were getting nice at 1:15 PM and all the pilots headed out on course at this second start time. The flexies would be 45 minutes behind us.

The clouds and the course line didn't line up, so we followed the clouds to the east of the course line. There was a blue hole all along the course line almost to goal for 76 miles, so we were almost always off to the east of it under the clouds.

The lift was light, never averaging above 350 fpm in any of the thermals. Often we would be happy with anything over 100 fpm. The ground was soaking wet, and this was a lot more like Kansas flying than Texas flying (it's supposed to be Florida on steroids). The thermals were smooth and fun to be in.

Cloud base was low and we mostly topped out at less than 6,000' until we got to 6,800' near goal. The ground was continually rising from 2,500' to 3,300' as we got further north.

Johann Posch, Larry Bunner, for a time, Russell Brown, and I were the lead gaggle with later Mark Mullhulland following us in his Swift. Larry started off leading and then I took over most of the leading duties, Johann was happy to lay back and follow.

We had just jumped across highway 87 heading north northwest from the end of one cloud street to where it picked up again. I was in the lead but a bit lower than everyone else, and down to 1,100' AGL five miles east of La Mesa and I had to find the lift. We were gliding under the blackest clouds that we had encountered so far in the flight, but the grounds below was irrigated crop circles, and it looked really wet.

Because I had to find the lift, I did and the rest of them joined me as we got back to 6,000' MSL. We did scrape off Russell in that one when he didn't quite find the small core that dominated this thermal.

Now with Larry and Johann and Mark in tow, we continued down the cloud street with the blue hole to our west. At twenty seven miles out I flew through strong rough lift not wishing to turn as there looked to be smooth strong lift under the black clouds ahead. Johann and Mark behind me stopped and got high fast in the lift I flew through. This changed things. Johann had just been a little over my head for most of the race, but now he was behind me and quite a bit higher.

I continued under the dark clouds finding light lift and some 400 fpm to get up a bit to 6,400' and continued on as Johann comes over and Larry came in next to me. With Johann two hundred feet over my head, he now had to leave the thermals earlier and go in the lead because he was hitting  the clouds earlier (and lift was improving so that we were climbing to cloud base.) Larry claims to have seen Johann circle up into the cloud.

At eighteen miles out there was a fork in the cloud street. Mark had stayed high and was now heading off in front to the northwest. We climbed to 6,800' but again Johann had to leave and continued down the line of clouds that we had been flying on for much of the task. These clouds were to the right of the course line.

I looked over at the less well formed cloud street that had formed on a line to the left of the course line. I radioed Larry that with Johann heading for Mark, I was taking the left hand street to try to get more of a tail wind into goal. I also don't see a good spot ahead to cross over from our friendly cloud street to get west to the goal.

The cross over cloud street worked well and at 10 miles out I was climbing back to 6,600' at 350 fpm. Larry had worked some lift behind me and was next to me 300' over my head when I told him I was in good lift. Instead of joining me and coming in over my head, he announced that he was going on glide to goal from 2,500' AGL 10 miles out. I was quite content to let him go as I climbed up higher.

I went on glide and five mile out spotted Larry who had reported that he had to stop and get back up again. I continued on and glide into goal for first place. Johann would come in about five minutes later and Larry a bit later still. Ten of twelve rigid wings will make it into goal as well as the two Swifts.

Larry reported later that he went on glide in the hope of beating Johann into the goal, not knowing the Johann had taken the wrong track and would be delayed when he and Mark stayed in some 100 fpm lift.

The airport was filling up with locals out to see the action as we tore down and then waited for the flex wings to come in behind us. First in was Jonny Durand swooping low over the taxi way and wiping it around for a flashy landing. Right behind him was Robin Hamilton, then not necessarily in order, Mikey Barber, Phil Bloom, and a few other Litespeed pilots.

We left after the first five flex wings came in and after Belinda gave an interview to the local newspaper (we've had great coverage here in the Panhandle).

Jonny reported that Kraig Coomber (who was in the lead) had landed out. When I spoke with Kraig later, he said that he flew through some lift which he knew he should have stopped for. The conditions were weak or maybe weaker for the flex wing pilots at first as the cu-nimb was building behind them.

The results may take a while to get posted as the goal was 76 miles away. I flew the task in 2 hr and 8 minutes. About 35 mph. Quite fast for a weak day.

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Jacques Bott|Johann Posch

Thu, Jun 9 2005, 1:00:01 pm EDT

Day two

The rigid results:

1 BOTT, Jacques (Air Atos VR) FRA 999
2 POSCH, Johann (Air Atos VR) AUT 966
3 RIS, Jürg (Air Atos C) CHE 949
4 NADLINGER, Arnold (Air Atos C) AUT 739
5 LOHRMANN, Christoph (Air Atos VR) DEU 713

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Johann Posch|record|South Florida International 2005

Sun, May 1 2005, 6:00:00 pm EDT

Boating around

Johann Posch got a nice late afternoon flight around the Florida Ridge flight park in the AIR ATOS VR prototype that Felix flew in the Flytec Championship and he couldn't believe how easy it was to fly. No effort at all compared to his Tsunami.

I got towed up around 6:30 PM by Ken Munn, who last towed me up at Carson City, Nevada. There was buoyant air and I got to even climb a bit from 700'. This was a great experience for learning more about the VR. It trimmed out at 26-27 mph (according to my 5030) with the bar just hitting the top of my helmet.

I could easily push out to get the bar in front of my head to slow down to 24 mph. I haven't had the bar on a rigid wing that far out since I flew at Exxtacy. 

I don't know if I'll fly that slow during midday, but it's nice to know that it is possible.

The forecast is for a possible record day tomorrow, although there is a front coming. Fronts should have stopped coming to Florida six weeks ago, and we just had one two days ago. The winds will be south, strong up above. We may try for a 219 mile task (the longest ever in any competition if we make it). There is a $500 prize for a 250 mile flight tomorrow.

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Campbell Bowen|Davis Straub|James Tindle|Johann Posch|Jono Fisher|Lauren Tjaden|Oleg Bondarchuk|Paul Tjaden|record|Russell "Russ" Brown|South Florida International 2005

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

Strong winds out of the south.

The flight and the task.

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

On this last day (Saturday) we were offered an interesting bargain. A cold front was approaching from the northwest, but the winds were right (south 10-15 mph) for a record attempt. The best place to set a Florida record (or an east coast record) is the Florida Ridge on a southeast day with convergence up the state. I had already asked pilots if they wanted to go the big distance if the chances looked good for a record attempt. Half were for it.

The problem was this was the last day and it would be rude to go far and most likely not come back until way late for the closing festivities. We would have to have a really good reason to go far, but then James Tindle would love to see these records set at his flight park. It came down to looking closely at the approaching front.

Finally I decided that the chances of a record were not good enough to justify sending pilots to a 219 mile goal point at the Keystone airport. The forecast called for thunderstorms up by Lake City late in the day 200 miles out. It sure would have been my preference.

Also the winds were high in the morning at the flight park. Pilots weren't even setting up (well, I was). Oleg was watching the little low level wispies whip by pretty darn fast. I had come up with a downwind, then cross wind task to Arcadia. Oleg felt that many pilots wouldn't be able to handle the cross wind task without being blown into territory that would present retrieval problems.

Finally we decided on a barbeque task, 35 miles straight down wind to Lake Placid airport. Oleg figured that on the previous days it's been hard to get to goal and this would make a lot of pilots happier.

The wispies disappeared as we got ready to launch. I followed three rigids out to the launch area, but low and behold they were not ready to launch, so I was off first again. The winds were strong and the lift very weak, so I just hung on until it improved enough to start climbing.

We were only able to climb to 3,900' before the first start window. Most of the pilots in the air converged near each other and were stuck in very light lift at the edge of the start circle waiting to go. Oleg went first and we were all quite willing to follow him across the five miles of no man's land to the first wispy that we could get to.

Johann Posch and I stayed in this lift and climbed while Oleg and three rigids headed north and got low. With good lift we got to 4,200'.  We then flew over Oleg and the following rigids and climbed to 4,800'. Leaving at cloud base, my vario said we had the goal on glide from 20 miles out.

Oleg and Johann followed behind, but Johann with Campbell below him headed more to the right along the course line, while Oleg and I headed more to the left to go back over the spot I found the good lift that won the day yesterday. It was not there, but I stopped for light lift while Oleg went ahead and found a better thermal. Paul Tjaden, Russell Brown and I joined him and this looked like our last climb. Oleg went first followed in one turn by Paul and me one turn later. Russell took one more turn and followed.

We were  only nine miles out at 3,300' and it was a quick glide with a strong tail wind to goal. We all came in within a few seconds of each other. The task was over. Johann and Campbell came in a few minutes later. It was only a slight deviation in course that cost them these two minutes.

Soon after we landed the sky filled up with cumulus clouds and it looked like it might have been possible to go as far as Keystone, or it might have rained to our north.

Many flex wing pilots joined us at goal including Lauren Tjaden winning the sport class on her Wills Wing Sport 2. We didn't have a sport class competition at the Florida International until Lauren asked for it at the beginning of the meet. We were able to have three pilots decide to join that competition and David had no problem scoring it

The sport class became very competitive, as Lauren was in second place after the first two days. The leader was Jono Fisher who had landed  within the start circle and came back to relaunch at 5 PM. He didn't quite make it to goal, so Lauren won the day with enough points to win the meet.

Oleg won in the flex wing class every day by a large margin. No one other than the rigid wing pilots were able to compete with him. He used the rigid wings and they used him. Paul was told to follow Oleg and won the last day. Oleg is a reasonably aggressive pilot and quite willing to go out on his own out in front, and did so when he had a chance to do so. He had less chances with the rigid wings around, when the pilots were willing to use their performance to lead. Overall Oleg was third on the first two days, and only won the last day (overall).

On the last day Oleg could take it easy, but he didn't really. He took chances and went out front. On the last day I just had to cover Russell and Johann and not do anything stupid.

Rigids:

Flex:

Sport:

The Florida Ridge is simply a great place to fly and to have a world class competition. South Central Florida is wide open and beautiful. The cu's are soft and fun to fly in. The landing areas are plentiful and green. The roads are straight. There is a great chance to set an east coast record. It is easy to stay up and keep going. Often there are plenty of clouds. I would love to see more and bigger competitions there.

The Florida Ridge people are very welcoming. There is a club involved also. James is putting more investment into the park, adding new facilities. On a windy day a group of pilots went to Fish Eater Creek (close by) and canoeing saw 40-50 alligators. It's wild down there.

Photo by Susan Walker

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Johann Posch|Oleg Bondarchuk|Russell "Russ" Brown|Scott Barrett|South Florida International 2005|Tom Lanning

Thu, Apr 28 2005, 3:00:00 pm EDT

The first task.

The flight and the task.

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

After the front went through yesterday the wind turned to come out of the north and northeast today. With the biggest lake in the state,  Okeechobee, to our northeast, this means that the lift was suppressed. We did not expect to see cu's, even little ones. Given the poor prospects for lift we decided to call a late start at 3:15 with a 2 PM launch.

We combined that with a relatively short task, 45 miles, but with a difficult leg over a ten mile stretch (five each way) of orange groves. We called a first turnpoint 14 miles to the southwest, south of LaBelle. The next turnpoint was eight miles to the northwest across the orange groves back up to highway 80. Then back to our first turnpoint. The last leg was a run down highway 29 to the Immokalee Airport.

No one seemed to want to get going early. The wind was 10 mph out of the northeast and the sky was not very inviting. No one wanted to get blown out of the start circle early. I was the first to launch at 2:15, an hour before the second start window.

The lift was weak and I got let off in sink. I had to search and slowly get back to the spot that I was towed through earlier where there was lift. Johann Posch (on an AIR ATOS VR) was next and then Oleg (Aeros Combat) to get towed up. Johann was towed to lift upwind and circled up as Oleg and I worked light lift over the tow field. As Oleg and I climbed slowly up, Scott Barrett and Johann joined us and the four of us worked together to slowly drifted down wind toward the start circle circumference and slowly climbed up.

I lost track of Scott about 10 minutes before the start window opened as he flew away and didn't stay with our little gaggle. I also got a bit lower than Johann and Oleg putting on my gloves a bit late (and not at launch). As the start window opened at 3:15 I headed out with Oleg and Johan but 500' feet below them. Russell Brown (AIR ATOS VR) was a ways behind us seemingly meandering around in the start circle.

I was a little behind, and below and to the right (north) but scoping out a dry looking field, and I was the one to first find the next lift. We know that we are out in front of all the pilots as we have been able to see all the action. Oleg was the only flex wing in the lead gaggle and it was no skin off his nose to fly with us. He can use us and was not competing against us.

Oleg came back to join me at about my level. Johann, now on his own, turned around to stay with us, as again he was in the lead gaggle and there was no need to press ahead on his own.

After climbing up we spread out to help ourselves and sure enough it worked and we climbed back to 4,400'. I took the lead getting to the turnpoint when the lift weakened, but then I had lost GPS coverage and had to go back to get the turnpoint. Following Johann and Oleg I decided to past through the piss poor lift Oleg found and headed for a small smoky fire of cirrus branches. Sure enough, the fire was working at 500 fpm to 5,000'. Johann and Oleg and now Russell came in under me and now I was in the lead.

It would be a head wind coming back from this turnpoint back to the last turnpoint (soon to be the third turnpoint), so I wanted to be sure I got as high as possible. Finding another thermal two miles before the turnpoint made me feel that it was now possible to get back across the orange grove back to the fire. There seemed to be bits of lift around to help out.

I pushed ahead of Oleg with Johann and Russell following behind. I was fixed on getting back to the fire and pushed ahead while the three guys behind me hung back and found a thermal drifting them to the west (it was only 4 mph up high).

I came over the fire, but it was damped down and there wasn't a thermal there now. I had to push forward to find weak lift just past the turnpoint at 1,800', and my friends who had stayed back and did better, came in over me.

We all had to work the poor lift as we worked our way south. Oleg was playing it cool just hanging out with three rigid wing pilots and not having to take any chances. He knew that he was in the lead and he could just hang with us. I was able to get close to these guys, but not close enough.

Johann took off and I chased him but he got to the lift earlier and got higher before I got there. Oleg and Russell followed me from above to join up with Johann about ten miles out. I was able to find better lift a mile further on as these guys went on glide.

Johann was first in, with Russell next coming in at 8 feet above the ground over the fence at the north end of the runway and just making the finish circle. Oleg was right behind him. I was in six minutes later.

Rigids (those who made goal):

Johann     1:43:24   973
Russell     1:45:03   900
Davis        1:51:35   804
Campbell  2:27:02  557

Flexies (those who made goal):

Oleg                 1:45:10    944
Tom Lanning     2:36        731
Scott Barrett  3:40:45   658 

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

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

A front and rain.

Flytec Championship

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

Rigid final results:

Flex final results:

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

Flytec Championship photos.

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

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

Ring around the swamp.

Flytec Championship

The flight and task today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rigids:

Cumulative Rigids:

Flexies:

Brett is Australian and Canadian.

Cumulative Flexies:

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

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

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

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

Flytec Championship

Today's flight and rigid wing task

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rigids today:

Rigid cumulative:

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

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

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

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

Flex wings:

Flex wings cumulative:

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

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

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

Joerg Bajewski sends this photo from the air over Quest:

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

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

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

Flytec Championship

One flight (not to goal)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mon, Oct 18 2004, 8:00:03 pm EDT

Flying fast on a glider/pilot combination with a better glide ratio.

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Eric Paquette|Jim Lamb|Johann Posch|Quest Air

Thanks to Jim Lamb, who sent me Alex Ploner's track logs (IGC files) from the 2004 Flytec Championships, I had a chance to look in detail at Alex's and my track logs for the third day of the competition where we flew to the north from Quest Air and turned at Idyllwild to return back to the airport at Dunnellon. Alex was first on that day and I was fourth.

I have vivid memories of this flight, most of which are of me looking ahead and up at Alex and David Chaumet as they lead throughout the task. I flew just behind them with Johann Posch and Eric Paquette: https://ozreport.com/8.084

I was very aware of the fact that during this task Alex and David didn't have to race ahead as fast as they could taking risks, as they were alone and in the lead and they knew it. Yes, they were flying against each other, but they saw a big benefit flying together ahead of everyone else, and there was no need for either of them to push it until the final glide.

As happen later at the Worlds in Austria, on this day Alex was gliding faster in sinking air than I (I'm only comparison I have for the Flytec Championship). Alex and Christen glided faster than all other pilots at the Worlds. On this day Alex flew on average at 45 mph through sinking air while I flew at 40 mph. This difference is somewhat exaggerated as Alex flew much faster than I on his long final glide (55 mph Vs. 45 mph). Other than during the final glide, he glided through sinking air at two to three mph faster than I.

Not only did he fly faster but he had a better glide ratio when flying through sinking air. We basically flew through the same air as we were often very close. His average glide ratio was 12:1 Vs. 10:1 for me even though he was averaging five mph faster. He was sinking at an average of 337 fpm Vs. me at 367 fpm for me. It sure seems to me that Alex had a better glider (he had a new VX which I later bought Vs. my older C) and that he, as the pilot in the air stream, presented less drag.

While he and I spent about the same percentage of time gliding in rising air, my average rate of altitude gain when flying straight in rising air was 232 fpm, while Alex's was 280 fpm even while I was flying on average four mph slower in rising air than Alex did. Seems like this would also be explained by Alex's better glide ratio.

Overall Alex's average glide ratio was 17.8 at an average 44 mph. My average glide ratio was 13.6 at 39 mph. BTW, that VX has won every meet that its flown in. One for Alex and two for me.

Doing the first part of a wrap up.

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Brian Porter|Christian Ciech|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Francoise Dieuzeide-Banet|Icaro 2000|Johann Posch|Kari Castle|Manfred Ruhmer|Quest Air|Tove Heaney|Worlds 2004

http://www.drachenflieger.at

http://www.drachenflieger.at/html/results.html

http://www.a-i-r.de/pages-d/a_300-Bewerb-WM-2004.htm

http://www.Icaro2000.com/Home.htm

Internet access has been very hard to come by since we left Greifenburg (until we got back here to Quest Air). Even in Greifenburg it was much more difficult than what we have come to expect. Also with the scorekeepers insisting on using PDF files for results the Oz Report was lacking (except through links) in its ability to report more fully the outcome of the Worlds.

My desire is to highlight the hang gliding competitions around the world. Previous to the Oz Report (starting in December, 1996), you might hear about some result from some one you knew or maybe read about it months later in our association's magazine (very unlikely in the US for any European results). Now you expect to know the results the evening of each day as the scorekeepers put them up on their web site. One DHV pilot each day is required to put up their day's story on the DHV web site.

Here are the top twelve places in the rigid wing class:

1 CIECH, Christian, (Icaro Stratos C) ITA 5200
2 PLONER, Alessandro, (AIR Atos VX) ITA 5076
3 CHAUMET, David, (Helite Tsunami) FRA 4620
4 RAUMAUF, Anton, (AIR Atos V) AUT 4167
5 GRICAR, Primoz, (Aeros Phantom) SVN 4059
6 GEPPERT, Walter, (AIR Atos V) AUT 4023
7 MIEDERHOF, Ralf, (AIR Atos C) DEU 3911
8 RIS, Jürg, (AIR Atos C) CHE 3860
9 LAVERDINO, Franco, (AIR Atos C) ITA 3751
10 POSCH, Johann, (AIR Atos V) AUT 3572
11 LEISER, Rene, (AIR Atos V) CHE 3488
12 POLOVYY, Mykola, (Aeros Phantom) UKR 3469

Sorry about the lack of formatting above (see the comparison above at the European Championships), but the results are published in PDF which is not an internet standard and refuses to play well with others. Please tell all your scorekeepers to use HTML output from RACE if they want to have their results published in a nice format in the Oz Report (and other publications) in a timely fashion. Maybe they want to force the reader to their site, so they don't play nice.

Women's flex wing:

1 SCHWIEGERSHAUSEN, Corinna, (Moyes Litespeed S 3) DEU 3809
2 DIEUZEIDE-BANET, Francoise, (Icaro Laminar Zero 7) FRA 3571
3 BRAMS, Rosi, (Moyes Litespeed) DEU 3301
4 CASTLE, Kari, (Icaro Zero 1) USA 3207
5 BAEUMER-FISCHER, Sybille, (Aeros Combat) DEU 3100
6 PETROVA, Natalia, (Aeros Combat 2) RUS 2898
7 KHAMLOVA, Natalia, (Aeros Combat 2) RUS 2888
8 BAZAN, Laura-Nidia, (Moyes Litespeed 4) ARG 2831
9 WERNER, Monique, (Aeros Combat 13) DEU 2686
10 HEANY, Tove, (Moyes Litespeed S 3.5) AUS 2618

Swift Class:

1 RUHMER, Manfred, (Swift) AUT 6611
2 PORTER, Brian, (Swift) USA 4744
3 BAIER, Bob, (Swift) DEU 3913
4 NADLINGER, Arnold, (AIR Atos V) AUT 3797

I have special HTML templates for scorekeepers that help get the results formatted in even a better fashion. I can send them to any scorekeeper and will do so.

Discuss "The Worlds - the top level results" at the Oz Report forum   link»

It clears up for the memorial day weekend.

Alpen Open

Alpen Open 2004|Belinda Boulter|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Oliver Schmidt|PG|Robert Reisinger|sailplane|weather

Alpen Open 2004|Belinda Boulter|Johann Posch|Josef "Zwecki" Zweckmayr|Manfred Ruhmer|Oliver Schmidt|PG|Robert Reisinger|sailplane|weather

The task and the flight on-line at the HOLC

Things are different in Europe. A lot different and I say, Viva Le Difference.

At the landing field we've got a beer hall set up to take care of all the pilots and drivers and all the spectators that will be dropping by for a bit of Saturday spectacle. Red Bull is here with their tent. Food is being served to all the folks coming to see the carnival. The army rescue helicopter will come in later in the late to simulate a paraglider pilot rescue from a tree.

The Alpen Open is three meets in one over three days: a paraglider, flex wing, and rigid wing meet. The paragliders will launch from a different launch and we will launch from right over the landing field in Gnadenwald, ten miles from Innsbruck, Austria.

The landing field at 2,800' is next to our pension, Pension Martinsstubben, and the small toll road to the launch at 5,000' and restaurant at the top is a few hundred yards down the road. Very convenient. There is a huge mastiff rising an additional over three thousand feet above and behind launch to the north. The valley runs east/west, with Innsbruck to the west.

Landing Zone from our pension.

There is an airport in Innsbruck, obviously, and very restricted airspace. As our task will take us in that direction we'll have to be sure to stay up on the mountain side to stay out of the airspace. There is a glider port right next to the commercial runway and I do get to see a few gliders using it.

This is the sixteenth annual Alpen Open, and they expect about 100 pilots total. It is a fun meet, only three days, but the winner gets to qualify to go to a meet in Rio if they do well in another meet also, so it is somewhat serious. There is something at stake other than bragging rights.

There is supposed to be a pilots' meeting at the landing zone, but it just turns out to be instructions for the paragliders to get into the waiting taxis, so we drive up to the top in Ron's leased van. There are a bunch of hang gliders already setup so we (Ron and I) know that we've been wasting our time. We set up right away next to the restaurant.

Things drag on and the meet director doesn't call the task and the pilot meeting until about 1:30 PM. The task consists of three turnpoints, a race start, and is basically an out and return to the Gnandenwald landenplatz, 105 kilometers. It takes a while to get the weather report and to input the task.

Once we are done, the problem is the start window opens in forty minutes and we've got to get forty pilots off of launch in time to get them to have at least half an hour each to get high in the start circle. This is not going to work. Thankfully Ron and I are setup right at the end of the short launch lane (one of two).

We immediately get dressed up very warmly. I've got two pair of long pants on, and six layers on my upper body with two balaclavas over my head and a pair of Flytec neoprene gloves. I usually wear football receiver gloves, but I'm looking for the extra warmth. They work great. It is supposed to be about 18 degrees at 10,000'

The launches don't go very quickly. Many pilots are allowed to cut into the line. Favorites are played with some pilots getting in. There is not time enough to launch every one even before the start window opens. It is a disaster.

Ron and I launch at about the start window time. Ron will get low and land as will Johann Posch. Six of the eighteen rigid wings will land without going out of the start circle. A number of flex wings will land also.

Belinda captures me launching

The pilots that got the relatively early launches will get high before the start window opens. I'll leave the start circle at launch height after messing around for fifteen minutes trying to get up over launch. Running down the ridge/course line I'll find 200 fpm and stick with it until I'm to 2,500' over launch. I figure I've got a half an hour penalty as it is for the late launch, so just stay up and make the course.

The wind is about six mph out of the east north east, a little over the back. I'm really frightened about rotors here in the Alps, but everyone is saying that it looks great for today with light winds and good thermals. Cloud base is a little over 9,000'. There are plenty of thin clouds over the mountains and none out in the valleys.

After a slow start I stay above 7,000' getting almost 9,000' heading west to a control point which is a huge hotel on the plateau above the main river valley where you'll find Innsbruck. We then have to go six miles further to a house on a much higher plateau at 6,000' away from the mountain sides. All the pilots stick as close to the mountain sides as possible before heading out to take the turnpoint.

I've noticed that the air is pretty turbulent for a day that is supposed to be nice. I'm flying a C/V (protoype V) from AIR and thoroughly enjoying the glider. I'm glad I'm not on my VX.

Coming back into the head wind the turbulence factor increases. I've already left a few thermals that didn't please me, but this time I have to stay in one that it far too powerful and not at all smooth. I'm averaging about one thousand feet less than on the way out.

Just passed the hotel control point on the way back Oliver Schmidt almost hits me without ever seeing me. I didn't see him until he almost hit me. I race ahead and get a bit low, where I encounter Mr. nasty, and then run for the Wall, next to the airport.

The lift is coherent and pleasant to fly in there and going up a a moderately reasonable 350 fpm. I can get to back over 6,000' which is comfortable, although well below the ridge line, and with bits of lift coming up the face facing south, I can maintain altitude just trying to make it back at 14:1.

I see a small sailplane turning right on the hill side in front of me and I figure he wouldn't stop for the weak stuff. I go over to the spot he just left and climb another thousand feet in three minutes, nine miles out from goal. I've got less than 10:1 to get to goal so I pull into a narrow valley behind a jutting rock face and straight line it to goal.

After landing and downloading my 5030, I file a protest for the day and Ron joins me in the protest. I find out later from Robert Reisinger that Seppi has also filed the same protest. The pilot meeting was held too late to have a start window at 2:30 PM. No word yet on how the protests were dealt with. I did it with a smile and told them I was having a great time, which I am. Did I say how much I was enjoying the ATOS?

Many pilots complained/remarked also about how bumpy the air was. I was scared a few times and left lift often, but I was assuming that was just me. The AIR ATOS C/V felt great. I was very glad I had it instead of the VX. Manfred Trimmel was flying the VX.

Gunther Tschuring got beat up on the way back at 6,000', flew immediately out into the lower valley and landed. I had thought that with the light winds we would have a good day, but apparently we did not. Pilots thought that this was a very bad day for turbulence. I'm feeling pretty good, because if this was as bad as it gets, then I'm feeling like maybe I can handle this.

No word on scores or the protest yet. The Alpen Open web site (http://members.chello.at/drachenflieger/Aktuelles.htm) doesn't seem to have anything posted.

Zwecky was just here in his powered wheel chair. He looked good. Came by to visit his old pilot friends. Has a girl friend I hear.

Discuss "Alpen Open - day 1" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

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

competition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A trip around the swamp.

competition

Flytec Championship - day eight

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

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

Not the complete task, but you get the idea:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Antoine Boisselier|Anton Raumauf|Bruce Barmakian|Bruno Guillen|Christian Ciech|David Chaumet|Davis Straub|Gerolf Heinrichs|Gordon Rigg|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Heiner Biesel|Johan Anderson|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Mario Alonzi|Oleg Bondarchuk|Paula Bowyer|Richard Walbec|Robert Reisinger|Thomas "Tom/Tomas" Weissenberger

Paula Bowyer <paula@fai.org> writes regarding the flex wing and then rigid wing standings:

Manfred Ruhmer (AUT) regains his number 1 slot, 6 points ahead of Oleg Bondarchuk (UKR), Gerolf Heinrichs (AUT) and Mario Alonzi (FRA) move up a place to 3^rd and 4^th, Antoine Boisselier (FRA) remains 5^th while Gordon Rigg (GBR) drops to 6^th after missing some comps. Richard Walbec (FRA) stays 7^th, but after their performances in Millau, Robert Reisinger (AUT) rises 5 places to 8^th, Tom Weissenberger (AUT) climbs 9 to 9^th and Bruno Guillen (FRA) jumps a place to 10^th.

Christian Ciech (ITA) ahead of Alessandro Ploner (ITA), David Chaumet (FRA), Johan Posch (AUT), Bruce Barmakian (USA) 5^th, Davis Straub (USA) 6^th. Toni Raumauf (AUT) swaps places with Heiner Biesel (USA), Hansjoerg Truttmann (SUI) stays 9^th and Jim Yocum (USA) 10^th.

Discuss the WPRS at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

Discuss "Manfred back as Number 1" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Alex Ploner|ballast|Betinho Schmitz|Brett Hazlett|Bruce Barmakian|Christian Ciech|cloud|David Chaumet|Davis Straub|gaggle|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Ron Gleason|Wallaby Open 2003

http://www.wallaby.com/wallabyopen/2003/

Our atmospheric conditions are just beginning to be affected by a cold front that is situated over west Texas. In the morning we can see thin high level clouds coming in from the northwest. There are a few very thin cumulus clouds around but they will soon be squashed by the general shading from the high clouds.

The models are calling for east winds a little less than 10 mph, with a area of lighter winds to the west, likely a bit of convergence there, but no real cloud development. I can see from the FSL RUC2 model soundings that the clouds will be little wisps if there at all.

This same model is calling for an eastern sea breeze at 5 PM over Wallaby, so this makes for a good argument to head west. The lift is forecast to be the same as the last few days (500 fpm lift minus your sink rate equals the climb rate). I average 350 fpm over the task, and this is relatively a very high average rate of climb for a task over the last two weeks. I’ll go into more details about that soon.

The FSL model also calls for poor lift here Wallaby in the later afternoon and an inversion all day that would stop almost all cumulus cloud development, even without the sun shade up high. The lift is predicted to be weak after 3,500’, with this rising to perhaps 5,500’ during the day and as we go west. I pull all my ballast, just in case.

The task committee calms down a bit with a spontaneous division of tasks. Richard, Johnny, Betinho and I settle into coming up with the start circles, location and distances, after a basic task is called. We let the other guys worry about exactly which airport we are going to. Three tasks are eventually reviewed, but in the end we will go with the first one called.

As the morning progresses the conditions appear to deteriorate. More high clouds and thicker, and the disappearance of the underlying cu’s. I’m not worried about the lack of cu’s, because we weren’t supposed to have them anyway.

As the launch time approaches it is postponed until 1 PM. The high clouds begin to dissipate a bit, a few cu’s show up and the wind dummies start sticking. The race is on.

The rigids are assigned one start time at 2 PM with a start circle edge 10 miles to the west. The flexies can also go then and their start circle is 5 miles out, or 15 or 30 minutes later. The idea is to reduce the number of gliders in the start gaggle.

I’m the first rigid wing launched and there are cu’s just to the southeast of the Ranch. I can climb out slowly (200 fpm) to 4,200’. I’m hanging at cloud base and waiting because I know that we will all want to fly together today on a task that looks like your friends will be your only help.

So what is the task?

We need to go west to the intersection of Rockridge and highway 98, then northwest to the intersection of 98 and 301, then north to the Inverness airport about 69 miles.

The rigid wings get off early and start joining me at cloud base. We mostly hang around the Ranch as there are no gliders or cu’s to the west to indicate the lift and as this is a race start with everyone going at the same time, there is no need to take any risks as long as no one else does.

We slowly move west as later launching rigids take probing flights out to the west toward the start circle circumference. Still, as 2 PM, our start time, we are still 3 miles short of the start circle and climbing slowly all together. We won’t cross the start circle until 6 minutes after 2 PM.

The few flex wings that want to take the first start time will only be 2 miles behind us and as we haven’t even approached our start circle we will be waiting for them to join us. Going early to join us may not be such a good strategy on their part as we don’t have to go fast (as we are all together), but they will have guys behind them chasing them and needing to go as fast as possible.

We creep toward Rockridge and 98 taking a half hour to go 10 miles, very slow. No one gets away as everyone sees it in their interest to stay together. David gets just past the turnpoint and finds poor lift, while the guys that get there first and a little higher find a good thermal at the turnpoint and the rest of us join them.

Manfred, Brett Hazlett, Andre, and another flex wing pilot are right in the mix with us with Manfred a little lower and out in front, not having found the thermal at the turnpoint.

Speaking of Manfred, it turns out he landed a mile short of goal yesterday. The final glide was a long one at 12 to 1 and Manfred kept going. Brett who was behind him saw that things looked dicey, found a better line to the right with some other pilots, found some lift, and they made it in.

We move slowly toward the northwest to the Clinton turnpoint taking 40 minutes to go 14 miles. Again everyone is together and no one ventures out too far in advance. Well, at one point Ron Gleason and I do get a little out in front, which actually slows us down, as we get a few hundred feet below folks, just as we come into a very strong thermal just before the turnpoint.

Finally the gaggle splits up based on how high you were and how soon you found the good core of this thermal that gets us back to 4,500’. The lift has now really turned on as we have moved west to where the forecast was for the best lift.

The lift continues to be good as we head to the turnpoint and then north toward goal. With the good lift we’ll do the next 35 miles in one hour or less. A gaggle of us will find strong lift to 5,300’ just past the turnpoint and this will get us far enough to the north to catch many of the guys who got higher than us just before the turnpoint. It won’t be enough to get the leaders.

We’ll all go on glide from 12 miles out at 5,000’. The lift was so good in this last thermal that it was hard to leave it. Manfred will come in with us (see results below) with Brett and Andre just a little bit behind. I’ll average 52 mph on the final glide at 16 to 1.

After we get to goal we don’t have to wait too long before the 2:15 gaggle comes in. They all race across the line low. In the end there must be about 50 gliders at goal.

Results:

Rigids:

Alex Ploner 14:00 16:06:49
Christian Ciech 14:00 16:06:51
David Chaumet 14:00 16:09:17
Burce Barmakian 14:00 16:13:00
Johann Posch 14:00 16:13:49
Mark P. 14:00 16:14:16
Davis Straub 14:00 16:14:48

Flex wings:

Manfred Ruhmer 14:00 16:14:44
Brett Hazlett 14:00 16:16:48
Andre Wolf 14:00 16:17:16

You might also try to find results at: http://www.elltel.net/peterandlinda/Wallaby_Open_2003/2003_Wallaby_Main.htm

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Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Alex Ploner|Betinho Schmitz|Christian Ciech|cloud|Fantasy of Flight|flight park|Flytec Championships 2003|gaggle|GAP|GAP 2000|J.C. Brown|Jim Lee|Johann Posch|landing|Malcolm Jones|Mike Barber|Oliver Schmidt|Paris Williams|Peter Gray|Richard Walbec|SeeYou|Terry Presley|Wallaby Open 2003|weather

http://www.wallaby.com

First of all, the task:

It’s first twenty miles to the west to Rockridge and highway 98, then east to the Fantasy of Flight to keep us from going over downtown Winter Haven, then southeast to Chalet Suzanne on highway 27 near Lake Wales, then back to the Ranch. It’s a 70 mile task, with a substantial east wind of 10 mph predicted.

The new wrinkle is that the start circle is centered on the Rockridge and highway 98 intersection and is fifteen miles in diameter. The idea is that you begin the contest by entering the start circle instead of leaving the start circle. The reason for using such a start circle is to allow pilots to spread themselves out along the circumference of the start circle, all routes to the first turnpoint being equal from that circumference.

Now theory is one thing and practice is another. With a good wind component, only one point is optimal. With other pilots congregating in one location, they form an attractive nuisance and soon there is a party in one spot.

Still it’s quite manageable with twenty pilots looking to take the first clock at 1:30. Which reminds me of another innovation.

At the task committee meeting this morning Betinho mentioned that he wanted more time between start times to cut down on pilots waiting around for a later clock and then catching people in front of them (can you say Johnny Durand, Jr.?). Of course, we were using GAP 2000 at the Flytec Championship (and we are here), which has the minimal early departure/arrival bonus points so of course pilots are going to try to catch others from behind.

So I immediately suggest a half hour and, whoa, it is accepted. This will make it harder for pilots taking a later clock to catch the earlier guys and keep them from getting that extra added advantage without having to pay for it with reduced starting time points.

The task committee calls for three start times, although what they really want is a race, one start time. The compromise with three start times has to be made to allow the flight park time to get everyone in the air. Actually we could call a start time at 1:30 hours after the launch window open time, because that is enough time to get everyone in the air and at the circumference of the start circle, if people start launching at the launch window open time (they never do). So maybe we will have a race start soon.

The task committee consists of Richard Walbec, Betinho Schmidt, Mike Barber and I. But JC Brown runs the meeting and directs the discussion. Peter Gray and the goal crew are there also and Malcolm Jones hangs around the edges. This is quite a difference format (and dynamic) than Jim Lee , Terry Presley and I meeting in my trailer looking over the SeeYou task map as we did last week.

Mike Barber is a high anxiety person. He has extreme difficulty making a decision (especially one related to calling a task four hours in advance of the actual task). He wants to call off the decision until the last moment. He also is very distrustful of weather forecasting (even forecasts four hours out). The funny think is that he also is compulsive looking and listening to the weather forecasts. His anxiety infuses the task committee.

Mike is afraid of the possibility of over development, like the OD we had yesterday. I’m looking at the FSL MAP models and the BLIPMAP. I guarantee to him that there won’t be any OD during the task.

I compare the fear of OD with the actuality of higher winds than the models predict. It appears that the winds are stronger out of the east than the 10 to 12 mph that the models show will be the state of things later in the day. We later get a “sounding” from Paris Williams (taken, who knows how), with the east winds stated to be 20 mph. I’m concerned about the prospect for higher winds (as we are right on the cusp of where it makes a big difference), and I’m looking at the windcast showing a broad convergence and lighter winds to the west (as we had for many days at the Flytec Championship).

The task committee gets through the process and calls two tasks (we never called an alternate task at the Flytec Championship) just to handle all the anxiety (well, okay, that is a bit overstated). Then later, just before the pilot meeting, based on Paris’ “sounding” we call a third task to the west (I’m good with that) and make it the primary.

Now the pilot meeting is at 11 AM, which I consider to be about an hour too late, because it doesn’t give us time to get to the staging line and get ready to go before the launch window opens. I give my little weather spiel (know any good weatherman jokes?) and before we know it is too late to get to the launch line in time to get suited up for the 1 PM start window.

The three start times now become two start times (which is cool with me, as I go for the race concept) of 1:30 and 2 PM. I’m thinking that this is alright. Fifteen minutes are the launch window opens with no pilots launched (did I mention this?) and Bo on hold from JC Brown (talk about last minute anxiety) we call the secondary task (which earlier was the primary task) (see above).

They let the task committee stage in the front, but I get off early anyway, so I don’t clutter up the neighborhood. The lift is light to moderate (200 fpm) the southeast of the Ranch and we just hang out in the big smooth stuff to cloud base at 4,000’ slowly moving our way to the west staying just under the clouds.

Just before the start time at 1:30, there are twenty plus pilots at the edge of the start circle. There is light lift at cloud base so we are all just hanging near the top waiting for the clock to tick. I’m hanging back a few tenth of a mile in better lift getting up in the cat birds’ seat to watch the action in front of me. Position is a big deal for my psyche.

Kurt, Jim Lee, Johann Posch, Christian Ciech, Antoine, Manfred and a few other fast guys are around so I figure that this won’t necessarily be a loser move to go at 1:30, in spite of the weak lift we’ve been experiencing.

At 1:30 the whole group goes and there isn’t anyone else even nearby. It’s great having a few folks out in front and lower so that you can choose other lines to go to. I take a more southern route and hit the clouds early to find the next lift that we all get up in again just north of Polk City.

Christian finds the next one out front and puts himself in the lead with Johann and I right behind him and the flex wings trailing after us. It’s looking good to me. Christian goes on a long/fast glide. He’s doing well. But it is great to see that he is not over powering. He is flying faster than Johann and I, which most likely is a good idea. I’ll have to amp it up a bit more tomorrow.

Johann and I and a few flexies stop for a weak one as Christian heads to the turnpoint still not turning. We then head southwest to get under the clouds. Just before we get there, I see Christian starting to turn and head for him. I should have stayed with the gaggle as they get up quickly and it takes me a while to find the core under Christian. Now he’s really out in the lead. (Was that bonehead move #1?)

Johann and I get up next to the turnpoint and head toward Fantasy of Flight. Johann finds a good one to my right but in another bonehead move I continue on, having to slow down to find a good one seven miles out from this second turnpoint.

Many of the flex wings are doing well now above me and we are fighting up wind to get to Fantasy. I make a couple of more bone head moves and land 5 miles short. Johann gets high at Fantasy and continues to Chalet Suzanne.

Christian gets low by Fantasy also, out there out on his own down to 500 feet and takes 20 minutes to get back to cloud base. Still he is able to fly fast and get to goal first.

Manfred also took the 1:30 PM start time and makes goal soon after Christian. He wins the day for the flex wings (or at least I think he does as he was so fast).

Alex Ploner takes the 2 PM start time, and after a few 1:30 flex wings make it in, he makes it to goal to win the day for the rigid wings. He also got low but found a strong thermal right away. David Chamet comes in a few minutes later. The rest of the rigid wings trickle in quite a bit later. The flex wings are interspersed with the rigids (perhaps we will call separate tasks for them.)

Mike Barber cuts his knee on landing on his back wires. It is a pretty substantial cut with a bucket full of blood down his leg into his sock. He was wearing pants with holes in the knees (he lives out of his truck) and that’s where the wire got him. Can you say stripped wires?

Mike and Dorval came across the line very low and close together with Mike the lowest. Mike basically had to land without much time to think about it. He took out a down tube also without any other damage to the glider.

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Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Alex Ploner|Brett Hazlett|Christian Ciech|cloud|Curt Warren|David Chaumet|Davis Straub|Flytec Championships 2003|gaggle|Jerz Rossignol|Jim Lee|Johann Posch|Jon Durand snr|Kraig Coomber|Manfred Ruhmer|Marcus Hoffmann|Mike Barber|Oleg Bondarchuck|photo|Terry Presley

The scores, when they are done, will be at:

http://www.flytec.com/flytec_champ_03/scores.html

Photo of Mike Barber and Oleg Bondarchuck by Luis Pérez

The task committee calls separate tasks for rigids and flex wings with a few shared turnpoints. The task is basically a race around the Green Swamp going from around the north east side, west, south, east and then back to Quest. The rigid wings have to go an extra six miles.

We open the start time at 1:15 PM 45 minutes earlier as pilots are starting earlier anyway and it looks like the days are getting better earlier. The start circles are a few miles to the northwest and we all drift that way. There will definitely be a group of earlier starting flex wings as they quickly get out to the west side of their start circle by Mascote.

At first there is one cloud that we know is working on the north side of Quest and its only providing 100 fpm. A few of us hang there until enough scouts have checked out the area to the north so that we can feel good about venturing out. There have been good cu’s all morning, but some were dying and bringing some pilots grief.

At 1:15 Johann Posch and I go on glide to the west with another rigid wing over the northern end of the Green Swamp. The flexies are to our right and five miles out they are circling, so Johann goes to join them. Like I said, there are cu’s every where so I keep going straight, but the clouds are lying.

I see a few flexies turning downwind and come in under them at 800’. Soon there are twenty gliders holding on and hoping to get back up as the day starts off weak. Now we are wondering if we should have taken the first start time.

We do finally find the good part of this thermal and get back to 4,000’ cloud base for the first part of the flight. We’ve got a total of four rigid wings out here and half a dozen flex wings in the lead gaggle and we’ll help each other out for the next couple of turnpoints before the rigids have to go their own way.

We’ve got Kurt Warren, Jim Lee, Terry Presley, and Jerz Rossignol. At least those are the ones I can identify. Kurt is leading and pushing the whole way. It’s great to have a guy who wants to go fast in the group.

We fly the clouds and continually go off the course line to get to the clouds. After the first bad experience with getting low going to the first turnpoint (Koke- a grass airstrip to the northwest of the Green Swamp), we want to be sure to hit the lift.

The clouds are now working and we hurtle right along trying to make sure that no one catches us from behind. With Kurt and Johann pushing, we are moving quickly.

Kurt takes a line off to our right and keeps going to the second turnpoint to the south at Clinton where he hits a strong thermal. We join him and this is where we will split up. An ATOS comes in under us, looks like someone is close to catching us.

There are two lines of clouds going to the south east. They are set up perfectly for the two task lines, one for the flexies and one for the rigids. We four rigid guys, including Marcus from Switzerland head southeast while the new rigid wing guy waffles around low below us.

It’s a good run to Rockridge and highway 98 where Johann finds another thermal just past the turnpoint. I’m slowly climbing away from Marcus and Johann and I keep in touch. The low rigid wing guy almost lands but we see him getting up slowly and still low behind us.

There is a lot of vertical development over by Dean Still Road going to our next turnpoint at Dean Still and highway 33. When I get there it is going up at 700 fpm to 5,300’. I dive in under the cloud and keep the bar pulled in so as I don’t go up making the turnpoint. Johann is already on his way home.

As we approach the highway 33 and 474 intersection, we are joined again by the flexies who’ve taken their short cut. There is a strong thermal at this intersection 11 miles out from Quest and I take it to 4,300’ which should be just enough to get me to goal.

I can barely see Quest but my Brauninger says that I can make it and there doesn’t seem to be a head wind. Johann reports that he doesn’t find any lift on the glide in.

I do the final glide without turning and come in with 500 feet to spare. No worries. Thank goodness sink was only 240 fpm over that 11 miles.

Results:

Rigids:

Pilot Start time Elapsed time

Christian Ciech 2:15 PM 2:57
David Chaumet 2:15 PM 3:09
Johann Posch 1:15 PM 3:21
Davis Straub 1:15 PM 3:29
Alex Ploner 2:15 PM 3:31

The pilots that started and finished earlier will get additional points. Thirteen pilots made goal. The race for the top spot is very tight in rigids (the results before today):

Christian picked up a few points today, but not a lot.

Flexies:

Jon Durand Jr. 2 PM 2:39
Manfred Ruhmer 1:45 PM 2:50
Brett Hazlett 1:45 PM 2:53
Kraig Coomber 1:45 PM 2:53
Oleg Bondarchuck 1:45 PM 2:53
Curt Warren 1:15 PM 2:54

Given his start time, Kurt could be in second or even first for the day. More than 25 flex wing pilots made it to goal.

The race for the top spot in the flex wing category is very tight with Manfred not running away with the contest. Three pilots before today’s results are very close. Oleg and Kraig are still very close after today. Tomorrow decides it.

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ballast|Brett Hazlett|cloud|David Chaumet|Flytec 4030|Flytec Championships 2003|gaggle|GPS|Hansjoerg Truttmann|harness|Johann Posch|Kraig Coomber|Mark Bolt|Paris Williams|picture|radio|Ron Gleason|Timothy "Tim" Ettridge|Timothy Ettridge|tow|track log

The scores when they are done will be at:

http://www.flytec.com/flytec_champ_03/scores.html

Yesterday Bo was able to grab the bag that David was holding up at goal for $50. David said he could see him aiming at him from 3 miles out.

Photos by Timothy Ettridge (as was the camel picture yesterday)

There was an inversion at about 1,000’ and it didn’t break until a little after 1 PM. Mark Bolt and Bo gave it a try at 12:30 and both came down and then relaunched. The second time they stuck, but Bo had to circle up from about 300’ at the west end of the runway.

I had been waiting in the ready line waiting to see if anyone stuck. As we watched Bo slowly climb out pilots began to get ready. I just waited here the front of the ready line until there was pressure from behind to get going and launched at 1:25 PM. That meant that 95% of the pilots now had to get launched in 35 minutes if they wanted to get in the air by the first start time. What it really meant is that the first start time would probably not be the favored start time.

Amazingly it looked like only a couple of wings were still on the ground at 2 PM. Pilots must have pinned off low to get the tugs back on the ground so quick for the next tow.

It was a strong climb to 3,500’ and then a slow steady climb thereafter to over 6,000’ and cloud base. It was great to be bundled up in warm clothing which I made sure that everyone knew they might need today.

I was on the radio with Johann Posch and watching David Chaumet climb up to cloud base with us from a later launch. We let the 2 PM start time go by even though we were high as it didn’t look like anyone wanted to go. David headed west (downwind) and Johann and I followed him to keep him in our sites. We were again at cloud base at 2:15 PM and it looked like David wasn’t going to go. Then he did and we were right there with him.

I always want to fly with the fastest pilots and here was David off by himself and I wanted to be sure I was sticking with him today. We didn’t have any of the other fast guys, but they were starting also from cloud base to our east, upwind.

We were right on a line for more clouds (there were less to the northeast) so this looked like the hot spot in spite of the fact that we were a bit downwind of the course line. We were hitting the clouds right as we went north so that looked good.

David has a superior glide. Johann was slightly out gliding me, but David was going faster and staying even with us as he moved out ahead. At first we were all together going in the mid thirties speed wise and I couldn’t see any difference between us. When we started flying in the mid forties, then he pulled ahead and still had the same glide.

I was carrying 22 pounds of ballast (hook in weight of 222 with ballast). Either he carries more ballast, or his glider/harness has less drag than the ATOS-C with me or Johann on it. He is a skinny guy.

We were able to keep up with David by finding the cores faster and climbing quickly. His climb rate was about the same are ours. No dramatic difference there. The question is is this a one of a kind La Mouette Tsunami or are the others like this one? We haven’t seen another Top Secret (Tsunami) perform this well at all, so it is hard to know if this is a production model. It seems to be the same glider he had at the worlds in Chelan.

We came in under Hansjoerg by the prisons (surprise, there is a new prison going up next to the other two southeast of Coleman) and got back to cloudbase. Then off to Wildwood for the next cu. We joined up with Jim Yokum there who had started from a position to our east. We could see flex wing gliders also to our east.

Gliding toward the first turnpoint, I got out in front, a little lower and in the wrong position and the wrong tape went off in my head (the I can get ahead and find lift under these clouds even though I’m getting low tape). I tried to save my sorry ass at 1,000’ but just couldn’t stay with the weak lift drifting fast to the west.

Johann, Jim and David got up in the strong one that I refused to go back to (part of that bad tape), and got high before going into the turnpoint where they also found good lift. I was scratching too low one mile to the west and couldn’t chance going up wind to find that thermal.

There had been blue holes and clouds on the way north, but the blue hole got bigger as pilots headed south to Center Hill. Jim and Ron Gleason fell back to the west and got up to 7,200; over highway 75 quite a bit to the west, while Johann plowed through the blue and landed just south of Center Hill.

The flex wings were gaggling up and helping each other out more. By starting at 2:45 Bo, with Paris, Brett Hazlett, Johnny Durand, Jr. and Kraig Coomber, they were able to catch the 2:15 and 2:30 starters. Manfred started at 2:30 PM.

With a big lead gaggle they made their way through the blue hole and then at the second and last turnpoint 12 miles out from Quest were able to make it back against the head wind.

Bo won the day followed by Paris, Johnny Durand, Brett and Kraig. Johnny Durand had his GPS go out on him and he saw Bo and Paris go for it. He said that he wished he had a Flytec 4030 Race for this final glide.

Christian won the day starting a half hour after David. David was second.

To see how the top pilots did check the URL above and click Top Tracks. The animated track log for Sunday for rigids is at http://www.flytec.com/flytec_champ_03/top5/rigidtracksat.HTML (ignore the paraglider symbol).

You’ll need http://www.flytec.com/flytec_champ_03/comprigid.html to know who is who. Go to the scores URL above and click competitors to get their numbers.

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accident|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Alex Ploner|Belinda Boulter|Christian Ciech|cloud|David Chaumet|Davis Straub|Eric Paquette|Florida|Flytec Championships 2003|gaggle|Hansjoerg Truttmann|harness|Johann Posch|Kraig Coomber|Manfred Ruhmer|Mike Barber|Richard Walbec|Ron Gleason|sailplane|smoke|Swift|Wallaby Ranch|Worlds

The scores when they are done will be at:

http://www.flytec.com/flytec_champ_03/index.html

The task committee relying on my statements about 5 mph out of the northwest called a triangular task, 58 mile for rigid wings, 61 miles for flex wings. The rigid wings started off to the southwest of the flex wings.

We went south to Dean Still and 33, 8 miles west of Wallaby Ranch, then south east to an intersection over highway 27 north of Haines City and north of Walmart, then back over Wallaby to the northwest, right into the wind to Quest.

The launch window opened at noon and the first start time was 2 PM. Lots of time to think about when to launch. The rigids have to launch before 1:15 {at least once.)

The winds were a bit too much for the flex wing pilots, and they have my apologies for that.

The forecast was for wispy cu’s or no cu’s also, but some deeper cu’s showed up early and then thinned out to match the prediction. With the strong west winds we had trouble getting to our start circle and kept drifting back to the east of highway 33. When I took off I just nicked the west circumference of the rigid wing start circle and left it at that.

About ten or so of us including a few flex wings took the first start time at 2 PM. David Chaumet in his Tsunami {La Moyette Top Secret), was just behind me. A few other ATOSes and Stratoses including Johann Posch were with me. Hansjoerg and Christian would start at 2:15 PM as I believe would Manfred.

I got out in front as I just nicked the start circle and joined up with a sailplane circling near the Seminole Lake glider port for the first thermal on the course. Looked like a student, and I was keeping a real good eye on the sailplane {given the recent accident) and quickly climbed through him.

David and Johann caught up with me south of Seminole as there were a few wispy cu’s to the north of Dean Still. David was flying well on his Tsunami, but not over powering. I was feeling great. There were a few flexies with us.

You can see from the tracklog above how much we would head to the east whenever we were thermaling. It was downwind to the second turnpoint and at this point David, Johann and a couple of other rigids have gotten out in front of me and a few other rigids. I had to go back at the first turnpoint to get into the lift and got a little behind.

There is a thermal just before the second turnpoint where we all get back together again and get high. The thermals over the course averaged 250 fpm {rate of climb) just about the prediction. They maxed at 500 fpm {at least for me). I heard Manfred found some 1000 fpm.

After the second turnpoint we are heading back into the wind to get to the west and the difficulty factor goes up a lot. Ron Gleason on an ATOS gets down to 600’ at I4 just south of Wallaby Ranch and has to drift east back to highway 27 to get back up. He’ll then fly the Florida ridge to the north finding lift on the “high ground.”

Johann is 3 miles ahead and I’m in contact with him. The lead gaggle gets low east of Wallaby and they are stuck for a short while. We don’t quite catch them as we wait at I4 and get high in weak lift. It will take 45 minutes to go from I4 to 474 about 11 miles to the north. There is a small wisp of a cloud now and then.

I flying with and Oleg on a Combat 2, Richard Walbec, and Kraig Coomber on Litespeeds. Christian Ciech caught us at the turnpoint and I’m flying with him also. It is good to see that he is not completely out climbing or out gliding me like he did here last year and at the Worlds. I’m feeling great about my updated ATOS-C.

Still Christian keeps going when we get below 2,000’ AGL just south of 474, and I hang back in weak lift as I never see him twirling in anything. Richard, Kraig, and a few rigids and I have to work some weak lift just north of 474 as we get down to 1,500’. There is a four pilot gaggle just to our north {including Oleg and Manfred) about a mile that is going up much better, but we have to live with what we are in as we’ll never make it to them.

The lift improves and finally the two thermals merge as we are 2,000’ below the four guys in front.

Those four go on glide and I hear from Belinda that David and his Tsunami are already in goal and we are still 15 miles out with a strong west wind. David has kicked our collective butts. He started in the first time slot, didn’t have many pilots out in front at first, got in the lead by the first turnpoint and kept charging ahead. Pilots flying with him said he had a better glide. I didn’t notice this, but maybe.

Mark Mullhulland joins us in a Swift Lite and I’ve been wondering where the Swifts have been. Usually they start late and then smoke the course going from gaggle to gaggle, but not today. Mark can barely keep up with us and will get into goal after our gaggle.

We keep punching west and a little bit to the north, and the winds are strong and the lift weak. We have to leave lift that is too weak to give us forward progress. I’m especially cognizant of the lines on all the lakes and ponds to see where there are converging winds. There are no wisps around.

Alex Ploner hasn’t caught up with us as he has broken his harness zipper and is having problems. He won’t make goal. Mike Barber broke his zipper on the ground, got help fixing it and had a little later start so he is no where to be seen.

We keep punching into the wind. At about 6 miles to the southeast of Quest I see Ron Gleason head toward goal from 3,500’. He looks really low as I’m at 4,500’. I’m worried about the head wind.

I go on glide with Richard next to me and we keep encounter some lift as we head toward Quest. I can still see Ron and it sure looks very iffy for him.

As I get to 1.5 miles out, I see Ron right on the deck as he enters the field after crossing a good patch of trees. He makes the goal line in the middle of the field with 50 feet to spare. I come in next with Richard a minute behind. It will be hard to get Richard off that

David is the first pilot in followed half an hour later by Hansjoerg and then Christian. Manfred is the first flex wing pilot in. Only four flex wing pilots make it to goal. Three Swifts make it after most of the rigids who make it are at goal.

Elapsed times:

Rigids:

David Chaumet Tsunami 2:15
Hansjoerg Truttmann ATOS-C 2:32
Christian Ciech Stratos 2:33
Bruce Barkmakian ATOS 2:37
Rich Burton Stratos 2:37
Jim Yokum ATOS-C 2:39
Eric Paquette ATOS 2:54
Ron Gleason ATOS-C 3:04
Davis Straub ATOS-C 3:07
then a few more rigid wings.

Flexxies:

Manfred Ruhmer Laminar 2:50
Kraig Coomber Litespeed 3:01
Richard Wallbec Litespeed 3:07
Mike Barber Litespeed 3:50(?)

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altitude|Florida|harness|Johann Posch|Mark Poustinchian|Paris Williams|Quest Air|triangle

Mark Poustinchian <mpousti2000@earthlink.net> writes:

I don’t think I got much spanking today. Thanks for motivation, I needed that. Today, I was getting used to my new AEROS Viper harness and also getting tuned into the old ATOS C. I had a late start and decided to do the practice task that pilots were trying to complete. It was about 65 miles triangle. I was about 6 miles behind Johann Posch and Paris. The first turn point was Colman which is about 20+ miles to the NW of Quest Air, then to SW for another 20+ miles and then back to Quest Air.

I was on my own for the first leg and about 1 mile from the first turn point ran into the other two which had made the first turn point and were on the way to the second turn point. We were low about the same altitude when we were passing each other and in big blue hole. I needed some help because after making the turn point I was low and needed a thermal bad. Luckily, Johann found a thermal and after gliding a couple miles I was able to get there just in time to bring the bottom up from 900’ agl. I had a great time flying with Paris and Johann and we all helped a little to find some lift to work our way to the second turn point.

Unfortunately there was a huge shade over the second turn point and crossing a big blue hole was putting us lower and lower. We tried to hang around in light lift to see if we can get some altitude to make the second turn point on a long glide over shade, however the lift was light and we were getting lower and lower. I chickened out first and made a turn to the east away from the turn point and tried to get under some small old clouds to get some needed altitude. That reminded me of Campbell, I always give him hard time that how he flies 150 miles to achieve a 100 straight miles. I had to do it today, I found a light thermal and all of us joined in in light lift and started to climb slowly. Paris was lower and was more in search mode for better lift and he found a nice core that took us well over 4500’. We were about 9 miles from the second turn point, but we all decided to skip it because it was more into the wind and we wanted to just glide back to Quest Air while we were high.

The glide back from 10+ miles out was great, Johann on his modified ATOS C was gliding great, he was able to glide away from us and Paris and I came over Quest Air about ½ minute later. Paris put on the after burners on the last mile for a very fast final approach and landed. There was still some lift over Quest Air. So, Johann and I decided to do some more flying and we ran into another ATOS C, it was Jim Yokum. Three of us flew around for a while and I was getting tired after flying for 5 hours, so I left the base which was close to 5800’ and glided to a blue hole to start descending toward earth. It was the late afternoon air and I had a very slow descend rate until I landed. I really like my glider and after a few more flights should be tuned into it nicely.

I also enjoyed my new AEROS Viper harness. It is the most comfortable harness that I have had. It is very tight and fits perfect. There is no ventilation on this harness like I had on my old harness, like the 6” gap above my shoulder, so it gets very warm and cozy. It is well padded and it felt great. I could tell the difference in glide today. The adjustable kick butt for fast glides also works great and I used it a bunch today without any problem. The all Mylar cover gives it a smooth finish for fast glides and the best part is that I can use this harness for a long time. The Mylar skin comes off and it can easily be replaced after a couple of years and a new skin would turn it into a new harness again. The skin is attached by Velcro and it fits perfectly over the inner layer. What a great name for a great harness.

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competition|Florida|Jim Yokum|Johann Posch|Paris Williams|Ron Gleason|triangle|weather

http://www.davisstraub.com/Glide/questairweather.htm

Once again Florida has great weather with a south or southwest flow, cu’s everywhere, rain way to the north, but great here. The weather is getting good just in time for the upcoming competition season.

Bo and I got off around 10:30 AM and flew together to the northeast. About twenty miles out we got stuck over the lakes and hung in zero for a long time low over the middle of a big lake before it just didn’t pan out. It’s so great to go so early and just fly the light lift.

Later with more southwest winds here pilots did a 50+ mile triangle to the northwest, west and back in light lift. Jim Yokum showed up with his ATOS-C and joined Paris on his bigger Laminar, Johann Posch, Mark P. and Ron Gleason on the Stalker2.

The story was that Mark and Paris were climbing better than Johann, but that he was out gliding them. The new adjustments on the ATOS-C versions that we have have been aimed at better glide with a hit on the climb rate. With Florida lift, this may be a problem.

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Johann Posch

Johann Posch visited with Felix at the AIR factory at the end of February and spoke with him about the new VX. In contrast to Vince’s report (“There is not much that is interchangeable with the Atos-C. The spar is bigger as are the ribs.”), Johann reports that the VX uses the same d-cells and ribs as the standard ATOSes. There is just a longer aluminum tube extension at the end of the d-cell to increase the span from 42 feet to 46 feet.

Johann also stated that AIR is now able to add an additional layer to the first six feet of d-cells without additional resin, and therefore the weight doesn’t go up, while the strength does.

So my speculation based in Vince’s report would be off base.

Discus the AIR ATOS-C or other ATOS’s at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2/

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Aeros Target|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Christian Ciech|David "Dave" Glover|David Chaumet|glide ratio|James "Jim" Lamb|Johann Posch|tail

Johann Posch showed up and we put our newly revised ATOS-C’s, that we last flew in Australia, together. Jim Lamb, Heiner Beisel, and Alex Ploner also have ATOS-C’s here at Quest Air. No shipping damage!

Sure I flew David Glover’s ATOS-C a few weeks ago but I’ve been hoping on one flex wing after another for days on end here, trying to meet the demands of the Oz Report readers, so it came as quite a shock when I got back on my ATOS-C.

No bar pressure, that’s what it felt like as I towed up, after towing up the Aeros Target earlier in the day. Jeez this is a bit scary. And not only that, but the bar is way back and there is no bar pressure. Feels like it could just keep right on going back.

Of course, there is bar pressure, but I’ve just had a reasonably long flight on the Target and my muscles are remembering that. My mind is having a hard time taking in the messages that say this glider is going over as everything is so light.

The tow is after 4 PM and I’m under a big cloud that is forming late in the day in mellow lift. I’m climbing and trying to reprogram myself. The glider turns without the slightest effort. The bar goes to my chest with no effort. I’m freaking, but trying to calm myself. This is so strange.

It takes a half hour to calm down and realize that no there is in fact some bar pressure. That I can indeed pull in to my waste and the bar pushes back.

I fly around in very delightful air as I wait for Johann to get up. Boy, this thing feels like a sailplane after all those flex wing gliders, especially the single surface ones. It feels like I have double the glide ratio or more.

Johann and I do a long glide together and we are dead even. I’d love to try this with Christian Ciech, Alex Ploner or David Chaumet. My ATOS’s sweep is set at 2300 mm. The new standard for all ATOSes.

At the end of the flight I’m going this is great! What a glider.

I can see how it would be nice if the bar was normally further out, just a psychological kind of thing. It feels like it is so far back normally, that it has only a little ways to go before it slips out of your hands, especially as it seems like there is no bar pressure.

But this is all a jumble. Of course, Felix puts the control bar where he does because he wants you to have the ability to pull back hard if the nose gets popped in a big thermal. It’s just that all these little considerations go into a glider design and it is amazing that it all comes out at all.

Did I say that all the gliders came with tails? Sure seems to calm the glider down compared to David’s without a tail.

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Archäopterix|Belinda Boulter|Gilbert Griffith|Hans Bausenwein|Johann Posch|Toni Raumauf|William "Gary" Osoba jr.

We’re spending the morning in La Mesilla, the old town, next to Las Cruces. It means either the little table or the little mesa. But it doesn’t look much like a mesa around here. The trailer is getting its lug nuts checked out and fixed. I wonder if as I’m hauling all my worldly possessions around in the thing (and Belinda’s too) whether it weighs too much. I’ve got few possessions though, and the ATOS is in Germany.

Light winds, cool air, blue skies this morning.

Hans Bausenwein writes from Bright, Victory, Australia, so say that he had a good flight there two days ago, but that it is too smoky today. We rented him our car for $6/day US. Gilbert Griffth just fixed up the rear universal for it after Hans and Frigga drove to Bright. They should have picked up our bikes there also.

Johann Posch is in Austria skiing with his boys who are being home schooled. He and Toni Raumauf are going to the AIR factory on the 24^th to check out the ATOSes, theirs and mine.

I’ve asked Felix to get in touch with Gary Osoba to see if a meeting of the minds can inspire new thoughts. Spoke for a long time with Gary a few days ago, and he is scheming about the upcoming ultralight sailplane record season. Lots of action on that front from many different quarters. For example, the manufacturers of the Silent are perhaps coming out with a model with increased span.

Gary is in contact with the Swiss makers of the Archäopterix http://www.shv-fsvl.ch/d/glider/index.htm. This $80,000 glider may yet go into production as a more affordable model. The Swift Lites are $20,000 and you’d need to add a faring to the Archäopterix to make it competitive in Class 2.

Gary hopes to be coming back down to Quest Air this spring to do some more hang gliding and learn to fly more high performance models than the Aeros Target (although, Bo was out flying the Stalker the other day). He’s thinking about out the Exxtacy. If you can go from P to RW in three days, why not sailplanes and Target to Exxtacy?

I hope to have some new news soon about the Sparrowhawk, but at the moment I’m a little out of the loop.

Two more tires (replacing those with bubbles from tire separation – bad roads?) and three hours later we headed out of Las Cruces at 12:45. Just drove through El Paso which certainly presents its ugly backside to the freeway. It makes the rest of west Texas look good.

We arrive in Fort Stockton at 6:30 PM in time to finish up the Oz Report (written while not driving).

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Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Andreas Olsson|Antoine Boisselier|Anton Raumauf|Brian Porter|Bruce Barmakian|Christian Ciech|David Chaumet|Davis Straub|Francois Isoard|Gerolf Heinrichs|Gordon Rigg|Heiner Biesel|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Mario Alonzi|Oleg Bondarchuk|Oliver Schmidt|Paris Williams|Paula Bowyer|Richard Walbec|Robin Hamilton|Thomas "Tom/Tomas" Weissenberger|World Pilot Ranking Scheme

Class 5:

The meets where most of the rigid wing points can be found are the 2002 Worlds in Chelan, the 2002 Wallaby Open, the 2002 Flytec Championship, and the 2001 US Nationals in Hearne, TX.

Class 1:

Paula Bowyer <paula@fai.org> writes:

The WAG, Dutch Open, French Champ, Nordic Masters, Slovenian Open and the Spanish Open were deleted. Added were the Australian Open, Bogong Cup and Australian Nationals.

Oleg Bondarchuk (UKR) leaps 4 places to take number 1 spot. Gordon Rigg (GBR) jumps 2 places to be 2^nd while Gerolf Heinrichs (AUT) and Antoine Boisselier (FRA) each drop 1 place to 3^rd & 4^th. Mario Alonzi (ITA) climbs 3 places to 5^th, above Manfred Ruhmer (AUT) who tumbles to 6^th. Jean-Francois Gerard (FRA) stays 7^th while Tom Weissenberger (AUT) bounds 11 places to 8^th, Andreas Olsson (SWE) gains a place to 9^th and Richard Walbec (FRA) jumps 2 to be 10^th.

These are significant changes, and I decided to look into why some of them took place. A review of Gordon Rigg’s results shows first the importance of doing well at the European Championships and then the importance of doing well at two of the Australian meets.

The European Championships dominate all the other scoring opportunities. If you weren’t at the Europeans and doing well there, you weren’t going to be doing well in the WPRS Class 1 ranking. For example, Paris Williams out flew Gordon in all three meets in Australia in 2003, but is ranked only eleventh because he didn’t go to the European Championships.

The 2002 and 2003 Australian Open, the 2003 Bogong Cup and the 2002 Australian Nationals proved to be the next most important meets, and the only other meets that were useful to Gordon in attaining his number two ranking. Manfred hasn’t been going to Australia lately.

The 2003 Australian Nationals were just not as important to these high ranking pilots because not as many pilots overall show up for that meet (even though in the US NTSS ranking system it is just as highly ranked at the Bogong Cup and higher ranked than the Australian Open). The current WPRS system has no quality factor, which devalues a high quality meet like the 2003 Australian Nationals.

Well, as we can see from Manfred’s ranking, he missed out on opportunities to get more points in Australia. If he had gone to Australia he would very likely continue to be ranked first in the World. Of course, this can change from month to month.

The Florida meets were just not as well attended (there are also issues of the limits on the number of pilots that can be handled easily at the flight parks) as the Australian meets so they weren’t worth quite as much. Again these were high quality meets (in terms of the ranking of the pilots who attended them) so in a fair system they provide pilots with more ranking points than they do.

Antoine didn’t do that well at the 2003 Australian meets so he had to rely on the 2002 meets there for his points.

Gerolf only needed a couple of points to stay in second place and he could have achieved them by attending and doing well at the 2003 Australian Open. I’d think that his fourth place in the 2003 Australian Nationals would have given him enough points if more pilots had attended the meet.

It looks like the Brasilia pre-Worlds meet just didn’t have enough attendance to match up to the Australian meets.

Jean-Francios stayed where he was by not doing well enough in the 2003 Australian meets.

Finally, the emerging class 2:

Class 2 ranking:

Well, I guess Manfred can at least be happy with his number one ranking in Class 2.

Discuss "WPRS ranking" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Tue, Dec 31 2002, 10:00:01 pm EST

Australian Open 2002|Blue Sky|Gordon Rigg|Grant Heaney|Johann Posch|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Oleg Bondarchuk|Paris Williams|Ron Gleason

http://www.cool-ether.net.au/australianopen

Wow, what a day.

It started off with blue sky and when a few early morning wisps of cues formed they were coming out of the southwest at 20 mph at about 2,000’. We were told to get to the tow paddock at noon to give it a chance to dry out, and by then, with the sun and the wind, it was.

The wind on the ground was only about five to ten mph, so it was quite pleasant setting up, especially as the air temperature had dropped into the lower 20’s Celsius. The task committee had to take all three classes into account and wanted to make sure that the floaters had a straight downwind task. As every floater that got out of the tow paddock on the first task made goal, and the fastest time was 30 minutes, we increased the task distance to 60 kilometers from 37 to give them a bit of a challenge.

We chose a king posted and open task that ended in the same paddock 102 kilometers away with the open pilots having to go around two turnpoints, making for yet another cross wind leg in the middle of the task. Cloud base had risen to around 5,000’ by the time we got out to the tow paddock, and every one was predicting strong lift because of the cold air. Scattered cu’s about 1000’ thick filled in about 50% of the sky at noon.

It looked like a strong day with a strong tail wind, but a day that you wouldn’t get too high, so you would need to be careful and work the lift to cloud base.

I was first in line behind our trike fifteen minutes after the launch window opened. I don’t know why pilots were waiting but I got in line as soon as I possibly could. When Daveo towed me up, I saw right away that the ground was completely shaded a kilometer to our west and the tow paddock would be shortly.

The cu’s had filled in to our west and upper level clouds were headed our way. I had flown in Australia over completely shaded ground before, so it didn’t look as though no one would get up, but it certainly looked like it might be hard getting out of the paddock for those folks behind me.

The cloud shelf to the west continued to grow as I worked the 200 fpm lift that was available under the double deck of clouds and drifted east toward the ten kilometer start circle radius. I would be leaving the start circle in the half hour allotted for open timed started, before the ten minute intervals began at 2:30. I would be under this cloud deck fot the first two legs of the course.

Grant Heaney and I crossed the start circle radius together at 2:17 and we were on course at 4,500’. Cloud base was 5,000’ but would rise about 1,000’ during the day. Grant and I were the first pilots out on course.

I could see four or five other pilots low in the start circle as we left. With the light lift they would be slowly coming behind us if they drifted out of the start circle like we did and didn’t wait until the start time intervals kicked in.

Grant and I traded places finding lift heading straight downwind 20 kilometers for the first turnpoint. Just before we got there I found the thermal and drifted downwind but through the turnpoint as we continued to work 300 fpm. Grant just missed the turnpoint by 400 meters. I thought he might have missed it at the time, but assumed that he would go back and get it later.

The course took a ninety degree turn at the turnpoint to the north and we had to fight back up wind to get to the upwind side of the course line. I chased after Phil Prichard who had been about five minutes behind us at the start circle, and had been able to get the first turnpoint without drifting downwind. Jon Durand Jnr was around there downwind, but I didn’t see him.

Now we were on the tough cross wind leg, but at 5,000’ AGL, so reasonably high if there was lift to be found. We were still under the shelf of upper level scud keeping the ground shaded, but we continued to find lift. I pushed hard up wind to get as good a chance as possible to drift with any thermal I found back toward the course line, and not down wind of it.

I kept finding little bits of lift over the dark ground and Phil was now following a bit downwind. About eight kilometers from the second turnpoint, I found 100 fpm from 2,500’ AGL and since I was somewhat low took it. I would stay there for quite a while drifting closer to the turnpoint, and appreciating the fact that the lift was increasing to almost 300 fpm.

Oleg came in under me about 300’ below as Grant came in under also quite low. We continued to work the weak thermal as we were about to drift downwind of the course line about 3 kilometers south of the second turnpoint. I then spotted Paris Williams off to my right climbing faster and immediately flew to him as did Oleg. Paris and I beamed up at 400 fpm to over 6,000’ 2 kilometers short of the second turnpoint.

Paris had started at 2:40 and had a strong run in the cross wind leg hitting three strong thermals including the one we were in. He had moved ahead of the competition and we were now in the lead.

Paris and then I headed to the second turnpoint and making a right hand turn flew as fast as possible toward the sunlight about 7 kilometers to our east. Our ground speeds were over 90 km/h. The 20 mph tail wind really helped. I’d been on the edge of the cloud shelf since launching and it looked like I was finally going to be able to get to the fully sunlight patch.

We spread out and flew side by side separate by 300 meters. I hit the thermal first and it was 600 fpm. The first good thermal for me of the flight. I kept looking back as we beamed up expecting to see Oleg at any minute. But no, it was just Paris and I.

We headed off toward the goal that was 40 kilometers out into the blue with little bits of clouds forming in front of us. About ten kilometers along the course line I could see a good cloud forming.

The wind was averaging between 15 and 22 mph out of the west southwest. Still the thermals were reasonably well formed. I was loving flying my ATOS-C and it felt good in all circumstances.

Paris and I were trying to team fly by spreading out, but he said later that if he matched my speed his vario showed that his speed to fly speed was assuming a 1,000 fpm thermal. We hadn’t hit any of those, so he had to slow down. I was flying a bit faster than best speed to fly assuming 500 fpm, so that just gives you an idea of how much more aggressive my polar is than his.

We got a good thermal at the next cloud 22 kilometers out from the goal and got to over 5,000’. It looked like this was the goer. Paris was just under me about 200’.

We went on glide again with me moving off a bit to the south to spread out our search pattern just in case we needed one. Turned out we did because even though our varios had shown us that we could make goal if the lift and the sink averaged out, we hit all the sink at first. We were at 2,000’ AGL at 11 kilometers out in 500 fpm sink.

I moved further upwind to the south to get under a forming cloud and hit 800 fpm. This was going to bring us home and then some. In four minutes I gained 2,500’.

Paris came in under me and climbed up staying about 2,000’ below. At only 11 kilometers from goal and at 4,500’ AGL I was way too high to get to goal at a reasonable altitude, but it had all happened so quickly. Now, of course, there was plenty of lift under a cloud street to goal. I came in first at 4,000’ AGL a few second before Paris.

Gordon Rigg was the next pilot in. Grant made it (and didn’t know until later that he missed the first turnpoint). Jon Durand Jnr and Craig Coomber went down by the second turnpoint. Johnny got low and had to stay in a thermal which took him way downwind from the second turnpoint and he couldn’t get back to it.

Steve Moyes, Lukas Bader, and Oleg made it in. Oleg was just 300 feet below me two kilometers from the second turnpoint when Paris and I raced for it. None the less, he was a half hour behind us getting to goal. Paris and I really hit it good on the last leg.

Phil Pritchard didn’t make it after I flew with him on the second leg. Johann Posch and Ron Gleason made it in. Ron was second in the rigid class for the day. Tony Raumf landed by the second turnpoint.

My ATOS-C felt great throughout the flight. It was solid as a rock. It loved turning in the thermals no matter what their strength. I felt completely comfortable and at ease.

We didn’t get a third of the open class pilots into goal. None of the king posted pilots made it although a few went past it put off to one side. One almost made it back upwind. It was blowing 20 mph on the ground when we landed.

None of the floater guys made it to the 60 km goal. It had too much of a north component in it. We will have to be especially careful with that task especially in weak conditions at the paddock.

It looks like Paris might move into first place in the flex wing division. Check the web site above.

Sun, Dec 29 2002, 1:00:01 am EST

Australian Open|Belinda Boulter|Johann Posch|Ron Gleason

http://www.cool-ether.net.au/australianopen

As I reported the second leg of yesterday’s task was cross wind with a twenty mph north wind. This is Ron Gleason’s track on that leg (Garmin 76 plus SeeYou):

Ron falls back 13 km along the third leg to get high enough to make the second turnpoint, before he can turn and drift downwind to goal.

We could see the dust in the air from the north as we headed out to Conargo yesterday, but it was clear to the south and it cleared up during the day. There wasn’t a wall of dust that would accompany a front, but just wind blown dust from the bare paddocks to the north.

There was general confusion in the heat, sun, wind and flies on the first day with too many pilots loaded up with Willi from Sky Ranch who was taking up slack from the fallout with the Dragonflies with fifteen pilots on tow. Ron Gleason, Johann Posch and I had jumped over from Willi to Daveo from Airborne for trike towing.

Belinda, Vicki and Elsa wore themselves out tracking down dollies and getting us going. Hopefully better organization on the next flying day. Vicki came to help out, but I don’t think that she bargained for this.

Oli took this shot of Conrad who shows us how to cover up under the burning Australian sun while towing in the paddock:

Fri, Dec 20 2002, 12:00:04 pm EST

Johann Posch|Kenny Brown|Moyes|Vicki Cain

Bobby Bailey|Johann Posch|Kenny Brown|Moyes|Vicki Cain

I picked up Johann Posch’s glider from the Moyes factory today and then headed over to their Christmas Party. Thanks to Kenny Brown at Moyes US and Vicki Cain at Moyes for getting our ATOSes to us here in Australia. Thanks to Molly Moyes and all her helpers for cooking all the great food for the party.

Today the Australian aviation authorities gave the final approval for the deployment of Bailey-Moyes Dragonflies as hang glider tow vehicles. The fax was received at about 2 PM.

Bobby Bailey was feeling good after getting ultrasound treatment to both his kidneys and is ready to start towing in Deniliquin next week.

Sat, Oct 19 2002, 10:00:04 pm EDT

Johann Posch|PG|photo|USHGA

www.paraglider.org/flypaper

C. J. Sturtevant «georges» writes

I just got word from the USHGA BOD meeting in Orlando that the North West Paragliding Club's eFly was selected as the Newsletter of the Year. Congratulations to editor Ernie Friesen and to all who submitted articles and photos and cartoons. Check out the latest edition, and the archived articles, at www.paraglider.org/flypaper.

(editor’s note: One year after the USHGA BOD chose the Oz Report as its first Internet based newsletter as newsletter of the year, it goes back to the Pacific Northwest (well, at least that is where I was based when I started the Oz Report) and chooses its second e-zine as newsletter of the year.

This time the USHGA has gone back to honoring a club-based newsletter, but maybe the choice of another eVersion has a lot to say about where the publication energy is, how club members like their newsletters, and what the future holds.

Of course, the future is now and has been for at least seven years. It is just that the past keeps holding on and keeps a hold on some. The Seattle area (otherwise known as greater Redmond – for those not in the know, Microsoft is based in Redmond) is obviously a big area for web-based content with a web-conversant population. Plenty of paraglider plots are Microsoft employees, so slipping one more item into their in-box just adds to the clutter.

I’m sure hoping that the Seattle-based Cloud Base Country Club can get on board – the editor works at Microsoft, after all. Of course, the ratio of old timers to youngsters in the hang gliding club is much greater in the CBCC (well, there hasn’t been enough time to create too many old timers in paragliding) than in the NWPC. It is the backwoods boys that may kill any effort to go completely Internet based for the CBCC newsletter (which a few years ago also won the USHGA newsletter of the year).

Johann Posch is in charge of the CBCC web site (www.cloudbase.org) and he’s interested in getting the newsletter up on that site. Maybe with a little coordination it will happen and they can phase out the old paper and stamps variety.)

Wed, Oct 16 2002, 1:00:01 pm EDT

Belinda Boulter|Johann Posch|Ron Gleason|USHGA

Belinda Boulter|Johann Posch|John "Ole" Olson|Ron Gleason|USHGA

(?-i)John "Ole" Olson|Belinda Boulter|Johann Posch|Ron Gleason|USHGA

Belinda Boulter|Johann Posch|Ron Gleason|USHGA

Belinda and I are off to Australia tonight at 10:30 PM (get to the airport at 8 PM Pacific Daylight Time). We’ll be flying into Melbourne, hanging around for a couple of days then heading east and up the coast to Byron Bay.

We are working on a book project and hope to have it finished up in time for the competition season. My ATOS, along with Ron Gleason’s and Johann Posch’s were on the docks in LA three weeks ago, so hopefully they will be on a boat soon.

The USHGA BOD meeting is this weekend. Let’s all hope for the best. See article below on the Ozone hole.

Sun, Sep 29 2002, 2:00:03 pm EDT

Johann Posch|sailplane

Johann Posch got his private sailplane license last Sunday after an accelerated course and effort by his instructor, Posi, at High Country Soaring in Minden, NV. Johann had to study quite hard in a short period of time for the computer-based FAA test.

Thu, Sep 19 2002, 12:00:00 pm EDT

George Ferris|Johann Posch|USHGA

After heroic work by George Ferris (and help from the AIR office) the ATOS v-tails have escaped customs in Houstonand arrived here in Minden(after a stop to see George). Tom Vayda is letting Johann Posch have his to take to Australia and two more v-tails are coming later to Johann to go to Tom and Mike Daily – who purchased Johann’s other ATOS-C (he had two).

The new v-tails are beautiful (see OzReport.com/Ozv6n137.htm) and so well made. Rob Gleason and I will be packing up the v-tails and the gliders on Friday to be sent to Australia. It’s early, but that’s how the timing is working out. We will be leaving for Australiaearly, October 16^th, and unfortunately miss the USHGA BOD meeting in Orlando.

Johann Posch|sailplane

I took Johann Posch, ATOS rigid wing pilot, up for a flight today in the SZD something, a two place fiberglass sailplane from Poland, known around the Minden airfield, at least, as the puker. I didn’t puke, but I can understand why they call it that. The rudder is so big that it is very easy for the student to get the thing swaying from side to side. Not so good for the guy in the back seat.

It’s been blowing like stink here since Tuesday, and the Nutty Professor is calling for me to fly in the wave. Well they’re saying that they put the tow plane upside down yesterday in the rotor that you have to go through before you get to the wave. I don’t quite believe them (the tow pilot is telling me this), but apparently it was out of control. The sailplane pilot continued on for his 1000 km flight. Slide Mountain anyone?

I’ve got no interest in landing back at the airport in these strong winds. I don’t have enough experience with strong winds in gliders to feel good about cross wind landings, even in the heavy gliders. Today the winds are the lightest that they’ve been since we got here in August, cu’s everywhere and good thermals.

Johann got to do everything but the takeoff and landing and the first 3000 feet of the first thermal. As usual I got off a little early and worked 200 fpm to get up over the airport.

We got to 13500’ about 500’ below cloud base and flew up to Heavenly Valley Ski Area. The lake looked glass smooth.

Johann may be taking more sailplane lessons (not from me, of course) over the next week here. The temperatures are quite moderate today, in the seventies, and should get into the low eighties tomorrow and through the week. Very nice.

We were in the puker because the GROB 103 was following its owner to Texas. It had been profit shared with High Country Soaring, and was their main teaching machine, but now it was going away. I wonder if the instructors will be able to handle this.

Discuss "The Puker" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Sarah Bowyer|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Andreas Olsson|Antoine Boisselier|Anton Raumauf|Attila Bertok|Betinho Schmitz|Bruce Barmakian|Christian Ciech|David Chaumet|Davis Straub|Francois Isoard|Gerolf Heinrichs|Gordon Rigg|Guido Gehrmann|Johann Posch|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Josef "Zwecki" Zweckmayr|Manfred Ruhmer|Mario Alonzi|Michael Huppert|Naoki Itagaki|Oleg Bondarchuk|Oliver "Olli" Barthelmes|Paris Williams|Richard Walbec|Robert Reisinger|Rohan Holtkamp|Steve Elkins|World Pilot Ranking Scheme

http://www.fai.org/hang_gliding/rankings/class1/
http://www.fai.org/hang_gliding/rankings/class5/

Sarah Bowyer at CIVL got right on the case and got the new world rankings out right after the Worlds:

Class 1:

The 2001 Australian Meets were dropped, so the Australian pilots suffered a bit.

Class 5:

The Worlds, the Europeans, the Floridameets, and the Australian meets count big time for WPRS points. The top rigid pilots didn’t fly in the Europeans, and too few flew in the Australian meets, but they did fly in Floridaand at the Worlds in Chelan and Spain. It is clear that the Floridameets and the Australian meets should be as valued by CIVL as the Europeans. They are international meets.

The pre-Worlds in Brazilshould be well attended and that will affect the Class 1 ranking. Again the Brazilian pre-Worlds should be considered as valuable as the Europeans.

Discuss "WPRS" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Sun, Jul 21 2002, 5:00:04 pm EDT

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|ATOS|carbon fiber|Davis Straub|dust devil|Johann Posch|Richard Christen|Tryg Hoff|video|Werner Schnitzler|Wills Wing

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|ATOS|carbon fiber|Davis Straub|dust devil|Johann Posch|Richard Christen|Tryg Hoff|video|Werner Schnitzler|Wills Wing|World Record Encampment

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|ATOS|carbon fiber|Davis Straub|dust devil|Johann Posch|Richard Christen|Tryg Hoff|video|Werner Schnitzler|Wills Wing|World Record Encampment

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|ATOS|carbon fiber|Davis Straub|dust devil|Johann Posch|Richard Christen|Tryg Hoff|video|Werner Schnitzler|Wills Wing

I had an opportunity to speak at some length (although not for long enough) with Guenther Tschurnig after the closing ceremonies on Sunday about his incident (you remember, his wing got torn off in a dust devil). Guenther felt that there was the possibility of damage to his d-cells from the car racks experienced while going up the butte.

Four of the Austrian team’s ATOSes were hauled up the butte on top of Johann Posch’s VW van. The ATOSes were stacked two deep. (We were never allow rigid wing gliders to be stacked on our vehicles.) The racks on Johann’s van are round, thin, and poorly padded. (The racks on my truck are 3 inches wide, flat and well padded.)

The road up the butte was well maintained for a dirt/gravel road, but still it could be a bit rough. Guenther had been here for three weeks including the Chelan Cross Country Classic.

The spot on where the wing broke corresponds to where the wing was sitting on the rack. It wasn’t clear from my conversation whether there were any signs of rack damage on the wing, although I tried to get this question answered numerous times.

One problem with this theory is that the damage on the wind would have been on the top surface (although also possibly in the spar). The wing would seem to have torn from the bottom surface if it was under a positive load.

Felix is taking Guenther’s ATOS back to Germany and will perform a series of tests on it and on the other d-cell that wasn’t damaged in flight to see if it breaks in the same spot under a high load. He will write up a report. I hope to be able to publish it.

Four pilots who’ve broken ATOSes in the air: (Tryg Hoff, Davis Straub, Guenther Tschurnig, and Richard Christen.)

Tryg isn’t flying hang gliders yet. Richard bought Alex’ Ploner’s beefed up ATOS-C on Sunday, after flying on Saturday the one Alex flew in Texasduring the WRE. I’m flying a tandem version of the ATOS-C. I think that Guenther will get another ATOS-C in Austria.

Werner Schnitzler «w.fly» provides a very much speeded up version of a discussion that I had with Richard Christen about tucking and tumbling:

http://werner.kicks-ass.net/ThereIWas.wmv, Windows Media Player Video Clip, 2.8 MB

Of course, the rack damage theory can be viewed as a very convenient theory. It lets Felix and AIR off the hook. It lets the rest of us ATOS-C pilots off the hook (at least until one of us tucks or tumbles again). At the moment it is only a theory with a very small amount of circumstantial evidence.

On the other hand, if the ATOS d-cells are indeed designed and manufactured to sustain a 10 g load, then it does explain why such a strong wing could fail under a load that was most likely under 10 g’s (so we think). Another possibility is that there was a failure of the manufacturing process.

One fact does give us pause. Wills Wing load tests every carbon fiber spar that they get from the subcontractor before they install it in one of their Talons. I have heard that only one has failed so far during this static load test.

ATOS spars (and perhaps the spars from any or all of the other rigid wing manufacturers) are not static load tested after they are delivered from the subcontractors. Therefore there is not test at AIR (or at Icaro?) that verifies that the d-cells have met the manufacturing requirements.

Sun, Jul 21 2002, 5:00:00 pm EDT

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Christian Ciech|dust devil|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Jamie Shelden|Johann Posch|Kari Castle|Manfred Ruhmer|weather|Worlds

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Christian Ciech|dust devil|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Jamie Shelden|Johann Posch|John "Ole" Olson|Kari Castle|Manfred Ruhmer|weather|Worlds

(?-i)John "Ole" Olson|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Christian Ciech|dust devil|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Jamie Shelden|Johann Posch|Kari Castle|Manfred Ruhmer|weather|Worlds

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Christian Ciech|dust devil|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Jamie Shelden|Johann Posch|Kari Castle|Manfred Ruhmer|weather|Worlds

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Christian Ciech|dust devil|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Jamie Shelden|Johann Posch|Kari Castle|Manfred Ruhmer|weather|Worlds

http://www.elltel.net/peterandlinda/2002%20Worlds/Worlds%20Main.htm

Let it be known that the World Championships (all three of them) in Chelan were fantastic. Eight days of great flying in Chelan at its best (which is pretty darn normal). It’s funny, but locals don’t cotton to flying in the high pressure conditions that we flew in because they are often rough and don’t necessarily lead to long distance flights. We were looking for speed in challenging conditions and that’s what we got.

The gorge did present some difficulties to the flex wing pilots, but these were pretty minor as we were able to get at least 6,500’ MSL over the butte every day. Often we got to 7,500’ or over and this was plenty for almost every one to have a good chance of finding a thermal out on the flats before getting too low. We went out toward LaMoine every day and found lift near the power lines.

Only on rare occasions did we have any cumulus clouds in the vicinity and they were often quite high. But, in Chelan, the lift is found looking at the ground and going for the dust devils (or just blundering along until you run into it).

There were plenty of strong winds on most days, and this just added to the challenge of the courses that took us back into the winds. Pilots had to display their patience (or lack there of). The winds probably added to the turbulence, which kept everyone holding on tight, perhaps the biggest negative of the weather conditions.

Certainly the Chelan area is more turbulent and stronger than many of the areas that the pilots are experienced flying in, but I don’t think that the conditions were so drastic as to give anyone pause. They were certainly in the realm that we all need to deal with.

Pilots had a great time and really expressed their admiration for the site and the wonderful flying that they had during the Worlds. They especially loved the last day where the fire mellowed out conditions and tipped the balance more toward skill and a bit away from bravery when it came to the results.

We got to see some really outstanding performances, especially on the part of the top three rigid wing pilots, the top two or three Swift pilots, and the top women pilots. Kari was able to completely dominate the women’s category, and it was great to see her team mate Claire, come in second and win over the best women pilots from the rest of the world. She faced a strong challenge from Natalia from Russia.

The top three rigid wing pilots were head and shoulders above everyone else. No one could come near them in performance and we only could rely on their mistakes to gain any ground on them. One funny story that I heard at the closing ceremonies:

On the last day David Chaumet took the first start time right next to me and Johann Posch with Hansjoerg Truttmann just below us. The four of us headed out together and basically did the whole course near each other in the lead.

David was in third place, just 32 points (out of 5500) behind Alex Ploner. In fact, a couple of days earlier, he had been in second place, so the two of them were in a tight battle, although 400 points or so behind Christian Ciech.

David stayed with the three of us throughout the course, and the reason he did this is he thought that Hansjoerg was Alex. He knew that if he just stayed high above and with Alex (who often flies low and fast) he could beat him at the end and go into second place. Hansjoerg was flying unusually fast because he had nothing to lose, so he resembled Alex. (Alex, Hansjoerg and I were all flying ATOS-C’s with V-tails – the only one’s to do so.)

David flew slower than he was capable of in order to stay with us and track Hansjoerg (Alex). David did stay above him and got into goal 5 minutes below Hansjoerg. When Hansjoerg came across goal, David realized that he had made an error.

Alex started 15 minutes behind us and flew the course three minutes faster than David. David got the early departure and arrival points to beat Alex for the day, but the difference between them (21 points) was not enough to overcome Alex’s lead.

Christian smacked in on landing and twisted his knee, which was hurt badly enough that he was wearing a brace at the closing ceremony and relying on two Italian team mates to carry him about.

There are now quite a few very good hang glider pilots flying rigid wing hang gliders and making for a substantial and competitive meet. Other rigid wing pilots are talking about coming to Australiafor the meets in January. Some one should be bidding on the combined Class 2 and 5 world in 2005.

Manfred won the world championship in his second class flying the slightly earlier version (prototype) of the Swift Lite. So now he holds two hang gliding world championships at once. He and Robin (with Brian bringing up the rear) had outstanding performances finishing way ahead of the rest of the Swifts.

Robin was able to beat Manfred on the last day (as well as on two other days) by pushing him to fly faster and faster. Robin, with additional weight on the skinny Manfred, would get a better glide than the lightweight Manfred at the higher speeds and thereby gain a few seconds on him.

Kari Castle was happier than I have ever seen her and she was really pumped for her team, doing everything that she could to make sure that the team came out in first place. She was very proud of Claire and very happy that Claire was able to reclaim second place on the last day.

The women’s team cam very close to getting back into first place. While Raean did a good job, the team just needed a little more support on three days to bump themselves back into contention. Jamie wasn’t able to master the flex wing glider after a couple of years on her Exxtacy, and Judy wasn’t able to launch safely on a glider with too large a control frame.

Speaking of large control frames, this seemed to be a problem that a number of the relatively smaller pilots suffered from, when the control bars would come up only a few inches from the ground when they put it on their shoulders at launch. Obviously, the tall Ms. Castle doesn’t have this problem.

I would hope that somebody takes these pilot aside and provides them with some assistance in clearing up this issue, so that they can feel more comfortable on launch and launch more aggressively (without banging into the control frame). I think that this is a serious issue and I’m surprised that apparently many of the national team competitors haven’t addressed this matter before now.

Sat, Jul 20 2002, 5:00:00 pm EDT

dust devil|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Robin Hamilton|weather|Worlds

http://www.elltel.net/peterandlinda/2002%20Worlds/Worlds%20Main.htm

The fire up the lake a ways on the north side kicked up yesterday in the afternoon and the lake basin and out on the flats has been filled with smoke all day. These central Washingtonfires even made it onto National Public Radio, so it’s big time. The last thing we had on NPR was the Texasfloods.

Town of Brewster(North of Lake Chelan) and plains East of Chelan

Dust Devils East of Mansfield as seen from high altitude.

The big picture of the flats that we fly over

Luis Perez writes:

Some pictures I took up form 37,000 over theLake Chelan area (Friday, July 1914:15)

It sure is great to have this smoke because it mellows and smoothes out the thermals. I think that it filters the sun so less direct heat gets to the ground, and more heat gets absorbed in the air. Also the winds were lighter than previous days at 11 mph out of the west.

The meet officials get a bogus weather forecast from the meet weatherman of 100 to 200 fpm to 6,500’. I say that it will be 600 fpm to 9,000’ with light winds. This forecast comes from the BLIPMAP (which the local guy has also, but didn’t seem to use today). The BLIPMAP has been basically right on everything but the winds, which it greatly under predicts. Sure there are some thermals that are stronger, and we may get an extra 1,000’ over the forecasted top of the lift, but generally it’s pretty darn useful.

Then again the last five days have been the same for the forecasted lift and top of the lift, with only the winds changing direction and strength a bit. I use the FSL forecasts for the winds, and they seem to be reasonably accurate.

Given the bad forecast for poor lift a short task is called. The rigid guys go to near DryFalls, then up to Sims Corner, then back to Mansfield(96 kilometers). The women have a bit shorter task with a turnpoint at Sims and back to Mansfield.

The smoke is everywhere in the morning. I get up to the top of the butte early at 9 AMas I have a television interview to do for “Evening Magazine,” a Seattlearea soft news show. The wind is blowing right down the lake and it is quite cold coming out of the west northwest. Fifteen minutes later the wind will die and the butte will get warm.

The weather has been moderate all week with temperatures in the low nineties. This make for cool flights, but also makes it bare able on launch in all the clothes that you need for heights of 9,000’ or higher.

At first the smoke is so thick that there is a question of whether we will fly or not. I’m thinking that it will be a great day. Of course, it is too bad that the interview will show lots of smoke in the background. The local chamber of commerce got this all arranged and now TV viewers will see Chelan burning up.

I like starting early, but so do others so a line forms quickly at one o’clockwhen the open window starts. I push immediately, even though pilots are struggling out front. I know given who is in front of me that the launches will be slow. By the time I get there things should be working.

There are lots of pauses as the wind up the Green Monster dies and then cycles back in. Only one pilot seems to take each cycle, so this further delays things. The flex wing pilot in front of me takes off in a cycle, and I wait just long enough for the pilot to get out and away from the hill safely and get established before I run off. Five seconds into my flight, the flex wing pilots does a one eighty, heads straight at me, and straight at the launch and makes like they would like to kill me. I go ten feet over their nose plate, as they bank it up hard right after passing under me to avoid smacking into the hill side and then to avoid smacking into the rocks.

I scoot over to the ridge to the east of launch and come in under this same pilot. The pilot is basically out of control. The glider appears to be too big for the pilot and they just keep going up on a tip and whipping it around in an uncoordinated fashion. I give them wide berth as I climb up around them.

The lift is smooth at the butte and in no time a bunch of us are over 7,000’ and heck, let’s go to the flats and as its early, mill around until the start time opens at 2:30 PM. Lift’s spotty and weak over on the flats, but as more and more pilots dive on over we have more indicators to help us find it and get a little higher.

I see a dust devil to the southwest, glide for a couple of miles, and then find a good core. A third of the pilots join me and we climb up over 9,000’. At 2:30the pilots on top are in the perfect position to start, so I head out with Johann Posch, David Chaumet, and Hansjoerg Truttmann. Six other pilots will leave with us.

It looks like a racing day to me in spite of the smoke, so I see no reason to hang back. As long as I have good pilots with me I’m willing to go in the first group and fly as fast as we can.

David Chaumet is doing very well on his Top Secret. Everyone is exclaiming how well this special prototype that he has created in gliding. I’ve had a number of chances to see it up close in the air and I get a bunch more today. He out glides and out climbs me, and gets to hang back a bit to assess how the other pilots are doing.

Previously the Top Secret just did not have the performance to stay up with the other gliders, and in general this is still quite true (although Steve Cook is doing well on his Top Secret). This prototype is a different story and David is doing almost as well as Christian on the Stratos and Alex on the ATOS-C. This is the first time that another rigid wing glider has been able to challenge the ATOS as the top rigid wing. I wonder if the production model will be the same or better.

The four of us fly together to Moses Coulee where we lose touch with David who will now fly with us, but quite a bit above us. Hansjoerg is going full out as he has nothing to lose and Johann and I hang with and help him as we find better bits of lift now and then. The four of us are in the lead and there is no one else around.

The wind is out of the west at 11 mph, and we’ve taken a course to the south that puts us due west of the first turn point. Our bad experience with this turnpoint on previous days makes us wary of approaching it from the north, but the wind isn’t strong out of the south today, so this was probably a bit of a time waster compared to a straight flight.

We get the turnpoint at DryFallsplenty high and its pretty easy heading north in the cross wind. Manfred, Robin and Brian come join us and Steve Cook just catches us about half way to Sims. David is still high overhead.

Hansjoerg and Johann get a little ahead of me just before we get to Sims. They find a strong thermal and I come in and find an even stronger core and beam up at 1,100 fpm average toward them. This is the sweetest thermal of the meet, with no turbulence and a major hit on the power meter. This baby may get us home.

Over 9,000’ we head toward Sims with Hansjoerg chasing after David and Johann and I bringing up the rear. The Swifts are around the corner and Brian will just make it as we do.

Now the question is do we need any more lift to get to goal? We can see David and Hansjoerg above and a little in front us as we get to the pothills, and yes it is time to grab some altitude before we make the dash to goal.

We climb up and then go on glide with Johann just a little above me and to the right more into the WNW wind. The vario says that I’ll make it, but the headwind says I might have to stop, especially if I hit a patch of sink.

Johann’s line is just a bit poorer than mine and he looses an extra 500’ and has to stop to thermal. I just keep going and going, as the lift and sink seem to about average out, with a little more sink than lift.

I come over town at 500’ and I can see the goal line on the other side of town. I find a wee bit of lift and keep going. At the west end of town I’m down to 200, but the goal line is less than half a mile in front of me. I pull in and come across at 50’ for third person to goal after David and Hansjoerg. Johann gets a great line into goal and barely makes it down low enough a minute behind me.

Now we wait to see how much the pilots who started 15 minutes behind us catch up with us. It was great that they didn’t catch us before goal. Alex comes in 5 minutes after me, so he was ten minutes faster on the course. Christian comes in twelve minutes later, so I may have him with arrival and departure bonus. Marcus is right behind him, so again it depends.

Robin Hamilton was able to beat Manfred by twelve seconds with Brian 8 minutes behind them.

Françoise Mocellin was first in for the women, with Kari and Claire in second and third. Almost all the women started at 2:30. The USwomen had dropped down to second place, 500 points behind the German women as Raean hadn’t gotten out of the start circle on Thursday and Friday. Raean was able to make it in as the last women into goal today. A total of 56 pilots made it to goal.

Now the question is, did Kari and Claire score well enough with Raean’s points to make up 500 points. Corrina did well for the German women, but Sybille and Monika were far behind (although ahead of Raean). It is tough to make up 500 points.

Kari didn’t have to fly today to win the competition, and likely Claire was able to get back into second place overall.

Wed, Jul 17 2002, 6:00:00 pm EDT

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Christian Ciech|Corinna Schwiegershausen|dust devil|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Worlds

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Christian Ciech|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Davis Straub|dust devil|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Worlds

Aeros Combat|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Christian Ciech|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Davis Straub|dust devil|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Worlds

Aeros Combat|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Christian Ciech|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Davis Straub|dust devil|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Worlds

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Christian Ciech|Corinna Schwiegershausen|dust devil|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Worlds

http://www.elltel.net/peterandlinda/2002%20Worlds/Worlds%20Main.htm

Alex Ploner and Christian Ciech raced into goal today as first and second to make goal. Johann Posch came in 10 minutes later, and then Manfred a bit later on his longer task. Kari was the first and only women to make goal later on their shorter task.

The task for the women was Creston and back to Wilbur. Creston is 70 miles out from the butte and its ten miles back (into the wind) to Wilbur. The rigid wing pilots had an extra turnpoint near DryFallsthrown in to make it interesting as they had to go hard into a very strong head wind at the bottom of BanksLake. The Swifts had to go even further south to WilsonCreekbefore heading to Creston and Wilbur.

The forecast was for 10 mph winds at the butte launch altitude (then add some compression to their strength) and 20 to 25 mph out of the south southwest at top of the lift (9-10,000’). Pretty much like yesterday with climbs predicted to max out at 6 to 700 fpm. Blue, of course.

The winds were from the south southwest right from the get go so the primary launch was the Green Monster with the women slotted to go first after the half hour of open window. A second open launch was added to the right of Green Monster, but this just led to disappointment and perhaps some controversy.

The winds were strong on launch and this caused lots of pauses in the female pilot procession, much to our chagrin. I saw a few launches where female pilots didn’t bother to make one step, much less attempt a run. Everyone got away safely.

With winds up the river, but thankfully not on the river (which is the real sign that it is blown out), pilots at first find it scratchy at the butte, but as the day wears on the lift increases and by the time I launch late (see women launching) the lift is quite good.

We climb out drifting back to the north to over 7,500’ before heading out toward La Moine. It looks like there is plenty of lift on the flats with lots of dust devils.

It turns out that the lift is hard to find and rough as we push east from the power lines, sampling dust devils. I can see Guenther Tschurnig, an Austrian ATOS-C pilot, down to maybe 1 or 2,000’ over the flats working bits and pieces but not getting up, and then going to the next dust devil.

Those of us a bit higher are also testing and leaving lift trying for something more solid and stronger. Final Kurt Schumman and I find a real nasty one south east of Jensen’s farm and hold on as hard as we can as we rocket up.

I look down below and see a parachute with a violently spinning ATOS slowly descending. Guenther came over to our nasty dust devil and tumbled his glider. I radio his location as do other pilots. They will send out a helicopter and find him. He is okay.

The glider appeared from above to be folded at the nose. I didn’t see any broken spars. The landing looked slow and the parachute big. It was hard to tell for sure that I saw him walking around, and it would have been great if he had immediately folded up his chute so they those of us climbing to 10,000’ could know he was okay.

Now I’m not feeling all that great having just seen this all take place just below me, and I’ll wait around for the 2:45 PMstart clock, because it’s a little late now for the 2:30one. This will put me out on my own for the task.

My grip is tight and I’m flying way too fast which just gets me more unnerved as the air noise is so loud. I have to calm myself down, which takes a while. The wind is 22 mph out of the south, and we’ve got a turnpoint to the south east. I’ll finally snag a strong one at 800 fpm to over 9,000’ which will be enough to dive into the DryFallscanyon and get the turnpoint.

I’m low and the next step is to cross BanksLake. I’m just hoping that there is lift on the other side as I’ll be coming in low. Turns out that everything is a lot better when you are going downwind and there is a fine thermal just a mile in on the east side.

It’s a quick flight to Wilbur in a south crossing wind as I head east, with every once in a while a nice thermal to 7,500’. Everything is mellowing out in the later afternoon and in my mind as I can let the bar out a bit further and remember that I have a tail.

I’m circling over Wilbur, letting the asphalt heat the air up as I see Christian and Alex racing hard to goal at the Wilbur airport. They started before me, so I’m feeling with only 20 miles to go that I won’t be that far behind. The lift is getting weak, but its there.

Soon Johann passes under me and than Manfred as I continue on to Creston. Hansjoerg almost runs straight into me as I work my way toward Creston. I don’t see any women pilots and wonder why they haven’t got here much earlier as they didn’t have to fight the head wind.

Making the turnpoint at Creston my vario says I have enough to make goal, but it lies and I land 4 miles short. Probably fifteen to twenty pilots with a little more patience than I make it in.

Kari is the only women pilot to make it to goal. Claire gets to the east side of Banks Lake. I hear that Françoise Mocellin, who was in second, landed at the soccer field – bomb out – along with Raean. Claire may move up into second place. The US women’s team will continue to be in first.

Natalie will fly with Kari but not quite make it in to goal. Vincenza Miconi, an Italian pilot, will crash on landing near Sims Corner and end up in the Brewster hospital with a broken leg. I have also heard from one pilots that she has a broken arm in addition to the leg.

Results from yesterday:

Cumulative:

Tue, Jul 16 2002, 5:00:00 pm EDT

carbon fiber|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Steve Elkin|Steve Elkins|Worlds

carbon fiber|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Oleg Bondarchuk|Steve Elkin|Steve Elkins|Worlds

carbon fiber|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Oleg Bondarchuk|Steve Elkin|Steve Elkins|Worlds

http://www.elltel.net/peterandlinda/2002%20Worlds/Worlds%20Main.htm

The web site will be delayed due to the fact that the team leaders are not as up to date as the pilots who are getting on line to see the scores. Until “hard copy” is delivered to the team leaders (anyone remember what “hard copy” is?), at the 8 AMteam leader meeting, there won’t be any new results up on the web site.

Jeez!

The forecast for today was the same as yesterday, 700 fpm to 9,000’. Blue. Light west winds 5 to 10 mph. A fire broke out this morning (I first saw the smoke at 7 amafter getting up and looking at the sky a 6:30 am– so you know it was just starting) on a hill side up the lake a ways on the north side. Smoke would cover the lake until later in the day when the winds picked up and blew it to the north.

After we all got to goal yesterday, Danny (and Scott?) called a women’s task that was the Class 5 task yesterday (Farmer, Sims, and back). The class 2 and 5 pilots were directed to go to a turnpoint near Dry Falls (near Coulee City), north along the length of Banks Lake to almost Coulee dam), then back to Sims Corner and back to the airport in Chelan. This is 160 kilometer task.

When I hear what Danny has called, I ask Kari (Christian didn’t attend the Task Rubber Stamp, don’t have any power any way, only advisory, better to be seen and not heard committee today) to ask for Leahy instead of up near Coulee. This is rejected with a snide comment that Davismust have proposed it. I’m just trying to get a few pilots into goal.

Going over 100 miles and trying to get pilots make to goal by 7:30 with start times of 2 to 3 pm is a stretch. Possible, but difficult. The lift closes down around 7 PM, so the last half hour doesn’t do you much good unless you’ve just made it to the rim and all you have to do is dive in to goal.

The thermals are great at the butte, well the one thermal was. It took many of us to almost 9,000’ and was pretty darn smooth. I’ve got my extra clothes on today so I’m styling at the top of the lift. I’m also flying with a salad bowl and a string as a substitute for a reasonable helmet. Looks like head fairings may be required if you want to move up in the rankings.

Getting so high at the butte makes for an easy flight to the flats and once there we climb out in a gaggle to over 10,000’. Now we are just waiting for the start clock. We can’t wait until 3 PM, because we would never make it back to goal in time.

A few pilots leave at 2 PM, and many go at 2:15. It is a long glide at high speeds to JamesonLakebefore we find the first thermal, a dusty. I’m flying with Hansjoerg, but the thermal is packed. It is so nice to have so many friends along for the ride.

We clock the winds at 15 to 20 mph out of the south. So much for a light day. It looks like it will be difficult to negotiate some of the legs of this task.

The women also send out the top gaggle at 2:15for their shorter task. They’ve also seen that the winds are high and it will be a struggle getting to Farmer. After that it will get better.

Southeast of Jameson we are just pushing out in light lift and heading into a strong head wind trying to make some distance. Finally we catch up with the 2 PMpilots who are in a good thermal and climb out just under them.

The 2 PM pilots and a few of the higher 2:15 pilots head out toward the turnpoint near Dry Falls, while the lower pilots drift back further and continue to climb well. At 8,500’ I take off to follow the lead pilots to the turnpoint with Hansjoerg just behind me.

The lead guys are heading too far to the south and getting drilled. I head southeast right at the turnpoint and get a good line. 5 kilometers out the lead guys are way down and circling in light lift. I’m heading for the turnpoint high and watching three Swifts coming back from the turnpoint to the northwest to join the former lead gaggle in the weak lift.

I dive into the turnpoint, somewhat low and immediately head due north along the course line. I’ve been here before and found the lift. I find it again. Hansjoerg comes back to join me and with one other pilot we get away from 20 pilots who are now way behind and drift downwind toward the turnpoint near the dam.

With a tail wind and good altitude (over 7,000’) we head downwind just finding small bits and pieces of lift. We are in the lead and flying with each other as we work our way to the north east turnpoint. We are going to need to find a really good thermal at some point so that we can be high at the turnpoint in order to be able to come back into the headwind.

Just before we get to the second turnpoint I finally find the thermal we need and we climb out to over 9,000’ as we drift to the northwest in the southeast wind. Now it looks like we will have plenty of pilots out in front of us coming to the turnpoint and marking lift as we head back toward Sims.

There is another fire to the south that is filling the air with smoke near BanksLake. We are just to the west of it and the sun is in the west so the ground is not shaded below us. It looks like maybe a bit later it will be, perhaps cutting off pilots behind us.

We push and push against the head wind finding weak lift, and lots of spotty lift, but patience wins the day and we make it to Sims, where we hope to turn the corner and race to goal. Wouldn’t you know it the wind is now coming from the southwest, so we’ve got a head wind to goal.

The day is getting late. The goal will close soon so we need to press forward. Johann Posch and Steve Elkins join us in the lead gaggle just before Sims as we drive west and get pushed to the north. We find strong lift and we need it to keep going.

We’re northwest of Mansfieldand it is 6:30 PM. I’m mistakenly thinking that the goal closes at 7 PM, like the other days, not 7:30 PM, for this long day. I’m climbing in my own thermal just upwind of Johann and Steve at 250 fpm, while Hansjoerg is circling just off the deck below us. I make a mistake leaving my good enough thermal to join Johann downwind. Bad idea as I don’t find the lift and have to go work something weaker. They join me.

I’m thinking that I have to press ahead as we won’t get to goal in time. I need to find a strong one that gets me up and over the rim only a few short miles away. I make the mistake of leaving my friends behind and will land near the power lines just before McNeelCanyon,

Johann, Steve and Hansjoerg will be the only Class 5 pilots to make it into goal. Manfred and Robin will be the only Class 2 pilots into goal.

Natalie will fly with Kari and the top women pilots and make goal 11 minutes before Kari. Claire and Francoise Mocellin will come in 20 minutes behind Kari and Corrina will be there 6 minutes later. Five women make goal.

Flew with Oleg yesterday. He was doing fine. The previous problem was the loose carbon fiber control frame wires (unlike the standard model) allowed for a wire or rope to come off a pulley and get jammed in the spiral death mode.

Oleg repaired the damage (couldn’t see any on the glider) and was flying in the meet.

It looks like the USwomen are in first place after four days. Don’t know about class 5 or 2. The results won’t be posted until tomorrow.

Doug Pohl says try this URL for Chelan pictures: http://65.187.85.53/whgc2002.htm

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Anton Raumauf|Brian Porter|Bruce Barmakian|Christian Ciech|Davis Straub|Heiner Biesel|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Manfred Trimmel|Michael Huppert|Paula Bowyer|Robin Hamilton|Steve Elkins|World Pilot Ranking Scheme

http://www.fai.org/hang_gliding

CIVL (and Paula Bowyer at CIVL) has come through like a champ with the new rigid wing hang glider and swift rankings which take into account both of the recent Floridameets. Thanks so much to Paula for all her hard work:

Rigid wing hang gliders:

My best guess is that other than Christian, who now flies a Stratos, all these pilots fly ATOSes, although Diego flew a Ghostbuster last spring in Florida, and Heiner has at times flown an ESC.

Swifts (and Millenniums):

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Aeros Combat|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Chris Arai|Christian Ciech|Curt Warren|David Glover|Florida|Gerolf Heinrichs|Glen Volk|Hansjoerg Truttmann|Jim Lee|Johann Posch|Kari Castle|Manfred Ruhmer|Mike Barber|Mitchell "Mitch" Shipley|Oleg Bondarchuk|Paris Williams|Robert Reisinger|Robin Hamilton|Rohan Holtkamp|Rohan Taylor|Ron Gleason|Tascha "Tish the Flying Fish" McLellan|US Nationals|Wallaby Ranch|Wills Wing|World Record Encampment

As I reviewed the results of the meets in Florida, I noted quite a few stories within the bigger story.

Many of the world’s top hang glider pilots came to Floridato compete against each other, with twelve of the top twenty flex wing pilots and five of the top ten ranked rigid wing pilots in attendance. This made for a very tough field, and more than enough NTSS points to make for 600 point meets. The Floridameets are truly international events and should continue to be viewed as such.

Glen Volk did very well coming up to capture third in the Flytec Championship after twenty eighth at the Wallaby Open. Paris Williams, currently ranked third in the world – the highest ranking US pilot in years, was consistently very good coming in just behind Oleg in both meets. Oleg, of course, is kicking butt (even though Manfred’s was missing from the Flytec meet). It’s great to see such a sweet guy do so well.

Johann Posch was highly ranked before, but had never won a daily task. He finally did on the second to last day of the Flytec Championship. The big difference for him – ballast. He did much better in these meets than before and the difference was he finally became convinced of the need for ballast.

Robert Reisinger came into the Floridameets with a new relationship with Wills Wing, and a high ranking, that had slipped recently from 3^rd to 14^th in the world. He did very well on some days, but landed out on a number of other days. He finished below expectations at 23^rd and 28^th.

Curt Warren moved up dramatically from best new competitor designation last year at the Flytec Championship to finish 18^th in the Wallaby Open and fifth in the Flytec Championship where he had a good chance for third. Just a little more patience in light conditions would help, but his go for it attitude also helps him win the day. He was with Johann and I when we were low on the second to last day of the Flytec meet.

Curt came in first on day one of the Flytec meet when he aced out Gerolf by a couple of feet. They were so close that Gerolf did run into him when Curt flaired to land. Gerolf was injried on that day.

Robin Hamilton did well on Manfred’s MR700 WRE coming in fourth at Flytec, but he could have moved up to second or perhaps first with a little more thermaling in weak lift.

Gary Wirdham moved up from 55^th at Wallaby to 7^th at Quest after he destroyed and then rebuilt his Aeros Combat. Maybe he should do that more often. He really appreciates his helmet (EN 966).

Kari Castle came back from a poor showing at 35^th at Wallaby to move into 17^th and first female pilot at Quest. She often seems to use the first competition to get herself warmed up.

Gerolf Heinrichs who is ranked as the number one pilot in the world (before the Floridameets) came in sixth at Wallaby, after a number of problems. These seemed to continue at Quest, where he was 44^th. It was quite a tough two weeks for Gerolf and I hope he gets some time off to rest and recuperate.

Mike Barber did very well in Floridalast year, and maybe that lead to too high expectations on his part. He came in 7^th at Wallaby a few places behind Paris, and the second American, with new American citizen and Floridaresident, Carlos “Cloud” Bessa, right behind him. Then he had some trouble early at Quest and slipped way down in the standings. Going all out on day 6 he hit the deck, and then doing it again on day 7 he won the day.

Speaking of Carlos Bessa (pronounce Base –a) he has been on a tear doing all he can to make the US National team, so that he can go back to Brazil next year to fly in the Worlds. He is now in the seventh position (1 shy of the team), so he has a very good chance. If the Wallaby Open had been fully valid, and everyone had been in their same places, he would have moved into the 6^th place on the US NTSS ranking.

Jim Lee had to leave the Flytec Championship because of problems with his neck. This would move him down in the running for the 2003 NTSS ranking to 14^th.

Mitch Shipley would do well after taking some time off from competition hang gliding. He would be the fifth American in the Flytec meet. Chris Arai did well enough after not flying for six months to come in 10^th and 20^th. He moved himself back toward being on the US national team.

Tish the Flying Fish was able to beat Kari at Wallaby and was second behind her at Quest. She seemed to have a great time fly and with her water pistols. Apparently she was aggressive in both fields. Francoise Mocellin was the top women competitors at Wallaby, while Kari was the US Nationals Women’s champion.

Dorval, a Brazilian pilot who learned to fly at Wallaby Ranch a few years ago, improved his performance substantially in spite of a recent operation. He certainly moved up in the ranking for the Brazilians.

Rohan Holtkamp who is currently ranked number 2 in the World didn’t do as well as he had hoped to, coming in 16^th and 12^th.

So, Johann Posch goes up to Dave Glover and says what a great job he did at the Flytec Championship. He says that Dave is just like Janet Reno. “Janet Reno?” Dave asks quizzically. Yes, just like Janet Reno (who is currently running for governor here in Florida), responds Johann. “Hmmm,” thinks David, “do you mean, Jay Leno?” “Of course,” responds Johann, “the late night talk show host.”

Ron Gleason moved himself way up on the NTSS ranking doing well in both competitions. He came to Floridato get some cross country training after selling his business and purchasing a mobile home. He’s on the circuit like Johann and myself.

Alex Ploner, the current rigid wing world champion and Christian Ciech were almost out of reach to the rest of us. Only Johann was able to pass Alex in the Flytec meet. They are good friends. Christian taught Alex how to be a competition hang glider pilot. They compete against (and with) each other often.

It looks like they will be the rigid wing pilots who are coming from Italy to the Worlds. While it will probably take at least three pilots to win the team competition, they might have a chance with two. They, along with Hansjoerg Truttmann from Switzerland, will be very tough to beat. I’m racking my brain for ways to do this.

Manfred apparently from what I hear had a really good time flying the Swift. Is more in store?

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Aeros Combat|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Belinda Boulter|Brett Hazlett|Bruce Barmakian|Bubba Goodman|Campbell Bowen|cart|Christian Ciech|Curt Warren|Davis Straub|Dennis Pagen|Florida|Flytec Championships 2002|Gary Wirdnam|Ghostbuster|Glen Volk|Greg Dinauer|Johann Posch|Krzysztof "Krys/Kris" Grzyb|Manfred Ruhmer|Mark Bolt|Mark Dowsett|Mitchell "Mitch" Shipley|Oleg Bondarchuk|Quest Air|Robin Hamilton|Ron Gleason|Steve Rewolinski|Tascha "Tish the Flying Fish" McLellan|Tyler Borradaile|Wallaby Ranch|Wills Wing|World Record Encampment

Finally we have an “interesting” task here in Florida. We’ve had so many races (at least while I was still in the air), and it’s just been climb and go, climb and go, final glide, finish. Today we had time to stop and smell the roses. Or was it the cow manure? Whatever it was it was really close by.

Not that it started off that way at all. With Garycalling for over development and rain possibly, we were concerned about whether we could get back to Quest without running into unsafe conditions. We have two proposed tasks, an 88-mile out and return, and a 68-mile run down to Avon Park airport to the southeast that should get us away from any over development.

We move all the start times up to 1, 1:15and 1:30to get everyone going before the chances of OD get too high. The windcast shows the convergence zone (where you would expect the OD) right down the middle of the state (north or south). The BLIP forecast shows the highest CAPEindex to our north, so if we run south we’ll have the best chance of avoiding the OD.

The winds are light (as they would be in the convergence area), so it is even difficult to tell which runway to launch from, but then does it really matter? We are expecting good lift and a cloud base at 4,600’.

After blowing the second day, I’m down in the pack so I do have to run my glider out to the staging area. This time at least I have a cart. Bubba Goodman and I have a sprint first across the runway to get a cart (but it is all in fun as we know there are two carts). Great exercise before the actual competition.

The task committee is meeting on the flight line to decide which task to choose. If there is no sign of over development at 12, then we will choose the out and return task. There are only a few small cu’s around at noonso we say, let’s come back.

Fortunately no competitors launch for the next fifteen minutes, and in that time a number of cu-nimbs form out over highway 27 to our east. We quickly reconvene the task committee and change the task to a straight run to AvonPark.

By 12:30the cu’s are thick around us and over us with lots of vertical development. I’m wishing that we didn’t push the start clock back 15 minutes, as it would be great to leave at 1 PMinstead of the 1:15 PMfirst start time. Heck, it would be great to leave at 12:45, as it took but a couple of minutes under a black bottomed cu’s to get right up to cloud base at 4,000’ right over Quest Air.

The tugs are pulling pilots out of the air park at an astounding rate. It seems like everyone is in the air in way less than 30 minutes. Yesterday they were launching folks at a rate of one every 15 seconds. The pilots are being especially helpful by being ready to go when they get in the launch line.

A plane is landing or taking off every 8 seconds (not including the hang gliders) whenever there is a launch line, so this makes the Sheets airport the busiest airport in the world for about half an hour. Same can be said of the Wallaby Ranch during the Wallaby Open.

Many parks have provided multiple tugs for the event and there are more Dragonflies assembled at the Flytec Championship than have ever been in one place at the same time (pictures later). Wallaby has provided two tugs, for which everyone is quite grateful, and two highly skilled (and experienced) pilots. It’s great to have tug pilots who’ve been at this a long time.

With the task decided at the last minute it is a big scramble on the ground and in the air, but everyone is taking it in stride. We on the task committee are just trying to do our best for the pilots, and apparently they are really appreciative. We hear nothing but praise from everyone.

Johann and I have agreed to take the first start time no matter what. I’m not high at the time, but I don’t care. I leave anyway and head out toward the gaggle of flex wings at the 5 mile point. A few miles beyond that Johann and I hook up with the first gaggle of flex wings on the course. These guys have taken the first start time also, and they found something good over highway 33.

Johann is much higher than I and there are plenty of flex wings over my head as we climb up but only to 3,400’, 800’ below cloud base, when the thermal stops and we all spread out. I keep leaving low as I want to get as far away as possible from the guys who are going to take the next start time. I don’t want them to see our thermals.

Getting out in front is a tough assignment because you’ve got to find the thermals and race without knowing what is in front of you. Much easier to follow. We go early because we think that maybe the over development will shut down the guys behind.

We’re with a dozen flex wings and we are all spread out moving quickly down 33, finding bits of lift, climbing for a minute or two then moving quickly on to keep up with the guys in front. Everyone is helping everyone else as we search in front here. We need all the noses we can get if we want to go fast.

We aren’t finding much when a glider in front of me and to my right runs into good lift just south of 474. This baby is 700 fpm to cloud base and 4,700’. I get on top with Brett Hazlett and a few other of the fast flex wing boys and so I’m now the lead guy.

My leading sucks, and I have to go east and west to finally find an average 150 fpm at 1,600’ just northeast of PolkCity. Oh the shame of it all. Thankfully we do get up enough to be able to join another small gaggle to our southeast over Old Grade Roadjust north of I4. This thermal is quite a bit better averaging 350 fpm to almost 4,000’.

We are entering the go fast part of the race, although other than slow climbs we haven’t exactly been dawdling. I’m kind of surprised at the direction that the guys, including Johann, who are now out in front are taking, more south-southwest toward the east side of Winter Haven. The notoriously weak area around the Winter Havenairport is coming up, but the clouds are saying come along.

I get great climb rates of between 450 fpm average to 550 fpm average in a couple of the thermals, climbing to over 5,000’. There are flex wings every where and one rigid catches us for a moment before we leave him behind. Johann and I are running scared thinking that Alex Ploner and Christian Ciech are just behind us.

As we get southeast of Winter Haven taking care to be out of the airspace from the Bartow airport way off to our southwest, we can see the high top of a cu-nimb to our southeast and right on the course line. It’s well shadowed underneath and looks like there may be some virga around it.

I have gone into the lead again as I cut the corner and ignored some lift. It is always good to just bypass the gaggle when you are high and there looks to be lift ahead. I’m thinking that there may be too much lift ahead. I’m happy that there are a couple of flex wings near me way below that are diving toward the cloud also. I hoping that they are not as nervous as me.

I’ve put my hang point on ATOS ¼” more forward. Maybe it is the air, and maybe it is the hang point, but the glider seems to be having a much better time of it. It’s not bucking around quite so much and I’m enjoying the Floridaair.

While I stay on the right sunny side of the cloud, some pilots go right underneath it. Doesn’t seem to be a problem, but I do notice that we get a bit of rain. I want to put this cloud behind me and get to the next ones.

As we get a couple of miles south of Lake Wales, and a mile west of highway 27, Curt Warren, Johann and I head for a cloud a little bit to our right that seems to be working. We’re spread out and make a thorough search of the area, but we can’t find anything like what we’ve had until now. I’ll drop from 2,500’ to 550’ AGL as all three of us go round and round trying to find the lift.

Johann and I are in radio communication so he brings me back one more time to get under Curt and him just next to a small lake. I’m way low and way below them, but we climb up enough and when Curt goes over to the east and finds a better core, they climb to 3,000’, while I’ll get up to 2,500’. We’re alive.

Johann and a bunch of gliders are out in front now on a long glide. I’m going carefully and slowly as possible. There are no clouds nearby, as the rain cloud has wiped when all out. The air is very smooth and I hear this also from Johann ahead of me.

Alex Ploner gets on the radio and says that he and Christian Ciech have landed 7 miles from goal in Frostproof. They took the start time 15 minutes after us and raced through the gaggles to get past us as we groveled on the deck. Now they are on the ground and we are almost on the ground.

At 12.5 miles out from goal I tell Belinda that I am at 1,000’ and will probably land at 10 miles from goal. I’m checking out just how far I can glide over the trees to get to a landable field.

Then Johann gets on the radio and says that they have lift at 10 miles out. I’m gliding toward him and wondering which fields I can land in. At 450’ I come in over a tractor working in some burnt off area a mile short of Johann’s thermal. There’s a beep on the vario and I start searching it out.

There are plenty of gliders around, all above me, and numerous gliders with Johann, so there is plenty of encouragement to stay up in whatever is available. There are no clouds, and the landing fields are scarce. Time to hang in there and be patient as the day is much different now that the first two place guys are on the ground.

I work this thermal to 2,900’ and actually leave it too early. Numerous gliders above me have gone out in front and are way ahead so that we can’t see them. I go to where the flex wings are working the lift that Johann has left, but just get zero for 3 minutes at 2,500’. Finally I’ve had enough of this head out now in the lead of the fifteen or so pilots in the neighborhood.

At 7 miles out from goal and at 1,700’ I know that I’ve got to find something, anything to make it in. I feel the barest hint of some lift nearby and start turning looking for anything. There are plenty of orange groves below and I prefer them as thermal generators to green pastures.

For four minutes I don’t gain any altitude, but I also don’t lose any. Then things get a bit better as the little gaggle joins me. This thermal will average 175 fpm and take me to 3,100’. Glen Volk will be just above me the whole time.

It stops at 3,100’ and although I wanted to go to 3,500’ before I went on final glide, I’ll take what I can get. There is a large patch of trees and houses before the airport, so I’m worried about the final glide in addition to the distance.

The air is completely smooth, and my sink rate averages only 200 fpm. I try to keep the air speed at about 32 mph, for best L/D but I seem to have averaged 37 mph over the ground. I don’t think that there was any wind. 3,500’ would have given me goal at 10:1. I’m hoping for 15:1 and I’ll get 16:1.

Glen will comment later how much better I’m gliding at these lower speeds than him as he sees me rise up above him as we cross over the unlandable areas. In the last field before the houses and trees I spot three flex wings. Then at the very end of the field, washed up as though by the sea, I will spot a dozen gliders and three rigids. I’m sure that they are cursing me as I fly over their heads at about 1,400’ two and half miles from goal.

I spot the goal and one glider. It seems to be the Swift, but in fact it is Johann. The Swifts have been moved to a spot near the hangars. Johann will be the first hang glider into goal, I’ll be second, quite a few minutes behind him. Glen Volk will be the first flex wing into goal.

All the top five pilots in each class (other than Johann) will not make goal. This means that the scores will be quite tight for the final day. Anyone could win the meet (and probably will).

Class 5 today:

Class 5 cumulative (going into the last day):

Class 1 today:

Cumulative Class 1:

Robin Hamilton is flying Manfred’s glider. He says that he didn’t know that Oleg had landed. If he had, he would have stayed one more minute in the last thermal and made goal.

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

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Aeros Combat|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Attila Bertok|Belinda Boulter|Brett Hazlett|Bruce Barmakian|Chris Arai|Christian Ciech|Curt Warren|David Glover|Davis Straub|Flytec Championships 2002|Gary Wirdnam|Glen Volk|Jim Lee|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Oleg Bondarchuk|Robin Hamilton|Ron Gleason|video|weather|Wills Wing|World Record Encampment

While the meet is on I’m a little strapped for time, so I just get out what I can. I’ve got a few other articles that I’ll get to when the meet is over.

Yesterday I wrote:

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

Dave wrote back:

While I appreciate the compliment I need to redirect the credit. Tim Meany, Scorekeeper Extraordinare for the Flytec Championship 2002 is the reason why the scoring and web updates are so correct and timely. GW (by himself) routinely was able to finish scoring by 9pm almost every night at his meets.

Tim and Dave (who are working together as a team) got the scores up on the web by 7:45 PMtonight. They also have an intranet setup to display the scores (Flytec goes high tech) on a separate computer (in this case a Mac). Pilots don’t have to wait until the wood chipper (otherwise known as a printer) prints out the latest updates of the preliminary scores. They can go right “on-line” and see the scores and all the latest pictures from the meet, right at headquarters upstairs at Quest.

I was interviewed by one of the three local newspapers that are covering the Flytec Championships today. They wanted to know from me how we did the weather. There was also a camera crew from the Orlando CBS affiliate here all day getting great shots of pilots launching and coming into goal. The video may go nationwide, so if you see it, please write in.

Gary’s forecast was for winds at 14 mph out of the south, but the windcast said more westerly than southerly. We decided to go with Gary’s forecast with the winds at Quest in the morning were strong out of the south.

The task committee decided to let the pilots help make the choice between a 91-miler straight out to the north to our favorite airport at Keystone, and a 53 miler triangle, up to Coleman, down to the north end of the GreenSwampand then back. Of course, the straw poll from the pilots spilt about down the middle, so our fallback was for the triangle.

Turned out that once we got in the air, the winds at altitude were out of the west instead of the south, so it was fine to have a triangle task, although in this case it would bring us home with a tail wind. Garyhad been worried about the possibility of over development, and we did get some shadowed areas and vertical clouds, but no rain on the course.

Most pilots waited around for the 2:15 PMstart time. This is just a waste of time, and reflects the fact that we aren’t using OzGAP or maybe GAP 2002 (although no one was quite sure what to make of GAP 2002 after the debacle of scoring at the Wallaby Open). All the rigids were at cloud base for almost half an hour just hanging out until forced to go. Even then they didn’t really want to go so I cursed them and headed out on my own at 2:15 PM.

That got me a bit low being the guy in front with no one to watch, so I came into the first thermal low, which can be good as the lift is often better down below, before it tapers off, and you’ve got guys out in front that you can now follow. In this case, it wasn’t so hot (unlike yesterday).

All the rigids are sticking together and we haven’t caught the flexies who start out 2 miles in front of us. There are thick clouds every where, but long patches of blue and sink also, so we’re hoping not to run into a shadowed area with no lift as we head toward the prisons. Christian, Felix, and Johann are together in front and on top.

There is a lot of darkness on the ground and in the air as we approach Coleman. Some of us run to the west by the prisons just to be sure that we get some sunlight mixed with the clouds and get upwind a bit of the clouds so that we can get up before the turnpoint. Even with all the shadowed ground there is lift by the Coleman turnpoint, and we are able to get high.

By this time (one hour into the flight) we’ve caught the flex wings and it’s all a big jumble of gliders spread out over a mile, as there are lots of bits of lift. We head south toward the GreenSwampto get the next turnpoint.

After a five mile glide (long for the day), I find myself with Oleg working 90 fpm at 2,500’. We’ve gone out in front of the gaggle a bit, although there are rigid wings ahead of us. This lift is pretty piss poor after 400 fpm average in the last thermal, and finally we see that Andy Hollidge out in front of us in his Top Secret has found a much stronger thermal down low.

This thermal will average 500 fpm, get us over 4,000’, and make it easy to get to the next turnpoint and on toward goal. All the fast flex wings are in this gaggle, but Alex and Christian are way ahead. Alex will come into goal after making the course in an hour and 46 minutes. Christian is four minutes behind. Belinda has already told me the news on the radio.

A few miles past the turnpoint, we all stop for a thermal that averages 150 fpm. After climbing to 3,000’ with Oleg, I decide that I can find something better than this on the way to goal.

In fact I do find much better lift on the way to goal, but I get down to 1,200’ before I get it. Oleg says that the lift picked up after I left and this enables the gaggle to come over my head and get to goal 2 minutes before me.

Class 5:

Class 1:

Cumulative in Class 1:

Curt Warren (new pilot of the meet last year) is doing very well as is Parisjust behind Oleg. They don’t have Manfred to fly with (he won the day again in Class 2), and maybe Oleg would have challenged Manfred in this meet, after sneaking by him in the Wallaby Open.

It is great to see all the top competition gliders doing well against each other. There doesn’t seem to be a clear advantage to any flex wing, but Oleg is always blaming his glider for his good performance. This is a much different story than the one I reported last year at this time.

Jim Lee has returned to New Mexicoafter having problems with his neck, that’s why you don’t see him in the results. Robin Hamilton returned to his Laminar after flying his Swift in the Wallaby Open and is doing very well also.

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

Discuss "Flytec Championship – pilot’s choice" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Flytec Championship – the sea breeze

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The rigid results so far:

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

Cumulative - Christian, Mario, Ron, Alex

The flex results so far:

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

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

Not quite 25 percent into goal.

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

Day one finish position by Class:

Flex, Rigid, Swift

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

Aeros Combat|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Bruce Barmakian|Christian Ciech|Curt Warren|Florida|Flytec Championships 2002|Gary Osoba|Gerolf Heinrichs|Hansjoerg Truttmann|James-Donald "Don" "Plummet" Carslaw|Jim Lamb|Johann Posch|John "Ole" Olson|Manfred Ruhmer|Oleg Bondarchuk|Quest Air|weather|Wills Wing

The weather has continually improved since the beginning of the Wallaby Open, and over the last few days it has been great here in Florida. Today, Gary Osoba was predicting:

Looks like a good day for you. There is a distinct morning inversion. Things will start a little bit later than the average last week but when they kick off they'll be just fine for the first day of competition. Here's how it stacks up:

11am Blue. Weak lift to about 1800'. Winds at the surface sse at 3-5, aloft se at 5. As things progress toward noon and beyond, it will kick off for you. May wish to use a wind dummy or two to see when it happens.

2pm Good to strong lift and some clouds to around 5700'-6000'. The thermals might be sheared up a little in the last 1000' or so, depending upon what the upper winds really do. Surface winds sw at 3-5, at 3,000' sw at 7, at 6,000' se at 12. Around 3 pm maximum climbs to around 6300'-6500'.

5pm Good lift to around 6000' with some clouds. Less shearing in the thermals at this hour. Winds at the surface wsw 5-8, at 3000' sw 6, at 6000' ssw 5.

There was a west wind all day, but not enough to keep us from launching to the south. It measured about 10 mph out of te west during the task.

Given the predictions for good lift and light winds, we call an 82 mile triangle, with the first leg north to Leeward, a bit northeast of Belleview, south down to Coleman, and then southeast back to Quest Air flight park.

We are expecting a blue day, or at least clouds that don’t get too high. It certainly is blue in the morning, and there aren’t any clouds when the launch window opens at noon. We’ve moved everything back to a start window at 1:30as there is no chance of over development, and Garyis calling for a later day.

We call a race to minimize any of the effects of departure points and to make sure that pilots can know where they stand by just looking around and seeing where they are with respect to everyone else.

The rigids start at 4 miles out and the flex wings at 7 miles out north of Quest. With no one all that excited about getting into the air given the blue nature of things, the launch times get compressed. Still, with the sufficient resources just like at Wallaby, we all get into the air very very quickly. It is great having this many (17) tugs and trikes.

The lift seems weak at first for most people. I pull the pin when I’m at 2,000’ and my averager is showing 1,200 fpm. It couldn’t have been a better tow, especially behind a trike. A small cu forms over me as I climb out to 4,500’.

I scoot out to the 3.3 mile mark where all the rigids gaggle up and get ready for the start. You’ve got to wonder about the flex wings that are flying with us. Haven’t they heard the news that they are supposed to be out at 7 miles out?

I made a presentation of the strategy for the day after the pilot meeting. I suggested to those few attendees that they not follow the course line to Leeward, but rather head west toward the Okahumpka service area on the Floridaturnpike. This gets them away from Leesburg, away from the lake to the east of Leesburg, and away from the forest between the turnpike and Leesburg.

When the window opens at 1:30 PMI head northwest toward Okahumpka, but at first only a few pilots follow me. Most head toward the gaggle of flex wings straight north toward Leesburg. I find a good line of lift and notice that the clouds are forming to our west, in the direction I’m heading.

I continue pushing northwest to get half way between Wildwood and Leesburg, where I think I will find the good lift over the drier farm lands. Now only one pilot is following me away from all the rest of the pilots. We are hitting good lift. I have to take a six mile glide and get down to 2,000’ to get under the next forming clouds, but the lift continues to be strong and I’m clearly catching the lead gaggle of flex wings that started 3 miles ahead of us.

Just a few miles north of the turnpike I’m next to the forest at its thinnest part, just where I had advised the pilots to go. The lift is light, and the clouds aren’t forming yet to the north of me. I’m checking out a landfill a few miles to the north and thinking that it will be working even if there aren’t any clouds.

The lead gaggle to down wind of me to the east a couple of miles. Suddenly they all turn 90° and head my way as I start climbing. The gaggle includes the two Swifts (one flown by Manfred), Alex Ploner and Christian Ciech on the ATOS-C and Stratos respectively, and a bunch of flex wings – the fastest flex wing pilots.

I really should leave before these guys get to me as the lift is so weak, but now I get a bit nervous after going out on my own up until this point. I wait a few minutes before leaving the gaggle behind when it proves to be just too painful to be with them.

The clouds are now beginning to form, but I find the lift over the landfill first and climb out with enough gusto to bring along the rest of the pilots. To keep away from them I push further west of the course line again, ignoring light lift and looking for a good one under the better clouds to the northwest. At 1,400’ I finally get to the cloud I’m interested in and my 450 fpm attracts a lot of attention. The Swifts have already gone ahead.

The day is improving and we are now under lots of well formed clouds. We climb to over 5,000’. I go on glide with Curt Warren and when he stops to find some lift I continue toward goal and hook into 550 fpm that gets me (and later others) to 5,700’ just before the turnpoint at Leeward airstrip, 40 miles out from Quest Air.

As I approach the turnpoint, I notice Christian Ciech coming into it at the same time from the east. He had not gone nearly as far west as I had. I cut in front of him to get the turnpoint at the edge of the cylinder and head south toward Coleman.

Christian appears to have a much better glide on his Stratos compared to me. I’m not use to seeing other rigid wing hang glider pilots out glide me, other than Hansjoerg. I’m wondering if I’ve got too draggy a harness setup, whether I have enough ballast (I have 11 kilos), whether the T-tail, because it isn’t set at the proper angle, is adding drag, or whether the Stratos has a better glide (see below).

As we head south, we’re in the lead, other than the Swifts which are at least ten miles ahead of us. After a while I notice Alex Ploner coming in 500’ to 1000’ below us. I wonder what happened to him.

The lift going back toward Coleman isn’t all that great, averaging about 250 fpm. The wind is blowing pretty strong out of the west at 11 mph, and I’m concerned about an on-shore flow from the west coast killing the lift. It seems to be dampening things out a bit.

Alex goes off to the west and presumably finds a good thermal while Christian and I head south. At Wildwood, Alex and Christian (who also went off to the west to find lift) join me in 200 fpm under thick clouds, but not well defined clouds. We need the lift even if it isn’t up to the standards we got use to going to the first turnpoint.

Christian again gets a better glide going into Coleman. Alex has a bit better glide than I. He’s not doing as well as Christian. Later he will tell me that he was gliding with Christian in the Wallaby Open, but that Christian was out gliding him today.

I stop for lift just before Coleman having taken a different line trying to get under some clouds on the west side of Christian and Alex. They work for me and I get above Alex. Christian makes the turnpoint and heads southeast toward the prisons.

The gaggle of flexies and a few rigids in catching up with us point men out in front as I approach Coleman, so I hurray up and take the turnpoint and head for the prisons. Alex was chasing Christian and is working light lift just west of the prisons when that effort failed. I’m 500 feet over him, and continue along in buoyant air without any strong cores toward the southeast hoping to find Christian.

I spot him working lift 5 miles south of the prisons and come in at 1,700’. The lift is averaging only 280 fpm, but we are under a large dark cloud and the cloud cover from there toward goal is spotty. We are 15 miles out.

Christian and I will spend 12 minutes climbing here in this light lift while Alex and then the gaggle will come in underneath us. Johann Posch has been listening on the radio and I’ve been providing lift locations and he’s with the gaggle.

Christian and I are playing a cat and mouse game on top of the gaggle. As this is a race we know that where you are determines your position in the race. He is only 200 feet over me (as the lift has slowed down at the top of the thermal). He won’t leave until I do (or until Alex does). I want to force him to leave by staying with him in the thermal until there is nothing left. You only have to beat the other guys and the three leaders all together.

Finally Alex leaves from below, I immediately follow to his right, and Christian can watch us and take an even further right course which proves to be much better. Alex and I plummet from 5,200’ to 1,600’ in 7 miles. I find lift over a brown earthmoving area with clouds above it and Alex comes in below. We climb out to 4,200’ while Christian just continues on toward goal after a few turns in our thermal.

The gaggle has spotted me circling up again and joined in below. Johann comes in just over me.

Alex goes on glide and I follow with Johann right behind me. We hear that Christian is on final glide in front of us.

The final glide is very fast at speeds over 50 mph. We four rigid wing pilots have left just before the flex wings decide to go. Johann and Alex pull in more than I do and I see them out in front and way below me and I’m not willing to go quite that fast. I speed up when I see them in front of me going faster.

Curt Warren and Gerolf Heinrichs are right behind me and below as they have sped up also. They are beginning to catch up and as I’m not willing to let them beat me to goal, I pull in even further and keep them at bay.

Gerolf and Curt are right on the deck and have to slow up a little while I have plenty of altitude and can pull in more as I find smoother air. Christian then a few minutes later Alex with Johann right behind him cross the goal line. I’m not far behind. And right after me Curt and Gerolf right on the ground.

They are right next to each other as they cross the goal line and right next to the ground. Curt is 2 inches off the ground and has been in ground effect for 300 feet. He slows down and flares. Gerolf crashes a bit into him, takes out his own control frame and breaks a few of Curt’s battens.

Gerolf lies on the ground and doesn’t move. We think he may be hurt, but he just doesn’t want to be moved. An ambulance is called, but Gerolf turns out to be okay, well almost – sprained ankle. The rest of the gaggle comes in right after Curt and Gerolf’s show and buzz the launch low also.

We find out after landing that Bruce Barmakian had one of his Wills Wing slipstream downtubes come unscrewed at the apex. It was flopping down on him in flight. He had to climb up into the control frame, untie one of his shoe laces, and tie the downtube back in place. Thankfully downtubes are not structural on ATOSes.

Landings were difficult at the field with no wind. I had a slider and found that the AIR ATOS-C control frame with its little skids would slide just fine.

Felix and Christof finished Jim Lamb’s ATOS-C repair this morning after Jim hit the wind sock pole at the Wallaby Open and he was back in the air at the Flytec Championship today. Oleg, GW and many others helped Gary Wirdham get his Aeros Combat 2 back together after he took out the main windsock at Wallaby and he was back in the air today.

Discuss "Flytec Championship – the race begins" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Thu, Apr 18 2002, 12:00:00 pm EDT

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Brian Porter|Christian Ciech|Florida|Gary Osoba|Gary Wirdnam|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Quest Air|Wallaby Ranch

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Brian Porter|Christian Ciech|Florida|Gary Osoba|Gary Wirdnam|Johann Posch|John "Ole" Olson|Manfred Ruhmer|Quest Air|Wallaby Ranch

(?-i)John "Ole" Olson|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Brian Porter|Christian Ciech|Florida|Gary Osoba|Gary Wirdnam|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Quest Air|Wallaby Ranch

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Brian Porter|Bruce Barmakian|Christian Ciech|Florida|Gary Osoba|Gary Wirdnam|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Quest Air|Wallaby Ranch

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Brian Porter|Bruce Barmakian|Christian Ciech|Florida|Gary Osoba|Gary Wirdnam|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Oleg Bondarchuk|Quest Air|Wallaby Ranch

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Brian Porter|Bruce Barmakian|Christian Ciech|Florida|Gary Osoba|Gary Wirdnam|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Oleg Bondarchuk|Quest Air|Wallaby Ranch

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Brian Porter|Christian Ciech|Florida|Gary Osoba|Gary Wirdnam|Johann Posch|Manfred Ruhmer|Quest Air|Wallaby Ranch

Malcolm reports that Quest Air sent down two tugs and one pilot, not three tugs as reported in the Oz Report. He seems to want to stick it to Quest Air and thereby squelch this notion of cooperation between the Floridaflight parks, which many of us hope for. Otherwise why would he point out so forcefully to me that he thinks that they didn’t live up to their commitment?

The forecast calls for the day to be the best so far with cloud base at 5,500’, light to moderate east winds, and maximum lift at 500 fpm. I want a reasonably long out and return task and push for Coleman and back – 89.1 miles. After a bit of discussion we go for it.

Coleman is off to the northwest, so it is going to be a bit of a struggle getting back against the east winds. At ninety miles, the task should last at least 3 ½ hours if not four for the fastest pilots.

We continue to be worried about over development and rain. With such a big task we think that it is possible for the pilots to work around any local cells and continue the task. Still, we want to get pilots going early so we set start times at 12:15-12:45.

With the launch starting at 11:15 AMpilots are ready to go right away and the field clears quickly. The priority pilots relax and wait for almost every one else to launch. First time I’ve seen this happen.

Cloud base is already up at 3,500’ right after the tow, so we are playing near the clouds pretty quickly. The flex wing guys have gone off to their circle at 5 miles out and we rigid guys are hanging back at 3 miles waiting for the 12:45clock.

The question is, should we wait and chance over development. The later start time lets us use the guys out in front, but if every one waits then there’s no one there anyway. We wait.

Here is a 3-D reconstruction of my track log in the start circle (the big red circle) showing the east wind blowing us to the west as we thermal up (east is at the top of the graphic). The black lines on the ground are the “shadows” of the 3-D track log.

The sky is full of cu’s so it is obvious where to go. With the 10 mph east wind you can watch yourself drift to the west as you head north. We are in full race mode and only stop for good lift. It takes a little less than an hour and forty minutes to get to Coleman, so we average about 28 mph with average lift at a little over 300 fpm.

As we approach Coleman there is a ten mile wide blue hole on the course line. Some pilots head right through it as a cloud forms in the middle, others, like myself follow a cloud street on the south and then dive into the blue at the last minute to get the turnpoint.

I catch a 600 fpm thermal 2 miles south of the Coleman turnpoint, and the pilots who started earlier and have made the turnpoint are happy to come back and join me in it as we climb to 4,700’.

Christian Ciech in the Stratos (started at 12:45) comes in over me and Andy Howell in the Top Secret (started at 12:15) is there also. I’m wishing I was going back from the turnpoint, because four miles can seem like an eternity.

Of course, as soon as we get the turnpoint, we turn into a strong head wind and our ground speed on glide drops from 45 mph to 35 mph. I push east as much as possible on each glide trying to get upwind. Every time I have to climb in a weak thermal, I’m drifting back strongly to the west.

I’m stuck seven miles southeast of Coleman working in light lift. I can see Brian Porter on the ground and a few rigids and flex wings scattered about below me, also on the ground. Gerolf, Johann Posch, Alex Ploner, and a few other flex wing pilots join me as we work our way out of the hole that surrounds the turnpoint. When we get high enough to again charge into the wind, I take a more easterly route while the rest of the gaggle goes southeast over Center Hill toward the GreenSwamp.

I race to get under a good cloud, get down to 1,200’ before I find the thermal that starts at 400 fpm and builds to 600 fpm as I climb out to 5,600’ leaving the previous gaggle to my west far below. Bruce Barmakian joins me in the climb.

Bruce is in second overall and I’m a couple of points behind him in third. Alex Ploner, the world champion, is in first. Bruce and I stay high under the clouds and head toward Quest. We go on a nine mile glide into the wind under lots of clouds and don’t find anything as we pass over Quest and head east.

At this point Bruce turns south and heads down 33 looking for lift in sunny places. He’ll not find anything and land 18 miles from Wallaby. At that point we were in the lead (for the rigids which generally started 30 minutes behind many of the flex wings), other than for Christian Ciech who got away from the turnpoint by leaving light lift and going on a long glide to find better lift.

I turn 90 degrees to go way to the northeast to get under a newly forming cloud and over a dry field of pine trees. At 1,300’ I find 100 fpm that portends additional lift. Soon I’m in 400 fpm going to 5,000’.

I’ve been pressing up wind on each leg and now I’m near the lakes on the west side of highway 27. My former gaggle is much further to the right way downwind. I’m high and looking good.

Up a head it doesn’t look so good. There is a cell just to the north of the Ranch right on the course line and it is dropping a bit, not a lot, but a bit of rain. This is the only rain in the sky. I’m trying to figure out how to get around or through this rain. The cu-nimb above it is easy to see and is not all that high. There is plenty of shading all around it.

I work southeast to get south of Lake Louisehoping to be able to climb back to 5,000’ near highway 27. There are plenty of clouds over at this side as well as sun, so I’m hoping that the cell hasn’t destroyed all the lift on its up wind side.

I’m watching all the sky and I notice a small cell forming up highway 192 toward Disney, a couple of miles east of 27. As I approach 192 rain from the cell gets much stronger, and now I’m running between two cells, with the one north of the Ranch over the swamp dissipating. There is still plenty of shade from this cell so I’m nervous about heading over the swamp to get under it.

I notice that as I head south along 27 that the clouds that were there are disappearing due to the influence of the cell to the east. Heading from the sunlit areas is doing me no good as the cell is drawing all the lift toward it.

At five miles out from the Ranch I’m down to 1,400’ and in the rain from the cell that I thought I had been able to sneak past. I getting tiny bits of lift off warm fields, but all the lift is being disturbed by the nearby cell. I land off the highway in a small field amongst the neglected orange groves.

My former gaggle continues on the west side and makes its way through the shade to goal. Christian Ciech is able to beat Manfred into goal even though he started 30 minutes behind him. Johann is the second rigid into goal with Alex just behind him.

The flex wing pilots who started early were rewarded with better conditions as they approached Wallaby Ranch. It was a day to start early. The rain squall that put me down rapidly spread, included a bunch of lightening and stopped most of the rest of the field behind me.

Gary Osoba writes:

It’s unbelievable...just had a look at the regional radar and the worst OD in the entire state moved right into your location! You guys just aren't getting any breaks.

When Gerolf came into land he stayed prone and just pushed out when he got to the ground and whacked in pretty hard. They he just lay there. People thought that he had been knocked out, but there was something even worse.

At some point during the flight Gerolf had unzipped to take a leak, when he zipped back up he caught something very important in his zipper. It hurt. He had to continue flying in a bit of pain to say the least.

When he landed it took him a while as he told everyone to go away and leave him alone, to get that part of his anatomy extracted from the zipper.

More excitement at the goal. Gary Wirdnam, an Aeros pilot from Great Britain, decided to clip the wind sock on top of the pole at the bay head in the middle of the field. This caused his glider to loop from thirty feet. Instead of Garybeing killed the other wing of the glider absorbed all the impact, and killed itself.

The glider flipped over and the top of the glider hit the ground. Garycame down on top of the bottom surface of the glider and the back of his helmet (Charlie Insider – meets the EN966 standard) crushed the cross tube and was in turn crushed. Garywas dazed.

Provisional results (quick format to cut down on typing):

Cumulative in Class I:

Manfred
Oleg
Nene
Andre
Gerolf
Barber
Bessa
Paris
Sandy
Arai

The latest scores may be available at: http://www.elltel.net/peterandlinda/Wallaby_Open_2002/Wallaby.htm

The scoring system continues to have major problems. The marriage of GAP 2002, Race, and Compe-GPS appears not to have been consummated. GAP2002 is getting a very bad black eye with the pilots (seems to work fine in Class 5 though).

David Glover|Flytec Championships 2001|picture|record|tandem|US Speed Gliding Nationals 2001|World Championships 1999|World Record Encampment|World Record Encampment 2001|World Speed Gliding Championships 2000

David Glover «dhglover» writes:

A thousand pictures are worth… - Enjoy the people, places and things of:

The World Championships in Italy 1999
First World Speed Gliding Championship in Greece 2000
Flytec Championships at Quest and Wallaby comps 2001
Zapata/Flytec-World Record Encampment 2001
US Speed Gliding Nationals 2001 (includes a QuickTime Movie)

All on CD-ROM. See what it's all about, re-live the experience, use as a screen saver. $20 for US residents (outside the US only $25) prices include shipping.

Bonus Pictures: How to get a "Free" tandem in Florida.

Send credit card info, US$ check or money order to: David Glover, 416 E. Dale St., CO Springs, CO, USA 80903-2925, 719. 630.3698, fax# 413.460.5708, «david»

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Chris Arai|Mike Barber|Bruce Barmakian|Heiner Biesel|Mark Bolt|Campbell Bowen|Richard Burton|Kari Castle|Gary Davis|David Giles|Bubba Goodman|Bo Hagewood|Jim Lee|Mark Mulholland|Brian Porter|Johann Posch|Terry Presley|Steve Rewolinski|Jersey Rossignol|Richard Sauer|Wayne Sayer|David Sharp|James Stinnett|Davis Straub|Glen Volk|Michael Williams|Paris Williams|Jim Yocom|Jim "JZ" Zeiset|Chris Zimmerman

Now that the US Nationals are complete, there are a few changes in the US pilot ranking. I'll post the latest ranking up on the web in a few days. You'll find it at http://www.davisstraub.com/Glide/2002ntss.htm.

Latest Class I ranking:

Mike Barber didn't attend due to an earlier injury to his shoulder, but this didn't affect his standing. Kari Castle instead went to Austria to speed glide. This allowed Glen, Rich and Jersey to gather enough points to pass her. Chris Zimmerman moved up five places.

I spoke with Kari before she decided to go to Austria. While she was uncomfortable about missing the US Nationals for the first time in over a decade, she realized that with the Worlds two years away, she had plenty of opportunities to obtain a high ranking in time for her to get on the US National team again.

Latest Class II ranking:

The only change in the top ten of Class II is that Bruce Barmakian has moved up from ninth to sixth. The Class II Worlds will be held next July in Chelan. Based on the current ranking the US team would consist of:

Brian and Mark would fly in Class IV at the Chelan Worlds. Johann flies for Austria in the Worlds.

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Fri, Aug 17 2001, 5:00:00 pm EDT

Belinda Boulter|Brett Hazlett|Brian Porter|David Glover|Gary Osoba|Jim Lee|Johann Posch|Mark Poustinchian|Russ Brown|US Nationals

Belinda Boulter|Brett Hazlett|Brian Porter|David Glover|Gary Osoba|Jim Lee|Johann Posch|John "Ole" Olson|Mark Poustinchian|Russ Brown|US Nationals

(?-i)John "Ole" Olson|Belinda Boulter|Brett Hazlett|Brian Porter|David Glover|Gary Osoba|Jim Lee|Johann Posch|Mark Poustinchian|Russ Brown|US Nationals

Belinda Boulter|Brett Hazlett|Brian Porter|cart|David Glover|Gary Osoba|Jim Lee|Johann Posch|John "Ole" Olson|Mark Poustinchian|Russ Brown|US Nationals

Belinda Boulter|Brett Hazlett|Brian Porter|Bruce Barmakian|cart|David Glover|Gary Osoba|Jim Lee|Johann Posch|John "Ole" Olson|Mark Poustinchian|Russ Brown|US Nationals

Belinda Boulter|Brett Hazlett|Brian Porter|Bruce Barmakian|cart|David Glover|Gary Osoba|Jim Lee|Johann Posch|John "Ole" Olson|Mark Poustinchian|Russ Brown|US Nationals

They haven't published the results of the final day yet, but we can make some guesses about the final results. I see that David Glover can't be held back, as he wants to scoop the Oz Report (and direct folks our way) by sending in a notice to the hang gliding mailing list.

First of all we had our final task today. It was a dogleg to the east 18 miles and then 33 miles to the south. Gary Osoba felt that there was a better chance of over development to the north, so we went east to an intersection to get around airspace to the south and then south to a small airport at Navasota (south of College Station on highway 6).

There was a west wind at the Hearne airport so that caused some concern re launching, holding things up a bit, so we got new start times of 2, 2:15, and 2:30. Launches were actually fine, although Belinda told me later that there were a lot of reflights, as folks didn't stay up. Rhett took me right to a thermal so I didn't notice this problem.

There had been plenty of cu's all day starting at 9 AM with strong winds out of the southwest that were backing off in the afternoon. There wasn't much depth to the clouds, but they were getting us to 4,800' AGL.

Most pilots waited for the 2:30 start gate. The rigids started at the 7-mile start circle and the flexes at 5 miles. Bruce Barmakian took the early start gate as did Bo. Bo landed 14 miles out from the Hearne airport early.

It was 18 miles from the start circle to the turnpoint. The lead group of rigid wing pilots got there in 37 minutes (29 mph) following just behind the Swifts. The lift averaged 312 fpm over this part of the course.

I'd say that we were traveling pretty fast and getting good lift overall. The fact that we rigid wing pilots were almost able to keep up with the Swifts indicated that things were going well for us. We didn't see but a couple of flex wing gliders, those that started early and stayed up.

At the turnpoint four of us caught up with Bruce Barmakian. I headed south chasing after Brian Porter who was in the slower of the two Swifts, trying to stay as close as I could, even if I was pimping him from behind and below. It was 33 miles to goal.

There was quite a bit of cloud development on the second leg and it looked maybe a bit too good. Seven miles out there is a dark cloud with a lot of vertical development. Above all the cu's there is plenty of cirrus making for lots of shadowed areas on the ground. It looked very iffy, and you wondered if the clouds were going to work.

I fly under the dark cloud with all the vertical development, but nothing is happening. When we turned, the clouds turned from our friends into our enemies. Now there are shadows everywhere and the clouds aren't working at all.

I keep gliding to get away from the shadows and clouds to find some sun to heat up the ground. I get down to 600' and come in under Brian to find 100 fpm. I'll take it and be very happy.

I've pushed very hard flying 13 miles from the turnpoint averaging 37 mph because there has been no lift to turn in. Robin has disappeared ahead of us. There are a few rigid wings now far behind me and no flex wings in site.

I'm able to climb back up to 4,400' AGL and get back on the racing circuit. Now I'm just flying behind and under Brian as I try to continue moving along as fast as possible. Three other rigid wings came in under me and way below me as I climbed out of that hole.

A half-hour later 12 miles out from goal, I'm back down to less than 1000' AGL and searching for sunlight next to clouds. I've only covered 8 miles in the last half-hour and still I'm in trouble again. There is now no one to help as Brian got high in the last thermal and I couldn't get up in it. I should have stayed back in the 200 fpm that I found going toward him. So much for pimping from behind and below. J

It’s a twenty-minute climb back up to 4,100' AGL drifting east in the strong west wind and not getting any closer to the goal to the south. Mark Poustinchian is circling way down below me. Carlos Bessa is on the ground, having taken an earlier start gate.

I start gliding toward the goal and notice that now we've got a 5-mph head wind (instead of the predicted west winds). There is a large section of cu's ahead of me right on my line to goal, so it looks feasible. I only need 500' to make goal. I figure that I can hit something in the next 12 miles.

Turns out that I don't until I'm down to 1000'. The lift is very light and irregular and I drift back faster than I go up. None-the-less that is all there is and I make the mistake of not staying in it at 4 miles out trying instead to find something a bit more consistent which is awfully difficult when you are this low. I end up landing at 1 mile from goal.

Bruce Barmakian makes it to goal a few minutes before I land at 4:50 PM. Of course, Robin and then Brian have made it in earlier – about a half-hour earlier. Right after I land Russ Brown comes over my head slow at 500'. Just enough to make it across the street to goal.

Now there won't be any activity for the next half-hour as no one passes overhead or gets to goal. As I'm packing my glider up on its cart to carry it out from behind the locked gate, I spy seven flex wings a couple of miles back, quite low working a very weak thermal in the blue. On top are Paris and Brett Hazlett. Jerz Rossignol, Terry Presley and Sandy Dittmar are also there. They are getting up ever so slowly.

After quite a struggle they'll all make it to goal and this gaggle will be the only flex wings into goal. Later, Johann Posch, who has been keeping us posted on the radio, will be the last pilot and last rigid wing into goal.

With Paris coming in to goal with Brett, he wins the day, and wins the meet and is the new US Champion. Gerolf and Jim Lee do not make goal. Jerz Rossignol may have moved up into second place. Bruce who was behind me in the race for third place behind the Swifts, probably got enough points to move ahead of me.

All but the final results are up on the Austin Airports web site (www.austinairsports.com).

Mon, Aug 13 2001, 5:00:00 pm EDT

Curt Warren|Davis Straub|Gerolf Heinrichs|Johann Posch|Mark Poustinchian|Robin Hamilton|USHGA|US Nationals|weather

Bruce Barmakian|Curt Warren|Davis Straub|Gerolf Heinrichs|Johann Posch|Mark Poustinchian|Robin Hamilton|USHGA|US Nationals|weather

Bruce Barmakian|Curt Warren|Davis Straub|Gerolf Heinrichs|Johann Posch|Mark Poustinchian|Paris Williams|Robin Hamilton|USHGA|US Nationals|weather

Right now it is shaping up to be the contest between Paris Williams and Gerolf Heinrichs. With Gerolf getting to goal late on Saturday, but winning the last two days, this is turning into a real fight. This is a real competition between pilots who care a lot (perhaps, too much) about winning hang gliding contests.

Sure there are other stories here and other pilots who are doing well, but right now this is the main line. Paris is ahead. Gerolf has to beat him everyday to get back into the race. Gerolf can do it, but it will take a lot of concentration.

Carlos Bessa did well today after missing yesterday. He's got a long way to go to make up for a zero day though. Curt Warren was suffering from a rash all over his chest and landed short while feeling the effects mentally. Did he give his dog Lillie a hug after she got into the poison oak? A number of folks are suffering from that out here (maybe even yours truly).

The weather forecast was for possible thundershowers as the front was predicted to be just to our north. We could look up into the sky and see a large gray mass of clouds just to our north. The forecast was also for light lift, or over development if the sun came out. Also it appeared that the wind would change from southwest to northeast between 1 and 3 PM.

It looked like we wouldn't have a task, but, just to get away from the front, we called a 50 miler to the south to a new airport. The folks there said that they would be very happy to see us come in.

The wind change occurs during the pilot meeting at 11 AM, so it looks like the forecast may be way off. The winds are very light, there is sun on the ground, and there isn't over development. Still few cu's, but it looks a lot better than forecast.

Out on the launch line the start gates get pushed back so that our last one is 2:15 PM. The flex wings will get a couple of extra start gates to 2:45 in order to get everyone off. The organizers are waiting for the day to improve.

I'm off a little before 1 PM, and it looks to me like the day is going to get worse. The shadow from the clouds to the north comes over the airport (as the clouds move south), but still there is light lift. I start off flying by myself as I'm the first rigid wing off, but the sky slowly fills up with pilots, and as the lift is weak, we all huddle together – flexies and rigids together on the same task.

We spend the hour keeping out of each others way. I haven't heard that the flexies got two more start gates, so I'm thinking that we'll all go together at 2:15 PM as we do seem to be able to stay up that long. The day is improving as we keep getting a bit higher with each little thermal. It sure looked as though the clouds to our north would just overtake the airport and shut off the lift completely.

We finally have to start going over to the start circle circumference. which is 7 miles out for the rigids and 5 for the flexies. Lucky for us we find weak lift at 6 miles. The flex wing pilots will have to go outside their circle and then go back to get their start time.

I'm low. The pilots who left the airport earlier have found better lift and are reasonably high here at the start gate. Oh, well, got some catching up to do.

8 miles out we finally find some real lift, over 500 fpm, and climb to 5,600' AGL. Gerolf turns and goes back to get the 2:30 PM start gate, which isn't too far away. The rigids don't have the option and continue on course.

There are a few clouds in front and then off to the left of the course line. With some rigids turning up in front I go there first, don't find anything and continue into the blue on the course. It's lonely out here.

There is a very little cu right ahead and there is lift underneath it, so I do get my just reward for taking the risks. Still it is weak, less than 200 fpm, just like most of the lift we have seen today, so I do head over to the left to get under some clouds. Robin Hamilton in the Swift has joined me.

Robin, Conrad Lotten, a few other pilots and I will continue working scattered lift down the left side of the course never finding anything great, but plenty enough to stay reasonably high. At forty-five minutes into the flight, a little after 3 PM, things begin to change for the better. The lift gets much more coherent and stronger. The race is on.

For the next thirty minutes we will be under the clouds and finding strong lift. The last cloud will get us to 6,800' and the climb rate near the cloud will be 900 fpm. We'll be 25 miles from goal (half way there).

Mark Poustinchian is at the top of the gaggle – this is the lead gaggle. (Turns out there will be another gaggle much nearer the course line – doing much better than us.) Conrad is there, Gerolf has joined us, and we've got a few flexies and rigids.

After this strong climb at 25 miles out we go on glide with Mark in the lead. Conrad and another flexy will fade off to the right. I'll follow Mark but a little to the left. Robin Hamilton will just glide to goal from the last thermal taking up half the task in one final glide.

Mark is in a very vulnerable position. Those of us just behind him can pick a different line. When I see Robin heading to goal way high above us after a 10-mile glide, I move even further to the left as it looks like he is hitting lift. Conrad over on the right will end up landing out.

Gerolf is behind us and gets to watch all the action. At 15 miles from the last thermal we are down to below 1,300' AGL. I'm just 100 yards behind Mark, just above him and to his left. We cross over a tree line and for the first time in 20 minutes I feel a bit of lift. I start turning while Mark continues on. He won’t start turning until about 500' AGL or less and then soon after he'll land.

I start working the weak lift and Gerolf behind me sees that I'm climbing. While other pilots have stopped to work weak lift five miles behind me Gerolf continues. He'll come in 300' over me, hit the core and climb out as I struggle below.

By now Robin and later Brian have made goal. Bo is there also, but he started early. I think that I've got all the rigid wings accounted for and it looks like I'm in the lead. No need to take chances now.

I climb to 3,000' at 9 miles out and head for goal. Of course there are lots of clouds just a mile in front of us, but after 15 miles of no lift, you work the light stuff until you are sure that you can stay up.

I hit 700 fpm within a mile, take it to 4,000' and then stuff the bar. Bruce Barmakian in the hidden gaggle makes it to goal as I race in on final. Jim Zesiet and Johann Posch who were with Bruce come in a few minutes after me.

The flexies just behind me start coming in mixed with the flexies that took the middle course. The joint is jumping and now the question is, where is Paris?

He does come in, but late, but then he took a later start gate. Probably not late enough to make up for the late arrival.

So the minor stories – Robin is clobbering Brian on the Swift. Robin is an experienced and capable flex wing pilot with minimal hours on the Swift. He can't fly his Icaro Laminar right now, so he is doing well on the Swift. I flew quite a bit with him and was above him and out climbing him in the last thermal. I just don't have the glide.

The Class I competition is a real competition with top pilots, and very close to top pilots making it a real contest. The Class II competition is two separate competitions and neither is nearly as competitive as the Class I competition. It is a fight for third place, but then who cares about third place, and it isn't nearly as much of a fight for third as we find in the fight for first in Class I. No foreign pilots to add to the competitive pool.

The results are up on the Austin Airsports web site (www.austinairsports.com). The first two days are there now, and more tomorrow.

US Nationals – never give up »

US Nationals – 126 miles to goal »

Sat, Aug 11 2001, 5:00:00 pm EDT

Brian Porter|Curt Warren|Davis Straub|Florida|Johann Posch|Mark Poustinchian|record|Robin Hamilton|USHGA|US Nationals|weather

Brian Porter|Curt Warren|Davis Straub|Florida|Johann Posch|John "Ole" Olson|Mark Poustinchian|record|Robin Hamilton|USHGA|US Nationals|weather

(?-i)John "Ole" Olson|Brian Porter|Curt Warren|Davis Straub|Florida|Johann Posch|Mark Poustinchian|record|Robin Hamilton|USHGA|US Nationals|weather

Brian Porter|Curt Warren|Davis Straub|Florida|Johann Posch|John "Ole" Olson|Mark Poustinchian|record|Robin Hamilton|Russell Brown|USHGA|US Nationals|weather

Brian Porter|Curt Warren|Davis Straub|Florida|Johann Posch|John "Ole" Olson|Mark Poustinchian|record|Robin Hamilton|Russell Brown|USHGA|US Nationals|weather

The first day of the US Nationals and with winds predicted to be 19 knots out of the south-southwest, the task committee called a goal at Canton, 126 miles at 20 degrees to the NE, just over interstate 20. The upper level forecast was for lighter winds, but cloud base wouldn't rise that high until a bit later in the afternoon.

As on previous days the morning started with thick low level cumulus streets that broke up before noon into more widely spaced convective cells. Given that this is a meet, we are not going to be going early in the morning, so we are looking for the weather forecast for the second half of the day. The launch window opens at 12:30 PM.

The pilot's meeting gets going a bit late so there is a squeeze on to get launched. The rigid wing pilots (22 of them, compared with five here last year) have their own line (the flex wing pilots – 65 of them, have two lines). Our start gates at 1, 1:15 and 1:30 PM. With the pilot's meeting out at 12:30, we have little time to drag our glider half way across the air field and get ourselves in the air.

Some rigid wing pilots don't seem to realize that they have got to launch right now to get set up in time to make the 1:30 PM start window – the last start gate. At least half the field is blowing it by not getting ready in a great big hurry.

The flex wing pilot's start gate times are 1:45, 2, and 2:15 PM. They have time to draw a breath or two.

Mark Poustinchian is off early, he knows the drill. Russell Brown, myself, and Johann Posch all get going. Robin Hamilton, flying a fully faired Swift, gets the rope by accident at 400 feet, wipes that baby around and puts it back down right at the head of the staging line. He wants back in right away. Porter gets pulled up, but half the field is still on the ground as Brian, Johan, Russell, and I drift toward the circumference of the rigid wing start circle – 7 miles out.

There have been trikes waiting to get these guys in the air, so I can't believe how lame the bottom half of the field is. Haven't they competed before? Don't they know the absolute imperative of getting in the air with plenty of time to be ready to race? This is pathetic!

As this is the last start gate time, I know that it is going to be a race as no one has taken an earlier start gate. I can see Mark Poustinchian off to our left and Johann is drifting off to the right following highway 79 as we get to the edge of the circle just as the clock strikes 1:30 and the race is on.

With a couple of minutes it is just Brian Porter and I. There is no one else out there, as far as I can see. My devious mind is wondering just what Brian will do. I know that there is no need to race as fast as possible, because we are in the lead and most of the field is on the ground.

Brian is over me and goes out ahead. I'm thinking cool, let him go out on his own. Then he stops in some lift and soon he is just over me again. Oh, no., I'm not going to let this happen. He's not going to hang with me if I can help it.

I make a strong course correction and head off to the right off the course line to a set of clouds way to the right. I want to run away from him as far as possible. There should be lift under the clouds, and maybe he will not want to come with me but rather find lift on the course line under some reasonable clouds there. It works and I never see Brian again.

Back behind the few rigid wing pilots who've actually gone out on course in a timely fashion, the flex wing pilots are towing up and getting ready to go. They can take an early start gate and have plenty of rigid wing pilots in front of them as they rigid wing pilots near them are a bunch of stragglers. If they wait, the rigid wing pilots will be out further on course and give the flex wing pilots more thermal markers further out.

A bunch of Florida pilots – Paris, Carlos Bessa, Sugarman, Curt Warren, will fly off together at 2 PM, chancing it that the flex wing pilots that start at 2:15 PM won't be able to catch them.

Meanwhile, up ahead, the lift is scratchy, broken, and not very strong. I'm working lines off to the right of the course line, and trying to get to some better clouds ahead. As I finally get close enough to race to a good cloud I see Mark Poustinchian coming in with me and a bit over me. Looks like I'll have someone to fly with.

We are back near the course line and flying in stronger lift with darker clouds. The two of us together push each other into a higher racing mode and we've got a good line. After a few minutes it becomes clear that my ATOS with the WW control frame is gliding a lot better than Mark's ATOS. I catch him on the next thermal, then pass him, then continually get higher on the next couple of thermals until I lose him. I'll fly the rest of the task by myself.

Out to my right, out of sight, Johann Posch in his new ATOS with the competition control frame from Felix is reading his GPS arrow wrong (it is tilted in his instrument pod) and heading at about 40 degrees instead of 20 degrees, right up highway 79 to Buffalo. You can see it on the map below.

 

This map shows the course line and my track log.

Heading off course will slow him down quite a bit. With him is Robin Hamilton in his Swift. He'll stay well right of the course line getting under better clouds and making up in better lift for a longer flight.

Apparently Brian Porter will be off by himself going toward the wrong goal, the secondary and shorter goal.

Behind us the flex wing pilots are now out on course and racing from rigid wing to rigid wing as they motor along the course line. To the north it is apparent for 70 miles out (only 56 miles into the task), that there is over development and cu nimbs. It seems like they are to the north of goal, but from this far out it is difficult to tell.

I keep moving to the right to get under better clouds and bits and pieces of cloud street. Our course takes us over four lakes. I'll end up going over two of them. The fields are wide open down below and we don't go near any towns. I'm not looking at the ground as I've got to keep my eye out for any signs of streeting.

Forty miles out from goal I cross the southeast end of a large lake and head for the cloud street that goes off to the east of goal. There are few clouds directly on the course line, so it makes a lot of sense to get under the good clouds, no matter that they are off a few miles.

The lift is good under them and I go for twenty miles before deciding to head back in the direction of goal through a large blue hole. I figure that I can glider 20 miles and make it to goal.

Turns out that there is plenty of lift out in the blue hole, the strongest lift of the day, and I get so high, that I can't fly fast enough to get down as much as I would have liked to at goal. Still as I'm the second one in after Robin in the Swift, it is no big deal for the goal keepers to record me coming over goal. There won't be another pilot in for about half an hour.

Mark comes in next and then Johann. Brian is lost, but has figured out that there is no one at the other goal so that he'd better get to the primary goal. He'll make it in after a while.

Forty five minutes later the flex wing pilots from the half hour later start come in as a gaggle. Things get interesting. Where is Gerolf?

The time passes. Still no Gerolf. Then we hear that he is landing 5 kilometers away from goal. Then a few minutes later there he is swooping into goal, but very late.

Flex wing and rigid wing pilots continue to dribble into goal and are still arriving as the wind turns north from the cu-nimbs just to our north at 6:30 PM. The cu-nimb has sent out tentacles over the course line and pilots are dropping off to the south as goal closes at 7 PM.

I hope to have real results tomorrow. The meet is using Check In as the GPS verification program. So far, so good.

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Davis Straub
co-author of Windows Me Secrets
"I gotta tell you; you took a total moron and turned me into a guru! I couldn't have done it without your books!"
davis@davisstraub.com
http://www.davisstraub.com/secrets