Entry fee: $100
Starting Date: April 15th (happens to be a Saturday)
Pilots must enter before April 1st
Weekend flights only (local time)
First to -
RW: 150 miles
FW: 125 miles
PG: 100 miles
SS: 75 miles
(if more than 1 pilot reaches their wing's milestone on the same day the pilot
that has the longest flight wins the pot)
Contest open to everyone in the Northern Hemisphere.
Flight verified by Steve Kroop through the HOLC.
The FAI has sanctioned the Canadian Nats as Cat 2:
http://events.fai.org/hgpg/details.asp?id=4052. It will be held in Vulcan,
Alberta June 18th - 24th, 1 hr SE of Calgary. It will be Canada's first aerotow
comp and I believe it is also the first major aerotow comp in the west. This is
thanks to Cowboy Up hang gliding and a number of tug operators out west.
Vulcan is flat prairie and the goal is to emulate (as much as possible) the type
of tasks flown in Big Spring to help us all get in a similar comp before the
pre-worlds. For more info see Marks site
http://events.dowsett.ca/2006/cdnhgnats/reg.
Mark and I will be at both the US Nats as well as the Flytec, so we will come
back with some great examples as to how to make the Canadian Nats the best event
possible. Registration will open on May 15 with limited spaces so register early
to ensure your spot.
I witnessed this November incident from the ground, right over
Wallaby.
I hope you can get direct info from the pilot himself, but if you can't, here's
what I know, since there was a lot of rumor and speculation about the causes at
the time, including the one you mentioned in your blog.
I'm fairly sure the glider was not a very old model, less than a year, but was a
recent, flex-wing comp glider.
I talked to the pilot a few weeks after the incident and this is what he told
me, as I remember it:
He said he did not lower the sprogs.
The tuck and breakup of the glider came at the end of a ~50 mile triangle of
~2-3 hours, as the pilot came on final glide to Wallaby at 1500' and doing well
over 50. The tuck happened very quickly and the glider tumbled twice, breaking
both outboard leading edges and the carbon base tube before settling into a
steep inverted spin, with the pilot dangling from the trailing edge.
The chute was thrown, but did not open - however, the deployment bag seemed to
stabilize and flatten the spin, and the resultant vertical speed was then slow
enough, that the pilot only suffered bruises after coming down through some
short pines - he walked away. The spin slowed and flattened enough after the
chute toss, that the pilot believed that the chute had actually deployed, even
though he could not turn his head to look. The keel and crossbars stayed intact
and an internal base bar safety wire did it's job.
As I recall, we theorized that upon leaving an area of lift at speed, the usual
pitch down moment just continued on over to the negative.
Lot's of people flew that day, myself included, and there were no unusual sharp
edges that I experienced. The tuck happened very late in the day during the last
vestiges of thermal activity. It was not a high pressure type day. Hope this
helps.
This is why third party liability insurance costs so much in
Australia
You'll find more references at my news gathering service at
http://ozreport.com. The HGFA was not
successfully sued, but the local club and the pilot were.
The Oz Report membership/subscription/donation drive starts today. Thanks to all those of you who have been
sending in subscriptions and donations over the last few months without me having
to get down on my knees. But now that is where I am.
If you like and/or read the Oz Report, use the Oz Report forum, use our
connections to Google Earth, won't you do a little something to help support us? $20 per year (or more if
you find the value here) for a year subscription:
More and hopefully more creative (as desperation sets in) pleas to follow. If
you want to send in a check it's:
Davis Straub
PMB 1889 PO Box 2430 Pensacola, FL 32513
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The Oz Report, a near-daily, world wide hang gliding news ezine, with reports on competitions, pilot rankings, political issues, fly-ins, the latest technology, ultralight sailplanes, reader feedback and anything else from within the global HG community worthy of coverage. Hang gliding, paragliding, hang gliders, paragliders, aerotowing, hang glide, paraglide, platform towing, competitions, fly-ins. Hang gliding and paragliding news from around the world, by Davis Straub.
