Flytec
Wills Wing

Oz Report

Volume 10, Number 80
Monday, April 17 2006
The Florida Ridge Airsports Park, Labelle/Clewiston, Florida, USA
https://OzReport.com
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

to Table of Contentsto next topic US Nationals - Day 7, 2nd and last task

Fri, Apr 14 2006, 7:33:45 pm EDT
US Nats
Winds out of the northeast finally abate 5 knots to 15 knots

Curt Warren|James Tindle|US Nationals

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

The forecast for Friday afternoon was 8 to 10 mph on the ground.  The forecast for the boundary layer winds was for 10 to 15 knots.  The high pressure is centered right over northern Florida.

I really love flying here but really hate sitting on the ground here in high winds.  I want to get out of here as quickly as possible.  Forget the party, just get me back to Quest.

James Tindle wants us to start launching at 11:30 AM for safer launch conditions, so we add two additional start times (I just wish I had remembered what they were). There are plenty of cu's in the sky as I get towed up about fifth or sixth to launch and there are plenty of cu's between us and the Lake Okeechobee to the northeast.  The wind is 16 mph straight from the lake.

It's easy to get to cloud base at 3,500' and then I head up the cloud street toward the lake to try to get upwind.  Unfortunately for me and the five pilots that follow me we don't get lift under the cu's closer to the lake and we have to go back to the flight park and re launch.  It is amazingly smooth coming into land.

I get off again at 12:47 PM to find good lift and don't try to head toward the lake again but head northwest with Curt Warren who also landed.  It's a bit of work to get up to cloud base and head up against the 16 mph wind coming out of the northeast.

We head over the swamp to the north toward the edge of the 9.32 mile start circle and I've forgotten that the last time is 1:30 PM, thinking that it is 2 PM. Stupid.  The five flex wings I'm flying with don't appear to have a clue either.

I take the start circle at 1:45 PM, fifteen minutes after the last start time thinking that I'm in great position, northeast of the course line.  After spending an hour to get in position it's a lark to get to the first turnpoint to the northwest twenty miles out from the flight park.

I've left most of the flex wings I was flying with behind taking a more downwind line and the lift is weak right around the turnpoint.  The clouds are thin just north ofthe course line along highway 74, but with the wind out of the northeast, you want to be on the north side of the course line which is going off to the west to the coast.

I'm low turning in weak lift when I spot a tiny cu that just appears for a second to my south west.  I head there and find a powerful little thermal that gets me 2,000' to 4,600' at 500 fpm.  Now things look a lot better.  I'm on my own.  I can see the flex wing who was right above me just before I found this little thermal, low way below me (he'll make goal later).

I can see a couple of pilots who actually left at the last start time (1:30 PM) a few miles ahead under a cloud and race toward them.  It's 500 fpm to 5,300' and 20 miles out from the goal it looks like final glide time.  I've got a 12 mph quartering tail wind and am averaging 25 L/D.

All the cu's are to the south of the course line over an area that looked like a large swamp on Google Earth.  The course to goal is straight over this swamp.  As I head over it I see that it is dry and there are a few places to land.

I shade a bit south to get under some good looking clouds as I get down to 2,400' eight miles out and even with the goal circle radius at one mile I'm looking for a little lift.  The 600 fpm lift I find under the good looking clouds gets me up fast enough to make the final eight miles a cake walk over the trees.

I'm able to complete the task in 1 hour and 18 minutes plus 15 minutes for starting late.  Oh well.

Jacques and Campbell who actually started at 1:30 are at goal as well as three flex wings.  It appears that they made goal in about the same time that I did.

Results start here: http://events.dowsett.ca/ Click "Score will be posted here."

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to Table of Contentsto next topic AIR ATOS VR Polars

Polars from the AIR web site.
VR
Fri, Apr 14 2006, 7:35:20 pm EDT

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Aeronautic Innovation Rühle & Co GmbH

www.a-i-r.de

http://www.a-i-r.de/pages-d/Polare%20ATOS-VR.htm

These polar ones come from a combination of flight tests and competitor flying.  They have worked satisfactorily in practice for the input in flight computers.

Wind tunnel measurements at the Institute for Aerodynamics and Gas Dynamics at the University of Stuttgart show that the lift/drag ratio is reduced by three additional points if your hands are spread wide on the base tube and your harness is kicked up 15° with respect to the air flow.

The theoretically possible best lift/drag ratio of the ATOS VR is attainable therefore only with optimal conditions and with very good pilot ability.  For the use in flight computers therefore a polar with a best lift/drag ratio of 17.6 is practical.

Here's AIR's values for 150 kg (330 lbs.) take off (total) weight:

km/h m/s
38.00 -0.75
52.00 -0.82
70.00 -1.33
90.00 -2.38
108.00 -3.75

The glider weighs 105 pounds, so this takeoff weigh assumes a 225 hook in weight.

Here are the values in mph and fpm:

mph fpm fpm
23. 6 -148 -122
32. 3 -161 -156
43. 5 -262 -287
55. 9 -469 -549
67. 1 -738 -889

In the third column you'll find the values that I came up with a couple of years ago.  The new polars from AIR show an increased sink rate relative to what I thought it would be at minimum sink and a decreased sink rate at higher speeds.

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to Table of Contentsto next topic Windy Last Wednesday

Fri, Apr 14 2006, 7:35:59 pm EDT
Windy
Palm trees exploding in the middle of the street

«Hang4av8r» writes:

I was subpoenaed as a witness in a really stupid civil suit of tenant vs. landlord (even the judge was rolling his eyes) on Wednesday, April 12. After I testified, I was excused from the proceedings so I eagerly peeled out from the Lee County Justice Center in Ft. Myers (about 40 miles downwind of the Florida Ridge) in my Z4 convertible, top down, tunes blasting.

It was quite windy from the east, and I was driving directly into it along Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.  I was wondering if it was really too windy for the fliers in the Nats, and contemplating the fact that it would be a very brief distance before they were at the west coast of FL and blown out to sea.

Just as this thought cleared my head, a substantial palm tree blew down in the median about 50 yards ahead of me. At first, there was so much dust and debris swirling about I honestly thought a car had hit it and was prepared to stop and practice my first responder skills.  It turns out that the rather large (2 foot diameter base) tree had literally exploded at the base, it was split like a banana peel and the trunk was shredded.

Palm trees are mostly water, and I think what I first saw was water spraying out of the explosion as well as other tree parts.  Fortunately, it fell parallel to the median and not into any traffic.  If I had been even one minute sooner or later, I most likely would not have witnessed this event.  Bear in mind that this tree survived hurricanes Charley and Wilma.  That is how windy it was Wednesday afternoon in sunny south Florida

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to Table of Contentsto next topic New US National Champions

Fri, Apr 14 2006, 8:56:54 pm EDT
Champs
The US Nats crowns new champions

Campbell Bowen|Curt Warren

Campbell Bowen is the new US National Rigid Wing Champion, Curt Warren (who now lives in Australia but flies for the US) is the US National Flex Wing Champion, and Linda Salamone is the US National Women's Champion.

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to Table of Contentsto next topic US Nats winners

Sat, Apr 15 2006, 6:23:46 am EDT
Winners
Jacques and Oleg

Jacques Bott|Oleg Bondarchuk

Winners

Jacques Bott won the rigid wing class at the US Nats and Oleg Bondarchuck won the flex wing class.  Both won each of the two days.  I told Oleg that it was the glider.  (Pilots just assume that it is the pilot, so Aeros never gets any credit.)

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to Table of Contentsto next topic The Flytec Championships 2006, the day before

The place is packed with everyone and their mother in the air
Flytec
Sat, Apr 15 2006, 9:44:36 pm EDT

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Flytec Championships 2006|Jacques Bott|Rob Kells|weather

We arrive at noon back from the Florida Ridge and spend the whole day preparing for the Flytec Championship.  There are fourteen rigid wing pilots and over sixty flex wing pilots.  The air is full of AIR ATOS VR's.

Everyone makes it over to the Wills Wing Party at Wallaby on Saturday evening, except a few of us party poopers, so the pilot meeting is not until 9 AM on Sunday.  Wills (Rob Kells) had their Demo Days this windy week at Wallaby, and it's great that the winds finally let up on Friday.

There is a huge French flex wing contingent here.  Jacques Bott is the only pilot to fly in from Europe for the rigid wing part of the Flytec meet.  He's getting ready for the Worlds.  Many Canadian pilots, German pilots, as well as a scattering of representatives from many other countries.  It's very international.

The weather look reasonably good for the coming week.  No strong winds in the forecast.  Today (Saturday) it was blue and hot with a 10 mph west wind.  Pilots were soaring at 10:30 Am and until 6 PM. They were getting to over 6,000'.

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to Table of Contentsto next topic The Flytec Championships 2006, day 1

Sun, Apr 16 2006, 11:08:46 pm EDT
Flytec, day 1
With moderate to strong west winds we go north and south.

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.)

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to Table of Contentsto next topic Flytec - the blogs

Sun, Apr 16 2006, 11:09:25 pm EDT
Blogs
Other commentators

Jamie Shelden|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr

You'll find other views of events here: http://jonnydurand.blogspot.com/, http://bretthazlett.blogspot.com/, http://xckevin.blogspot.com/, http://www.naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/, http://skyout.blogspot.com/, http://fly.benyl.com

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