The main point of a World Competition is to have fun. It is a secondary
consideration that a World Champion be crowned. Sure that's important, but not
if we are not having fun, and today, we had a heck of a lot of fun.
Now, I've had a lot of experience calling tasks and working with the full task
committee to determine what everyone wants. It's a consensus building process
that involves a lot of trust. There are many variables that you have to weigh to
come to a specific outcome and it is not always clear to the outsider just why a
certain decision was made. Today we went a little crazy and it sure paid off big
time.
The forecast was for even higher west northwest (290 degree) winds at 15 knots
(the average throughout the boundary layer). Lift was still forecast to be
strong with wispy cu's or maybe even nice cu's like the first day. Warmer
temperatures with 54 degrees Fahrenheit at cloud base at 6,000'. It looked to be
a day much like the day before, but with a little more wind. It would turn out
much different.
First the women on the task committee get to speak about what kind of task that
they want and at first it looks like they want to go back to the River Ranch
again, but that seems a little too easy, so they choose to go cross wind about
the same distance to Avon Park (68 miles).
I pick out an 88 mile task for the Swifts bringing them back to Quest, as is
their desire, but Paula from CIVL wants a longer task, so I find a similar task
at 108 miles first going southeast to Wallaby Ranch then northwest against the
wind to Dallas and then back to Quest. It turns out to be a bit too long as only
Manfred makes it back.
We are trying to pick out a longer task for the rigids as the fastest pilot took
an hour and a half to do the first task. We are thinking of heading cross wind
to Lake Placid airport, 91 miles away, but Belinda has proposed the idea of a
task 36 miles further to the Florida Ridge. It seems crazy, but very cool.
At first we just can't get our minds around the idea, as there would be a long
retrieve, and it would be cross wind almost all the way, although the winds are
supposed to die down a bit way to the south. But somehow we say, okay, let's
give it a try. This would be the longest called task in a competition in
Florida.
There is a lot of muttering when the 127.4 mile, 205 km, task is put up on the
task board, but David Glover just acts like nothing is happening and no one
rises to call us a bunch of nutters. The Swift pilots seem happy with their
task.
The winds are actually lighter in the tow field than on the previous day, but
the Austrian women pilot on the women's safety committee is not happy about
launching and their committee delays their launch opening for 45 minutes. The
rigid wing pilots rush forward to get going. They want to launch right away.
You might have noticed that in most meets pilots are reluctant to get going
right away as they complain about having to spend too much time in the air
before the start window. What they mean by this is too much time in the air
before the last start time.
We've solved this problem by making the start intervals one half hour. This
means that pilots who start early perceive that they actually have a chance of
not being caught by the pilots who take the second start time, so they are
actually willing to launch and take the first start time. Amazing.
Of course, on this day with a long task, pilots want to take the first start
time anyway. My line is all launched in less than half an hour.
The problem that arises is that we have cirrus above the plentiful cu's and
there are large areas of shaded ground and light lift. The cirrus for the most
part is just over a small area, maybe twenty miles north and south of Quest. It
really cuts down on the lift and makes for difficult start conditions.
Jim Yocom is off first and I'm right behind him. We try the trick of going
upwind again in the start circle but the lift to too weak (130 fpm) to really
let us make a successful strategy of it. As we approach the 1:30 PM start time I
see the main gaggle (where did they come from?) to the south by the edge of the
start circle and upwind of the course line.
It looks like I won't have a good start again as the top guys are a thousand
feet over me. Oh well, what do I have to do to get in the right position?
Everyone who can takes the first start gate. Primoz is low with me and heads
southwest into a very dark area. I can't figure that out and head south trying
to get out of the shaded areas and under some wispy cu's. The wind is 10-13 mph
out of the west.
I see Primoz scooting around low looking everywhere for lift and going fast, but
getting lower and lower. I'm under a cloud happy to have 130 fpm, which is
better than he's doing. Things seem very iffy.
Eight miles down the course line we find 270 fpm and think that we are in
heaven. We can't imagine that we have the slightest chance of getting to goal on
this day that is not turning out at all like it was supposed to. The little bits
of cirrus are very hard for the models to forecast and when they show up they
really change things.
I'm flying with Russell Brown and we're talking on the radio to coordinate
tactics. We climb back to 4,300' and with a few clouds in front of us to the
south start racing from cloud to cloud. The clouds quickly disappear to our
south so we head downwind to highway 27 to get under a few little wisps.
Fortunately this is where the wisps, such as they are, are forming and we zigzag
back and forth down highway 27 finding little cu's, drifting downwind of the
course line with them and running back upwind to get to the next patch of lift.
We are in survival mode.
At 90 miles out from goal near Avon Park we have to struggle and drift a ways to
get above 5,000' for the first time. This is the turning point and from now on
things get better and better.
We force our way back upwind of the course line and with increasing wisps and a
few actual clouds we find better lift and the chance to get further west. We can
see a broad area of cu's to the south just by Lake Placid 90 miles out from
Quest. We work our way far enough west so that we can get under the clouds and
have a straight shot at goal from thirty miles out flying under the clouds.
This turns out to be the ticket and we stay high and under the clouds until the
last two don't work and we get down to 1,800' 8 miles from goal and under the
last cloud. Russell finds the core and it's a beaut with lift getting over 700
fpm. It's more than enough to get us in.
We can't believe it, we've made goal on a day where the first forty miles was
weak and iffy. About thirty pilots will make goal and they all seem to be very
happy.
The women will begin launching soon after we clear the field. It turns out that
they will do more towing than flying with Kari taking three tows and Linda
Salamone four. The conditions were very weak around Quest so it is
understandable when combined with the strong winds.
While none of the women complete their task, and the day will only be worth 300+
points, Corinna will get the furthest and win the day. She is in first place
overall with Kari second and Natalie Petrovia third.
Alex Ploner will just nudge out Robert Reisinger by 35 seconds for the win for
the day for the rigids. That will put him in first place with Robert second, and
Christian in third. In the team competition in rigids, it's France, Austria and
then the USA. The USA is leading in Women's and Swift classes
Lisa Miller is the lone Australian women pilot:
Click above picture to view higher resolution version.
I have been using the pgcomps.net system of presenting scores, 2D
animated track logs and 3D views of tracks in Google Earth since it came out
this spring - you can see it in action here (http://dowsettevents.pgcomps.net/comps).
After May 31st it is no longer free and will become a pay-per-task service. I
think it is totally worth it and I encourage other competition
organizers/scorers to find it in their budgets to cover these costs. I think it
is an invaluable tool for competitors to see their tracks at the end of each
day, view their tracks vs. the other pilots they competed against that day and
learn from their mistakes as soon as possible so they can improve their flying
during that competition.
Besides, it is so easy to post results with it (I find it easier then generating
HTML results out of RACE and upload them to a web site) and they look better and
have a lot more info than the HTML results generated from RACE. It is also a
great way for spectators (pilots or not) to view flights and get a better feel
for what happened that day. It is tough enough to get one pilot to describe
their flight...and this way you can view what really went on and choose who's
view you want to see.
So read on below on how it is going to work and tune in to
http://www.pgcomps.net for this program to
be rolled out on June 1st.
Manolis writes:
Let me first state that the fees for the service are mainly to
cover hosting costs so that the organizer don't have to worry about your hosting
plan when there is a big rush of visitors to see the event results. So in a
sense you are mainly buying a complete web hosting service solution with the
extra value of "Leonardo for comps"/photo gallery/blog system. I have decided to
make this a one time fee service, so you don't have to worry about recurring
costs per month or year. That means you pay once per task and you have it for
ever.
So to make things simple, the service will run on a one-time-fee per task
depending on the total pilots that actually took part in the event. (so if you
have registered 120 pilots but only 90 took part in the tasks - you are in the
21-100 range ).
Regular price Price with Sponsor Ads * 1-20 Pilots 20 Eu 30 Eu 21-100 Pilots 30
Eu 45 Eu 101 + Pilots 40 Eu 60 Eu
Prices are in Euro. These are for FAI 2 cat events or Local events. For FAI I
cat events, Europeans or PWC (even if they are FAI 2) special rates will apply
because of the increased bandwidth requirements (remember you don't have to
worry about bandwidth, it is all taken care of)
* Price with Sponsor Ads: This gives the possibility for the organizer to
incorporate the logos and banners of his event sponsors to every result page
thus providing extra promotion to his sponsors.
Included in the price are:
- All the full features that you can see on the site.
- The bandwidth that you will use.
- Unlimited photo galleries (i.e one per task, or one per comp or your
combination)
- A system for blog entries for the task/event. (under dev)
- The option to use your own sub-domain like results.mydomain.com (of a domain
you already own) instead of mydomain.pgcomps.net.
- The use of your logo on the top (you can upload it any time your self)
- Any other future improvements of the service will propagate on previous
tasks/events already in the system.
Kari Castle (who is blogging at http://karicastle.com/blog/index.php) was first in today for the women
quickly followed by Corinna the follower (covering Kari). They turned out to be
the only women to make goal.
All the Swifts made it back in even though they had a longer (109 mile) task
then the day before. The winds were a lot lighter and there were no cirrus, and
every now and then there was a wispy cu. Manfred won the day.
The task for the rigids was 94 miles and like the other two classes it was
around the Green Swamp, but each class had different turnpoints so that and
their different start times kept them separated. Given the forecast for strong
lift (600+ fpm), light west winds (didn't always work out that way), high cloud
base (some pilots did get to 7,300'), maybe a few clouds, and convergence over
the Green Swamp, and no sea breeze (at least that was my interpretation) we felt
it would be the best day so far this spring. The only issue would be the
relative lack of clouds.
The height of the lift was predicted to be lower earlier in the day and higher
at 2 PM than the previous days. The cu's were just beginning to form when we
launched the Swifts at noon. It was great to see them all together not too high
right over the field slowly climbing. This apparently was enough of an incentive
to get the women launched pretty much in their fifteen minute slot.
We relaxed the time interval a bit between the two start times for the rigids
separating them by only twenty minutes instead of thirty minutes. We were trying
to find the happy medium where pilots actively take the first start time
believing that they can get the meager leading bonus points without getting
caught. If they feel that they will be caught by the guys behind, then everyone
goes at the second start time. We may not have reached that happy medium yet.
With better lift and a lighter west winds we have a lot better time of it
working upwind to Bay Lake almost five miles out, the edge of the start circle.
At 4,300' just before the first start time it looks like we'll be taking the
second start time. Cloud base is 5,500'. Half the rigids are out there seeing if
they'll head out.
We scoot back just as the start window opens to find 600 fpm to 5,500' half a
mile inside the start circle. Our new altitude is enough to encourage us to get
going now so thirty pilots head out pretty much together (but not Robert Reisinger). Now there is only a fifteen minute separation.
Most of the pilots head directly right over the Green Swamp toward the turnpoint
at Dean Still and Rockridge, but I notice a pilot turning tight under a cloud to
the left of the course line a mile to the south (also over the swamp) and head
for him with Russell Brown in tow. The lift is 600 fpm to cloud base.
The leaders get low and we come in high at the next thermal four miles northeast
of the first turnpoint. We scoot over to the turnpoint and join the thermal just
past it. I find a really good core at 700 fpm and soon we are on top with all
those who were ahead of us.
Next it's a run to the west and I'll hang just behind (or just below) the four
leading pilots with five pilots just behind me.
It's a head wind of about 5 mph, but we make Clinton pretty easily with a spare
wispy cu or two, but mostly in the blue. I get see the guys in front have turned
back to the northwest after getting the turnpoint and head for the Green Swamp
once again. That's where there are a few cu's as there are none out over the
cultivated area to the west along the highways.
We climb slowly just before the Swamp to 5,000' then jump right into it to the
north racing from cloud to cloud but stopping for lift in the blue if it is
there. I've never been this far into the Green Swamp in this area. On previously
flights we would be to the west, but without clouds we went where it looked
best.
Just before we get to highway 50 and the north end of the swamp I notice Robert Reisinger just below me and I'm thinking that he took the second start time. He
really pours on the speed for the glide and gets to the next thermal before me
and I don't see him again.
I lose the four pilots (now five with Robert) just before Coleman when I get
some weak lift. I join up with the four guys behind me who have actually joined
up with me. We climb to 6,000' 6 miles out from Coleman and and race to get
around the turnpoint and to the gliders circling just past it.
I spot Primoz to the southeast banked up high and go to him but the lift isn't
that great. Primoz seems to have a habit of banking high but not having great
lift. I keep it a little flatter and climb to 4,500' as my compatriots head out
and keep getting lower south of the Turnpike as we head for the intersection of
the Turnpike and highway 33.
After a spell of no cu's there are plenty of wispy ones all along the Turnpike
and things look good ahead. I race along and come in over the pilots who were in
front of me after getting up and geez they are just holding on in zero sink.
There are plenty of clouds ahead and dark fields, so I say screw that, and head
for better lift.
I find some but am not impressed and head for the next cloud and the best
looking field. Oh, oh, no lift. Now I'm in trouble, below 2,000' and falling. In
one last desperate attempt I head just to the Turnpike at the edge of the field
I'm over that has been so disappointing and find zero sink. I hold on. I'm at
less than 800'.
For the next twenty six minutes I will drift downwind past the turnpoint for
almost four miles below 1,200' AGL. I'll continuously turn in zero sink and then
slowly climb over fields, high tension power lines, housing developments, and
golf courses. I can see two or three miles to the east of me a cleared area
where they are going to put in houses and wonder if I will make it there and
find better (any) lift there. I try to concentrate on the present and not worry
about what happens when and if I get to a better spot.
The middle horizontal line is 1000' MSL. The top line is 1,500' MSL. You can see
the land level in brown.
It is great fun to be low and not falling and just hanging on in weak lift. I
try to relax and feel every bit of lift that I can. I have few chances to check
around the general area to find better cores.
Finally, I get over the scraped off land and it turns on. I'm now over three
miles downwind of the last turnpoint in a thirteen mph wind, but the lift is
good. The good guys are already at goal having stayed in the weak lift higher
and let it work for them.
I push upwind to get the turnpoint and can see the the wispies downwind of the
course line. I figure who cares, you've got to stay up. I head downwind a bit
find the lift from the west feeding the wispies and climb to five thousand feet,
plenty enough to make it in back to Quest. It's good to be home. Another great
day in Florida.
Russell is the first American in. I'm second, Jim Lamb third for the day. Ron Gleason also makes it in. Robert wins the day, Alex is first in nine minutes
ahead but he took the first start clock.
When I first heard about these 15 meter ships, prototyped by AIR,
I wrote that the sky was falling (http://ozreport.com/10.078#2),
that Jacques Bott had no fear (http://ozreport.com/10.079#5),
and that they were coming to the Worlds (http://ozreport.com/10.085#0).
My fear was the Alex and Robert would be flying these beast and that they would
dominate the Worlds. This has not turned out to be the case.
First, it is not clear that they have an advantage, because it is hard to load
them up unless you are a really big guy. Manfred Trimmel, the Austrian pilot who
first got AIR to build this glider for him, is just not that big. The wing
area and span seem to be wasted on lighter pilots.
Second, Manfred and Christoph are flying these gliders, not Alex and Robert. So
there is no publicity push for these odd ball wings.
You can see how Christoph Lohrmann and Manfred Trimmel are doing in the results
and judge for yourself.
This is the best organized and run Worlds that I have ever
attended. So far all we pilots are all running around with smiles on our faces.
The whining, there is a little, is about trivial matters, which maybe are just
there to deflect criticism.
Sure the weather is great, but Quest Air, Flytec, David Glover, Drew, Steve
Kroop, the tug pilots, and all the folks working on this meet including the
volunteers are very professional and right on top of the issues at hand. I have
never seen the CIVL folks so happy looking and in such good moods. The meet
organizers are having a great time showing on their great venue.
It started with the Blue Grass band and Gatorland, and it's been a funfest ever
since. This didn't happen by accident, I'll tell you that. The task committee is
sweating blood as we call three tasks in about half an hour. The pilots are just
incredibly pleased with what we've called.
The launches are running so smoothly. Pilots are out of there in half an hour.
The Swifts are off in five minutes and the women in fifteen even after waiting
for ten minutes.
This is how a Worlds should be run. Done by people who know which end is up.
CJ, the USHGA magazine editor, with a big help from Belinda arranged for
Groveland post office to come out today to Quest to make a special post mark for
the Worlds. This turned out to be a very big success. The postal worker brought
his family and they asked if they could stay and watch the take offs. Of course.
Hundreds of letters and postcards went out today with the Worlds postmark.
People really loved this. You can still get this cancellation stamp for the next
month. Send postcards or letters (in envelopes) in an envelope to the Groveland
post office, and they will send back your letters and postcards cancelled.
The task on Friday was cross wind 127.4 miles, not downwind
(Quest Air)
Just when I thought CIVL was getting it (hey, it is great to see
the coverage of the Worlds on their web site -
http://www.fai.org/hang_gliding/), they don't recognize that we did
a very cool thing and flew a long task cross wind almost all the way (see the
IGC files above) and not downwind as reported by Stephane on the CIVL web site.
But then it's not like I never make a mistake (see above).
Dr. Jack, using the weather services RUC model, called for very significant sea
breeze convergence on Sunday way to our east over Orlando and to our west over
the Green Swamp. There weren't supposed to be any clouds, but the lift was
forecasted to be 600+ fpm, and the top of the lift at 8,800' at 5 PM with light
winds.
Given this positive outlook (other than the lack of clouds) we called a 98 mile
triangle task for the rigids, 137 mile one for the Swifts, and a 66 mile out and
return for the women. What the forecast didn't predict was all the cirrus coming
from a trough over the western Gulf of Mexico (the NWS in Tampa talked about it
later after the fact).
With no clouds in the sky it is hard to get pilots all that excited about
launching. The women's task committee had already called for a later launch for
themselves. Still we got the Swifts off at noon and the rigids got going at
12:15 only to find weak lift and a top of the lift under 4,000'. There was an
obvious thick inversion.
For the next hour and a half we struggled. The gaggles got so bad that I flew
back to Quest Air from a few miles out thinking about landing and then getting
pulled up again in time for the second start clock (as no one wants to go with
the first one). But I found 500 fpm and climbed to 3,500'.
Not wanting to get back into the clusterf..k, I flew south toward the gaggles,
but stopped and climb with one other pilot. There were now three gaggles to the
south near the start circle circumference and I headed toward the one with the
least pilots and furthest away.
Before I got there I found 400 fpm, and flashed my wings as I put it up on tip
in this tiny core. I wanted to get high and out of the way in the hurry. It
worked and since it took the other pilots a couple of turns to figure out that
this was the best lift they would have seen in the last hour, I was able to stay
on top and out of their way. I would live to fly again. It has been that bad.
The start window opened and we headed south toward the intersection south of
Haines City. I was following a couple of pilots and we found a couple of
thermals to climb in within the first six miles, but at six miles out the lead
pilot found a boomer and we climbed to 5,500' at 600 fpm, higher and faster than
we had been so far. It felt like a switch had been turned on and the day was now
ready for us.
We shot out of the top of that thermal with two lead pilots in front and me and
David Chaumet side by side at the same level and gliding fast. There were twenty
pilots behind us. I was ready to fly fast and turn hard in the next strong
thermal.
It was a six mile glide to the north end of Brown Shin road with no lift and now
we were groveling at 2,200' and climbing at 130 fpm. Meanwhile David had shaded
to the right a bit and found lift behind us. Hubris had taken over my brain
(what, is thing for rent?), and now was paying the dues I have paid so often.
Essentially the race was over for me (David Chaumet won the day). I was able to
hold on and get on for a while, but to no avail.
Jim Yocom, Jim Lamb, and Ron Gleason were able to make it back to Quest with
about thirty other rigid wing pilots. Russell Brown landed near the last
turnpoint at the Turnpike and highway 33. He landed at a private airport and
they went there later and towed him out.
The German team found the convergence on the way north of the turnpoint south of
the Green Swamp over the Green Swamp. Ralf reported getting 6-7 m/s in very
smooth air flying straight. They were very excited.
The highest reported altitude was in fact 8,800' and we had plenty of climbs
higher than the predicted 450 fpm. But the cirrus did come over our flying area
and made for interesting conditions. It put me down, but others (perhaps also in
the convergence) noticed that they were going up when they shouldn't have been.
Yocom got to 8,400'.
The women had a tougher time of it with no convergence (or at least no reports
of convergence) and a lot of cirrus that made their much shorter task a lot more
interesting than Kari felt it would be. Natalia Khamlova won the day, with
Francoise, followed by Corinna and Kari. They were the only ones to make goal.
All the Swifts made the task other than Mark Mullholland with Manfred winning
the day.
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