Oz Report

The Forbes Flatlands - Task 2

(This topic is in: <-- Jan.10 Jan.9 Jan.8 Jan.5 Jan.4 Jan.3 3.001 --> )

234 km task with 51 pilots at goal, and a pilot separates from his glider and dies (Forbes airfield)

The flight/task .You can view the flight in Google Earth also from this URL.

The results: http://www.moyes.com.au/Forbes2007/Results.aspx.

The competition organization improved a thousand percent as first the three lines were cut back to two lines, concentrating ground resources, secondly setup areas  were designated (I kept pushing hard for that and somebody else must have agreed), third, the staging lines and launch lines were very clearly marked with rope and cones, fourth there were launch personnel acting in launch marshal capacity to get everyone in the staging line correctly.  It was great to see such a turn around in just one day.  Congratulations to Vicki, Drew, Lee and others who were using their thinking caps!

The launch system worked as it was supposed to with those pilots wishing to launch right away getting into the launch line when the horn blew twice, and we were immediately off to the races.  It is such a good idea to separate staging from launching.  This gives the priority pilots (those who do well cumulatively) the opportunity to get to the front of the staging line without having to actually be in the launch line and then waiting around holding everyone else up.  Bravo to Steve Kroop and others for coming up with this systems years ago.  It is so great to see it being adopted here.

The task committee called a 234 km task with one minor turnpoint, just 18 km short of the record for competition task distance set in Texas and South Australia.  It turned out that that distance would have been very easy to break.

The sky was filled with perfect looking cu's starting at 11 AM.  The weather forecast called for lift to 9000' AGL.  There was a moderate breeze out of the northeast which turned more northerly as the day progresses.  It looked like a perfect day for racing hang gliders.



Photo by Belinda Boulter showing the cu's.

It was a race start for the top thirty pilots at 2:15 PM.  I pinned off at 900' AGL in light lift as the tug was barely climbing (except when it hit this lift) and I climbed out to 7,000' AGL.  Then it was time to hang out at cloud base and waited for the start clock.

I lost a couple of thousand feet after hanging out for a while but then climbed back to cloud base now at 7,300' AGL just before the start clock opened.  Twenty or thirty of my closest hang gliding friends were there with me just under the wispy curls of the clouds as we waited the final ten minutes before the start time.

That was when Jeff O'Brien got on the radio and told us that a pilot has just separated from a glider near him.  Jeff saw the pilot falling, pulling his chute, the chute opening, the chute yanking the pilot around, then the chute separating from the harness and the pilot falling to the ground from 5,000'.  This did not start things off well for Jeff.  Later it was learned that the pilot's main had been cut, perhaps by the flying wires after he ticked and tumbled (not witnessed by Jeff).  When I know more about the cause of the pilot's death and what we can learn from it I will report on that.  At the moment I don't have the pilot's name.

At 2:15 the race was on.  I'm not quite up to speed on how to get the glider to go fast, only able to get it to 41 mph.  I'll be working on that today.  Got to do some adjustments to my harness also to make sure it rocks down right.  The guys who didn't have this problem raced out ahead.

The lift proved to be quite strong and cloud base rose during the day so that we were able to get to 9,000' AGL under lift that was clearly marked by emerging clouds.  I had a great time, even if I couldn't go as fast on glide as I was used to in my AIR ATOS VR.  (I'll be writing an article on my impressions of my Moyes Litespeed soon.)

51 pilots made goal at Lockhart to the southwest of Forbes between Wagga Wagga and Narandara.  Obviously too short a task if over half the field made it there.

Discuss Forbes Day 2 at the Oz Report forum

Correction re Flytec Championship registration

4 PM instead of noon. (Quest Air)

http://ozreport.com/10.262#1

Jamie Shelden <jamie> writes:

We decided to go with 4pm Florida time for both early and regular registration.  In years past we thought noon worked best because registration took place in December (before any Australian meets started) and there were so few Australians coming to Florida anyway.  In any event, 4PM (8 AM on the 8th in Forbes) makes it a bit more doable for everyone, particularly considering there are so many Europeans and Americans in Australia at the moment.

Either way, the top 50 CIVL and top 30 US have a full week, so the time isn't so crucial for them.  It's the regular registration that will be a bit more of a frenzy

Discuss Registration at the Oz Report forum

Flytec World Championship

Why don't they contact the meet organizer? (Quest Air)

Jamie Shelden <jamie> writes:

Am I missing something here Davis?  Why on earth would the FAI be bothering you about the name of a competition with which you have no affiliation, control, influence, etc.?  Why would they not simply contact the meet organizer directly.  I can't imagine harassing a magazine, for instance, for reporting on the name of a new product.  How could the publishers of a magazine stop the trademark infringement (if there even was any) and better yet, why should they care or even try to stop it.  It's not their problem!

Do you think the attorneys that represent RIM in their trademark infringement suit over the BLACKBERRY/BLACKJACK first went to the magazines, newspapers and online forums where people were reporting about the new BLACKJACK phone?  Of course not!  What are they going to do about it?

Although I have been cc'd on several messages between you and various representatives of the FAI, they don't seem to want to contact me directly.  I find it downright strange.

I would love to know how you managed to make these people believe that you have so much influence over the rest of us ;-)

Max Bishop <maxb> writes:

In answer to your question about what your responsibilities as Worlds Director might be, of course we would never suggest that you should not make public the fact of the existence of this meet.  That would be absurd.  But in my view, having taken on this job, you have a duty that goes beyond your journalistic duty - namely, to point out to your readers that the use of the name "World Championship" for the Flytec competition is unauthorised and inappropriate.  "Noblesse oblige"!

My response to Max was:

I often treat my readers as though they have actual intelligence and can figure these things out for themselves with me not having to treat them as grade schoolers.  :-)

Max writes:

I'm highly flattered to be promoted in Oz Report, but I'm only the Secretary General of the FAI.  Pierre Portmann is the President - he's elected by the General Conference, I'm just the hired hand.

Discuss Flytec Worlds at the Oz Report forum

Proposal for Sport class at CIVL

The Guatemalans want to help hang gliding grow (Lausanne, Switzerland)

http://www.fai.org/hang_gliding/meetings/plenary/2007

Giovanni Vitola, delegate, and Luis Escotto, alternate delegate, propose:

Facts: Currently only flex and rigid wing competitions are being sanctioned by FAI/CIVL excluding the majority of the pilots leaving behind the development and evolution of the sport.

This proposal is to establish rules and regulations in order to organize a category II & I event in hang gliding Sport class and its subdivisions Single surface and king posted hang gliders.  Making a subsection for section 7 of the FAI Sporting Code

Reasons:

Hang gliders are struggling to keep up with times around the world, many factors are involved such as permits for landing and launching areas, places to teach, methods of teaching, etc.  Those pilots who go through this ordeal and make it into the intermediate and advance level, decide to be recreational pilots and others consider competing in order to improve their skills and become world class pilots.

The Problem is that there is a big gap in between a want to be and being a one top class pilot.  In our sport there is a risk factor well known for all of us called the intermediate syndrome which is that the pilot believes that he has all the knowledge needed to fly out into the unknown and little does he know they he will shortly face questions that can not be answered using his limited knowledge.  Speaking from experience we see that one way to help develop pilot skills for category I flex wing events and lead him into his flying excellence by the way grow the hang gliding sport, is to promote by sanctioning nationals and world competitions the Sport class (king posted double and single surface).

Facts: Statistically the majority of HG pilot per country around the world are rated intermediate through advance.

Question: how is that we are going to help out this flying group and make hang gliding grow in a safe matter.

Answer: Promoting a fun way of competition, in a relax environment however sanctioned by the CIVL in order to be in the WPRS.

Some details of this proposal to be discussed on forum are :

How to introduce these pilots into the WPRS.
Handicap Systems used for scoring (if needed)
Maximum and minimum distances for the class.
Number of competitors in each event.
Number of Pilots per country participating.

Discuss Sport Class at the Oz Report forum

Help finding locations

Gerry provides you with a utility to help you navigate with Google Maps and Google Earth

Scare <Gerry> writes:

Google Maps (the online version) is better at finding named places, while Google Earth is faster at displaying maps (the Earth).  You can also zoom in more in Google Earth.

Have you ever had to extract the coordinates of a place you've found in Google Maps and use them in another program, or wished you could just click on a location that you've found in Google Maps and bring up that location in Google Earth?

Here's how you can do that.

First, download the GreaseMonkey plugin for Firefox by clicking here.

Restart Firefox.

Grease Monkey will now be installed under Tools menu item.

Click here on my little script: http://ozreport.com/data/GoogleMapsToEarth.user.js

Hit Install.  You're done.

To use it:

Click here: http://maps.google.com/ and either use the "Search The Map" box to search for a specific named address or location or pan and zoom the map around to the spot you're interested in.

If it's a search result, move the map manually just a hair.

Click on "Link to this page", and the latitude and longitude of the center of the map will be displayed in the space right above the map.

Copy and paste the longitude and latitude if you want a copy of the coordinates.

Or Click on the coordinates to open that location in Google Earth.

Thanks to a little code and the Oz Report server, you don't have to extract the coordinates from the Google Maps URL to copy and paste them into Google Earth yourself!

Discuss Google Maps at the Oz Report forum

MaxPunkte updated for new HOLC

MaxPunkte now works with the new version of the HOLC.

http://www3.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/

MaxPunkte is widely used by para- and hanggliding pilots to evaluate flights and claim them on the HOLC.  The German Hang Gliding Association, DHV, supports its development on a regular basis.  Therefore, MaxPunkte has been freeware for a number of years.  Version 5.0 has now been released.  Direct uploading of flights to OLC 2.0 is now integrated.  MaxPunkte checks the validation records of the igc-files prior to file upload.  Download the software at www.maxpunkte.de

Discuss MaxPunkte at the Oz Report forum

My position on objectivity

I'm not in favor of it.

In a recent discussion on the Oz Report forum about Flip's comments re me in my positions as Oz Report publisher and 2007 Worlds meet director http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5767 the concept of journalistic objectivity has been raised.  This is a concept that I have thought a great deal about and I thought that I would provide a few quotes that illustrate my take on the matter.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/1999/9901.symposium.kinsley.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2139042/

http://www.slate.com/id/2058456/

Objectivity—the faith professed by American journalism and by its critics—is less an ideal than a conceit.  It's not that all journalists are secretly biased, or even that perfect objectivity is an admirable but unachievable goal.  In fact, most reporters work hard to be objective and the best come very close.  The trouble is that objectivity is a muddled concept.  Many of the world's most highly opinionated people believe with a passion that it is wrong for reporters to have any opinions at all about what they cover.  These critics are people who could shed their own skins more easily than they could shed their opinions.  But they expect it of journalists.  It can't be done.  Journalists who claim to have developed no opinions about what they cover are either lying or deeply incurious and unreflective about the world around them.  In either case, they might be happier in another line of work.

Or perhaps objectivity is supposed to be a shimmering, unreachable destination, but the journey itself is purifying, as you mentally pick up your biases and put them aside, one-by-one.  Is that the idea?  It has a pleasing, Buddhist flavor.  But that's no substitute for sense.  Nobody believes in objectivity, if that means neutrality on any question about which two people somewhere on the planet might disagree.  May a reporter take as a given that two plus two is four?  Should a newspaper strive to be open-minded about Osama Bin Laden?  To reveal—to have!—no preference between the United States and Iran?  Is it permissible for a news story to take as a given that the Holocaust not only happened, but was a bad thing—or is that an expression of opinion that belongs on the op-ed page?  Even those who think objectivity can be turned on and off like a light switch don't want it switched on all the time.  But short of that, there is no objective answer to when the switch needs to be on and when it can safely be turned off.

Opinion journalism can be more honest than objective-style journalism because it doesn't have to hide its point of view.  It doesn't have to follow a trail of evidence or line of reasoning until one step before the conclusion and then slam on the brakes for fear of falling into the gulch of subjectivity.  All observations are subjective.  Writers freed of artificial objectivity can try to determine the whole truth about their subject and then tell it whole to the world.  Their "objective" counterparts have to sort their subjective observations into two arbitrary piles: truths that are objective as well, and truths that are just an opinion.  That second pile of truths then gets tossed out, or perhaps put in quotes and attributed to someone else.  That is a common trick used by objective-style journalists in order to tell their readers what they believe to be true without inciting the wrath of the Objectivity cops.

Abandoning the pretense of objectivity does not mean abandoning the journalist's most important obligation, which is factual accuracy.  In fact, the practice of opinion journalism brings additional ethical obligations.  These can be summarized in two words: intellectual honesty.  Are you writing or saying what you really think?  Have you tested it against the available counterarguments?  Will you stand by an expressed principle in different situations, when it leads to an unpleasing conclusion?  Are you open to new evidence or argument that might change your mind?  Do you retain at least a tiny, healthy sliver of a doubt about the argument you choose to make?

Discuss Objectivity at the Oz Report forum

Day is cancelled

"Respect? (Quest Air)

The pilot would have wanted us to continue flying a task today (as he told Gerolf previously) but the Austrian team wanted to have a day of respect for him.  I hate this.  The Austrian team guys were effected and didn't want to fly.

The riser (hang strap) was broken at or near its connection to the slider (there was no loop visible at the end of the riser which was still connected to the glider).  No one has access to the harness (which was a seven year old Skyline harness) to check out exactly what the condition of the slider and backup was.  Obviously, the backup loop (which is there to provide a backup connection if the slider fails) failed to stay connected to the riser.

Normally in this harness the parachute is connected separately to the shoulders, but it is unclear how it was connected (loops or carabineer).  So there were three failures.  The failure of the hang strap connection to the slider/harness, the failure of the backup strap to stay connected to the riser and then the failure of the connection of the chute to the harness.  The loop at the end of the bridle of the parachute was intact (unlike the case with the riser).  All three failures will be investigated further.

The chute did not fail under load and was observed after the accident to be in good shape, therefore the pilot didn't overload the chute in freefall.  The pilot was witnessed to have been jerked up by the chute when it opened so it seems that the connection to the harness was momentarily intact.

I'll have more news about why the failures occurred and what pilots should check on their harnesses at the later time.

Discuss Cancelled at the Oz Report forum

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