Oz Report

Slow pilots

(Highland Aerosports, Maryland)

Highland Aerosports Flight Park|Lawrence "Pete" Lehmann|Pete Lehmann

http://ozreport.com/otherblogs.php#gottafly.blogspot.com

…the tortoises shall inherit the earth.

I wrote earlier about the East Coast Championship: "Linda Salamone is in second.  Again, not a fast pilot, but one who sticks with it and gets as far as possible."

Linda was very consistent and did well at the ECC, as did Paul Kelly, who was first.  These pilots did well because, as it turned out the conditions and the tasks I called matched their flying styles.  In all but a very few competitions they would not do nearly as well flying in that style.  This fact does not take anything away from the fact that they did well in this competition.  So, no tortoises shall not inherit the earth, but when the rabbits run themselves into the ground, they will be victorious.

The major problem for the much faster pilots was that they weren't rewarded for their speed.  Because on three out of the four tasks no one made goal, getting as far or further quicker didn't matter much.

Task one was a matter of survival, with very light lift, very low top of the lift and a wind that was cross to the task.  With my miscalled task Kraig and Paul, who was third on that day, put themselves down early when they perceived that they were approaching restricted airspace (they didn't get into the airspace). It was my fault to send us in that direction and as a consequence the day is worth very few points for Kraig who won the day.

On task two, Paul and I get out in front of everyone else and I quickly leave Paul getting five kilometers in front of him.  A review of our track logs shows that as I glide at about 56 kilometers out I will pass through an area at about 2,700' and find strong sink there.  Three minutes later, Paul will pass 90 feet to the left of my course line at the same spot and find lift at 2,100'. Twelve minutes later I will land.  Paul will make goal first.  Kraig who was flying with Paul will miss the lift 100' under Paul and will land near me.

On task three, I call a task that has a short (18 km) upwind final leg near the coast line where the peninsula gets thin.  I will lead the whole day flying with Pete Lehmann (getting out in front of him 10 kilometers before the turnpoint), but no one makes goal as we go upwind into an area with no lift.  I'm second for the day, but get no credit for being much faster than the other pilots.

On task four, I again miscall the task, making it a bit too long for anyone to make.  Kraig and I will quickly get into the lead, and get way out, up to fifteen kilometers, in front of Paul.  But near the turnpoint, the lift turns weak and while Kraig will climb high as possible under the cloud before the turnpoint, he will not find any more lift.  I will not climb as high and not get quite as far as him.  Paul will play it smart and go further east to get into the clouds past the turnpoint, but this will not be enough to get him to goal.

One needs to draw the proper lessons from one's experience.  If one draws the inference that flying slow is the ticket, I think that next time they will not get their ticket punched.

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Highland Aerosports

(Highland Aerosports, Maryland)

Highland Aerosports Flight Park|Jim Rooney|Quest Air|scooter tow

Speaking of the East Coast Championship, we had a great time in Ridgley.  Adam and Sunny (and Kristin) live in the bubble of a down at the heals private airstrip surrounded by soybeans and corn, getting by year round on their proceeds from giving tandem "discovery" flights during the season.  The airstrip is supposed to be redeveloped some time in the future if the county can get ahold of it, and Adam and Sunny do manage to snag a student every now and then out of the membership of the singles clubs that come their way for a day of socializing on the grass strip.

The current airstrip owner (you can see what it looks like by clicking on the Google Earth icon above) says that the county has to find Highland Aerosports a new home if they take over the airstrip.  Sunny and Adam are not holding their breath.

Jim Rooney was there and is normally there during the season.  He was towing us as well as giving some of those "outrageously expensive" tandems (the ones killing hang gliding) during the weekend after the meet, but is free and smart enough to leave in the winter for the southern hemisphere summer in Queenstown, New Zealand.  Maybe that explains his always happy demeanor.  You can imagine what the winter looks like on this thin peninsula next to the Atlantic Ocean (think gray). I hear it involves a lot of drinking.

While he was at Quest Air Jim got himself a cheap Chinese scooter (Verruci) with the thought that it would turn into a scooter towing operation.  Turns out it doesn't have the torque found on the Yamaha or Honda 50cc and can't go 35 mph, the sign that the cycle can handle this job (at least at sea level). So another course of action is required for Jim to get into the scooter tow low and slow instruction business.

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Turkeys

(New Stanton, PA)

Belinda Boulter

Belinda gets a shot of this friendly not-so-wild turkey that came up to us next to our trailer:

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Big Paraglider flight in Finland

(Oripää airfield, Finland)

XC|Ari "Arska" Sahlström

http://lokkilok.blogspot.com/2007/05/arska-flies-303-km.html

Cross Country Magazine reports:

On May 16 Ari "Arska" Sahlström flew a whopping 303 km through the flatlands of Finland.  The flight, which began at Oripää airfield took over eight hours to complete, and is by far the biggest flight ever made in Scandinavia.  The early stages of the flight were difficult and saw Ari low several times, although he described conditions as “looking good” (in hindsight, with 303 km under his belt, that might now seem like a slight understatement).

BTW, the paraglider flight in the Owens that I recently reported on was a mere 237 km.

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New Beechmont tandem record

(Beechmont, Australia)

Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|record

Jonny Durand reports that he set a local (Beechmont) tandem flight record recently with a 95 km flight on a "new" Moyes single surface tandem glider.  He said that these tandem gliders are a lot of work to fly.

The Moyes single surface tandem glider doesn't have a name yet.  I suggested: "Moyes Funny."

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CompeGPS responds to Stewart

Pascal Darr

http://ozreport.com/11.119

Pascal Darré «pascal» writes:

First of all, if you are not happy about any part of our products, I can understand that you are disappointed.  Nevertheless I would like to correct a little bit of what you are saying:

- The registration system is not new and it is in place for about three years.  As far as I know you have been a CompeGPS customer for more than one year without complaint up to now.

- Registration system doesn't allow just one registration but two.  Why?  Simply because we need to stop piracy.  We try to do our best to stop piracy, but without putting too many restrictions on the users.  It is never easy and for sure there is no solution on the market that is perfect.

- You must admit that our support department has always answered positively to your request for new registration attempts.  It shows that our system is not so bad.  When you are changing to a new computer or changing your hard-disk, I think it takes more time to re-install every thing than it takes to email to support and receive new registration attempts.  Other companies are putting very strong limitations without any possibility to get around them.  We tried to do a mix of limitations and support.

Hope this will clarify a little the situation and for sure we are never happy to put on these limitations, but we need to survive.

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Pre-Europeans in Greifenburg - task two

(Emberger Alm, Austria)

Andreas Olsson|Davide Guiducci|Gerolf Heinrichs|Oleg Bondarchuk|Oliver "Olli" Barthelmes|Pre-Europeans 2007

The Results.

Andreas Olsson, flying a Wills Wing T2 - 148 (prototype), won the second day of the pre-Europeans.  Given that there are only five or six T2's in the competition, this says something (although it is unclear just what, perhaps just that the T2 is a competitive glider):

I notice that the tasks so far in this big air place are mostly smaller or at least comparable to those that we attempted at the East Coast Championships.  Looks like Seppi didn't fly today.

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Ollie hurt at Whitwell

A.I.R. ATOS VR|Ollie Gregory

(Whitwell, TN)

http://ozreport.com/otherblogs.php#ifly4funn.blogspot.com

On a more somber note, Ollie Gregory, pilot and all around great guy, stalled his rigid today off of Whitwell.  He blasted his knee terribly, and has to have surgery this evening.  Jackie, his wife, said he was going to be immobile for a long time, but he was in great spirits.

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