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topic: Dave Marshall (10 articles)

Every Day Since the Competition Ended

May 5, 2021, 12:48:43 pm EDT

Every Day Since the Competition Ended

Maybe it will rain tomorrow

Wilotree Park Nationals 2021

This is what the sky has looked like every day since the Wilotree Park Nationals ended on April 25th:

The cu's started forming at 9:30 AM.

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals »

April 25, 2021, 10:14:20 pm EDT

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals

Task 4, the last day

Attila Plasch|Bobby Bailey|Butch Peachy|competition|Davis Straub|Derrick Turner|John Simon|Konrad Heilmann|Leonardo Ortiz|Moyes Litespeed RX|PG|Robin Hamilton|Tim Delaney|Tyler Borradaile|Wills Wing T3|Willy Dydo|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021|Zac Majors

The Replay: https://airtribune.com/play/5021/2d

It was a difficult day to end a meet that proved to have difficult days. The day started with a little bit of rain as a thin line of thunderstorms brushed by, then dark skies for a few hours which made the prospects of staying up seem remote, then after 2 PM the sky started to open up, the clouds went away and we had a blue day. The wind was out of the west but not nearly as strong as all the models as well as the National Weather Service predicted with not so strong gust factors either.

Yes, Derrick, Willy Dydo, and Alan Arcos took off and only Derrick was able to stay up for a good while before landing. The task committee then changed the task to an open window. Pilots were very reluctant to get going while there were start gates because they feared getting blown out of the 5 km start cylinder with weak lift and strong winds (those were forecast at least).

Pilots kept hesitating which is why we changed to task to make it so there would not be a penalty for leaving the start cylinder, but finally they started launching after 3:30 PM, and I was able to get pulled up by Bobby Bailey at 4:06 PM. It was the best tow I've every had from him as I insisted that he tow me straight up wind and do not do any turns. With the wind still seeming to be strong I wanted to get upwind as far as possible and he took me as far as Osborn field.

We had been in lift it seemed and I found 300 fpm right off tow. I was all alone and could not see any other pilots so I was completely happy to be turning at a radius that maximized my climb rate without having to look after other pilot's circling. That did not last long. Bruce immediately came over to me, just above me and JD just below so at least they were not a bother. Then Zac and Robin, but again Robin was below and Zac up with Bruce, but it was starting to get crowded. At least no one else was at my altitude. Bruce was 60 feet above me.

The wind was only 12 mph out of the west, so all the scary forecasts about 22 mph at 2,000' were not the case and I wondered why the pilots who had gone up earlier reported strong winds and kept us on the ground.

Alan Arcos, Derrick Turner and John Simon joined the thermal and things got very choppy. You can see the result of going in and out of the core on the SeeYou altitude graph. We quit going up for a few minutes then slowly climbed to 3,600'.

Following Zac we all headed southwest into a 17 mph west wind. We found it a bit to everyone else's east and nine pilots came together to bother each other in another weak thermal (100 fpm). I was only able to climb to 2,700' before JD and John Simon lead out and headed southwest again.

They found weak lift just west of highway 33 at 1,400' I came in at 700' and wasn't willing to stay under them for more than one turn not finding anything. There was a very inviting field to the north a little and I landed there followed soon by Alan Arcos and Butch Peachy.

After that it was only six pilots left in the air and slowly Robin, Zac and Bruce had them drop out below them. Zac and Robin were able to make it a total of 30 kilometers down the course line landing near the mines north of Wallaby Ranch.

https://airtribune.com/2021-wilotree-park-nationals/results

Task 4:

# Name Glider Distance (km) Total
1 Robin Hamilton Aeros Combat 13 29.76 112.8
2 Zac Majors Wills Wing T3 144 29.66 112.6
3 Bruce Barmakian Aeros Combat 25.89 100.7
4 Willy Dydo Wills Wing T3 136 15.92 77.4
5 Derreck Turner Moyes RX 4 14.24 72.3
6 John Simon Aeros Combat C 12.7 13.86 71.2
7 JD Guillemette Moyes RX3.5 11.30 61.5
8 Mick Howard Moyes RX 3.5 9.40 53.8
9 Tavo Gutierrez Wills Wing T3 154 8.72 51.1
10 Alan Arcos Icaro Laminar 13.7 7.96 48.0
11 Davis Straub Wills Wing T3 144 7.55 46.3

Finals:

# Name Glider T 1 T 2 T 3 T 4 Total
1 Zac Majors Wills Wing T3 144 661.2 781.1 864.1 112.6 2419
2 Tyler Borradaile Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 674.4 832.1 639.6 29.9 2176
3 Robin Hamilton Aeros Combat 13 310.2 805.3 916.8 112.8 2145
4 Bruce Barmakian Aeros Combat 421.7 710.5 880.4 100.7 2113
5 Derreck Turner Moyes RX 4 633.1 856.0 439.9 72.3 2001
6 Patrick Pannese Wills Wing T2C 408.7 796.3 735.4 29.9 1970
7 Alan Arcos Icaro Laminar 13.7 379.3 750.8 720.6 48.0 1899
8 John Simon Aeros Combat C 12.7 133.3 742.6 752.9 71.2 1700
9 Pedro L. Garcia Wills Wing T3 144 220.0 814.5 629.6 0.0 1664
10 Konrad Heilmann Moyes Litespeed RX3.5 Technora 447.3 706.7 463.6 38.6 1656

Sport Class Final Results (they didn't fly on the last day):

# Name Glider T 1 T 2 T 3 T 4 Total
1 Leonardo Ortiz Moyes Litesport 4 308.3 673.5 514.7 0.0 1497
2 Tim Delaney Wills Wing Sport 3 135 213.4 787.2 408.2 0.0 1409
3 Rick Warner Wills Wing Sport 2 155 102.7 635.2 567.7 0.0 1306
4 Jordan Stratton Moyes Gecko 155 133.8 748.1 368.9 0.0 1251
5 L.J. Omara Wills Wing Sport 3 155 151.0 726.4 353.8 0.0 1231
6 Attila Plasch WillsWing U2 209.2 852.9 161.0 0.0 1223
7 Bill Snyder Wills Wing U2 145 150.5 538.8 410.4 0.0 1100
8 Bill Monghaloe Bautek Fizz 0.0 742.2 350.7 0.0 1093
9 Kelly Myrkle Moyes Gecko 118.5 657.2 277.5 0.0 1053
10 Richard Milla Wills Wing U2 145 147.3 504.4 380.5 0.0 1032

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/2771828

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/25.4.2021/20:06

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals - Midair During Task 3 »

Sat, Apr 24 2021, 7:40:01 pm EDT

Pedro and Tyler collide while thermaling

CIVL|collision|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021

Below you will see frames of the period just before and at the time of the collision taken every two seconds from their track log files. You can make your own interpretation of who should have done what to avoid this incident. Tyler is the red glider (978) and Pedro the blue one (969). I have left the pictures at their original size as taken on my computer.

Be aware that at launch Pedro's instrument measured 140' and Tyler's measured 120' of elevation (GPS altitude). Therefore the altitudes displayed in these frames could easily be off from each other by 20' (or more) or not at all.

You can make your own interpretation of what you see here. Note the different climb rates between the two gliders. Both gliders were flying after the collision and both pilots followed the CIVL section 7 rule: "A competitor involved in a collision in the air must not continue the flight if the structural integrity of his glider is in doubt."

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2021 Wilotree Park Nationals »

April 24, 2021, 7:11:15 pm EDT

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals

We don't go that great up wind when it is windy

Dragonfly|Larry Bunner|PG|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021

Dragonfly|Larry Bunner|Naviter Blade|PG|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021

Replay of the task: https://airtribune.com/play/5020/2d

On Friday, after a delay to move the start box to the west side of the east/west runway we had the first start window at 3 PM. Launch went smoothly for the open class, but there were further delays for the Sport Class.

I had a galloping tow behind Mick Howard in his 582 2-cycle powered (under powered) Dragonfly and when the rope went completely slack at 1,600' and we both went sideways, him to the right, me to the left, I pulled the release, but the weaklink (200 lbs.) broke at the same time and the bridle went for an unexpected flight into a small pond. We had just been in 400 fpm so it was easy to turn around and start climbing.

Half a dozen pilots were soon at cloud base which was over 4,000'. There were plenty of cu's and they were all working and you just had to be careful about the 11 mph southeast wind and not let it blow you too far outside the 5 km start cylinder. I was able to start at 3:04 PM as I watched the count down on the Naviter Blade and listen to its messages about when to get to the edge of the start window. It seemed to know exactly when to go.

With a strong southeast wind we were racing over the ground at almost 50 mph. There were multiple cu's ahead so little worry about finding lift. The first turnpoint was downwind to Center Hill.

With everyone in the first thermal along the course line we were going up at 400 fpm on average to 4,900'. After touching the turnpoint at Center Hill we headed north toward the 15 km turnpoint cylinder around Dallas, a waypoint at the northwest corner of the Villages. The waypoint had been expanded to account for the delay at launch.

It was 12 km to the next thermal from the previous one with a 17:1 glide ratio. A 300 fpm climb rate and then the next thermal just northwest of the prisons and south of the Turnpike at 400+ fpm to 4,900' before heading for and tagging the Dallas turnpoint just on the south edge of the Villages.

Now we had to turn into the wind and things did not go as well. The lift miraculously got much weaker with a climb of 100 fpm and then a little less than 200 fpm over a lake on the north side of the Turnpike with a 13 mph east southeast wind. About a dozen pilots were all in the lead gaggle just north of the Turnpike.

I left the thermal at 3,800'. We were getting to almost 5,000' just a few minutes earlier. Now we weren't getting as high as we would like heading into the east southeast wind. The half dozen gliders above me headed a little more southerly as I headed right down the Turnpike trying to get upwind of the course line back to Wilotree Park. Zac was heading that way also as there were good looking clouds in that direction and a lot fewer clouds south of the Turnpike.

The back and forth had begun. I found 230 fpm 4 km to the east and climbed to 4,300', then went east again and climbed to 4,500' at 150fpm with Larry Bunner. Heading toward the better looking clouds north of the Turnpike I was able to gain a total of 8 km to the east and get upwind of the course line but I was now down to 2,700' and not finding anything.

I saw Larry turning back behind me and turned around to see if I could get up in that thermal. That cost me half the distance I had gained and I found only weak lift that I'm able to use to climb to 2,500'. Larry got to 4,000' and flew to the south southeast landing soon there after.

I hooked up with Maria Garcia in the light lift and after topping out we headed south east toward the east west road for a safe landing with good retrieval. Down to 900' AGL we found a little spot of lift and started turning in an extremely pleasant climb. We climbed at 80 fpm and then I noticed Tavo Gutierrez circling below us just south of the highway and went over to him to find almost 200 fpm. I climbed to 3,800' over the prisons losing 4 km.

Topping out I headed east down the highway toward highway 48 and along the Turnpike toward a good looking cloud but found a net pf no gain at 1,000'. I should have just kept going, but I turned around and landed in a friendly field to the west. The lift was negative on the upwind side of the cloud. Retrieval from the Turnpike was not as easy as from the surface roads, but it was possible.

Pilots were scattered about in this area except for Bruce, Zac and Robin who while also had to do back and forths were able to get further south and a lot closer to Wilotree Park.

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/23.4.2021/18:23

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/2768418

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2021 Wilotree Park Nationals »

April 24, 2021, 9:16:41 EDT

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals

Results from Task 3

competition|Davis Straub|Gary Anderson|John Simon|Konrad Heilmann|Larry Bunner|Moyes Litespeed RX|Raul Guerra|Robin Hamilton|Tyler Borradaile|Wills Wing T3|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021|Zac Majors

Replay of the task: https://airtribune.com/play/5020/2d

Results: https://airtribune.com/2021-wilotree-park-nationals/results

Task 3:

# Name Glider Distance (km) Total
1 Robin Hamilton Aeros Combat 13 75.84 916.8
2 Bruce Barmakian Aeros Combat 71.22 880.3
3 Zac Majors Wills Wing T3 144 69.74 863.9
4 John Simon Aeros Combat C 12.7 58.18 752.1
5 Larry Bunner Wills Wing T3 144 Team 57.76 744.5
6 Patrick Pannese Wills Wing T2C 56.55 734.5
7 Alan Arcos Icaro Laminar 13.7 55.36 719.6
8 Davis Straub Wills Wing T3 144 54.59 706.8
9 Gary Anderson Wills Wing T3 144 53.99 697.3
10 Raul Guerra ICARO Laminar 14,1 52.77 674.1

Cumulative:

Name Glider Total
1 Zac Majors Wills Wing T3 144 2306
2 Tyler Borradaile Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 2146
3 Robin Hamilton Aeros Combat 13 2032
4 Bruce Barmakian Aeros Combat 2013
5 Patrick Pannese Wills Wing T2C 1940
6 Derreck Turner Moyes RX 4 1929
7 Alan Arcos Icaro Laminar 13.7 1851
8 Pedro L. Garcia Wills Wing T3 144 1664
9 John Simon Aeros Combat C 12.7 1629
10 Konrad Heilmann Moyes Litespeed RX3.5 Technora 1618

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals »

Thu, Apr 22 2021, 9:45:15 pm EDT

Results from Task 2

competition|Davis Straub|John Simon|Konrad Heilmann|Moyes Litespeed RX|Robin Hamilton|Tyler Borradaile|Wills Wing T3|Willy Dydo|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021|Zac Majors

The forecast for the day:

How is Thursday different from Wednesday?

The wind shifts from northwest to northeast.

Day starts off sunny.

Be aware of the lake effect where Lake Apopka suppresses the lift just to our east and over us.

Winds are lighter at 4 PM (about half the wind speeds on Wednesday).

There will be a high pressure centered on the Florida/Georgia border.

Six degree lower surface temperatures and lower high temperature for the day, 79 vs. 84.

NWS:

Thursday

Sunny, with a high near 80. Northeast wind 5 to 10 mph.

Hourly forecast for the afternoon: Northeast surface winds at 9 mph decreasing to 7 mph, cloud cover 7% dropping to 4% by 4 PM.

https://www.wunderground.com/maps/surface-analysis/24hr

Shows cold front in Miami at 2 PM tomorrow, clear skies to the north.

HRRR

1 PM:

Northeast surface wind at 1 PM: 9 mph, 2000' 11 mph

TOL at 1 PM: 3,300'

Updraft Velocity at 1 pm: 440 fpm

CB at 1 PM: 3,300'

B/S at 1 PM: 3.4

Cloud cover 7%

4 PM

Northeast surface wind at 4 PM: 7 mph, 2000' 9 mph

TOL at 4 PM: 3,800'

Updraft Velocity at 4 PM: 460 fpm

CB at 4 PM: 0'

B/S at 4 PM: 5.6

Cloud cover 9%

Skew-T:

1 PM:

TOL: 3,200'

Temperature: 56 degrees at TOL (73 on the surface)

https://airtribune.com/2021-wilotree-park-nationals/results

Task 2:

# Name Glider SS ES Time Speed (km/h) Total
1 Derreck Turner Moyes RX 4 15:15:00 16:38:39 01:23:39 32.2 856.0
2 Tyler Borradaile Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 15:15:00 16:40:26 01:25:26 31.5 832.1
3 Pedro L. garcia Wills Wing T3 144 15:15:00 16:42:06 01:27:06 30.9 814.5
4 Robin Hamilton Aeros Combat 13 15:15:00 16:42:13 01:27:13 30.9 805.3
5 Patrick Pannese Wills Wing T2C 15:15:00 16:42:43 01:27:43 30.7 796.3
6 Davis Straub Wills Wing T3 144 15:30:00 16:51:20 01:21:20 33.1 783.8
7 Zac Majors Wills Wing T3 144 15:15:00 16:44:19 01:29:19 30.2 781.1
8 Alan Arcos Icaro Laminar 13.7 15:15:00 16:47:53 01:32:53 29.0 750.8
9 John Simon Aeros Combat C 12.7 15:15:00 16:48:09 01:33:09 28.9 742.6
10 Willy Dydo Wills Wing T3 136 15:15:00 16:50:43 01:35:43 28.1 718.8

Cumulative:

# Name Glider Total
1 Tyler Borradaile Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 1507
2 Derreck Turner Moyes RX 4 1489
3 Zac Majors Wills Wing T3 144 1442
4 Patrick Pannese Wills Wing T2C 1205
5 Konrad Heilmann Moyes Litespeed RX3.5 Technora 1154
6 Bruce Barmakian Aeros Combat 1132
7 Alan Arcos Icaro Laminar 13.7 1130
8 Robin Hamilton Aeros Combat 13 1116
9 Pedro L. garcia Wills Wing T3 144 1035
10 Austin Marshall Wills Wing T3 154 1012

Eleven Sport Class pilots made goal with Attila winning the day and he is first overall afater two tasks. See results at link above.

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals »

April 21, 2021, 9:35:24 pm EDT

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals

Results from Task 2

Butch Peachy|competition|Konrad Heilmann|Moyes Litespeed RX|Robin Hamilton|Tyler Borradaile|Wills Wing T3|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021|Zac Majors

https://airtribune.com/2021-wilotree-park-nationals/results

Task 1:

Name Glider Time Distance (km) Total
1 Tyler Borradaile Moyes RX 3.5 Pro 02:17:35 73.84 674.4
2 Zac Majors Wills Wing T3 144 02:18:00 73.84 661.2
3 Derreck Turner Moyes RX 4 02:34:19 73.84 633.1
4 Thaisio Feliz Moyes RX5 Technora 66.74 476.6
5 Konrad Heilmann Moyes Litespeed RX3.5 Technora 60.60 447.3
6 Bruce Barmakian Aeros Combat 56.17 421.7
7 Patrick Pannese Wills Wing T2C 52.49 408.7
8 Alan Arcos Icaro Laminar 13.7 55.57 379.3
9 Butch Peachy Moyes RX 3.5 49.54 328.6
10 Robin Hamilton Aeros Combat 13 40.43 310.2

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals »

April 21, 2021, 4:16:36 pm EDT

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals

Rain on day two, but blue on day three

Task 1:

Zac and Tyler way far in the lead.

Tyler and then Zac first and second for the day. All other pilots who are in the air are 40 km behind.

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2021 Wilotree Park Nationals »

April 19, 2021, 8:50:04 pm EDT

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals

Rain

It cleared up around 3 PM, but didn't show much prospects of lift then. We went for a bike ride, https://www.strava.com/activities/5156726742.

Good chance of rain on Tuesday then things clear up on Wednesday.

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A Near Cyber Death Experience

Wed, Mar 3 2021, 8:23:21 am EST

We almost lost it

COVID|Facebook|Oz Report|Paradise Airsports Nationals 2021|Wilotree Park|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021

You might have noticed that it's been a tough year for most of us. Hang gliding continued without many competitions which would have lead to gatherings which were either frowned upon or completely forbidden by the authorities. Here in Florida we continued life outside where it is is 19 times safer (https://bestlifeonline.com/coronavirus-indoors/). Due to travel restrictions we canceled the Sport Class, Rigid Wing and Women's Worlds as well as all the Nationals competitions. Same for Big Spring.

Now a year later we are planning for the 2021 Paradise Airsports and Wilotree Park Nationals in April to be run under COVID protocols with continued international travel restrictions: https://airtribune.com/2021-paradise-airsports-nationals/info and https://airtribune.com/2021-wilotree-park-nationals/info.

During the year of crises mode we also decided to move to a new web server to reduce our costs. This transition has not been without numerous glitches as the Oz Report is a complex web site. For example, yesterday the host automatically updated PHP which caused all sorts of problems for Scare. Hopefully over time the situation will stabilize.

At one point we considered just going strictly on Facebook which would relieve us of all the web hosting issues (the high cost being the primary concern). We also were getting most of our content via Facebook posts, so it made sense to go to our Facebook version of the Oz Report.

This would mean that we would drop our email push of Oz Report issues. Also, those who find Facebook objectionable would no longer get to see our content. After a few disappointing experiments we decided to leave well enough alone. There is a Facebook version of the Oz Report and a stand-alone version. Sometimes content from the Facebook version comes over to the stand-alone version.

You can just go to the Oz Report on Facebook and ignore your news feed: https://www.facebook.com/ozreport

We don't know where things stand with our readers. We've decided not to publish every weekday unless there is news every weekday. Before it was publish or perish five days a week for 24 years. Now we are taking a bit more relaxed attitude and publishing when something interesting is happening, and hopefully with a new year and good changes to our pandemic situation coming, there will be more interesting things happening.

Thanks to all the Oz Report readers for their support over the years.

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