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topic: Pedro Garcia (42 articles)

2022 European Hang Gliding Championship »

Thu, Jul 21 2022, 6:20:25 pm GMT

Eighth task - 167 km

European HG Championships 2022

https://civlcomps.org/event/21st-fai-european-hang-gliding-class-1-championship/results

Live tracking: https://lt.flymaster.net/bs.php?grp=4489

Longer but faster. 2:47 vs. 3:30 yesterday. 73 in goal. Everyone home before 6 PM.

Task 8:

# Name Nat Glider Time Total
1 Jochen Zeischka AUT Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:46:45 1000.0
2 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:47:48 980.2
3 Christian Ciech ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:47:58 976.7
4 Peter Neuenschwander CHE Aeros Combat C 02:49:10 963.7
5 Franz Herrmann CHE Aeros Combat C 02:49:46 958.7
6 Arne Tanzer NLD Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:52:09 940.3
7 Petr Polach CZE Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:53:21 930.7
8 Joost Eertman NLD Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:54:06 920.8
9 Dan Vyhnalik CZE Aeros Combat C 02:55:35 907.7
10 Roland Wöhrle DEU Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 02:55:27 905.3

Cumulative:

# Name Nat Glider Total
1 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 7697.0
2 Christian Ciech ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 7456.0
3 Primoz Gricar DEU Aeros Combat GT 7150.0
4 Grant Crossingham GBR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 7117.0
5 Dan Vyhnalik CZE Aeros Combat C 7037.0
6 Filippo Oppici ITA Wills Wing T3 6921.0
7 Lorenzo De Grandis ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 6802.0
8 Petr Polach CZE Icaro 2000 Laminar 6689.0
9 Jon Durand AUS Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 6631.0
10 Olav Opsanger NOR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 6595.0

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2022 European Hang Gliding Championship »

Wed, Jul 20 2022, 6:14:06 pm GMT

Seventh task - 152 km

European HG Championships 2022

https://civlcomps.org/event/21st-fai-european-hang-gliding-class-1-championship/results

Live tracking: https://lt.flymaster.net/bs.php?grp=4489

Again another incremental (20 km) increase in the task length from the preceding day. 55 pilots in goal with Mario Alonzi last into goal at 5:47 over two hours later than Christian.. Christian and Alex were on final glide with Christian higher and going faster when Alex stopped to work some lift thinking perhaps that he wasn't going to make it after all.

Pedro 6th, with pilots clumped together. Petr Polach was out in front but had to find some lift in the last cylinder to be able to make it in fourth ten minutes behind Christian.

Task 7:

# Name Nat Glider Time Lead.
Points
Total
1 Christian Ciech ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:29:32 81.2 975.3
2 Petr Polach CZE Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:39:06 105.9 936.5
3 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:35:48 83.7 936.4
4 Franz Herrmann CHE Aeros Combat C 03:38:21 85.8 922.9
5 Grant Crossingham GBR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 03:39:51 79.6 903.8
6 PEDRO L. GARCIA USA Wills Wing T3 03:40:22 79.6 898.7
7 Roland Wöhrle DEU Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 03:55:57 83.7 833.6
8 Primoz Gricar DEU Aeros Combat GT 03:56:29 83.5 828.8
9 Jiri Gut CZE Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:56:46 71.8 813.5
10 Dan Vyhnalik CZE Aeros Combat C 03:56:58 72.2 810.8

Cumulative:

# Name Nat Glider Total
1 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 6717.0
2 Christian Ciech ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 6479.0
3 Primoz Gricar DEU Aeros Combat GT 6275.0
4 Grant Crossingham GBR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 6263.0
5 Dan Vyhnalik CZE Aeros Combat C 6130.0
6 Filippo Oppici ITA Wills Wing T3 6047.0
7 Lorenzo De Grandis ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 5931.0
8 Olav Opsanger NOR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 5770.0
9 Petr Polach CZE Icaro 2000 Laminar 5758.0
10 Jon Durand AUS Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 5757.0

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2022 European Hang Gliding Championship »

Tue, Jul 19 2022, 7:03:11 pm GMT

Sixth task - 135 km

European HG Championships 2022

https://civlcomps.org/event/21st-fai-european-hang-gliding-class-1-championship/results

Live tracking: https://lt.flymaster.net/bs.php?grp=4489

Tasks getting a bit longer. 58 pilots in goal. Pilots back after 6 pm. Jocken was in first place 22 km out, but on his own and didn't get the last thermal that he needed, while those just behind him stuck together.

Task 6:

# Name Nat Glider Time Lead.
Points
Total
1 Marco Laurenzi ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:09:15 106.2 989.4
2 Christian Ciech ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:08:56 92.0 984.2
3 Walter Mayer AUT Moyes Litespeed RX 4 Pro 03:08:58 86.8 975.6
4 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:09:24 94.7 971.4
5 Pedro L. Garcia USA Wills Wing T3 03:09:16 87.7 968.1
6 Lorenzo De Grandis ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:09:32 94.7 967.7
7 Juri Bressanello ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:09:49 90.7 959.1
8 Franz Herrmann CHE Aeros Combat C 03:09:53 90.2 955.8
9 Filippo Oppici ITA Wills Wing T3 03:10:01 85.5 947.8
10 David Gregoire FRA Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:10:25 90.6 945.8

Cumulative:

# Name Nat Glider Total
1 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 5781.0
2 Marco Laurenzi ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 5524.0
3 Christian Ciech ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 5504.0
4 Primoz Gricar DEU Aeros Combat GT 5447.0
5 Grant Crossingham GBR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 5359.0
6 Dan Vyhnalik CZE Aeros Combat C 5319.0
7 Filippo Oppici ITA Wills Wing T3 5285.0
8 Gerd Dönhuber DEU Aeros Combat C 12.7 5226.0
9 Lorenzo De Grandis ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 5173.0
10 Jon Durand AUS Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 5062.0

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2022 European Hang Gliding Championship »

Mon, Jul 18 2022, 6:34:43 pm GMT

Fifth task - 110 km

European HG Championships 2022

https://civlcomps.org/event/21st-fai-european-hang-gliding-class-1-championship/results

Live tracking: https://lt.flymaster.net/bs.php?grp=4489

Shorter task. 80 pilots in goal. Corinna and Gordon didn't fly. Pilots back before 6 pm.

Task 5:

# Name Nat Glider Time Total
1 Jon Durand AUS Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 02:11:27 1000.0
2 Christian Ciech ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:11:56 982.4
3 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:12:13 971.3
4 Dan Vyhnalik CZE Aeros Combat C 02:12:50 962.2
5 Olav Opsanger NOR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 02:13:00 961.1
6 Marco Laurenzi ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:12:54 957.8
7 Jochen Zeischka AUT Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:13:31 955.1
8 Grant Crossingham GBR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 02:14:10 940.0
9 Franz Herrmann CHE Aeros Combat C 02:15:36 931.8
10 Akira Nagusa JPN Wills Wing T3 02:16:32 931.2

Cumulative:

# Name Nat Glider Total
1 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 4810.0
2 Primoz Gricar DEU Aeros Combat GT 4670.0
3 Marco Laurenzi ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 4534.0
4 Christian Ciech ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 4520.0
5 Dan Vyhnalik CZE Aeros Combat C 4456.0
6 Grant Crossingham GBR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 4419.0
7 Jon Durand AUS Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 4383.0
8 Filippo Oppici ITA Wills Wing T3 4337.0
9 Gerd Dönhuber DEU Aeros Combat C 12.7 4320.0
10 Lorenzo De Grandis ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 4205.0

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2022 European Hang Gliding Championship »

Sat, Jul 16 2022, 7:04:05 pm GMT

Fourth task - 200 km

European HG Championships 2022

https://civlcomps.org/event/21st-fai-european-hang-gliding-class-1-championship/results

Live tracking: https://lt.flymaster.net/bs.php?grp=4489

Task 4:

21 in goal. Jonny Durand, the second to last pilot in goal at 6:53 PM. Pedro Garcia, the closest pilot to goal to not make it in. Launch open at noon. Pilots in the air for over 6 hours.

# Name Nat Glider Time Total
1 Primoz Gricar DEU Aeros Combat GT 04:42:21 1000.0
2 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 04:47:10 974.3
3 Franz Herrmann CHE Aeros Combat C 04:52:33 949.3
4 Lorenzo De Grandis ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 04:53:14 944.7
5 Marco Laurenzi ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 04:56:32 934.3
6 Peter Siess AUT Wills Wing T3 04:59:43 914.3
7 Joost Eertman NLD Icaro 2000 Laminar 05:01:43 901.9
8 Gerd Dönhuber DEU Icaro 2000 Laminar 05:03:25 900.5
8 Arne Tanzer NLD Icaro 2000 Laminar 05:02:47 900.5
10 Christian Ciech ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 05:16:41 871.2

Cumulative:

# Name Nat Glider Total
1 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 3844.0
2 Primoz Gricar DEU Aeros Combat GT 3811.0
3 Marco Laurenzi ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 3589.0
4 Christian Ciech ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 3566.0
5 Dan Vyhnalik CZE Aeros Combat C 3534.0
6 Grant Crossingham GBR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 3530.0
7 Filippo Oppici ITA Wills Wing T3 3520.0
8 Gerd Dönhuber DEU Icaro 2000 Laminar 3491.0
9 Jon Durand AUS Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 3440.0
10 Lorenzo De Grandis ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 3405.0

From Regina Glas. Tomorrow a rest day with strong winds in the forecast.

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2022 European Hang Gliding Championship »

Sat, Jul 16 2022, 12:24:06 am GMT

Third task

European HG Championships 2022

https://civlcomps.org/event/21st-fai-european-hang-gliding-class-1-championship/results

Task 3:

# Name Nat Glider Time Total
1 Peter Neuenschwander CHE Aeros Combat C 03:04:34 1000.0
2 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:06:11 981.7
3 Primoz Gricar DEU Aeros Combat GT 03:06:45 975.9
4 Christian Ciech ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:07:14 970.2
5 Filippo Oppici ITA Wills Wing T3 03:08:24 955.3
6 Jochen Zeischka AUT Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:12:58 931.0
7 Roland Wöhrle DEU Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 03:19:34 885.7
8 Jon Durand AUS Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 03:25:25 854.2
9 Petr Polach CZE Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:27:12 848.4
10 Gerd Dönhuber DEU Icaro 2000 Laminar 03:28:36 836.4

Cumulative:

# Name Nat Glider Total
1 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 2869.0
2 Primoz Gricar DEU Aeros Combat GT 2811.0
3 Grant Crossingham GBR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 2717.0
4 Dan Vyhnalik CZE Aeros Combat C 2698.0
5 Christian Ciech ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 2695.0
6 Filippo Oppici ITA Wills Wing T3 2694.0
7 Jochen Zeischka AUT Icaro 2000 Laminar 2676.0
8 Marco Laurenzi ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 2655.0
9 Petr Polach CZE Icaro 2000 Laminar 2654.0
10 Jon Durand AUS Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 2648.0

170 km task, 74 pilots in goal. Task deadline is now moved to 8 PM. Last pilot in goal at 6:29 PM.

Live tracking: https://lt.flymaster.net/bs.php?grp=4489

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2022 European Hang Gliding Championship »

Thu, Jul 14 2022, 6:20:29 pm GMT

Second task

European HG Championships 2022

https://civlcomps.org/event/21st-fai-european-hang-gliding-class-1-championship/results

Task 2:

# Name Nat Glider Time Lead.
Points
Total
1 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:49:11 96.7 995.6
2 Primoz Gricar DEU Aeros Combat GT 02:50:06 92.0 979.5
3 Vanni Accattoli ITA Moyes Litespeed RX 4 Pro 02:50:59 101.1 979.3
4 Petr Polach CZE Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:53:23 91.8 946.5
5 Dan Vyhnalik CZE Aeros Combat C 02:53:58 94.3 943.0
6 Grant Crossingham GBR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 02:52:44 77.9 942.3
7 Christian Ciech ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:52:48 78.3 939.3
8 Lorenzo De Grandis ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:54:07 82.9 928.2
9 Steve Docherty AUS Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 02:56:44 99.8 919.9
10 Marco Laurenzi ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:55:07 77.0 914.4

Cumulative:

# Name Nat Glider T1 T2 Total
1 Grant Crossingham GBR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 948.3 942.3 1891.0
2 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 892.0 995.6 1888.0
3 Dan Vyhnalik CZE Aeros Combat C 923.7 943.0 1867.0
4 Lorenzo De Grandis ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 930.3 928.2 1859.0
5 Primoz Gricar DEU Aeros Combat GT 855.6 979.5 1835.0
6 Marco Laurenzi ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 906.8 914.4 1821.0
7 Vanni Accattoli ITA Moyes Litespeed RX 4 Pro 832.4 979.3 1812.0
8 Petr Polach CZE Icaro 2000 Laminar 859.4 946.5 1806.0
9 Jon Durand AUS Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 957.3 836.2 1794.0
10 Steve Docherty AUS Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 872.8 919.9 1793.0

Steve Blenkinsop last into goal at 6:44 PM, 16 minutes before the close.

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2022 European Hang Gliding Championship »

Wed, Jul 13 2022, 5:33:33 pm GMT

First task

European HG Championships 2022

https://civlcomps.org/event/21st-fai-european-hang-gliding-class-1-championship/results

# Name Nat Glider Time Lead.
Points
Time
Points
Arr.
Pos.
Points
Total
1 David Gregoire FRA Icaro 2000 Laminar 01:57:47 83.9 446.0 79.6 970.6
2 Jon Durand AUS Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 02:00:27 100.1 420.8 75.3 957.3
3 Grant Crossingham GBR Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 02:00:15 87.4 422.4 77.4 948.3
4 Lorenzo De Grandis ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:01:57 86.6 409.5 73.1 930.3
5 Dan Vyhnalik CZE Aeros Combat C 02:02:48 88.1 403.4 71.1 923.7
6 Marco Laurenzi ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:05:28 91.4 385.2 69.1 906.8
7 Alessandro Ploner ITA Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:07:56 96.3 369.4 65.2 892.0
8 Gerd Dönhuber DEU Icaro 2000 Laminar 02:07:02 87.3 375.1 67.1 890.6
9 Pedro L. Garcia USA Wills Wing T3 02:08:39 93.5 364.9 59.8 879.3
10 Trent Brown AUS Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Pro 02:08:05 80.9 368.4 63.3 873.7

Australian team is first in the European Championships.

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2022 European Hang Gliding Championship »

Thu, Jul 7 2022, 8:35:46 pm GMT

July 10th through 23rd

European HG Championships 2022

https://www.italy2020.eu/en/

The maximum number of pilots in the championship is 130 (125 European pilots + 5 non-European wild cards pilots).

The maximum number of pilots constituting a national team is 6.

The maximum number of pilots that may be entered by a NAC is unlimited.

https://civlcomps.org/event/21st-fai-european-hang-gliding-class-1-championship

Pedro Garcia is the only US pilot flying in the competition.

The Australian team:

Twenty one Italians. No indications yet of who is on the various teams and who is flying as individuals.

Live Tracking: https://lt.flymaster.net/bs.php?grp=4489

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A few comments on JD's analysis

Fri, May 20 2022, 6:42:47 pm MDT

Why did he take the time to look at this issue?

cloud flying|Daniel Vélez Bravo|FAI Sporting Code|J.D. Guillemette|Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

JD writes:

The thing is I first reviewed the track logs from day one to see if my perception was correct. Turned out, I was wrong.

So then I looked at day 3 expecting to see Velez way above everyone by 1200' and cloud flying, that was the rumor. Instead, I saw him just a bit higher than others and presumably by himself in the blue. After reviewing the replay it changed my mind of what happened and felt I needed to point it out and squash the rumors.

Like JD I also looked at the pilot's track logs. I used SeeYou, which normalized the data, so that all the pilots altitudes were comparable. I was the pilot A in JD's map. I found cloud base to be 5,100'. I found that at his highest Daniel was at 5,236'. I also found that Daniel was over 4,000' to the east of pilots C/D, away from the cloud.

Should the 200 point penalty that Daniel received be rescinded and he be given the 10 point penalty as per CIVIL Section 7A rules?

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Cloud Flying »

Fri, May 20 2022, 6:40:21 pm MDT

A careful look at the data

cloud flying|Daniel Vélez Bravo|FAI Sporting Code|FS|J.D. Guillemette|Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

JD Guillemette writes:

My take on the Daniel Velez incident on Task 3 of the Wilotree National.

Daniel Velez was penalized 200 point on Task 3 for cloud flying and/or being too high above cloud base. Some estimates were that he had taken 1200ft unfair altitude advantage and he had an unfair advantage all the way to the 1st turn point.

I want to first say that I do not condone cloud flying, it’s dangerous, in violation of Federal Aviation Regulations and unsportsmanlike.

I have reviewed the replay of the pilot's track log IGC files from Airtribune and all the altitudes are the raw data as reported by the trackers and was the data used for scoring. Because the altitudes are not normalize , i.e. every pilot's launch altitude it not set to the actual GPS altitude which was the same for all pilots, there will be discrepancy if the same data is normalized with SeeYou, FS, or other programs due to altitude correction at launch.

To start the analysis we need to estimate cloud base. There were two clouds of interest that pilots were thermaling under. One cloud was near the edge of the start cylinder with Pilots A and B (among other) and another cloud to the Northwest with Pilots C and D (among others), please refer to the location map.

It’s difficult to determine the actual lateral boundaries of the clouds, but the center to center distance between the two thermaling groups is about 2.6km. Between time –00:08:04 (8 minutes before the start gate at 2 PM) and –00:06:28 pilot’s A and B maximum altitude was 1591m (5220’) and 1587m (5207’), we will assume that they were not cloud flying and this is the approximation of cloud A/B base. Between time –00:04:37 and –00:03:50 pilot’s C and D maximum altitude was 1535m (5036’) and 1543m (5062’), again assuming they were not cloud flying, we can assume this is the base of cloud C/D. There is already some degree of uncertainty of the cloud bases as they varied, but for sake of argument cloud base is between 1535m (5036’) and 1591m (5220’).

At time -00:01:25, Velez reached a max altitude of 1669m (5476’) at the location show on the map. He was right about equidistant between the two thermaling groups, and by his own admission higher than cloud base and not in the cloud with the cloud wall to his West. But how far to his West? Without knowledge of the actual lateral boundaries of the two clouds we don’t know for sure, but assuming a cloud diameters of 1km centered over the two thermaling groups, it’s mathematically possible that Velez was at least 2000’ laterally from either cloud. If so he may not have violated the Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) of 500’ under and 2000’ to side of a cloud.

At time -00:01:00 Velez stopped circling and proceeded to the edge of the start cylinder about 1km away. He crossed the start cylinder at Time +00:00:05 at 1595m (5233’) altitude. If we use the higher estimate of cloud A/B base (which was the cloud closer to the start cylinder) of 1591m (5220’), Velez started the race at 5 seconds past the first start gate at cloud base altitude, a near perfect start!

Between times +00:01:02 and +00:01:32 a large gaggle of pilots including pilots from cloud C/D crossed the start cylinder at altitudes ranging from 1231m (4039’) to 1325m (4347’). Velez was 900’ to 1200’ higher crossing the start cylinder than the following gaggle. This was the perceived “unfair advantage” Velez had taken.

However, Velez had an excellent start, right at the assumed cloud base altitude and 5 seconds after the 1st start gate, this was not an unfair start and any other pilot could have fairly started from the same position. The following gaggle had a bad start, headed for the start line from over 2km within the start circle, over a minute late, and giving up as much as 300m (984’) from their previous altitude. It wasn’t that Velez was too high, it was that they were low! If any pilots in that gaggle felt they had a poor start, they could have returned for the second start gate and tried for a better start. After all, isn’t that why there are more than one start gate, to try to get the best start you can?

It was also said that Velez took an unfair advantage prior to start by climbing to 1669m (5476’) which was between 134m and 78m (439’ to 256’) above the two cloud bases. But from the altitudes reported by pilots A/B and C/D trackers there was a variation in cloud bases and these two locations were over 1.3km from Velez’s position. Who is to say which cloud base altitude he was to reference? What if there a third developing cloud right above his location and he was under that base, would he now be below cloud base? Furthermore, the race starts at the start line, at the start time, Velez had timed it perfect and had no unfair altitude advantage since he was at cloud base altitude when he crossed the start line.

With regards to having an unfair advantage all the way to 1st turn point, at about time +00:23:53 and about half way to the 1st turn point Velez was with other pilots in a gaggle and no higher than anyone else. The author (Guillemette) and Velez left this climb at cloud base together at about the same altitude and were not the front runners. Additionally Velez was 3rd to reach the 1st turn point and at an altitude less than the two pilots in front of him and the two other pilots that made the turn point the same time he did. So any perceived unfair advantage he had to the 1st turn was a false claim.

FAI Sporting Code, Section 7A - 1st May 2022 (see 6.3) was also cited as the reason for the penalty. The key element cited from the rule is:

“Since it is against the law to climb up the side of a cloud above the transition level, this may not be an acceptable excuse for being higher than other pilots in the case of a complaint”.

But just what is the interpretation of this new rule? If we as pilots were crossing a “blue hole” and the nearest cloud is 10km away, is it saying we can not climb above the base of that cloud? Certainly not! What if the nearest cloud was 5km away or 1km (3000’)?

The text of the rule is “…climb up the side of a cloud…”, this implies that the pilot is in close proximity of the side of the cloud. If we look at the FAR, climbing up the side of a cloud would also be a violation. But what if the pilot is more than 2000’ from the side of the cloud as required by FAR? IMO, this new rule is moot in the USA since the FAR will not allow us to be more than 2000’ from the side of the cloud. We don’t know for sure since we don’t know the lateral boundaries of the cloud at that time, but Velez says he was 800m from the side of the cloud. As mentioned before, based upon the location of the two thermaling groups relative to Velez’s position, this supports Velez’s claim.

Furthermore, the cloud flying 1st offence penalty is 10 points (no warning). Although 10 points seems too small, keep in mind there is no warning, IMO the points are assigned to remove all doubt the pilot had a 1st offence. 2nd and 3rd offences are much stricter to strongly discourage cloud flying.

My point is there is very little hard evidence Velez did anything wrong or deliberately took an unfair advantage and in my opinion the 200 point penalty was excessive and could not be supported by fact or rule.

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2022 Wilotree Park Nationals »

Thu, May 12 2022, 9:00:34 pm MDT

Daniel Velez Bravo's analysis

Daniel Vélez Bravo|Davis Straub|Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

https://danielvelezbravo.wordpress.com/

Translated into English:

https://danielvelezbravo-wordpress-com.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Until the start of the championship and until the night I was sanctioned, we were aware that flying in a cloud consisted of completely disappearing inside a cloud, from the view of another pilot who was just below. Strictly speaking, it is what pilots call “white out” and it is that everything turns white in all directions, so there is no relationship with the ground or the sky. Under this criteria, I take it very seriously when I am in championships, to never fly in the clouds, and always make sure I am below or next to them, obviously getting as close as possible to gain the greatest advantage without losing sight of the ground or of the horizon. On day 3, 8 minutes before the start, I got much closer than expected to the base in a strong ascent and I had to retreat 800 meters to the side of the cloud, to make sure you don't get caught inside it. And just before the start, where I took the highest altitude and the best position, I was flying with the wall of a cloud to my west, but with more than 180° of open sky, down, up and east completely open and clear.

However, that night of the sanction, reviewing the rules of section 7 that regulates international sports aviation, we found an addendum of May 1, 2022 (that is, it began to be applied one day before the start of the championship) that it had a single strange mention that "climbing on the side of the cloud is illegal", and that mention was tied to the fact that this might not be considered an argument to be higher than the other pilots.

With this mention then, the evaluation committee reviews my situation and analyzes if I broke the rule by climbing higher than the base of the cloud, as I accepted in my interview, and they conclude that indeed, under the criteria of the FAI standard of the May 1, 2022, I did something wrong.

Now then the other part of the story appears: What is the sanction for this type of fault.

It turns out that the local regulations of the event did not have anything written about flying in clouds, so as Davis Straub noted, this gap must be filled with what section 7 says about it .

So, since I was indeed accused of flying in clouds, and I accepted that I used the side of the cloud to justify my additional height but that statement was not received, the director applied the sanction of flying in cloud, but unbelievably, and despite the fact that Davis Straub warned him, the sanction they applied of 20% of the points, which was not in the local regulations, nor was it supported by the international regulations, exceeded by 190 points the sanction for the first offense of flying in clouds, which is, as we copied above, only 10 points!

You don't have to be an expert then to see that my difference of 55 points with the first official place in the championship is nothing more than an improperly applied sanction, from a director who doesn't listen to reason or bother to sit down and talk with me, and that I was probably influenced by those who filed the cloud flight complaint(s) against me.

In summary: They applied a sanction 20 times more serious than the sanction defined for flying in clouds, and they did it without mentioning who reported me, nor being able to review or refute their reports, and despite the fact that the technical report with which they sanctioned me I was completely out of context. It was enough to have taken the time to review the animation in Ayvri, and see that I was not "thermalizing" inside the clouds as usually happens when there is really malicious flight in clouds (you see the pilot who continues to thermal in the same ascent as the others. And even if after that they wanted to insist on sanctioning me to make sure I stayed not just out of the clouds, but out of them.

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2022 Wilotree Park Nationals »

Sat, May 7 2022, 11:29:32 am MDT

Day six, canceled

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

Morning Soaring Forecast for Saturday, May 7th, 2022 at Wilotree Park:

NWS, Today:

A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 8am. Mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming sunny, with a high near 87°F. Windy, with a west wind 10 to 15 mph increasing to 15 to 20 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 25 mph. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

The sky is clear at sunrise with the clouds having gone further south.

Hourly morning and afternoon forecast: southwest wind at 7 am, 9 mph (actually there is no wind), 14 mph west-southwest at 10 am with gusting to 18 mph, at 1 pm, 17 mph west gusting to 23 mph, at 4 pm, west 18 mph gusting to 25 mph, afternoon cloud cover 29% decreasing to 13%, afternoon chance of rain 17% decreasing to 10%.

HRRR, 1 PM:

Surface wind: west slightly southwest 17 mph (24 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 520 fpm
TOL: 5,900'
CB: none
B/S: 3.4

HRRR, 4 PM:

Surface wind: west-southwest 16 mph (22 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 380 fpm
TOL: 4,300'
CB: none
B/S: 1.9

CAPE shows high chance of over development in the morning (9 am to 10 am) decreasing in the afternoon. This is contradicted by the clear sky that we see this morning.

What the sky looked like near noon:

We are north of the big cloud. There were plenty of cu's. The wind was strong out of the west. The task was the same as the day before (see above).

The winds recorded at Leesburg airfield at 10 are 13 mph gusting to 22 mph, and at 11 are 10 mpg gusting to 23 mph.

The final results are found here:

https://OzReport.com/26.68#1

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2022 Wilotree Park Nationals »

Fri, May 6 2022, 3:28:09 pm MDT

Day five, canceled

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

The forecast for strong gusts, tight landing areas, no cu's were causes for canceling the task.

Morning Soaring Forecast for Friday, May 6th, 2022 at Wilotree Park:

NWS, Today:

Sunny, with a high near 93°F. Light west-southwest wind increasing to 10 to 15 mph in the morning. Winds could gust as high as 25 mph.

Hourly afternoon forecast: southwest wind 13 mph increasing to 17 mph gusting to 24 mph, cloud cover 17%, no chance of rain.

RAP, Noon:

Surface wind: southwest 11 mph (14 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 560 fpm
TOL: 4,400'
CB: none
B/S: 4.1

RAP, 4 PM:

Surface wind: southwest 13 mph (21 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 600 fpm
TOL: 5,400'
CB: none
B/S: 4.2

CAPE shows very little chance of over development here or in the neighborhood but likely on the coasts.

SkewT shows slight chance of cu-nimb here.

58°F at CB.

The task:

Wilotree 10 km
Midflo 3 km
Zimmrr 400 m.

71 km

This is what the sky looked like this afternoon:

The winds at Leesburg Airfield:

06 15:53 SW 14 G 21
06 14:53 S 14 G 22
06 13:53 S 12

The task would have taken us over areas with few landing fields and lots of housing, trees, and wet lands. All the models showed 20-26 mph gusts along the course line with steady winds 13-15 mph all day long. If the winds had been out of the south, southeast, or north, that would likely have been doable.

Very Preliminary Soaring Forecast for Saturday, May 7th, 2022 at Wilotree Park:

NWS:

A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 2pm. Mostly cloudy through mid morning, then gradual clearing, with a high near 87°F. Windy, with a west wind 10 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.

Hourly morning and afternoon forecast: west-southwest wind at 10 am, 15 mph gusting to 21 mph, at 1 pm, 18 mph gusting to 25 mph, at 4 pm, 20 mph gusting to 28 mph, afternoon cloud cover 19% decreasing to 9%, afternoon chance of rain 15%.

HRRR, 1 pm (surface temperature forecasted is 2°F lower than NWS forecast at 1 pm):

Surface wind: west slightly southwest 14 mph (25 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 0 fpm
TOL: 0'
CB: none
B/S: 0.0

HRRR, 4 PM:

Surface wind: west slightly southwest 17 mph (29 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 0 fpm
TOL: 0'
CB: none
B/S: 0.0

CAPE shows high chance of over development (2,300 J/kg).

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2022 Wilotree Park Nationals »

Thu, May 5 2022, 8:11:23 pm MDT

Day four, results

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

https://airtribune.com/2022-wilotree-park-nationals/results

Open task:

# Name Nat Glider Time Total
1 Konrad Heilmann BRA Moyes Litespeed RX3.5 Technora 02:05:08 910.3
2 Robin Hamilton USA Aeros Combat 01:52:14 905.8
3 John Simon USA Aeros Combat C 12.7 01:52:24 898.2
4 Daniel Velez COL Wills Wing T3 02:11:44 849.8
5 Pedro L. Garcia USA Wills Wing T3 144 02:11:54 818.0
6 James Messina USA Aeros Combat 13.5 02:21:51 678.7
7 Raul Guerra ECU Icaro Moyes RX 02:40:26 669.6
8 Fabiano Nahoum BRA Icaro Laminar 14.1 02:39:52 659.9
9 Rich Reinauer USA Wills Wing T3C 02:47:48 616.9
10 JD Guillemette USA Tbd Tbd 02:52:38 594.2

Cumulative:

# Name Nat Glider T 1 T 2 T 3 T 4 Total
1 Robin Hamilton USA Aeros Combat 823.1 651.3 884.0 905.8 3264
2 Daniel Velez COL Wills Wing T3 984.3 574.8 800.0 849.8 3209
3 Pedro L. Garcia USA Wills Wing T3 144 857.4 534.8 872.1 818.0 3082
4 John Simon USA Aeros Combat C 12.7 765.7 603.5 686.8 898.2 2954
5 Mick Howard USA Moyes RX 3.5 841.8 369.1 785.3 253.3 2250
6 Mike Glennon COL Moyes SX 5 710.5 650.0 643.6 229.6 2234
7 Raul Guerra ECU Icaro Moyes RX 558.4 152.3 837.4 669.6 2218
8 James Messina USA Aeros Combat 13.5 672.7 509.0 333.8 678.7 2194
9 Konrad Heilmann BRA Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Technora 782.4 50.8 375.2 910.3 2119
10 Peter Kelley USA Icaro Laminar 13.2 408.9 469.1 827.0 409.4 2114

Sport task:

# Name Nat Glider Time Total
1 Dean Funk M USA Moyes Gecko Pro 02:36:14 929.3
1 Tim Delaney M USA Wills Wing Sport 3 135 02:49:30 929.3
3 Thaise Caroline Galvan F BRA Moyes Gecko 03:41:30 653.0
4 Jon Irlbeck M USA Wills Wing U2 160 03:51:59 609.0

Cumulative:

# Name Nat Glider T 1 T 2 T 3 T 4 Total
1 Tim Delaney M USA Wills Wing Sport 3 135 933.1 48.8 377.7 929.3 2289
2 Thaise Caroline Galvan F BRA Moyes Gecko 704.3 30.2 879.2 653.0 2267
3 Dean Funk M USA Moyes Gecko Pro 550.2 59.1 559.9 929.3 2099
4 Leonardo Ortiz M COL Aeros Discus 996.9 59.2 634.3 272.6 1963
5 John Maloney M USA Wills Wing Sport 3 155 831.4 30.1 559.1 215.4 1636

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2022 Wilotree Park Nationals »

Thu, May 5 2022, 8:10:20 pm MDT

Day four, light winds and cu's

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

Morning Soaring Forecast for Thursday, May 8th, 2022 at Wilotree Park:

NWS, Today:

Patchy fog before 8am. Otherwise, sunny, with a high near 94°F. Calm wind becoming west around 5 mph.

Hourly afternoon forecast: northwest wind 2 mph, cloud cover 19% increasing to 27% by 4 pm, 20% chance of rain after 5 pm

RAP, 1 PM:

Surface wind: west-southwest 3 mph (3 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 620 fpm
TOL: 6,200'
CB: 5,700'
B/S: 10.0 (all models shows 10.0)

RAP, 4 PM:

Surface wind: 4 mph west-southwest (5 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 660 fpm
TOL: 6,400'
CB: none (all the other models show cu's)
B/S: 10.0 (all models shows 10.0)

CAPE shows little chance of over development here or in the neighborhood.

SkewT show reduced chance of cu-nimb here.

53°F at CB.

The task:

Wilotree 8 km
Cheryl 1 km
Panolk 3 km
Cheryl 5 km
Baron 8 km
Wilotree 400m

78.7 km

We launched at 1 PM and I was off fourth behind a 583 powered tug with April at the controls. We are launching from the southeast corner with a west wind at about 3 to 5 mph. The first part of the launch went well and I came off the cart at the right speed and get right behind her without any issues. Then as we passed the slot for the east west runway I was thrown hard and up to the right. I was now way high on her as I got the hang glider back level. Thankfully she didn't release me and I was able to let her climbed up to me. The rest of the tow was without incident.

I was able to climb to 5,100' at cloud base before heading to the northwest with a dozen other pilots. I like being able to go over to Mascotte and stay inside the start cylinder, which gives us plenty of area to find lift. None the less we crowded up right against the edge of the start cylinder.

Pedro and I took off first from a light thermal just outside the start cylinder and headed into the blue hole going to the west-northwest toward Center Hill. Just north of the northwest corner of the nursery I found 15 fpm and Pedro joined me along with a few others that caught up with us for a few turns.

Finding this thermal to be ridiculous I made the decision to head for the cu to the southwest, west of the nursery. At almost the same time Pedro decided to head west. I don't know what he saw over there, but it looked blue to me.

I entered the thermal at 2,700' and climbed at an average of 99 fpm. I saw the pilots who instead of heading west-northwest headed west and they were about 2,000' over me just under the cu. Konrado, who would win the day, was among them. Plateauing at 3,200' I lost patience and headed north toward some small cu's.

Pedro was still gliding and soon was down to 700' AGL when he found a 245 fpm climb to 3,200' before heading on to the next thermal.

I came in under cu after cu but did not find enough lift to sustain a climb throughout a single turn. There were a couple of better looking cu's a bit to my west that I likely should have tried, but they were over a treed area and I was down to 2,000'. Finally I had to land just east of Center Hill.

I thought that I made the rational choice to head for the cu but it didn't work out. Pedro found the good lift from low.

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2022 Wilotree Park Nationals »

Wed, May 4 2022, 7:53:40 pm MDT

Day three, looks like a much better day

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

The forecast:

Morning Soaring Forecast for Wednesday, May 4th, 2022 at Wilotree Park:

NWS, Today:

A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 91°F. Calm wind becoming east around 5 mph.

Hourly afternoon forecast: east wind 3 mph at 1 pm turning to 5 mph northeast at 3 pm, cloud cover 30% increasing to 39% by 4 pm, chance of rain, 7% before 2 pm, then 33% until 4 pm, then 39%.

HRRR, 1 PM:

Surface wind: north 2 mph (4 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 640 fpm
TOL: 6,700'
CB: 5,900'
B/S: 10.0

HRRR, 4 PM:

Surface wind: north 6 mph (7 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 620 fpm
TOL: 7,900'
CB: 7,700'
B/S: 10.0

CAPE shows some chance of over development here or in the neighborhood but very likely on the coasts.

SkewT doesn't show cu-nimbs

47°F at CB.

We didn't get any rain during the day, but a few exploded cu-mimbs on the west coast brought a bit of shade.

The task:

Wilotree 5 km
Fantsy 5km
DSROK 5 km
T47433 2 km
Wilotree 400 m

77 km

We launched at 1:10 PM after the Sport Class launch and started at 2 PM.

I asked everyone who saw it about my launch from the previous day and other than folks being amazed that I didn't kill myself I didn't get much help about what to do to avoid the problem. Then just before launch Mick Howard said that my back cradle was too low. He had tried "my" cart and disliked it. He wanted me to get on a different cart with a higher back cradle and therefore a shallower angle of attack.

I have been using this cart in this position (it's fixed) for two years, but it is only this year that I've run into this problem of the left wing dipping. It is clearly the case that the left wing is stalled or not flying while the right wing rises up. The issue was why, when this didn't happen before and now only with the 583 powered tugs, like Bobby's.

I towed behind Jim Prahl in a 914 powered tug today with the back cradle up. It all went smoothly like it is supposed to. I think what is going on is that I slightly changed my launched procedure this year. Instead of pulling in over the base bar with one tube held in my left arm and getting the protow release in front of the base bar, and then grabbing the other tube with my right hand, I have been grabbing both tubes and rocking up to get the release above the base tube. I likely haven't been pulling enough forward to get the stinger out of the cradle and launch angle reduced to where it would be if I had the higher back cradle.

So tomorrow I will go ahead and tow behind whoever comes to tow me with the adjusted cart with the higher back cradle.

I was the first to tow in the open class after one early bird and I quickly found 300 fpm to cloud base at 4,500' right over Wilotree Park. So the game of keeping out of the cloud commenced. I happily flew to a cu to the southeast to get up to 5,000' and just stay on the edge of the cu. at the edge of start cylinder.

I lost a few hundred feet getting the start time by getting back into the start cylinder and then getting to the first cu down the course line put me down to 3,400' south of Lake Erie and in a weak thermal up to 4,100'. Heading south I found 500 fpm to 4,800', now things were looking good, but half a dozen pilots were out in front and couldn't be seen. I was already just east of the Seminole Lake Glider Port and had a 5 mph north tail wind.

The next thermal was south of 474 and 33 and averaged 430 fpm to 5,100.' Derrick Turner and I were scorching the task hitting strong lift after the initial weak stuff. We flew over the sport class pilots who were bunched up low south of 474. The as we approached Dean Still there were half a dozen pilot low well below us heading south toward the Fantasy of Flight turnpoint. Whoa, we were high above the leading guys.

The lift over them was a weak 150 fpm, but there was no need to rush ahead. We climbed to 4,100' then I headed out with Daniel Velez to get the turnpoint. We turned around and headed back north to get under the next cu, but it was only 170 fpm to 4,100'. Daniel left but I didn't see him go. I headed on my own west to a cu but it was only 130 fpm to 3,300'.

Again on my own I headed north back toward Dean Still road and toward the 5 km turnpoint cylinder around Dean Still and Rockridge. I found 200 fpm just south of Dean Still, but still was only able to climb to 3,300'.

Inside the turnpoint cylinder heading toward cu's over the Famish turnpoint I was down to 1,600'. I worked 76 fpm to 2,000' and then went looking for better lift. I went searching all over looking for lift under cu's. I was in the cylinder for twenty minutes and down to 1,100' AGL over the Green Swamp I found 233 fpm that got me to 4,000' and on my way again.

It was almost 4 PM.

I headed into the Green Swamp to get under a good locking cu and got up at 230 fpm to 4,600'. Heading east-southeast to the next cu got me 250 fpm to 5,000'. These cu's were over sunlit fields. There was now shade to the north caused by the outpouring from a cu-nimb far to the west.

Fortunately there were cu's over the shaded ground as the cloud above wasn't that thick and I climbed to 4,600' after tagging the turnpoint at 474 and 33. There were plenty of cu's ahead and the shading was disappearing. I stopped for 200 fpm lift 11 km out from goal and came in with plenty of altitude.

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2022 Wilotree Park Nationals »

Wed, May 4 2022, 7:52:24 pm MDT

Day three, results

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

https://airtribune.com/2022-wilotree-park-nationals/results

Open task:

# Name Nat Glider Time Total
1 Robin Hamilton USA Aeros Combat 02:21:50 884.0
2 Pedro L. Garcia USA Wills Wing T3 144 02:22:59 872.1
3 Raul Guerra ECU Icaro Moyes RX 02:20:14 837.4
4 Peter Kelley USA Icaro Laminar 13.2 02:34:23 827.0
5 Daniel Velez COL Wills Wing T3 02:09:31 800.0
6 Mick Howard USA Moyes RX 3.5 02:22:45 785.3
7 Davis Straub USA Wills Wing T3 144 02:53:42 715.7
8 Miguel Molina PRI Aeros Combat C 13.5 02:56:16 697.4
9 John Simon USA Aeros Combat C 12.7 03:00:23 686.8
10 Mike Glennon COL Moyes SX 5 03:10:00 643.6

Cumulative:

# Name Nat Glider T 1 T 2 T 3 Total
1 Daniel Velez COL Wills Wing T3 984.3 574.8 800.0 2359
2 Robin Hamilton USA Aeros Combat 823.1 651.3 884.0 2358
3 Pedro L. Garcia USA Wills Wing T3 144 857.4 534.8 872.1 2264
4 John Simon USA Aeros Combat C 12.7 765.7 603.5 686.8 2056
5 Mike Glennon COL Moyes SX 5 710.5 650.0 643.6 2004
6 Mick Howard USA Moyes RX 3.5 841.8 369.1 785.3 1996
7 Davis Straub USA Wills Wing T3 144 628.3 529.1 715.7 1873
8 Rob Cooper USA Wills Wing T2 393.2 806.0 642.1 1841
9 Peter Kelley USA Icaro Laminar 13.2 408.9 469.1 827.0 1705
10 Raul Guerra ECU Icaro Moyes RX 558.4 152.3 837.4 1548

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2022 Wilotree Park Nationals »

Tue, May 3 2022, 6:20:26 pm MDT

Day two, would we be able to have a task at all?

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

The forecast:

Morning Soaring Forecast for Tuesday, May 3rd, 2022 at Wilotree Park:

NWS, Today:

A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 89°F. Southeast wind around 5 mph.

Hourly afternoon forecast: southeast wind 7 mph, cloud cover 50% increasing to 60% by 4 pm, chance of rain 4% before 2 pm, then 34% until 4 pm, then 51%.

HRRR, 1 PM:

Surface wind: southeast 7 mph (8 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 600 fpm
TOL: 6,100'
CB: 5,300'
B/S: 10.0

HRRR, 4 PM:

Surface wind: east-southeast 4 mph (4 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 580 fpm
TOL: 6,600'
CB: 6,100'
B/S: 10.0

CAPE shows some chance of over development here or in the neighborhood but very likely on the coasts.

SkewT shows cu-nimbs don't develop if the high is 86°F.

50°F at CB.

There was a forecast for rain at Wilotree at 6 PM (didn't happen)

We woke up to a completely covered sky, thick gray clouds every where. It didn't look like that there would be any lift any where later.

The NWS hourly forecast (see above) showed at least 50% cloud cover all day and it was already 100%.

None the less the task committee came up with a task, the reverse of the Monday task with a few modifications to the size of the turnpoint cylinders.

Wilotree 8 km
Baron 4 km
Kokee 2 km
Wilotree 400 m

82 km

This task allowed us to stay in the area where there would be the least likelihood of over development and rain.

But there was a lot of doubt about whether that could happen. The Sport Class launched first at 12:40 pm and for the most part they were able to stick, but the conditions still looked very weak as the ground was completely shaded. We postponed the open launch for half an hour to 1:30 PM.

At ten minutes before the open launch the task committee decided to remove Baron from the turnpoints in the task, so it would be to Kokee and back, a 58 km task.

A bunch of open class pilots chose to launch later in the line so I was off early. Almost killed again towing behind Bobby Bailey. The glider went off to the left very hard right away. I held on even harder to the cart as I thought I was going to crash hard, but then realized that the cart was underneath me. The glider whipped around and I dropped the cart when I realized that I was flying. I'm so glad that I've trained myself to hold onto that cart no matter what.

I'm going behind Jim Prahl or Kacey from now on. I don't need to be this brave. The left wing never dips behind the powerful tugs.

There was a thermal right over the launch and of course Bobby wound his tug up tight, which is always a thrill, yet another one apparently, but I held on on the outside and despite the fact that we were in lift I wasn't going to let go until 2,000' AGL, the tow height limit for the competition.

Since we were already turning tight in a thermal I just continued climbing to cloud base at 3,800' and started playing the keep out of the mists game with Pedro Garcia and a few other pilots for about ten minutes with almost half an hour to go until the start window opened. As the lift died we chose to go to the northwest near the edge of the 8 km start cylinder. It it so much nicer to have this additional room when you've got to find the sparse lift.

The lift over Mascotte was weak and soon gave out. I headed for a brown field that had been cleared for development to the east. Other pilots went to the fire over a cleared area to the southeast. Raul followed me to the east.

The lift was great and we were soon back at cloud base. Later Maria would come in under us. The pilots at the fire did well, but their lift stopped at about 5 minutes before the start gate.

Raul and I stayed high (3,800'-4,000') at cloud base as we drifted slowly toward the edge of the start cylinder. We had such a poor start on Monday, it was super great to have a superior start on Tuesday.

I headed west north of the nursery while Raul headed west a bit to my south over the nursery. It looked really dark on the ground in that direction from all the shade from the cu's further to the south. I was heading for more sunlit areas spotted with cu's.

I found some weak lift back to 3,600' and then headed west without seeing Raul again. Down to 1,100' AGL after a 7 km glide over open and sunlit pastures I found 400 fpm that averaged 330 fpm to the top at 3,900'. I saw the pilots from the fire coming toward the two of us turning in a very tight thermal with our wing tips way up. One pilot came in at my altitude and I just said to myself that he had better be prepared to put it up on a wing tip. Fortunately he was and we climbed together rapidly drifting at 9 mph to the west.

It was ten kilometers to the turnpoint and I didn't find much lift under the cu's on the way there. Just before I nicked the turnpoint I felt a little bit of lift that I flew through, but then went back to. I could have easily been the first one to make it to the turnpoint. The pilot I had circled up with came a bit later then Daniel, and then later half a dozen other pilots as the lift continued to be very weak. There were patches of sunlit ground around but mostly the ground was shaded.

It took almost twenty minutes to dig my way out of this area drifting further west to I75 and climbing to 4,100'. The six or eight pilots headed east toward Webster looking for the cu's over sunlit ground. They showed me 340 fpm and I climbed to 3,900', but I should have just kept climbing, but I didn't know that this far out from Wilotree we would be climbing in our last thermal. Other pilots climbed to over 4,000' and went in search of the next thermal, but would not be there.

I flew east until down to 1,400' at the edge of a small treed area with the mine just on the other side I decided to turn back and check out possible lift back to the west. Nothing there so I landed in a nice big field.

Pedro and Maria landed within half a kilometer of my furthest east point.

Rob Cooper, flying in his second competition (after his first at the Paradise Airsports Nationals), didn't follow the crowd and made it to goal.

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2022 Wilotree Park Nationals »

Tue, May 3 2022, 5:44:53 pm MDT

Day two, results

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

https://airtribune.com/2022-wilotree-park-nationals/results

Open task:

# Name Nat Glider Time Distance Total
1 Rob Cooper USA Wills Wing T2 02:02:54 56.49 750.4
2 Robin Hamilton USA Aeros Combat 49.39 604.9
3 Mike Glennon COL Moyes SX 5 48.38 603.7
4 JD Guillemette USA TBD 48.84 600.6
5 John Simon USA Aeros Combat C 12.7 45.23 559.9
6 Daniel Velez COL Wills Wing T3 42.89 532.8
7 Miguel Molina PRI Aeros Combat C 13.5 42.84 526.7
8 Ric Caylor USA Moyes RX 5 Pro 41.90 511.0
9 Pedro L. Garcia USA Wills Wing T3 144 40.35 493.3
10 Davis Straub USA Wills Wing T3 144 40.09 488.0

Cumulative

# Name Nat Glider T 1 T 2 Total
1 Daniel Velez COL Wills Wing T3 984.3 532.8 1517
2 Robin Hamilton USA Aeros Combat 823.1 604.9 1428
3 Pedro L. Garcia USA Wills Wing T3 144 857.4 493.3 1351
4 John Simon USA Aeros Combat C 12.7 765.7 559.9 1326
5 Mike Glennon COL Moyes SX 5 710.5 603.7 1314
6 Mick Howard USA Moyes RX 3.5 841.8 355.1 1197
7 Rob Cooper USA Wills Wing T2 393.2 750.4 1144
8 Derreck Turner USA Moyes RX 4 869.9 266.2 1136
9 Davis Straub USA Wills Wing T3 144 628.3 488.0 1116
10 JD Guillemette USA TBD 467.5 600.6 1068

Sport task:

# Name Nat Glider Distance Total
1 Leonardo Ortiz COL Aeros Discus 10.54 59.2
2 Dean Funk USA Moyes Gecko Pro 10.50 59.1
3 Tim Delaney USA Wills Wing Sport 3 135 8.24 48.8
4 Attila Plasch USA Wills Wing U2 7.62 45.7
5 Douglas Hale USA ? Gecko 155 6.35 39.1

Cumulative:

# Name Nat Glider T 1 T 2 Total
1 Leonardo Ortiz M COL Aeros Discus 996.9 59.2 1056
2 Tim Delaney M USA Wills Wing Sport 3 135 933.1 48.8 982
3 John Maloney M USA Wills Wing Sport 3 155 831.4 30.1 862
4 Thaise Caroline Galvan F BRA Moyes Gecko 704.3 30.2 735
5 Dean Funk M USA Moyes Gecko Pro 550.2 59.1 609

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2022 Wilotree Park Nationals »

Mon, May 2 2022, 7:17:37 pm MDT

Day one, results

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

https://airtribune.com/2022-wilotree-park-nationals/results

Open task:

# Name Nat Glider Time Total
1 Daniel Velez COL Wills Wing T3 01:48:24 984.3
2 Derreck Turner USA Moyes RX 4 02:00:14 869.9
3 Pedro L. Garcia USA Wills Wing T3 144 02:00:56 857.4
4 Mick Howard USA Moyes RX 3.5 02:03:10 841.8
5 Robin Hamilton USA Aeros Combat 01:55:10 823.1
6 Konrad Heilmann BRA Moyes Litespeed RX3.5 Technora 02:10:05 782.4
7 John Simon USA Aeros Combat C 12.7 02:03:05 765.7
8 Mike Glennon COL Moyes SX 5 02:08:59 710.5
9 James Messina USA Aeros Combat 13.5 02:24:16 672.7
10 Fabiano Nahoum BRA Icaro Laminar 14.1 02:18:23 644.9

Sport task:

# Name Nat Glider Time Total
1 Leonardo Ortiz M COL Aeros Discus 01:18:57 996.8
2 Tim Delaney M USA Wills Wing Sport 3 135 01:23:38 931.7
3 John Maloney M USA Wills Wing Sport 3 155 01:33:32 830.2
4 Thaise Caroline Galvan F BRA Moyes Gecko 01:40:35 704.6
5 Dean Funk M USA Moyes Gecko Pro 02:03:14 553.1

Sport Class, seven of ten made goal, Open Class, twenty three of twenty nine made goal.

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2022 Wilotree Park Nationals »

Mon, May 2 2022, 6:56:16 pm MDT

Day one, trying for 30% in goal

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

The forecast:

Morning Soaring Forecast for Monday, May 2nd, 2022 at Wilotree Park:

NWS, Today

A 10 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 5pm. Sunny, with a high near 89°F. East wind around 5 mph.

Hourly afternoon forecast: east-southeast wind 6 increasing to 8 mph mph, cloud cover 21% increasing to 33%, chance of rain. 10% at 2 pm, 18% at 5 pm.

HRRR, 1 PM:

Surface wind: east-southeast 4 mph (5 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 620 fpm
TOL: 6,100'
CB: 5,700'
B/S: 10.0

HRRR, 4 PM:

Surface wind: southeast 2 mph (3 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 680 fpm
TOL: 8,500'
CB: 7,200'
B/S: 10.0

CAPE shows little chance of over development here or in the neighborhood.

47°F at CB.

Task:

Wilotree 5 km
Kokee 4 km
Baron 5 km
Wilotree 400m

77 km FAI triangle.

Kacey pulls me upwind to the east but not as far as the forming cu. I continue flying toward it 3 km east of Wilotree Park, but don't find anything and have to come back downwind to find another cu much closer to Wilotree and at 1,200' start turning. This thermal averages almost 300 fpm to 4,100'.

There are lots of good looking cu's a bit to the west by the Mickey Mouse lake and pretty soon we are playing around with each other to stay out of the cloud at 5,000' to 5,400'. This lasts for twenty three minutes until eight minutes before the start gate opens.

As the lift begins to die I make a crucial error and head back a kilometer to get under a cu north of Mickey Mouse while other pilots will stick with the dying cu. This will put me 1000' below everyone else at the edge of the start cylinder at the start time.

We all head west-northwest toward the eastern edge of the Green Swamp south of highway 50 and west-southwest of the nursery. There is a nice looking cu there and it has been a good spot of lift before but I'm also looking at the cu on the southeast corner of the nursery, almost always an area of strong lift. I decide, unfortunately, to continue west just south of that cu.

When we get under the cu to the west it's weak, really weak. The pilots that are high continue onward to the west. At first it's 77 fpm, then moving over it's 150 fpm to 3,800'. I've soon had enough flying with Raul and head northwest to find 200+ fpm to 5,400'. It sure would have been nice to find stronger lift.

I take the turnpoint with a few pilots behind as I left my gaggle and then flying to cu's to the northeast I get down to 1,400' before I find 340 fpm back to near cloud base at 5,000'. I'm at the southwest corner of the forested area and heading out over it I find again weak lift at less than 200 fpm. It's a slow climb to 5,200'. I'm hearing from Pedro, but he is always 6 km ahead and finding better lift.

This lack of strong lift continues as I go from cu to cu to the northeast to the turnpoint at Baron. Finally I find 350 fpm in the blue and then head southeast along the Florida Turnpike to the next good looking cu. It's not bad at 240 fpm, but I leave early at 4,400' for better looking ones further south and find 340 fpm to 5,200'.

It's 11:1 to goal, but I figure that at 15 km out I will likely not glide at 11:1 so that I might have to take some lift at the chicken coops north of Mascotte. I come over to them take a couple of turns and then see three pilots just to the north of me climbing fast. I go over to them and it's 700+ fpm . Where was this stuff much earlier in the flight. Now the point is to climb as high and as fast as possible so that I can flying into goal at 55 mph.

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2022 Paradise Airsports Nationals »

Sun, May 1 2022, 6:26:15 pm MDT

The podium

Fabiano Nahoum|John Simon|Larry Bunner|Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

#1 Larry Bunner (center), #2 John Simon (left), #3 Fabiano Nahoum (right)

Larry, middle; John, on his right; Fabiano on his left.

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2022 Paradise Airsports Nationals »

Sun, May 1 2022, 6:07:28 pm MDT

A bit of a disappointment

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

Not everyone was disappointed, of course.

The forecast for the day:

Morning Soaring Forecast for Saturday, April 30th, 2022 at Wilotree Park:

NWS, Today:

A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms before 2pm, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm between 2pm and 5pm, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 5pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 85°F. East wind 5 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Hourly afternoon forecast: east wind 9-11 mph, cloud cover 66% increasing to 70%, chance of rain 23% increasing to 56% at 2 pm

RAP 13, 1 PM:

Surface wind: east-southeast 8 mph (11 mph 2,000') gust 10 mph
Updraft velocity: 620 fpm
TOL: 5,600'
Cu: 3,100'
B/S: 8.7

RAP 13, 4 PM:

Surface wind: east 8 mph (11 mph 2,000') gust 11 mph
Updraft velocity: 540 fpm
TOL: 5,700'
Cu: 5,400''
B/S: 7.8

CAPE shows little chance of over development here and to our north and northwest, but good chance to our south and southwest.

Area of no lift north of Williston.

SkewT shows no cu-nimb development here as the high temperature is only 80°F.

It turned out that we did get thunder storms and rain, but only after 7:30 pm. Some pilots experienced a few rain drops while on course.

We were back down at the west end for a launch into the east wind yet again. The sky didn't look all that great, more like the previous day when we had very disappointing lift. None the less there were in fact better conditions.

Bobby Bailey towed me up again, so far every time. The lift was weak but definitely there at about 120 fpm, much better than the day before. Slowly climbing drifting to the west at 9 mph I found 250 fpm and got up to cloud base between 4,000' and 4,300'. I played keep out of the cloud for 15 minutes as we drifted to the edge of the 5 km start cylinder (why didn't we set it to 8 km?).

Unfortunately, we still had 15 minutes to wait for the first clock. Larry suggested flying to a cu to the northeast inside the start cylinder. I followed him a ways to his east as we headed for the cu. Down from 4,300' to 3,100' I found 160 fpm and Larry came over under me. I was able to only climb to 3,700' before it stopped. We still had seven minutes and were at the edge of the start cylinder.

I headed west back toward the launch. The lift on the southeast corner of Wilotree Park didn't work well enough and I was forced to land and relaunch.

Jim Prahl towed me to the north and after pinning off I headed straight downwind to landable patch of cleared area where I found 200 fpm at 1,300' AGL. Larry came in about 100' over me and then as we got up Konrado came in under us. We were able to climb to 3,000' and take the second clock.

I found 100 fpm over the southeast corner of the nursery and then 225 fpm over the southwest corner to 3,900' where I joined up with four or more pilots flying the Sport Class task.

I heard from Larry that he was getting up at 300 fpm by Center Hill 7 km to the north and despite not being that high went for the good looking clouds in that direction. Down to 1,300' AGL I found almost 300 fpm to 3,900' drifting at 10 mph to the west south of Center Hill.

On the west side of Center Hill there were Thaise and Leonardo turning at my level and I climbed up to 4,100' with one turn before heading for the first turnpoint at Cheryl.

The ground was almost completely shaded from west of Center Hill to well past the turnpoint. I got the turnpoint at 2,000' and headed north to get under a dark cloud. I then saw Konrado turning just a little higher than me. I went under him but found 4 fpm. There were two fires just to the west. I should have stayed with Konrado as he got up and so did Thaise who later came under him also.

I tried the fires and they didn't work, so I tried other fields with no luck.

Larry got up at the turnpoint and headed east, but for him and Konrado it was just a long glide to landing east of the forested area that is north of Center Hill.

It was a crucial error to leave Konrado and not work further under the dark cu and to go for the fires. If I had stayed with Konrado I would have had a great opportunity to stay in third place.

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2022 Paradise Airsports Nationals »

Sun, May 1 2022, 8:30:57 am MDT

The big picture

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

Larry Bunner won the 2022 Paradise Airports Nationals (one of a series of three competitions that determine the 2022 National Championship) by a very significant margin. He could not be happier (except maybe when attending one of many graduation ceremonies for his grandchildren, which he'll be doing this week).

How did it go?

On the first day we had a long out task (186 kilometers) to the north-northwest in an east-southeast wind. Larry, John Simon, and I were the last pilots still in the air and the furthest out at 6:30 pm. Larry chose to head for the last cu in the semi convergence to the north on the west side of High Springs. Getting that last cu allowed him to go just a bit further than John or I.

On the second day, the giant task around the Green Swamp, John Simon won the day, but Larry was close to goal (a little less than 7 km short) in fourth and now behind John by 164 points.

Larry won the task on day 3, a triangle to the northwest, by making up for a low altitude start (thereby staying out of a lead gaggle), taking a different route after the first turnpoint at Kokee getting north of the spreading cu that put the leading gaggle, including John Simon, on the ground just after the first turnpoint. That put him over 300 point ahead of John.

On day five, after a cancelled day, we had an extremely weak day. Larry chose to launch at the end of the staging line instead of ninth. There were numerous relights and a number of them after 4 PM (including John Simon). Larry asked his tug pilot to take him almost straight south past the spread out cu that was shading Wilotree. He found 300 fpm west of Pine Island Lake to cloud base at 4,500', while everyone else struggled and more likely landed.

Pedro Garcia was able to fly the longest distance, but jumped the gun as he launched near the front and was blown out of the 8 km cylinder. Larry was able to find good lift going to the first turnpoint and made three turnpoints to get first for the day on a day worth only 200 points, and only about 125 points than those you didn't get out side the 5 km minimum distance cylinder. He was now a little less than 400 points in front of John, which is a fairly comfortable amount.

On day five it was unclear if we would have safe flying conditions given the high chance for rain, and we called a local triangle in the area with the least chance of rain according to a couple of the models. Larry was way down at 12th for that day, but John Simon was close by ending up 9th. Pedro won the day after a relight.

So with three wins and a fourth he was able to end up a little over 300 points ahead of John. Being in position to catch John after the first two days, his decision to take an alternative route around the shaded area on day three (and be forced by circumstances to start way behind the lead gaggle) was the key to victory. He gains a few more points on the 200 point day, so that going into the last day meant not necessarily winning the day, but not losing the competition to John.

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2022 Paradise Airsports Nationals »

Sun, May 1 2022, 7:35:11 am MDT

Results from the last day, day six, task five

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

Results:

https://airtribune.com/2022-paradise-airsports-nationals/results

Open task:

# Name Glider Distance Total
1 Pedro L. Garcia Wills Wing T3 144 56.12 691.8
2 Fabiano Nahoum Icaro Laminar 14.1 51.94 652.1
3 Ric Caylor Moyes RX 5 Pro 48.48 624.5
4 Raul Guerra Icaro Moyes RX 45.21 591.4
5 Rob Cooper Wills Wing T4 45.45 590.2
6 JD Guillemette TBD 42.53 555.9
7 Rich Reinauer Wills Wing T3C 42.16 551.2
8 Giovani Tagliari Aeros Combat C 13.5 41.40 538.5
9 John Simon Aeros Combat C 12.7 41.71 536.6
10 Derreck Turner Moyes RX 4 40.86 527.4

Final

# Name Nat Glider Total
1 Larry Bunner USA Wills Wing T3 144 Team 3323
2 John Simon USA Aeros Combat C 12.7 2986
3 Fabiano Nahoum BRA Icaro Laminar 14.1 2749
4 Pedro L. Garcia USA Wills Wing T3 144 2728
5 Luke Waters USA Moyes RX 3.5 2681
6 Giovani Tagliari BRA Aeros Combat C 13.5 2603
7 Davis Straub USA Wills Wing T3 144 2546
8 Rich Reinauer USA Wills Wing T3C 2534
9 Mike Glennon COL Moyes SX 5 2389
10 Marcello Pereira BRA Icaro 2000 Laminar 13.7 2174

Sport task:

# Name Nat Glider Time Distance Total
1 Attila Plasch M USA Wills Wing U2 01:19:42 39.24 991.3
2 Thaise Caroline Galvan F BRA Moyes Gecko 01:18:58 39.24 853.6
3 Leonardo Ortiz M COL Aeros Discus 01:26:16 39.24 809.7
4 Douglas Hale M USA ? Gecko 155 20.42 372.7
5 Richard Milla M USA Wills Wing U2 145 18.10 323.2

Final:

# Name Nat Glider T 1 T 2 T 3 T 4 T 5 Total
1 Leonardo Ortiz M COL Aeros Discus 991.8 859.3 801.1 331.7 809.7 3794
2 Thaise Caroline Galvan F BRA Moyes Gecko 388.9 857.8 282.7 232.2 853.6 2615
3 Richard Milla M USA Wills Wing U2 145 756.7 717.0 716.5 98.2 323.2 2612
4 Attila Plasch M USA Wills Wing U2 115.3 325.9 270.3 218.9 991.3 1922
5 Tim Delaney M USA Wills Wing Sport 3 135 566.4 905.9 430.2 0.0 0.0 1903

https://fb.watch/cL6leG3tdx/

https://fb.watch/cL6D847gFM/

https://fb.watch/cL6GHm4uLa/

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2022 Paradise Airsports Nationals »

Fri, Apr 29 2022, 9:43:30 pm MDT

A strange day five

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

The forecast:

Morning Soaring Forecast for Friday, April 29th, 2022 at Wilotree Park:

NWS, Today:

Mostly sunny, with a high near 85°F. East wind 5 to 15 mph.

Hourly afternoon forecast: east wind 11-14 mph with gusts to 18 mph not starting until 4 pm, cloud cover 36% increasing to 46%, no chance of rain.

Model surface wind and gust forecasts for 1 PM:

GFS 10 mph, east slightly northeast
ICON 9 mph east, 25 mph
NAM 12 12 mph east
NAM 3 13 mph east, 14 mph
RAP 10 mph east, 13 mph
HRRR 10 mph east-northeast, 13 mph
NWS 13 mph east, none

The forecasted surface winds and gusts are somewhat lower than those forecasted for Thursday. Surface wind at Leesburg airport is 9 mph at 8 am, yesterday it was 13 mph.

HRRR, 1 PM:

Surface wind: east-northeast 10 mph (13 mph 2,000') gust 13 mph
Updraft velocity: 600 fpm
TOL: 6,400'
Cu: 6,200'
B/S: 8.1

HRRR, 4 PM:

Surface wind: east-northeast 11 mph (13 mph 2,000') gust 14 mph
Updraft velocity: 600 fpm
TOL: 6.900'
Cu: 6,900''
B/S: 9.1

The Sport Class chose to go first at 12:40 PM. Nobody stuck. They tried again, a few stuck and some came back for a third try then a few would later try a fourth or fifth time.

Finally the open class pilots got their chance, some stuck, most didn't. I waited at the end of the launch line instead of launching 7th, so got a late start, which was fine. After suffering a broken weak link behind Jim Prahl, I had Bobby Bailey tow me up again and it was fine. I just made sure that I didn't let my left wing dip, as many of the pilots before me did.

There were spread out cu's shading the ground all around. I saw JD circling to the south and heard from Larry that he was thermaling at 300 fpm a few kilometers even further south. I pinned off and went toward JD. For the next ten minutes JD and I circled around with one other pilot gaining 200 feet and losing 200 feet.

Perhaps tired of getting nowhere fast as we drifted in a 14 mph east wind, JD headed off east and the other pilot disappeared. I headed toward some small cu's out over the sunshine instead of the shade that I had been over since launch and found nothing landing just outside the 5 km minimum distance cylinder.

Larry had got up in extremely weak lift and Pedro had been blown out of the 8 km start cylinder and was on his way out ahead of anyone who was still in the air (Raul, Larry and Pedro).

When I got back to Wilotree Park around 4 PM a few of those who had landed back at the park instead of heading out in weak lift, were launching again. John Simon, JD, Ric Caylor, Mick Howard, and Ian Snowball. They were able to make a few kilometers. Eighteen pilots got the minimum distance.

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2022 Paradise Airsports Nationals »

Fri, Apr 29 2022, 8:38:39 pm MDT

Results, day five, task four

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

Results:

https://airtribune.com/2022-paradise-airsports-nationals/results

Open task:

# Name Glider Distance Total
1 Larry Bunner Wills Wing T3 144 Team 62.52 200.9
2 Pedro L. Garcia Wills Wing T3 144 77.61 166.0
3 JD Guillemette TBD 38.69 158.8
4 John Simon Aeros Combat C 12.7 32.01 144.7
5 Mick Howard Moyes RX 3.5 30.64 140.9
6 Raul Guerra Icaro Moyes RX 20.06 115.1
7 Ian Snowball Moyes RS 4.5 14.37 103.1
8 Ric Caylor Moyes RX 5 Pro 11.51 95.3
9 Konrad Heilmann Moyes Litespeed RX 3.5 Technora 7.58 84.4
10 Davis Straub Wills Wing T3 144 5.37 77.2

Cumulative:

# Name Glider T 1 T 2 T 3 T 4 Total
1 Larry Bunner Wills Wing T3 144 Team 917.5 767.3 955.2 200.9 2841
2 John Simon Aeros Combat C 12.7 886.5 962.8 455.0 144.7 2449
3 Davis Straub Wills Wing T3 144 876.3 759.5 557.4 77.2 2270
4 Luke Waters Moyes RX 3.5 690.9 737.3 675.6 76.0 2180
5 Fabiano Nahoum Icaro Laminar 14.1 835.3 621.8 563.4 76.0 2097
6 Marcello Pereira Icaro 2000 Laminar 13.7 553.0 873.0 568.5 76.0 2071
7 Giovani Tagliari Aeros Combat C 13.5 769.5 751.6 467.4 76.0 2065
8 Mike Glennon Moyes SX 5 540.1 953.8 467.3 76.0 2037
9 Pedro L. Garcia Wills Wing T3 144 833.0 555.3 481.5 166.0 2036
10 Rich Reinauer Wills Wing T3C 726.1 420.9 759.4 76.0 1982

Sport task:

# Name Glider Distance Total
1 Leonardo Ortiz Aeros Discus 24.25 331.7
2 Thaise Caroline Galvan Moyes Gecko 14.49 232.2
3 Attila Plasch Wills Wing U2 13.28 218.9
4 Mitch Sorby Wills Wing U2 145 11.39 195.6
5 Richard Milla Wills Wing U2 145 5.00 98.2

Cumulative:

# Name Glider T 1 T 2 T 3 T 4 Total
1 Leonardo Ortiz Aeros Discus 991.8 859.3 801.1 331.7 2984
2 Richard Milla Wills Wing U2 145 756.7 717.0 716.5 98.2 2288
3 Tim Delaney Wills Wing Sport 3 135 566.4 905.9 430.2 0.0 1903
4 Thaise Caroline Galvan Moyes Gecko 388.9 857.8 282.7 232.2 1762
5 Artiom Markelov Wills Wing Sport 3 155 206.6 100.4 1000.0 98.2 1405

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Thu, Apr 28 2022, 3:12:33 pm MDT

Day four canceled, too windy

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

Morning Soaring Forecast for Thursday, April 28th, 2022 at Wilotree Park:

NWS, Today:

Mostly sunny, with a high near 86°F. East-northeast wind 5 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.

Currently at 8 AM blowing NE 13 mph with no gusts at Leesburg airfield.

Hourly afternoon forecast: east slightly northeast wind 13-14 mph with gusts to 18 mph, cloud cover 35% to 40%, no chance of rain.

Model surface wind and gust forecasts for 1 PM:

GFS 11 mph
ICON 9 mph, 24 mph
NAM 12 15 mph, 10 mph (That's weird)
NAM 3 17 mph, 21 mph
RAP 8 mph, 11 mph
HRRR 13 mph, 18 mph
NWS 13 mph, none

HRRR, 1 PM:

Surface wind: east-northeast 13 mph (18 mph 2,000') gust 18 mph
Updraft velocity: 500 fpm
TOL: 4,800'
Cu: 4,600'
B/S: 3.9

HRR, 4 PM:

Surface wind: east-northeast 16 mph (23 mph 2,000') gust 22 mph
Updraft velocity: 440 fpm
TOL: 4,900'
Cu: 0'
B/S: 2.8

The winds were forecasted to be stronger to our north and much lighter to our south and we in the middle. But the winds were just at the edge of acceptable here at Wilotree Park, so the safety committee called the day.

At Leesburg Airport to our north:

Time Wind
(EDT) (mph)
15:53 NE 15 G 22
14:53 E 17 G 24
13:53 NE 14 G 22
12:53 E 13 G 24
11:53 NE 15 G 24
10:53 NE 16 G 21
9:53 NE 15 G 22
8:53 NE 16 G 23
7:53 NE 13

At Kissimee to our south east:

Time Wind
(EDT) (mph)
15:56 NE 15
14:56 E 17
13:56 E 17 G 21
12:56 NE 15 G 18
11:56 E 14
10:56 NE 13
9:56 NE 10
8:56 NE 13
7:56 NE 6

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2022 Paradise Airsports Nationals »

Thu, Apr 28 2022, 3:10:26 pm MDT

Flying day three

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

The task to the northwest:

Wilotree 5 km
Kokee 2 km
Baron 3 km
Wilotree 400 m

83.8 km FAI triangle

The forecast:

Morning Soaring Forecast for Wednesday, April 27th, 2022 at Wilotree Park:

NWS, Today:

A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 5pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 89°F. Calm wind becoming west-northwest around 5 mph in the afternoon.

Hourly afternoon forecast: west-northwest wind 6 mph increasing to 7 mph and turning northwest, cloud cover 66%, 20% chance of rain increasing to 31% at 5 pm.

RAP, 1 PM:

Surface wind: west slightly northwest 5 mph (6 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 640 fpm
TOL: 6,200'
Cu: 5,400'
B/S: 10.0

RAP, 4 PM:

Surface wind: northwest 7 mph (9 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 640 fpm
TOL: 7,100'
Cu: 6,700'
B/S: 10.0

Temperature at CB at 2 PM: 48°F (6,700')

CAPE shows no chance of over development

Noon conditions: Lift: 520 fpm, TOL: 4,100', Cu: 0', surface winds west 5 mph

A front is coming through before 2 pm

Got pulled up behind Bobby's tug again. I'm gonna get killed doing this. No more. Tight circle kept me at the higher speed as I moved out to get outside the spinning.

There were plenty of cu's nearby in the 5 km start cylinder and with the northwest wind pushing us back toward Wilotree I was able to climb to 4,800' at 300+ fpm just before the start window opened. I was 3 km from the edge of the start cylinder but Larry had radioed earlier that he was down to 2,700' at the edge of the cylinder so I wanted to stay with the good clouds and lift. This made me a bit late for the start along with a dozen other pilots.

Climbed back to 4,800' south of Mascotte just outside the start cylinder and headed for south of the nursery south of highway 50 and turned in some 125 fpm before heading west again for a nice cu just south of the intersection of 469 and 50 where I found 385 fpm to 4,500'. I was calling all the lift to Larry who was low and following.

Gliding along south of 50 to the west into a 5 mph head wind I was down to 2,400' just east of the lumber mill at highway 471 when I felt that there was good lift in the sunshine to the south of the cloud I came under. Sure enough I was soon hitting bits of 700 to 800 fpm on the 20 second averager. I called it out to Larry and he came in under at 1,200'.

I left at cloud base at 4,300' and headed for a long northwest to southeast black bottom cloud with sunshine on the southern side. Seemed like a big cu like that would be producing. Six kilometers from the turnpoint at Kokee I found lift that averaged 650 fpm all the way to cloud base with a few pilots coming in underneath me.

Nicked the Kokee turnpoint and headed north east and down to 2,500' before I found 300 fpm to 4,200' drifting east at 8 mph. Larry was still a ways behind me, but I kept up the reports as he worked with a dozen other pilots to head toward the Kokee turnpoint.

Heading east-southeast to get on the sunny southern side of an elongated east to west cu I found lift just north of the town of Webster. It was only about 200 fpm but it got me to 4,600' right near the bottom of the long cu. The pilot above me headed north. I headed under the cu to the east with Fabiano just behind me.

I didn't know it at that point but all the leading gaggle had gone down just to the north of me. Maria radioed that she was climbing to my north a few kilometers under the black cloud while I was just on the southern edge of it.

I didn't find any lift under the cu as I headed for Center Hill. There was more cu's ahead and an open sky away from this cu in a few kilometers just past Center Hill. I came in under a cu but there was no lift. I headed for the next one, but there was also nothing there. I was getting low and Maria radioed that she was landing 15 km from the second turnpoint at Baron.

I was down to 1,200' heading northeast up highway 48 just seeing if my good luck from the first three days would hold out, but it didn't look promising. Larry had heard that Maria had landed and that I was low and he had already made the decision to go a different route than the pilots that he was flying with and went north from Kokee toward Bushnell instead of east toward Webster and the black cu. He wanted to get away from the cu and knew that we had to go north at some point so it might as well be as soon as he got Kokee.

I floated along for quite a while but then down to 300' AGL I needed to make a turn and land on the little dirt road in the field. It was a short walk to the gate. Fabiano landed next to me.

Larry was able to get up at Bushnell while almost everyone else was going down. He now had a sky full of little cu's that he used to get himself to Baron and then south back to Wilotree to win the day.

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Wed, Apr 27 2022, 7:35:52 pm MDT

Results, day three

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

Results:

https://airtribune.com/2022-paradise-airsports-nationals/results

The lead gaggle, nine pilots, all went down within 3 km of each other just after the first turnpoint. Larry, following the gaggle that was following me, decided to not follow them or me and turned north south of Bushnell instead of going toward Webster and the black cloud ahead and was able to find nice cu's in the unshaded ground north of that cloud, the cloud that rained on Claudia.

Open task 3:

# Name Glider ES Time Distance Total
1 Larry Bunner Wills Wing T3 144 Team 16:19:36 02:49:36 83.41 951.3
2 Rob Cooper Wills Wing T4 17:03:40 03:13:40 83.41 855.0
3 Rich Reinauer Wills Wing T3C 17:46:09 04:16:09 83.41 756.3
4 Luke Waters Moyes RX 3.5 64.13 672.9
5 Marcello Pereira Icaro 2000 Laminar 13.7 47.59 566.2
6 Fabiano Nahoum Icaro Laminar 14.1 46.90 561.1
7 Davis Straub Wills Wing T3 144 46.12 555.1
8 Claudia Mejia Wills Wing T3 136 42.67 520.2
9 Ric Caylor Moyes RX 5 Pro 42.56 512.6
10 Ian Snowball Moyes RS 4.5 42.31 511.5

Cumulative:

# Name Glider T 1 T 2 T 3 Total
1 Larry Bunner Wills Wing T3 144 Team 917.5 767.3 951.3 2636
2 John Simon Aeros Combat C 12.7 886.5 962.8 453.1 2302
3 Davis Straub Wills Wing T3 144 876.3 759.5 555.1 2191
4 Luke Waters Moyes RX 3.5 690.9 737.3 672.9 2101
5 Fabiano Nahoum Icaro Laminar 14.1 835.3 621.8 561.1 2018
6 Marcello Pereira Icaro 2000 Laminar 13.7 553.0 873.0 566.2 1992
7 Giovani Tagliari Aeros Combat C 13.5 769.5 751.6 465.4 1987
8 Mike Glennon Moyes SX 5 540.1 953.8 465.5 1959
9 Rich Reinauer Wills Wing T3C 726.1 420.9 756.3 1903
10 Pedro L. Garcia Wills Wing T3 144 833.0 555.3 479.5 1868

Sport task 3:

# Name Glider Time Distance Total
1 Artiom Markelov Wills Wing Sport 3 155 01:56:09 49.38 1000.0
2 Leonardo Ortiz Aeros Discus 02:20:31 49.38 801.1
3 Richard Milla Wills Wing U2 145 02:36:28 49.38 716.5
4 Tim Delaney Wills Wing Sport 3 135 26.12 430.2
5 Douglas Hale ? Gecko 155 23.63 384.8

Cumulative:

# Name Glider T 1 T 2 T 3 Total
1 Leonardo Ortiz Aeros Discus 991.8 859.3 801.1 2652
2 Richard Milla Wills Wing U2 145 756.7 717.0 716.5 2190
3 Tim Delaney Wills Wing Sport 3 135 566.4 905.9 430.2 1903
4 Thaise Caroline Galvan Moyes Gecko 388.9 857.8 282.7 1529
5 Artiom Markelov Wills Wing Sport 3 155 206.6 100.4 1000.0 1307

https://fb.watch/cG18_kqR9-/

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Wed, Apr 27 2022, 7:35:09 pm MDT

The flight, day two, Tuesday

Bobby Bailey|John Simon|Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022|XC

The task committee chooses to go around the Green Swamp the long way:

Wilotree 5 km
Panolk 3 km
Clinton 3 km
Fantsy 5 km
Wilotree 400 m

153 km

The forecast:

Morning Soaring Forecast for Tuesday, April 26th, 2022 at Wilotree Park

NWS, Today:

Sunny, with a high near 90. Calm wind becoming north-northeast around 5 mph in the afternoon.

Hourly afternoon forecast: south-southeast 3 mph or less until 11 am then east surface wind 3 mph at noon turning to east-northeast at 1 pm at 3 mph and 5 mph north-northeast at 2 pm, cloud cover 4% increasing to 31%, no chance of rain. If we launch at noon it should be light southeast.

RAP, 1 PM:

Surface wind: north 3 mph (4 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 680 fpm
TOL: 6,400'
Cu: 4,800'
B/S: 10.0

RAP, 4 PM:

Surface wind: north slightly northwest 3 mph (4 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 680 fpm
TOL: 8,000'
Cu: 5,100'
B/S: 10.0

Temperature at CB at 2 PM: 44°F

The launch time got moved back again, but this time because pilots weren't just organized to be ready in time. Launch opened at 12:50 pm with a forty minute window and the start gate opened at 1:30 PM.

Bobby Bailey towed me up, but seriously his plane just does not go fast enough. I need 36 to 40 mph to keep from wandering all over the place. Only when Bobby starts doing tight circles can I push myself to the outside to speed up enough to get the glider under control. Thankfully he is very happy to do tight circles but that doesn't help right after coming off the cart. From now on I'll try to tow behind the tugs with more powerful engines.

The average lift varied between 250 fpm and 325 fpm in the start cylinder and I was able to stick around cloud base at 5,100' before quickly heading out to take the first start time. Once again there was 500+ fpm southeast of the nursery and I was soon at 5,200'.

I headed west-northwest to get under the cu's south of Center Hill. The three pilots in front of me headed north-northwest to cu's straight to the north. When I go under the cu's there was Pedro and the lift was weak. A few turns and we headed north to just south of the mines on the west side of Center Hill where we climbed at almost 500 fpm to 5,400'. I had found the lift first so I was quite a bit higher than Pedro or Larry and had to leave the thermal as I got into the mists. I was in touch with both of them on the radio.

Two strong thermals on the way to Lake Panasoftkee and I was with Pedro and Larry but again quite a bit above them and leaving at cloud base. At 5,600' and 5 km from the turnpoint I went with an Aeros pilot to get the turnpoint with the idea of coming back to the strong lift that we just climbed up in.

When I got back I missed the lift not going far enough east and continued on to the south I found lift on the northeast corner of Bushnell and climbed to 5,900', but Pedro and Larry did find the lift when they came back to the thermal before the first turnpoint and got to cloud base much quicker and got out ahead of me.

It was the sixteen kilometer glide to the north end of the mines where I was limited to 140 fpm to 4,100'. I dove for a black cloud to the south-southwest and got punched out of the sky at 700 fpm down. I chose that direction to avoid the shaded area due south and now I was headed for the sunshine to the southwest of the dark cloud.

Down to 1,800' and way way west of the course line I took 350 fpm to 4,700' and then scooted to the southeast to another good looking cloud at the western edge of the Green Swamp. John Simon, who started 20 minutes later, joined me as we climbed to 4,300'.

Heading into the Green Swamp the cu's didn't work so I bailed for the land fill to the south to find 300 fpm to 5,000'. A little further south-southwest I found 240 fpm to 5,300' just before the turnpoint at the intersection of highway 98 and 471.

260 fpm got me back to 4,200' to the south east toward Rockridge Road and highway 98 intersection. I didn't find anything as I searched around and kept track of where there were landing areas to the east toward the turnpoint at Flights of Fantasy.

Down to 1,100' AGL over a big open area with no roads I noted that there were houses to the south and I could hop the fence to get to one of the roads in the subdivision. I also tried my luck right at the border of the open space and the trees mixed in with the houses.

I found 160 fpm as I noted that there were little wisps forming over me and also to me east a bit. Climbing to 3,100' I moved over to the east a bit to get under the better looking cu's and found 370 fpm that took me to almost 7,000'. I was 10 km out from the turnpoint so went straight for it.

There was a field that was burning right at the northern edge of the 5 km turnpoint at Fantsy and then I noticed that a small high cu was forming upwind (to the east) of the smoke. I was able to get under the cu and climb to 5,500', but not back to 7,000' which would have been very nice.

It was now almost 5:30 pm as I headed north toward the little cu's forming in that direction. There was a dark mass of clouds a bit further to the west and maybe that was convergence as we expected a sea breeze.

I worked some light thermals and then over a forested area by Green Pond road while keeping an eye on possible bail out fields I worked two thermals, one after another, from about the same place, climbing to 6,200' at a little over 200 fpm. Finally at 6:11 pm I headed north toward a set of dark cu's hoping to find just enough to get me into goal.

It was a long glide to just west of the Seminole Lake Gliderport and I was down to 2,500' working 43 fpm. Leaving at 2,700', when I knew it would take about 4,000' to make it to goal, I headed for a fire to the north-northwest as well as to the sunny western side of the dark clouds to the north. Neither worked and I glided until 5 km from goal.

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/26.4.2022/16:57

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/ranking-hg-national:US

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/3065118

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/league/world/2022/brand:all,cat:2,class:all,xctype:all,club:all

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Tue, Apr 26 2022, 9:29:38 pm MDT

The flight, day one

John Simon|Konrad Heilmann|Larry Bunner|Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022|Pedro Garcia|Rich Reinauer|XC

The original task was an out and back up and down highway 33 which is the north/south road next to Wilotree Park. We did this because of the RAP forecast for east winds.

Morning Soaring Forecast for Monday, April 25th, 2022 at Wilotree Park:

NWS, Today:

Sunny, with a high near 87. East wind 5 to 10 mph.

Hourly afternoon forecast: east surface wind 9 mph increasing to 11 mph, cloud cover 21% increasing to 30%, no chance of rain

RAP, 1 PM

Surface wind: east 7 mph (10 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 640 fpm
TOL: 6,10'
Cu: 5,100'
B/S: 9.1

RAP, 4 PM:

Surface wind: east 7 mph (10 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 680 fpm
TOL: 7,400'
Cu: 6,700'
B/S: 10.0

Temperature at CB at 2 PM - 46°

Suggested Task:

Task committee meeting 9 AM
Pilot briefing 10 AM

Noon conditions: Lift: 580 fpm, TOL: 4,800', Cu: 4,100', surface winds east 7 mph

Launch 12:30 PM

Launch spot west launch area

Task start 1:30 PM

Wilotree 5 km
Fantsy 5 km
Baron 5 km
Wilotree 400 m

125 km

But the launch crew had us setup to launch from the northwest corner because of the surface winds were southeast, then five minutes before the launch opened they moved us south to the west launch area for the forecasted east winds. I had previously viewed a satellite photo showing southeast clouds to the northwest so the task committee had changed the task to send us to the north-northwest first to Dunnellon and then to a small airfield south of Lake City.

We didn't get to launch until 1:20 PM instead of 12:30 PM because of all the moving around. This would make it very difficult to make goal 186 km away given that the start gate would open at 2:20 PM.

I was third to launch and got off tow at 1,300' when my vario showed 1,200 fpm. I climbed to cloud base at 4,600' eighteen minutes after I started my tow and was ready to get on with the task. I would have to wait around for over half an hour before the start gate opened. It seemed like every pilot was in the air including the sport class pilots within half an hour.

After hanging around at cloud base for what seemed like forever I headed to the west to Mascotte, took a few turns in less than 200 fpm drawing in a number of pilots who would stay with that climb and moved to the west to the southeast corner of the nursery to find 500 fpm on average to cloudbase. Rich Reinauer and Konrad were with me. Larry Bunner was nearby.

Heading northwest toward Center Hill I found 500 fpm to cloudbase at 4,800' again after a 7 km glide. It looks like the day would be very strong. After gliding to the northeast of Center Hill and another strong thermal to 5,100'. Leaving at 5,100' the three of us headed for the cu over the cement plant to the west of the prison. We would normally be quite a bit further to the east but the east wind has pushed us west. There was a cu over the prison but it was further away.

It was a twelve kilometer glide and at first the thermal did not work. I was the lowest of the three and was down to 1,100' AGL before I found some lift at 170 fpm. This got me to 2,200' where I could feel a bit safer and I headed west to find better lift as I saw Rich turning. I was able to climb at 200 fpm to 3,800' drifting over highway 301 and almost to I75. Larry Bunner was nearby, but his radio didn't work so I missed the strong thermal that he had that got him up and over the swamp to the east of Lake Panasoftkee.

Way west of our normal route I found 200+ fpm at Coleman to 3,400' and kept creeping north not getting above 4,000' until I got west of I75 north of the intersection with the Florida Turnpike and I75. 400+ fpm got me back to cloud base at 5,400'. Marion Oaks lay ahead.

Southeast of Marion Oaks I climbed again at 400+ fpm to 6,100'. There were lots of thick black-bottomed clouds to the northwest on the southern edge of Marion Oaks, I flew under them but only found 250 fpm for a few turns.

At 5,000' I headed for more cu's to the northwest, but I didn't find anything. I could see pilots high turning in them but when I got to the northwest corner of the big open field west of Marion Oaks, there was no lift and I was down to 2,400'. I headed into the sunshine and the blue to the east then to the south over the open field assuming that I would have to land.

Down to 900' AGL I found lift at the edge of a treed area next to where I had assumed that I would be landing. At 350 fpm I climbed out to 5,500'. This was enough to get me over the trees and houses to the northwest where I spotted some pilots going up fast. Again an average of 500 fpm got me to 6,100' just south of the optimized turnpoint at Dunnell airfield.

There were scattered cu's to the north and it was a 13 km glide to get to the next thermal that averaged 400+ fpm northwest of the Ocala Airport (way high above it and outside the airspace).

I could see that there were a whole lot of lakes/water to the north near the course line and the cu's were to the west (downwind) of the course line, so I went to the northwest to stay under the cu's. Turned out this would have been our normal route anyway.

It was after 5 PM by the time I got to Williston but found 300 fpm average there to 4,900'. The lift to the north was mostly weak. I was surprised to see Pedro coming at me from the north south of Archer. He and John Simon and others had been further east in the blue and they had not been doing well so Pedro and John came west to get under the cu's.

Pedro and I worked together some miserable light lift northwest of Archer and then he got a bit higher and went north. I found some 367 fpm lift a little further to the northwest and climbed back up finally to 5,600'. Pedro was soon landing. John was a ways behind.

A little northwest of Newberry I found a thermal that averaged a little less then 200 fpm. It was getting quite late after 6:30 pm (sundown is at 7:56 pm). I looked up and there was Larry about 100' over me. We climbed to 4,000'.

I headed out first going to the north to the next little wisp, but didn't find anything. There was another cu further north that I didn't go to as it looked like a lot of trees in that direction. Actually it's not that bad.

Larry went to the next cu and got up well. I went to the northeast to land near High Springs. Larry was able to get high enough to cross the river and land north west of High Springs 10 km north west of me.

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/25.4.2022/17:25

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/ranking-hg-national:US

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/3065117

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/league/world/2022/brand:all,cat:2,class:all,xctype:all,club:all

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Tue, Apr 26 2022, 9:08:00 pm MDT

Results, day two

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

Results:

https://airtribune.com/2022-paradise-airsports-nationals/results

Day Two Open:

# Name Glider Time Distance Total
1 John Simon Aeros Combat C 12.7 04:29:22 148.34 962.0
2 Mike Glennon Moyes SX 5 04:49:14 148.34 951.5
3 Marcello Pereira Icaro 2000 Laminar 13.7 05:12:37 148.34 867.0
4 Larry Bunner Wills Wing T3 144 Team 141.50 753.9
5 Davis Straub Wills Wing T3 144 143.26 746.1
6 Giovani Tagliari Aeros Combat C 13.5 139.70 738.6
7 Luke Waters Moyes RX 3.5 141.69 724.1
8 Derreck Turner Moyes RX 4 139.70 699.8
9 JD Guillemette TBD TBD 127.47 632.5
10 Mick Howard Moyes RX 3.5 127.63 625.3

Cumulative:

# Name Glider T 1 T 2 Total
1 John Simon Aeros Combat C 12.7 886.5 962.0 1849
2 Larry Bunner Wills Wing T3 144 Team 917.5 753.9 1671
3 Davis Straub Wills Wing T3 144 876.3 746.1 1622
4 Giovani Tagliari Aeros Combat C 13.5 769.5 738.6 1508
5 Mike Glennon Moyes SX 5 540.1 951.5 1492
6 Fabiano Nahoum Icaro Laminar 14.1 835.3 612.2 1448
7 Marcello Pereira Icaro 2000 Laminar 13.7 553.0 867.0 1420
8 Luke Waters Moyes RX 3.5 690.9 724.1 1415
9 Pedro L. Garcia Wills Wing T3 144 833.0 538.2 1371
10 Mick Howard Moyes RX 3.5 681.8 625.3 1307

Day Two Sport:

# Name Glider Distance Total
1 Tim Delaney Wills Wing Sport 3 135 85.15 906.7
2 Leonardo Ortiz Aeros Discus 77.55 859.3
3 Thaise Caroline Galvan Moyes Gecko 78.72 858.7
4 Richard Milla Wills Wing U2 145 66.32 717.9
5 Dean Funk Moyes Gecko Pro 59.19 619.7

Cumulative:

# Name Glider T 1 T 2 Total
1 Leonardo Ortiz Aeros Discus 991.8 859.3 1851
2 Richard Milla Wills Wing U2 145 756.7 717.9 1475
3 Tim Delaney Wills Wing Sport 3 135 566.4 906.7 1473
4 Thaise Caroline Galvan Moyes Gecko 388.9 858.7 1248
5 Dean Funk Moyes Gecko Pro 376.8 619.7 997

https://fb.watch/cH88jSU1mV/

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2022 Paradise Airsports Nationals »

Tue, Apr 26 2022, 6:45:57 pm MDT

Locals rule, day one

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

Results:

https://airtribune.com/2022-paradise-airsports-nationals/results

https://airtribune.com/2022-paradise-airsports-nationals/results/task5668/day/open-class

Open class:

# Name Glider Distance Total
1 Larry Bunner Wills Wing T3 144 Team 168.34 917.5
2 John Simon Aeros Combat C 12.7 160.27 886.2
3 Davis Straub Wills Wing T3 144 158.32 875.8
4 Fabiano Nahoum Icaro Laminar 14.1 151.12 834.0
5 Pedro L. Garcia Wills Wing T3 144 150.31 831.6
6 Giovani Tagliari Aeros Combat C 13.5 140.66 763.9
7 Rich Reinauer Wills Wing T3C 132.35 717.5
8 Luke Waters Moyes RX 3.5 125.78 679.8
9 Mick Howard Moyes RX 3.5 124.68 671.1
10 Claudia Mejia Wills Wing T3 136 114.84 614.3

Six locals out of the top ten.

Sport:

# Name Glider Time Distance Total
1 Leonardo Ortiz Aeros Discus 01:41:59 56.91 991.8
2 Richard Milla Wills Wing U2 145 02:09:50 56.91 756.7
3 Tim Delaney Wills Wing Sport 3 135 49.76 566.4
4 Mitch Sorby Wills Wing U2 145 02:31:20 56.91 511.0
5 Thaise Caroline Galvan Moyes Gecko 32.91 388.9

https://fb.watch/cH8J6xd-dJ/

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2022 Paradise Airsports Nationals »

Sun, Apr 24 2022, 6:23:45 pm MDT

Lighter east winds than forecast

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

After four days of strong east winds, with the skies also full of cu's, we finally have a day with a forecast for lighter east winds, and a reality of even lighter winds, with a sky full of cu's and strong lift. Here's the Sunday, the day before the competition starts, forecast:

Morning Soaring Forecast for Sunday, April 24th, 2022 at Wilotree Park

NWS, Today:

Mostly sunny, with a high near 85. East wind 5 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.

Hourly afternoon forecast: east surface wind 14 mph increasing to 16 mph, gusting to 18 mph increasing to 22 mph, cloud cover 30% decreasing to 25%, no chance of rain

RAP, 1 PM:

Surface wind: east 9 mph (14 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 640 fpm
TOL: 5,400'
Cu: 4,600'
B/S: 6.0

RAP, 4 PM:

Surface wind: east 12 mph (18 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 660 fpm
TOL: 5,700'
Cu: 5,600'
B/S: 5.7

Suggested Task:

Wilotree 3 km
Dunnell 8 km
Williston 1 km

109 km

or

Wilotree 3 km
Turn33 1 km
Wilotree 400 m

40 km

Leesburg Airport (to our north) is reporting variables winds 6 mph at 1 PM. We've got even lighter winds from the east at 2 PM.

Here's what the sky looks like:

We'll see which task pilots attempt.

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Still dealing with possible cu-nimbs

Sun, Apr 17 2022, 8:16:12 pm MDT

A shorter Sunday flight

John Simon|Larry Bunner|Pedro Garcia|Rick Reinhauer|XC

The Sunday forecast even more so calls for rain.

Morning Soaring Forecast for Sunday, April 17th, 2022 at Wilotree Park.

NWS, Today:

A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 87. South wind around 5 mph.

Hourly afternoon forecast: south slightly southwest surface wind 3 mph turning north northwest 6 mph, cloud cover 45% increasing to 60%, 42% chance of rain after 2 pm.

RAP 13, 1 PM:

Surface wind: south slightly southwest 5 mph (7 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 560 fpm
TOL: 4,800'
Cu: 4,600'
B/S: 10.0

RAP 13, 4 PM:

Surface wind: south 2 mph (2 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity:520 fpm
TOL: 5,200'
Cu: 0'
B/S: 10.0

RAP and NAM 3 are forecasting rain nearby at 4 pm and here at 5 pm. NAM 12 at 6 pm for rain.

John Simon points out that the rain chances are worse to the northwest so that we should head south, but a short leg to the north to start to go with the wind would be okay.

The task is to Grass Roots airport up highway 33 to the north, 12 km, back south to the intersection of highways 474 and 33, 28 km, and back to Wilotree Park, 17 km.

I get ready around 10 am as I like to be ready just in case. With the forecast for rain I'd like to get flying earlier. John Simon comes over and proposes the new task (see above) and says for the first time he'll start early, which for him means 1 PM. Larry is late to get going for the first time I've seen it, so I'm the only one ready to go at noon when we seen the cu's over head and high enough.

I take off at 12:20 pm long before anyone else is ready. I figure that the cu's will be my guide posts. I get dropped off under a nice one upwind to the south and climb up at 150 fpm to 3,500'. Yup, the lift is weak and the cloud base is low, but it's fun flying.

As I look to the north there is a huge blue hole. To the south the sky is full of good looking cu's. I call for us to reverse the task, which Pedro and Larry do. John Simon and Rick Reinhauer will continue later with the original task. There is a 5 mph head wind. (Turns out that the cu's are a false indicator of the lift for the day, as the lift is in the blue and the cu's show where the lift was but isn't now.)

Heading south the lift is weak under the cu's and I'm stuck low just outside the 3 km start cylinder for 30 minutes before I finally find 250 fpm to 3,600'. This is slow going for sure and now everyone else has launched and is finding it tough sledding. I lose 1 to 2 km for every thermal I find. The head wind picks up to 7 mph.

Topping out at 3,800' I head south toward the Seminole glider port only to find 42 fpm there. Heading west in an attempt to find anything or at least a pleasant field to land it and down to 1,400' I find 150 fpm to 2,900' now 2 km northwest of the glider port.

I head south but the little wispies that I see ahead don't work. The cu's have not been working at all, and it is only in the blue that I can find lift as the wispies form over me after I get there. At 2,600' west of the glider port and 3.5 km short of the turnpoint I turn around to get under some wispies to my north.

They fail to provide any relief and now I'm heading downwind with an 8 mph tail wind. Down to 1,400' I work 31 fpm to 1,700' before losing it. Down to 700' AGL just before a big landing area I work the tree line in an area where I think I can find lift. It is 77 fpm back to 1,400'. I string a couple more of these 77 fpm thermals together and make it back to Wilotree Park.

Larry is able to make it to the southern turnpoint back to Grass Roots and then back to Wilotree Park. John and Rick do the original task without ever getting low. Pedro has an issue with his harness and turns back 7 km from the first turnpoint to the south and lands at Wilotree.

Larry notes that the rain was 5 miles to his west when he got to Grass Roots. It barely rained here but there was rain all around us. The cu-nimbs did come from the northwest. At 9:40 PM they are to our east.

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Working our way around the Green Swamp

Sun, Apr 17 2022, 8:14:40 pm MDT

We weren't certain that we could make it

John Simon|Ken Millard|Larry Bunner|Mick Howard|Pedro Garcia|XC

This was the forecast for Saturday:

Morning Soaring Forecast for Saturday, April 16th, 2022 at Wilotree Park

NWS, Today:

A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2pm. Patchy fog before 9am. Otherwise, mostly sunny, with a high near 88. Calm wind becoming south southeast around 5 mph in the morning.

Hourly afternoon forecast: south southeast surface wind 6 mph turning west northwest, cloud cover 30% increasing to 40%, 15% chance of rain after 2 pm.

HRRR, 1 PM:

Surface wind: south southeast 3 mph (4 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 540 fpm
TOL: 4,300'
Cu: 4,200'
B/S: 10.0

HRRR, 4 PM:

Surface wind: east northeast 7 mph (7 mph 2,000')
Updraft velocity:500 fpm
TOL: 4,400'
Cu: 4,100'
B/S: 9.2

Suggested Task:

1 pm launch

Quest/Wilotree 3 km
T7598 7 km
T98471 3 km
Quest/Wilotree 400 m

94 km

We were concerned about the chance of rain for the day as we could see that that would come from cu-nimb development.

Before our projected launch time of 1 pm we watched the sky as the cu's formed away to the east and southeast of us, but not any where near us. It would be tough to do this task without help from the little white puff balls. Just before one they got closer and I got pulled up at ten minutes to one.

The lift was weak and while I was able to climb up 1000' I was stuck around 3,000' flying with Ken Millard. There were plenty of cu's around but they weren't providing much love.

Heading north, south of Mascotte, I was working 5 fpm at 1,700' before heading further north to just south of the chicken coops north of highway 50, when I finally found something to help me up from 1,400'. 200 fpm got me up to 3,700'.

I followed a cloud street that kept me up to the west southwest into the Green Swamp when I caught a glimpse of Larry Bunner climbing a bit to my north south of highway 50. That thermal averaged almost 400 fpm and cloud base was 3,800', not that high. We would expect much higher bases for a trip around the Green Swamp.

We flew west along the northern edge of the Green Swamp and a bit south of highway 50 hitting little bits and pieces of lift until a few kilometers before the lumber mill at highway 471 we found 550 fpm on average to 4,100'. Mick Howard came in underneath us, but John Simon was low north of 50 and soon landed.

Plunging into the swamp west south west of the lumber mill we were not high enough to make it over the swamp and had to change directions and head north to see what we could find. Larry headed straight north and I veered to the northwest still over the swamp to find 400 fpm on average to 4,500' with Larry coming over to join me.

This was plenty of altitude to make the jump to the south west to the mines. Larry followed and Pedro Garcia showed up below him. We climbed at 250 fpm to 4,500' again at cloud base and headed for the 7 km turnpoint to our southwest.

I lost Larry and Pedro as I nicked the turnpoint and then headed southeast back into the swamp to get under a cu. The lift was broken and weak and finally I headed back west to get under a better cu and climbed at 540 fpm to 4,600' while Larry pushed further into the swamp and found better lift than we we had been in. Pedro was further west having to turn around and go back north to find better lift south of the first turnpoint.

I headed south southwest along the highway toward Dade City finding lift and climbing back to 4,400' before going on a long glide toward the landfill to the south southeast. Pedro stayed to the west like I had been over the highway and was finding good lift behind me.

Larry was just above me north of the landfill and the lift was weak at 135 fpm as I climbed back from 2,100'. Leaving at 3,000' I headed south to hook up with Larry and then Mick joined us as again we found weak lift at 130 fpm to 4,200' an altitude that we needed to make another jump over the swamp to the second turnpoint. In the mean time Pedro was finding 700 fpm and catching and passing us to our west and south.

Pedro took the second turnpoint from quite a ways south of it and lined up a cloud street heading over the swamp right back toward Wilotree Park. The three of us worked 250 fpm in the 3 km turnpoint cylinder and looked to head east toward the much better cu's in that direction.

Climbing to 3,800' well south of where I would usually be at this point in the task we were faced with a northeast head wind. I heard on the radio that Larry and Mick were headed to the northeast to Famish and I chased after them. The cloud street that Pedro saw was disappearing.

Down to 1,400' just southwest of Famish I climbed back to a mere 2,500' at 200 fpm. Conditions were deteriorating. It was almost 5 PM. Larty and Mick were not doing all that well either. Pedro didn't have his radio so we never heard from him.

North of Famish I climbed at 75 fpm to 2,200' but all the cu's any where nearby were gone. Finally I headed west to find an appropriate landing field as Mick got up in a fire a few kilometers to the southwest and Larry got low further south of Dean Still Road.

Mick was able to make it a few kilometers further to land next to Dean Still, Larry landed a few kilometers to my west at Famish. Pedro was the only one to make it back. All other pilots went down early.

What I hadn't noticed was there there was a cu-nimb way to our west that was shading all the ground to the east and cutting off the lift. Pedro got there ahead of us and got across the swamp before it shut down. We didn't get any rain.

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/3059213

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/league/world/2022/brand:all,cat:2,class:all,xctype:all,club:all

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/16.4.2022/16:49

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/ranking-hg-national:US

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One hundred miles around the Green Swamp

Thu, Mar 3 2022, 4:39:37 pm MST

Larry likes 100+ mile flights

Fantasy of Flight|Jim Prahl|John Simon|Pedro Garcia|Thaisio Feliz|Wilotree Park|XC|XContest.org

With a soaring forecast for the best light wind conditions of the season and with Larry calling for 100+ mile task I set one around the Green Swamp:

Preliminary Soaring Forecast for Thursday, March 3rd, 2022 at Wilotree Park

NWS, Thursday:

Sunny, with a high near 83. Calm wind.
Hourly forecast: east wind 2 mph, cloud cover 15% rising to 25%, no chance of rain.

RAP, noon:

Surface wind: east southeast 3 mph
Updraft velocity: 640 fpm
TOL: 5,900'
CU: 4,900'
B/S: 10.1

RAP, 3 PM:

Surface wind: south 1 mph
Updraft velocity: 720 fpm
TOL: 7,500'
Cu: 7,200'
B/S: 10.0

This is the best looking day of the season. I was freezing at 5,200' on Wednesday. I'll go with heavy gloves and 5 layers.

46°F at CB.

Task:

Quest 3 km
PANOLK 2 km
Clinton 1 km
Fantasy of Flight 2.5 km
Quest 400 m

161.3 km or 100.22 miles
Launch at noon

Larry was hauled up at 12:04 PM and I was right behind him at 12:10 PM. Jim Prahl dropped me off in 200 fpm and I climbed to 4,500'. Thaissio Feliz was right next to me. We headed northwest to go after Larry who was way west of the course line over the Green Swamp.

The lift was strong averaging 200 to 400 fpm up to 5,500' and then I found 500+ fpm averaged to 5,900' northwest of Center Hill. There was a good number of cu's between me and the turnpoint at Panolk (airfield at Lake Panosoftkee) so I just went to each one and arrived at the 2 km cylinder just as Larry headed south from there toward Clinton.

There were a reasonable number of cu's to the south and I was working 200 to 225 fpm staying above 4,200'. Twelve kilometers to the south I was climbing at 270 fpm under a nice dark cu when Larry came back toward me after not finding lift a little bit further south.

He found 500 fpm on the southern edge of the cu that I was climbing under. I pushed forward to get under him and fell like a rock. Finally, I had to escape the 900 fpm down and headed east toward some landable fields. Down to 900' AGL over a reasonable LZ I found 140 fpm, which I did my best to hang on to.

After an aborted attempt to get under a forming cu to the west I headed east and found 266 fpm to 4,000'. That made it possible to find 400 fpm to 6,100'. I had already decided to head back toward Wilotree Park as I was taking too much time to make it around the task.

Larry continued on but skipped the turnpoint at Fantasy of Flight as he didn't see any cu's near it. He later flew north to Grass Roots, when he had a hard time getting down at Wilotree, in order to do his 100 mile flight.

Pedro Garcia got within 8 km of Fantasy and turned north and then back to Wilotree.

John Simon was helping Jordan get around the Green Swamp and they got around and onto the east side, but Jordan landed out. I don't see John's glider and I don't see Thaisio's as he landed southeast of the Green Swamp on the way back. Glider is too big for him.

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/ranking-hg-national:US

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/3.3.2022/17:09

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/3020721

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/league/world/2022/brand:all,cat:2,class:all,xctype:all,club:all

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A competition size FAI triangle task

Fri, Feb 25 2022, 4:14:49 pm MST

Away from any chance of a sea breeze

John Simon|Larry Bunner|Maria Garcia|Pedro Garcia|triangle|Wilotree Park|XC|XContest.org

This was the forecast:

Preliminary Soaring Forecast for Friday, February 25th, 2022 at Wilotree Park

NWS, Friday:

Areas of fog before 8am. Otherwise, sunny, with a high near 86. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the afternoon.
Hourly forecast: wind 2-3 mph, cloud cover 12%, no chance of rain.

RAP, 1 PM:

Surface wind: south 4 mph (5 mph, 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 640 fpm
TOL: 5,600'
CU: 4,400'
B/S: 10.0

RAP, 3 PM:

Surface wind: southwest 3 mph (4 mph, 2,000')
Updraft velocity: 620 fpm
TOL: 5,400'
Cu: 4,800'
B/S: 10.0
Temperature at CB: 58°F
Sea breeze from the west at Dade City at 4 PM starting on the west coast at 1 PM

Task:

Quest 3 km
Kokee 2 km
Baron 3 km
Quest 400 m

84 km - FAI triangle

John Simon wanted a task over the open, unpopulated areas to the northwest so I set up an FAI triangle to the west pretty much along highway 50 to Interstate 75, then to the northeast over the Florida Turnpike and the ever encroaching Villages and back to Wilotree Park.

I was pulled up after Larry Bunner and finally found 200+ fpm to cloud base at 3,800' on the northeast corner of Wilotree, while Larry worked lift to my south. I headed out as I got to base and found about 400 fpm in the first two thermals that were well marked by the cumulus clouds. This got me a bit north and down wind of the course line.

I dove into the northern edge of the Green Swamp to get under darker looking cu's and got about 300 fpm to cloud base at 3,700' just east of the lumber yard at 471 and 50. I didn't find any solid cores after that and before the Kokee turnpoint and was at 3,300' 3 km east of the edge of the turnpoint cylinder. I ran to the turnpoint but was getting 700 fpm down.

Nicking the turnpoint and heading northeast down to 1,5000' AGL I found 300+ fpm back to cloud base at 4,700'. I could speak with Larry who was close behind. Pedro and Maria Garcia were also coming after us.

There were plenty of cu's straight down wind (5 mph) to the northeast toward Baron. I shaded a bit to the upwind side to get to better looking cu's and I was able to climb to over 5,000'.

I found 200 fpm just before the turnpoint and climbed to 5,000' as Larry came in low below me and didn't find that thermal. I headed south to the next set of clouds. There were plenty of cu's ahead and some thermals averaged 400 fpm.

Down to 2,400' east of the chicken coops in Mascotte I found 250+ fpm to 4,000' and came in way too high. Not long after Pedro Garcia landed next to me after he skipped the Baron turnpoint. Larry was next in and finally Maria who really appreciated not landing between Baron and Wilotree. Apparently John didn't fly.

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/ranking-hg-national:US

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/25.2.2022/17:06

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/3015126#

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/league/world/2022/brand:all,cat:2,class:all,xctype:all,club:all

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2021 US XContest National Champion

Tue, Jan 25 2022, 7:05:12 am MST

Larry Bunner

Bruce Barmakian|Cory Barnwell|COVID|Davis Straub|Flytec 6030|Greg Dinauer|Gregg "Kim" Ludwig|John Simon|Krzysztof "Krys/Kris" Grzyb|Larry Bunner|Maria Garcia|Mick Howard|Pedro Garcia|Wilotree Park|XC|XContest.org

This past year has been a challenge on many levels; Covid, death and weather were constants throughout. Covid acted as a veil that constantly reminded of the need to take care and precautions to keep us all healthy. Although not directly impacted, the potential issues continually lurked in the background. This summer death knocked on the door too many times (having lost several loved ones) and in spite of our best efforts took Sue’s beloved mom from us.

The weather was inconsistent and challenging to predict. The winter/spring season in Florida never really set up with the conventional southeasterly flows up the peninsula. When southerly winds did briefly occur, they ended up being blocked by stationary fronts north of Ocala. There weren’t any 100 miles flights to the north this year.

In the Midwest (Whitewater, WI), typically cold fronts will pass through on a weekly frequency starting in late July. It wasn’t until mid September that a strong cold front finally passed through that resulted in a good flight however the soaring duration was limited by the number of sun hours at this time of year.

Even the weather in the usually reliable west Texas was hard to predict. The coastal plains were inundated with moisture in early summer that retarded the development of normally hot arid conditions expected in late July and early August. A week in Cotulla, Texas was somewhat of a bust. A number of pilots gathered there to be towed up by Gregg Ludwig on his super trike with setting records in mind. Even though we had all of the logistics aligned, two days of torrential rain limited our best efforts. I hadn’t seen west Texas so green before.

Yet it wasn’t all gloomy. Florida is a great time in the winter and spring as a significant number of like-minded cross country (XC) pilots gather at Wilotree Park to fly preset tasks on the good days. Davis Straub, Greg Dinauer, John Simon, Mick Howard, Pedro and Maria Garcia, Corey Barnwell and a host of others fly together on most days to enjoy the sweet Florida conditions and improve their skills.

Although the southerly conditions didn’t get established this year, there were a number of decent flying days. February and March resulted in about 45 hours of airtime but no big cross country days to speak of. A week of exceptional weather started off the month of April and on the 4th a large group went for it on a 100 mile triangle around the Green Swamp. John Simon, Pedro Garcia and I managed to make it.

The next day looked good for an out and return task with light winds and high cloudbase. We set a task to fly south to Gilbert Airport and return north to Baron Airport and then back south to Wilotree (~100 miles). Davis, Bruce Barmakian and I completed the task in epic cumulus cloud filled skies.

The conditions the next day were almost a repeat so we set another big task to the south to Suzanne Airport and back to Wilotree. Davis and I flew together the entire flight. The task was ~90mi so as I neared Wilotree I found a good climb and decided to fly further north to get an additional 10 miles to put me over 100 again.

On the fourth day, conditions still looked good with mostly blue skies but high top of the lift so we again set an aggressive task to the south to Lake Wales and then back to Wilotree. To get 100 miles we would need to proceed further north to Grass Roots Airport and back to Wilotree. We flew together to Lake Wales and back. Davis landed at Wilotree however just as I approached the airport a gaggle of vultures popped out of the field climbing very fast. I joined them and climbed back up to 4500’. A convergence line of clouds formed a couple miles to the west and was producing excellent lift up to 600fpm. Cloudbase at 6700’ was enough altitude to glide north to Grass Roots Airport and back to Wilotree for my fourth 100+mile flight in four days!

The conditions indeed had been epic with strong climbs up to 1100fpm (>700fpm average) on two of the days and tops above 7000’. Two weeks of competitions started the next weekend however the weather had turned for the worse. There were only two good days during the period. The rest were mediocre at best with low, slow climbs and few clouds. By the end of the month it was time to head back to northern Illinois.

The four 100 milers in Florida:

Back on my home turf, I connected with Kris Grzyb from Aurora, IL who I have flown big flights with for over 25 years. We share the same strong desire to push ourselves for long distance and he is probably the best cross country pilot in the US. Thankfully for me anyway he logs flights under his native land of Poland (lol!).

In early May strong spring conditions set up for three days of good flying. Kris had to work on May 11th however my brother Rob met me in Whitewater, WI to fly in strong post frontal conditions. We didn’t have a driver but decided to go for it and figure out retrieval once we were done flying.

I launched first and climbed in successive thermals to 5000’, 5500’, 6700’ and 7200’. The spacing between thermals was tight and for three hours my lowest point was above 4500’. Temperatures up high were brutally cold (less than 25°F) however I was reasonably prepared with heat packs in my shoes, multiple thermal layers, bar mitts and heat packs for my hands. At one point the thought crossed my mind how wonderful it would be to soar in these conditions and be toasty warm. I didn’t get hypothermic but did have to run in my harness to keep my core temperature up.

Unbeknownst to me the surface conditions at Whitewater worsened after my launch so Rob elected not to fly. He knew the conditions would be better the next two days so decided to drive the chase vehicle to pick me up. We weren’t using radio’s so had no idea he was on route. About 100 miles out high cirrus shaded the ground and ever so slowly cooled the environment including my body temperature.

I’m a strong believer that eliminating distractions is the key to excellent performance and am driven to remove those distractions that impact my ability to focus on the task at hand. Unfortunately the cold was getting to me and once that started my thoughts about the length of time it would take to get retrieved were becoming dominant. I began looking for towns in the distance suitable for a landing. The optimal place would be an airport however after over-flying several towns I touched down in an open field on the outskirts of Metamora, IL 4hrs 40min in the air and 153 miles from launch.

Unbelievably Rob arrived 30 minutes later. After a 2 hour ride back to my house we checked the weather for the next day and found that the conditions improved with light and variable winds and top of the lift at 10,000’!

Whitewater to Metamora:

We met Kris at Whitewater early. He had followed my tracker for the whole flight the day before and was chomping to fly a big one. He planned out a 207km (128mi) FAI triangle to the southeast to Ringwood, IL then west northwest to Avon, WI and finally back to Whitewater. Temperatures at the top of the lift were predicted to be 15°F so it was going to be a very cold day. I dressed similarly as the day before but added a neoprene no fog face mask.

Kris was off early and on course. I followed and headed southeast but a few clouds later was down to 1700’; quite disappointing after having topped out above 7300’ on the previous two climbs. After digging out and struggling to get high again and seeing the clouds on course line thin out, the decision was easy to just follow a better cloud line.

The task was abandoned and I flew a new route to the south using the Flytec 6030 to determine distance to takeoff. The line was good for 30 miles just past Harvard, IL where it then diverted to the west which was perfect to get me back on the original course line.

The last climb at the southern terminus took me over 9000’ for the first time and the clouds to the west were strong too with multiple climbs over 8500’ and one climb rate at a peak over 1200+fpm.

West of the Rock River the lift was more elusive; flying under multiple clouds resulted in little gain but there were better looking clouds further west. I spent an hour searching for a good climb and eventually found one near Durand, IL that was solid and took me to 9400’. The path north now looked epic with flat, black bottomed cumulus marking the lift along the way. The next four climbs were over 8800’ with one strong climb at ~750fpm average to 9859’ the highest of the day.

East of Evansville, WI I decided to return to Whitewater so headed east toward Milton. This leg of the flight was uneventful with several good climbs until I was high enough to glide back to the airport for a good landing. The flight duration was 5hrs and 35 minutes and total distance was 120miles. Kris flew the original task and made it back as well. Rob had an awesome flight too.

The third day showed lift over 10500’ (the best I can recall in the area in 45+ years of flying) however there would be higher winds from the southwest as the day progressed. Kris set a monster task to fly around the city of Madison and its airport over 150 miles. Although neither one of us completed the task, Kris did manage to get ⅔ around the course and I did around 60 miles. The notable part however was that both of us thermaled up to cloudbase and I reached 10,497’ in one climb.

It was almost another month before I flew again. The 2nd of June looked to be epic again so Kris and I set another task around the city of Madison. A dry wedge of air was centered over the area and the forecast was for light winds with cumulus clouds rising to over 9000’ at the peak of the day. Kris and I both completed the 150+ mile task in just under 8 hours. I posted the story of our flight in my blog: https://tinyurl.com/ymy9nccp.

The two big triangles in Wisconsin:

The rest of the summer didn’t produce any big flights. Even Cotulla, TX was woeful at best. In September, I was able to spend a couple days flying with friends in SE Oklahoma at the Panorama site on the Talimena National Scenic Byway. The site is beautiful and the pilots are a great group. On the 16th I flew for 5hrs 20min and approximately 120 miles. This story is also in my blog: https://tinyurl.com/ycknfnmn. This was my 8th flight over 100 miles this year. The best six were long enough to get awarded the XContest US National Championship for the second year in a row.

2021 US XContest National Champion Larry Bunner

https://www.xcontest.org/2021/world/en/ranking-hg-national:US

https://www.xcontest.org/2021/world/en/pilots/detail:lbunner

For the year, I ended up with 51 flights, just over 136 hours and 2279 miles.

Ayvri:

https://tinyurl.com/4hteuksz
https://tinyurl.com/4wnpddmu
https://tinyurl.com/5n7zkvym
https://tinyurl.com/4sd8aeut
https://tinyurl.com/y2vm7mwc
https://tinyurl.com/4b6mcmnm
https://tinyurl.com/mrzhuzje
https://tinyurl.com/2p954h4f

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Registration Open for Florida Spring Competitions

Thu, Nov 25 2021, 9:47:52 am MST

Finally Airtribune responds

Airtribune|Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022|Stephan Mentler|Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

You can now register for the Florida competitions being run by Stephan Mentler.

https://airtribune.com/2022-paradise-airsports-nationals/pilots

https://airtribune.com/2022-wilotree-park-nationals/pilots

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