Flytec
Wills Wing

Oz Report

Volume 16, Number 115
Monday, June 11 2012
World Record Encampment, Zapata County Airport, Zapata, Texas, USA
https://OzReport.com
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

to Table of Contentsto next topic The landing clinic

Fri, Jun 8 2012, 7:42:45 am EDT
Mitch is running one, and I'm doing my own

Highland Aerosports Flight Park|video

http://youtu.be/Szpa7dWldxA

I launched and landed three times during the third task of the 2012 East Coast Championship.  This gave me the opportunity to practice my landings and check out on the video about trying to get up fully vertical, which I'm not able to do in my harness.

Previously I hadn't been trying to get up vertical, just putting up with what the harness gave me and assuming that is just the way it is with competition harnesses.  It wasn't like this photo from the Dutch Nationals:

The pilot sure looks like he is fully vertical or close or it.

On the last landing I flare a little too early and have to hold it until I come down.

I can still flare without being able to push up (but rather up and out), but the flares aren't nearly as strong as they would be if I wasn't pushed back as I pushed out.  This again is due to the fact that I'm not vertical.  If I was vertical I would be pushing against the harness mains as opposed to swinging from them.  Still the glider nose does go up, just not enough to make a full air brake.

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to Table of Contentsto next topic The Ramones - I Wanna Be Sedated

Fri, Jun 8 2012, 7:43:30 am EDT
For Paul Vernon

Highland Aerosports Flight Park|music|video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-EKcjpEIGo

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to Table of Contentsto next topic New Midwest record

Fri, Jun 8 2012, 7:43:59 am EDT
Krys's story

Dustin Martin|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Krzysztof "Krys/Kris" Grzyb|record|weather

Krzysztof Grzyb «doitkg» writes:

Will remember this day (June 6th 2012) for the rest of my life!

I made the longest distance and longest duration flight of my life today.  I beat my record flight from just three days ago, and set a new Midwest longest flight.

This day would not be possible without help from people like Alan Abair who towed me for this flight, Jaro Krupa who helped me with take off and Dariusz Stieber who chased me all day.  Thank you guys for great help!

The Blip Maps showed Wednesday as a great day here in Midwest for flying.  We cannot pass up weather like this!  For years and years, we have been waiting for these kinds of conditions, so when this opportunity came up and Alan offered me help with towing, I took the day off work and went to Nappanee, IN.

When Darius and I got there, Jaro and Alan were already there.  Cu's began showing up. After a quick set up, installing my static tow gear to my glider and harness I took off at 10.49 am CDT.  The tow was perfect, Alan's towing system was really working very well - very smooth approach to the thermal.

I released at 1600 AGL close to clouds but I found a very weak zero lift and had to find a fresh lift, slowly going up. Within minutes, the conditions improved and I was able to make long glides at 4-5K without turning - what a day!

After 50 miles everything slowed down (exactly like Blip map showed), so I slowed down a little bit as well.  The sky was gorgeous but Cu’s spread further and the lift was a little weaker.

From this point conditions improved as the sun heated the ground.  I wore a light long sleeved t-shirt which wasn't enough – and the entire flight I was cold.

Around Covington, I got low.  It was my mistake because I stopped concentrating for only a couple minutes and it took me by surprise.  Luckily I found a very nasty and rough thermal 500 ft above ground.  I had the companionship of three hawks on this rodeo ride.  I saw one hawk's belly but he was below me! They were fighting with this thermal like I did and they helped me a lot to shows me the thermal texture!  I was lucky this time, and I promised myself no more relaxing before landing.

When I got back into the game the sky looked better West than South so I changed my course line more to the West.  Because I was cold the entire time, I did not drink and fatigue was growing.  Thermals were smooth which helped me to survive!

About 6:30pm CST I saw the Mississippi River, but the day began shutting down.  Gliding SW I came slowly to the ground.  I landed at 7:41 pm CST by Kristin and Brian Robertson’s beautiful house with a swimming pool, fire place and party going on in the backyard.  It was a great time there until Dariusz came to retrieve me.

We got back home at 3:30am CST and believe me when I say I was not able to drive.  I'm recovering now from Sunday and Wednesday flights!

The total flying time is 8 hours 52 minutes, the straight line distance I flew is 276.6 miles (445.1km), max alt.  6080 AGL and max lift I saw twice on my average vario was 1050 fpm.  Again I was not able to beat Jonny and Dustin I was short 6.5 miles!!

Flight details: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/para/flightinfo.html?dsId=2463593

Google Earth version: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxzeUBU_OUwWMFNQaWlISDhMczg

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to Table of Contentsto next topic Dutch Open

Fri, Jun 8 2012, 7:44:25 am EDT
The winners after two days

Dutch Open 2012|Gerd Dönhuber|Gijs Wanders|Joost Eertman|Martin van Helden|Michael Friesenbichler|Sander van Schaik|Wolfgang "Wolfi" Siess

http://www.avda.nl/Aflenz2012/

Sander van Schaik «Sander van Schaik» sends:

In the beautiful area of Aflenzland we had 2 tasks.  In the combined overall standing (Towing + Mountain), Martin van Helden became Dutch Champion 2012.

1. Martin van Helden
2. Joost Eertman
3. Gijs Wanders

The Dutch Open was won by Gerd Dönhuber:

1. Gerd Dönhuber
2. Michael Friesenbichler
3. Wolfgang Siess

More results can be found on: http://www.zeilvliegen.nl

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to Table of Contentsto next topic 2012 Austrian Open

Fri, Jun 8 2012, 7:56:27 am EDT
At Greifenburg

Austrian Open 2012|Corinna Schwiegershausen

http://corinnaflies.blogspot.co.at/2012/06/austrian-open-1st-day-moyes-rules.html

http://www.drachenflieger.at/fileadmin/Content/Files/AO2012/FAI_1-Task_1.html

http://www.livetrack24.com/events/AustrianOpen2012

Today's task canceled.

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to Table of Contentsto next topic 2012 East Coast Championship

Fri, Jun 8 2012, 7:50:43 pm EDT
Another great day on the DelMarVa Peninsula

East Coast Championships 2012|Highland Aerosports Flight Park

http://soaringspot.com/ecc2012/

It looks like we might have six of seven days of a competition here at the East Coast Hang Gliding Championships.  With a strong northwest wind, strong lift, a high cloud base and plenty of cu's despite the forecasts from XCSkies and BLIPMAP (but in line with the FSL RUC).

Many pilots made goal.  The winds were south at the goal near the east coast of Delaware.

The task was a 104 km zig zag with a ninety degree cross leg in the middle.  Pilots rarely got low and had little trouble making goal.

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to Table of Contentsto next topic 2012 East Coast Championship

Sat, Jun 9 2012, 9:19:54 pm EDT
A day with just a few very high cu's and lots of west wind

East Coast Championships 2012|Highland Aerosports Flight Park|John Simon|Larry Bunner|Mitchell "Mitch" Shipley|Paris Williams

http://soaringspot.com/ecc2012/

With no cu's nearby to entice us, pilots wait until after 1:30 PM to start with Dave Proctor and Larry Bunner going first.  I get ready and go about sixth hoping for better lift than the previous day.  Unfortunately the inexperienced tug pilot takes me away from all the lift and I have to come back and land.

I'm in line again quickly and with three tugs operating things are quite quick.  Paris is in line behind me.

I get towed through the good lift at 900' with the tug pilot seemingly unaware that he has to push the stick forward when in lift.  I have the Falcon pushed all the way out to try to climb up to him.

He then heads off again away from the good lift instead of turning in it. In disgust I pin off at 1,400' AGL and go back to get the good stuff at 900' AGL.  It is quite good and I climb with Paris and another pilot to 6,000' AGL.  The forecast is for lift to 9,000' with no cu's, but there are a few very thin cu's around, here and there.

The lift gets weak near the top and I climb through Charlie Allen on an Icaro Z8 and through another topless.  The Falcon has a relatively poor minimum sink rate relative to these high performance hang gliders and I have to use guile to get above them.

We all head out together at the 2:30 PM start gate down the course line to the first turnpoint to the southeast.  We've got a 17 mph west northwest wind and we are already downwind of the course line.  The wind is westerly near the ground and northwest above 6000'. There are only one or two wispy clouds ahead.

I'm doing 50+ mph over the ground and 32 mph through the air.  But with sink averaging 500+ fpm, I only get 7.7 L/D over the 10 kilometers to the next little wispy.  The topless pilots arrive at it pretty much at the same time I do, but much higher.

I have to search around to find respectable lift, something over 200 fpm and now I'm drifting further east and away from the course line and downwind of it. Still I climb back to over 5,000' and then head south and cross wind toward the turnpoint.

I see the topless glider that I had out climbed in the first thermal has landed at a grass airstrip about three kilometers before the turnpoint and am happy that I will be passing him (John Simon). I spy a tiny shadow of a cu just before I get to him and upwind a bit and get in under it to find 30 fpm.  I'm 5 km north of the turnpoint and drifting downwind away from it.

I see wispies by the turnpoint and head for them at 2,300' AGL.  Down to 800' AGL half a kilometer before the turnpoint I find 34 fpm and hang onto it as I drift away from the turnpoint.

At 1,100' AGL and downwind of the turnpoint a spot a few wispies closer to the turnpoint, run upwind, hit the turnpoint, and then find 50 fpm right next to the turnpoint cylinder at 800' AGL.

It looks like I'm going to climb out of a bad hole as I get up to 1,600' AGL.  But somehow, even with all the buzzards about, I lose the thermal.  I go searching for another under the wispies to the east but find nothing at land.

I was headed in the wrong direction to begin with, with the wind much more from the west down low than it was up high and the next turnpoint to the south southeast.

The strong west wind made for a very difficult second leg and a number of pilots went out before reaching the second turnpoint.  Only Bob Filipchuk and Mitch Shipley were able to make goal.

The final results:

Open Class:

1. Paris Williams USA 4590

2. Larry Bunner USA 3709

3. Mitch Shipley 3390

Sport Class

1. Patrick McGuinness USA 2698

2. Brian Boudreau CDN 2575

3. Matt Christensen USA 2265

Rigid wing

1. Christian Titone USA 3375

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The Oz Report, a near-daily, world wide hang gliding news ezine, with reports on competitions, pilot rankings, political issues, fly-ins, the latest technology, ultralight sailplanes, reader feedback and anything else from within the global HG community worthy of coverage. Hang gliding, paragliding, hang gliders, paragliders, aerotowing, hang glide, paraglide, platform towing, competitions, fly-ins. Hang gliding and paragliding news from around the world, by Davis Straub.

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