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topic: Aeros Combat 2 (36 articles)

Flytec Championship - day nine »

A tough day, made that way by the task committee (on purpose).

competition

Sat, Apr 24 2004, 7:00:00 pm GMT

A.I.R. ATOS|A.I.R. ATOS VX|Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Aeros Ltd|Alex Ploner|Brett Hazlett|Brian Porter|cloud|competition|Eric Paquette|Flytec Championships 2004|Flytec Championships 2005|gaggle|Jacques Bott|Johann Posch|Just Fly|Kraig Coomber|Manfred Trimmel|Mario Alonzi|Ron Gleason|Swift|tandem|Worlds 2004

The results will be posted here: http://www.flytec.com/flytec_champ_04/index.html

We are back to east winds again like for most of the meet. The winds are forecasted to be higher at higher elevation, up to 19 knots. It also looks like the clouds will be thin or not there at all. The top of the lift is forecasted to be 7,400' with lift at 640 fpm, so it should be strong and high enough to come back into the wind.

We hold everything back half an hour as there are clouds forming and we want them to fill in a bit. The rigids will start at 2 PM and the flex wings at 2:30. The clouds do start to look good just on the north side of Quest.

The flex wing contest is very tight with Mario Alonzi in first by less then 40 points over Oleg Bondarchuck. Both these top two pilots are flying Aeros Combat L's. Of course, Bo who won yesterday, is flying the Aeros Combat 2 (not the L). So this day could determine who wins the meet.

The rigid wing contest is not particularly tight (for first at least). Alex had hoped to be 1000 points ahead so that he could go tandem on the AIR ATOS VX today, but he was only 600 points ahead of Worlds Number 1, David Chaumet, on the Tsunami. Alex has won every task. Ron Gleason has a chance to move into fourth behind Eric Paquette (see below), if he does really well today.

We get reasonable climbs to cloud base at 5,000' staying out of the fourteen mile start circle centered around Kokee, 19 miles to the west, northwest. One flex wing, maybe Chris Chris Zimmermann is the only one to go with us, unlike Bo the day before. The rest of the flex wings will wait until later to start.

I'll go down early missing the second thermal, so I'll get a chance to see how the rest of the crew does waiting at goal. Alex Ploner is the first pilot in, with Mark and Brian closely behind him (starting fifteen minutes later). After a bit of a wait David Chaumet comes in, followed by Jacques Bott, Eric Paquette and later Ron Gleason. Then it is a long time until Kurt Schumann gets home and a long time later Johann Posch. The question remains whether Ron will gain enough points to pass Johann for forth.

Now it is time to wait for the flex wings to make it. The sky has been washed clean of clouds for the last hour, but Alex says that he find plenty of lift on the way home. He said he struggled getting to the second turn point, but the guys who came along a little alter timed it perfectly and had clouds form out in front of them as they made it to the second turnpoint to the north at Coleman.

The winds were switchy out on the last leg into Quest from Coleman. So it wasn't as hard making it in as we had thought.

As we break down Alex's VX, we catch site of four flex wings coming in low and fast. In the lead is Oleg Bondarchuck, with Antoine right behind, followed closely by Kraig Coomber and Brett Hazlett. These four are the first gaggle and they are a good ways in front of the next group that includes Mario coming in low and fast just over the trees.

It looks like Oleg has been able to grab the lead back from Mario. It looks like for the first time the Aeros Combat has been the glider selected by the top two place finishers in a major hang gliding meet (outside the Ukraine, that is). Congratulations to Oleg, Mario, Bo, and the folks at Just Fly and Aeros.

The new AIR ATOS -VX, with the very excellent Alex Ploner piloting, it has proven to be the glider to be in in light conditions. It is still not clear what he will be flying at the Worlds in the Alps. Manfred Trimmel won the first day at Bassano in a VX.

Alex, Christian, ad David Chaumet have to be the top favorites at the Worlds coming up in six weeks. Alex and Felix will have an interesting decision to make.

Brian Porter has been flying a very heavily customized Swift with a much smaller cage. He will be flying this in the Worlds. Will this be enough to beat Manfred? We'll see.

Discuss "Flytec Championship - day nine" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Aeros Combat 2 – the unique aspects thereof »

Thu, Aug 28 2003, 5:00:03 pm EDT

Aeros Combat 2|carbon fiber|Paris Williams

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|carbon fiber|Paris Williams

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|carbon fiber|Paris Williams

G. W. Meadows «gw» writes:

The Combat 2 is a glider that utilizes fully all the technology available to us currently. Aeros uses tests performed in a full scale wind tunnel to maximize the performance of this wing. Of course, performance is one thing handling is a totally different beast. If you can't precisely control that performance, then it's no good to you in competition. The competition results of the Combat 2 speak toward the performance of this wing. It's the most winning glider in U.S. meets for this year!!

Through 'multi-stage' flex control along the leading edge, Aeros has been able to make a glider that is stiff enough to hold the loads of high speed while flexing where necessary to create incredible handling. Paris Williams (current U.S. National Champion) was so impressed by this handling that he joined the Aeros team just three days after his first flight on the current production Combat 2. This same multi-stage flex control is part of the reason that the Combat 2 has the great landing characteristics that weren't present in our Stealth series.

The Combat 2 (as well as all the Aeros flex wings - including the Aeros trike wings) utilizes 2024 T-6 aircraft quality aluminum for its leading edge member. This alloy gives the desired flex characteristic and has the welcomed side effect of not breaking explosively in the event of a very bad landing/crash. For anyone who has ever broken a 7075 leading edge and had it explode through the sail of their glider, they know all too well the extra costs of this type of mishap. Of course, no one ever expects to break a leading edge when they are buying a hang glider, but reality is that accidents do happen.

Another great money saver is the 3 piece leading edge construction of the Combat 2. Seldom does anyone damage 2 sections of a 3 piece leading edge in one mishap. Why buy 12 ft of leading edge replacement when you only need 7 ft? Because of the 3 piece leading edge design and the 2 piece keel, all parts of the Combat 2 (except the carbon crossbar) can be shipped via UPS. This also is a great money saver!! Parts cost a fortune to ship by truck, not to mention the fact that truck can’t deliver to you overnight across the country. This convenient part replacement is not by chance. The Aeros gliders are well thought out down to the cost of replacing parts.

The Combat 2 features the 'microdrag' control frame. It has the same downtube airfoil designed and optimized by WW and the Aeros control frame features the most comfortable carbon basetube in the business. Many pilots of our competitor's gliders have purchased this carbon fiber basetube from us to install on their gliders because of its extreme comfort and streamlined efficiency.

Probably the most unique feature of the Combat 2 is the fact that the same glider the top guys fly is the same glider that the customer gets. This is not that case across the board on all the comp wings currently flying. We are very proud of this fact.

When you put it all together, we feel that we have the highest performance for the dollar. We also feel that anyone who does a little research will have to agree.

Discuss Combat 2 at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

2003 US Nationals – Paris wins flex wing championship »

Sun, Aug 3 2003, 10:00:00 pm GMT Place Place Place

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Brian Porter|Bruce Barmakian|cloud|competition|gaggle|Jerz Rossignol|Kraig Coomber|Moyes Litespeed|Paris Williams|Phillip "Phill" Bloom|record|Robin Hamilton|Swift|US National Champion|US Nationals|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.flytec.com/usnats03/scores.html

Paris Williams, the number US ranked flex wing hang glider pilot, won the US National Championships and is the US Flex wing National Champion. Bruce Barmakian is the US National Rigid Wing Champions and Brian Porter is the US National Swift Champion.

Paris has been US National Champion three years in a row, which I believe is a record. He won the US Nationals when they were last held in Texas two years ago at Hearne.

So how did Paris do it? He flew faster than anyone else. Sound like a tautology? It isn’t.

I’ve flown with Paris a lot. Given the extra performance of the AIR ATOS, I can stay with Paris whenever the rigids and flex wings fly together. We flew together on the first two days and I got to see him on other days at the Nationals. So I have a real good idea about how he flies.

Paris is a racer (although he quickly slowed down in Wisconsin in the weak lift at the Midwest Regionals). He wants to go fast and is willing to go in front. He goes for the big lift and is reluctant to stop for the weak stuff. He leaves the thermal when they get weak. He doesn’t wait around for anyone else. He’s not thinking about the gaggle. He’s thinking about how to go as fast as possible.

I’m always happy to fly with Paris because I want someone out there with me when I’m leading and Paris never hesitates. Time and time again I’ve gone out with him and it always works. (I held back in Wisconsin, and Paris had to come back to the gaggle when it proved to be very weak out in front.)

Paris will most often take the last start time as that is the time when the best pilots go, but sometimes he will go for the extra points afforded the pilots who go early and go fast.

Paris often starts off a meet in the hole and has to dig himself out because he flies too fast on the first day and doesn’t make goal. In this meet he flew fast on the first day, was leading from the start.

false

Paris at Big Spring at the US Nationals

Paris flying the Aeros Combat 2 at Big Spring

Big Spring provided us with strong lift, high cloud bases, and lots of thermal markers, i.e. cu’s. These are perfect conditions for a racer. You can ignore the gaggle because you are flying the clouds. You can ignore weak lift because you are high and there is something better coming along. You can leave when it slows down, because there is something faster ahead.

So you had better be ready to run as hard as you can. Forget about hitting the deck. Fly hard and fly to win.

You also might notice that Bo, who was flying with Paris when he could, had a much better meet than he’s had lately. He was smoking up the course also. Kraig Coomber and Robin Hamilton provided strong “foreign” competition.

More on the US Nationals in a later issue.

Flex wings day seven:

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COOMBER Kraig

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Moyes Litespeed

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2:11:28

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930

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2

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WILLIAMS Paris

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Aeros Combat 2

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2:16:35

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920

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3

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HAMILTON Robin

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Moyes Litespeed 4

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2:12:00

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909

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4

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VOLK Glen

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Moyes Litespeed

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2:17:20

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906

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5

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HAGEWOOD Bo

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Aeros Combat 2

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2:18:13

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891

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6

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WARREN Curt

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Moyes Litespeed 4

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2:12:56

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888

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7

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LEE Jim

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Wills Wing Talon

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2:13:31

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876

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8

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ROSSIGNOL Jerz

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Aeros Combat

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2:16:50

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833

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9

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BLOOM Phill

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Wills Wing Talon

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2:23:09

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779

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10

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ZIMMERMAN Chris

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Wills Wing Talon 150

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2:23:58

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771

Cumulative

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1

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WILLIAMS Paris

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Aeros Combat 2

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WARREN Curt

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Moyes Litespeed 4

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5715

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3

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COOMBER Kraig

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Moyes Litespeed

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5662

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4

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VOLK Glen

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Moyes Litespeed

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5566

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5

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HAGEWOOD Bo

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Aeros Combat 2

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HAMILTON Robin

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Moyes Litespeed 4

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LEE Jim

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Wills Wing Talon

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SAUER Rich

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Icaro MRX

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ZIMMERMAN Chris

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Wills Wing Talon 150

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ROSSIGNOL Jerz

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Aeros Combat

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4895

Rigids on day seven:

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STRAUB Davis

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AIR Atos C

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2:11:42

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1000

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2

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BOWEN Campbell

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Flight Design Access

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2:23:41

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840

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3

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BURTON Richard

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Icaro Stratos

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2:30:59

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775

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4

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YOCOM James

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AIR Atos C

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2:31:06

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765

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5

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GLEASON Ron

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AIR Atos

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2:38:16

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710

Cumulative:

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BARMAKIAN Bruce

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AIR Atos C

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2

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ENDTER Vincent

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Icaro Stratos

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5504

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3

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SEABERG David

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Icaro Stratos

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4991

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4

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BOWEN Campbell

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Flight Design Access

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4761

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5

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STRAUB Davis

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AIR Atos C

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4673

Swifts:

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PORTER Brian

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Aeriane Swift

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2

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MULHOLLAND Mark

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Aeriane Swift Lite

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3

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NAKAMURA Junko

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Aeriane Swift Lite

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4428

Discuss "2003 US Nationals – Paris wins flex wing championship" at the Oz Report forum   link»

2003 US Nationals – courage on a blue day »

Fri, Aug 1 2003, 8:00:00 pm GMT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Belinda Boulter|Bobby Bailey|Buddy Cutts|Carol Sperry|cloud|CompeGPS|competition|dust devil|FAI|gaggle|Kraig Coomber|Mike Tryon|Moyes Litespeed|Paris Williams|Phillip "Phill" Bloom|Swift|tow|triangle|US Nationals|Vincent "Vince" Endter|Wallaby Ranch|weather|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.flytec.com/usnats03/scores.html

First, a few corrections from the last report on the Nationals. The mystery glider was Vince Endter. That mystery was cleared up today when we got together with Tim Meany and used CompeGPS to run the task back on the screen. Quite amazing to live the race over again and see who did what. Campbell and Bruce took a completely different track than the rest of us. And Bruce was way behind us for the longest time but apparently didn’t have to stop and thermal on the way back.

I believe that Buddy Cutts has made goal before, although what I wrote was what my informant told me. Jeremie Hill, you may know him as the chef at Wallaby Ranch, made goal for the first time. He is flying a borrowed Wills Wing Talon (borrow from Wills Wing), and I believe that this is his first competition (don’t hold me to that).

The task committee mistakenly interpreted Gary’s weather forecast as calling for a chance of over development. Sorry for our mistake there. We should have called a longer task, but then Carol Sperry might not have made it in.

There were a few mistypings and I also said that Rich Burton was low on my left. He actually was low on my right. Sorry about any other problems that I didn’t catch today.

Speaking of today. We had a magnificence if rowdy blue day.

The FSL forecast calls for a brisk south-southeast wind (10-13 knots) turning to southwest up high. It also shows an inversion that rises to over 12,000’ after 4 PM. I call for perhaps blue or thin clouds.

There are no clouds when the rigids are set to launch at 1 PM for their race start at 2 PM. It’s easy and fun to do a race with the rigids because there are only fifteen (fourteen with Mike Tryon out of it because of shoulder problems) and there is no crowding in the thermals even at the start gate.

Still given my forecast for the good likelihood of only thin clouds we (Kraig Coomber and I on the task committee) figure that’s just the way the day is and let’s go for it.

I get Bobby Bailey to tow me up and given that I’m the seven or eighth guy in line I let him tow me up as far as he will under the gaggle that is slowly rising in the center of the airstrip. He waves me off before he passes anyone.

The lift is actually pretty good at 200 fpm. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last and the next half hour before the race start we all slowly climb up to 5,000’ AGL. The flex wing guys on the ground are a lot happier to be starting later when perhaps it will be better. There are one or two thin cu’s in the distance. The inversion layer is obvious between 6 and 8,000’ MSL.

The task is a 70 mile FAI triangle (when you subtract the 5 mile start circle), and that may make it available for world records (see article below). The first leg is off to the northeast, then back to the northwest, with a 25 mile final leg to the southeast. If the wind does in fact clock around to the southwest up high maybe it won’t be quite so tough getting in.

We rigids find good lift for the first time right after the start circle which is a surprise (without clouds these thermal are darn invisible) and that gets us to 9,000’ MSL. Another blip a few miles later and the whole crew is sticking together and racing.

Vince and another glider are low off to the north but they get the next thermal first and it is a strong one. The rest of us continue on to find a worse thermal and one that is actually very unpleasant. This will be the story for the next few thermals getting to and around the first turnpoint. Very unpleasant with the gliders doing most of the flying on their own. I’m hoping that everyone realizes that it’s not a good idea to be too close to anyone else.

The rigids thin out with four rigids taking an upwind southern track and Jim Yokum, myself and another rigid or two following the course line. We’ll drift away from it to the north while thermaling as the wind out of the south in measuring well over 15 mph. At three o’clock the four of us hit our first really good thermal that actually gets as high as 700 fpm and I’ll climb out to almost ten thousand feet. I’m not able to keep track of the rigids to the south and there is one rigid that I don’t recognize just 100’ over me.

The last flex wing start time is 3 PM, and Paris will later say that this is when the lift really turns on for them. He’ll take the 3 PM start clock.

I go on a fifteen mile glide without seeing anyone else and from five miles out from the second turnpoint I can see a small dust devil and dust rising in another field from a couple of tractors. I go over to where the dust is rising from the tractors but don’t find anything. I then go to the field where I had seen the dust devil another one or two miles closer to the turnpoint. I’m down to 1,200’ AGL. The dust devil is no longer there, but I’m thinking that the lift will be. It is.

I’ll climb to 10,200’ MSL at times at 800 fpm just before the turnpoint and catch a glimpse of Vince and Bruce climbing just in front of me past the turnpoint. I’ll go on glide and come in under Vince twelve miles later in the only thermal that I’ll take on the last leg of the task. I’ll see 1000 fpm on the averager in this thermal.

The extreme turbulence that we experienced in thermals on the first leg disappeared at 3 PM, and the thermals have been much stronger, much smoother and we are getting much higher. I assume that the inversion breaking was related to this change in the characteristics of the thermals.

I will climb under Vince and Bruce to 10,500’ fifteen miles from goal. Paris will tell me later that when he comes along an hour after us he’ll find 1,200 fpm on the averager at the thermal at the turnpoint and 1,600 fpm on the thermal half way to goal. The clouds are just beginning to form when I get to the second turnpoint and there are a few wispies on the course going back to goal.

From fifteen miles out it’s a 10:1 glide to goal. Vince is two miles ahead and Bruce is about a mile ahead of me. I’m telling Belinda at goal to watch for two gliders and I’ll be right behind.

The lift is good going to goal until about 7 miles out where there is a stretch of 900 fpm down. I’m flying at about 55 mph air speed the whole fifteen miles only slowing up when the bumps from the lift get too hard.

Vince has a problem with his final glide calculator and stops to thermal as Bruce and then I pass unnoticed below him. Bruce will be first into goal and I’ll be a few minutes behind him. Vince will finally see that he can indeed make goal and come in a few minutes later. Then the wait is on for Ron to come in twenty minutes alter and Jim Yokum another twenty minutes later. Twelve out of fourteen rigids make goal.

While we are waiting for the rigids to come in the flexies start coming in with Paris Williams first. He found the strong lift and was able to run very fast. Curt warren came in with Paris but started 15 minutes earlier.

As the flexies came in two cloud streets set up along the course line coming into goal. We had seen the beginnings of these when we were coming in but now they were quite distinct. Still it didn’t help some flex wings who landed short. Bo just made it in by 4/10th of a mile. Rich Burton on a Stratos was just barely in the goal cylinder.

Flex wings:

Place Name Glider Time Total
1 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat 2 2:18:20 916
2 VOLK Glen Moyes Litespeed 2:21:47 833
3 WARREN Curt Moyes Litespeed 4 2:33:41 783
4 SAUER Rich Icaro MRX 2:34:22 769
5 HAGEWOOD Bo Aeros Combat 2 2:37:41 705
6 COOMBER Kraig Moyes Litespeed 2:43:25 698
7 HAMILTON Robin Moyes Litespeed 4 2:48:40 632
8 BLOOM Phill Wills Wing Talon 2:57:15 615
9 ZIMMERMAN Chris Wills Wing Talon 150 3:00:25 592
10 LEE Jim Wills Wing Talon 3:12:55 554

Cumulative:

Place Name Glider Total
1 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat 2 4998
2 WARREN Curt Moyes Litespeed 4 4795
3 COOMBER Kraig Moyes Litespeed 4685
4 VOLK Glen Moyes Litespeed 4634
5 HAGEWOOD Bo Aeros Combat 2 4594
6 HAMILTON Robin Moyes Litespeed 4 4359
7 LEE Jim Wills Wing Talon 4300
8 SAUER Rich Icaro MRX 4269
9 ZIMMERMAN Chris Wills Wing Talon 150 4082
10 PRESLEY Terry Moyes Litespeed 3972

Rigids:

Place Name Glider Time Total
1 BARMAKIAN Bruce AIR Atos C 2:35:27 1000
2 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos C 2:38:00 937
3 ENDTER Vincent Icaro Stratos 2:40:09 901
4 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos 3:00:51 736
5 YOCOM James AIR Atos C 3:19:14 628

Cumulative:

Place Name Glider Total
1 BARMAKIAN Bruce AIR Atos C 5152
2 ENDTER Vincent Icaro Stratos 4809
3 SEABERG David Icaro Stratos 4345
4 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos 3946
5 BOWEN Campbell Flight Design Access 3921

Swifts cumulative (30 points separate them):

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 PORTER Brian Aeriane Swift USA 3632
2 NAKAMURA Junko Aeriane Swift Lite JPN 3613
3 MULHOLLAND Mark Aeriane Swift Lite USA 3602

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Millau, the gliders/the pilots

Wed, Jul 2 2003, 1:00:02 pm EDT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Betinho Schmitz|comic|Comic Sans|competition|Europe|flood|Gerolf Heinrichs|Icaro Laminar MR|Lukas Bader|Moyes Litespeed|Nene Rotor|Sepp "Seppi" Himberger|sport|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon

Let’s compare last year’s Europeans with this year’s pre-Europeans:

2002:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 RUHMER, Manfred Icaro Laminar MR700 AUT 6198
2 GEHRMANN, Guido Aeros Combat DEU 5818
3 BOISSELIER, Antoine Moyes Litespeed FRA 5685
4 HEINRICHS, Gerolf Moyes Litespeed AUT 5511
5 WALBEC, Richard Icaro Laminar MRX 14 FRA 5215
6 RIGG, Gordon Moyes Litespeed GBR 5115
7 Gerard, J.F. Moyes Litespeed FRA 4973
8 GUILLEN, Bruno Moyes Litespeed FRA 4905
9 BONDARCHUK, Oleg Aeros Combat 2 UKR 4903
10 OLSSON, Andreas Moyes Litespeed SWE 4878

2003:

Pl.

Name

Glider

Nation

Total

1

RUHMER, Manfred, 2

Icaro Laminar 4.2

AUT

5891

2

PLONER, Alex, 91

Icaro Laminar 14 MR

ITA

5799

3

BONDARCHUK, Oleg

Aeros Combat 13

UKR

5680

4

ALONZI, Mario, 4

Aeros Combat 2

FRA

5598

5

NÉNÉ ROTOR

Wills Wing Talon 143

BRA

5258

6

BADER, Lukas, 114

Aeros Combat 2

DEU

5105

7

SCHMITZ, Betinho, 12

Moyes LiteSpeed S

BRA

5099

8

HEINRICHS, Gerolf, 3

Moyes LiteSpeed S4

AUT

5047

9

SALVENMOSER, Seppi

Moyes LiteSpeed 4

AUT

4896

10

WEISSENBERGER, Tom

Moyes LiteSpeed 4

AUT

4849

Obviously very good pilots on very good gliders like the Icaro200 Laminar do very well. The Aeros Combat 2 seems to have enticed more top pilots to be among its ranks, and with Lukas Bader doing very well the representation of this glider in the top ten has increased.

It seems that Nene and the Wills Wing Talon are quite competitive. With so few pilots in Europe or Brazil flying the Talon it would be hard to flood the top ten at the pre Europeans with Talon pilots. Perhaps others should consider Nene’s performance here. Only one US pilot was flying at this meet and he was flying a Talon.

The Moyes Litespeeds did not do as well as last year. I notice that Gerolf raced himself into the ground just before the goal on the last day dropping down three places. You go to win not come in fifth. The Moyes Litespeed remains a very popular glider, but it and its pilots are competing against other manufacturers and their top pilots, so it is very hard to completely dominate.

Congratulations to all the pilots and to the manufacturers for their consistent support of the sport. Congrats to Manfred for his consistent domination of this high level competition.

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Millau – they weren’t done yet

Mon, Jun 30 2003, 6:00:05 pm EDT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Betinho Schmitz|Gerolf Heinrichs|Rob Kells|Sepp "Seppi" Himberger|site|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon

I got confused by the Millau web site (its mostly in French), and thought the last results were the final results. Not true as Rob Kells points out. Final results (I think):

Pl. Name Glider Nation Total
1 RUHMER, Manfred, 2 Icaro Laminar 4.2 AUT 5891
2 PLONER, Alex, 91 Icaro Laminar 14 MR ITA 5799
3 BONDARCHUK, Oleg Aeros Combat 13 UKR 5680
4 ALONZI, Mario, 4 Aeros Combat 2 FRA 5598
5 NÉNÉ ROTOR Wills Wing Talon 143 BRA 5258
6 BADER, Lukas, 114 Aeros Combat 2 DEU 5105
7 SCHMITZ, Betinho, 12 Moyes LiteSpeed S BRA 5099
8 HEINRICHS, Gerolf, 3 Moyes LiteSpeed S4 AUT 5047
9 SALVENMOSER, Seppi Moyes LiteSpeed 4 AUT 4896
10 WEISSENBERGER, Tom Moyes LS4 AUT 4849

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Millau

Sat, Jun 28 2003, 6:00:01 pm EDT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Alex Ploner|Betinho Schmitz|competition|Gerolf Heinrichs|Lukas Bader|Moyes Litespeed|Sepp "Seppi" Himberger|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon|Worlds

http://millauclassic.free.fr/intro.htm

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 RUHMER, Manfred, 2 Icaro Laminar 4.2 AUT 4955
2 PLONER, Alex, 91 Icaro Laminar 14 MR ITA 4903
3 BONDARCHUK, Oleg, 1 Aeros Combat 13 UKR 4790
4 ALONZI, Mario, 4 Aeros Combat 2 FRA 4599
5 HEINRICHS, Gerolf, 3 Moyes LiteSpeed S4 AUT 4549
6 NÉNÉ ROTOR Wills Wing Talon 143 BRA 4420
7 BADER, Lukas, 114 Aeros Combat 2 DEU 4275
8 WEISSENBERGER, Tom Moyes Litespeed 4 AUT 4213
9 SCHMITZ, Betinho, 12 Moyes LiteSpeed S BRA 4172
10 SALVENMOSER, Seppi Moyes LiteSpeed 4 AUT 4100

This is the final result.

Good to see Alex Ploner do so well. Now the flex wing boys know what we are up against in the rigid wing class. Also, Lukas Bader did very well relative to his previous performance. This looks like a tough crew here at the top for the Worlds in August.

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Millau

Thu, Jun 26 2003, 6:00:01 pm EDT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Alex Ploner|altitude|Betinho Schmitz|Bruno Guillen|Christian Ciech|cloud|competition|game|Gerolf Heinrichs|radio|Rick Christen|Sepp "Seppi" Himberger|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon

http://millauclassic.free.fr/intro.htm

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 RUHMER, Manfred, 2 Icaro Laminar 4.2 AUT 3955
2 PLONER, Alex, 91 Icaro Laminar 14 MR ITA 3942
3 BONDARCHUK, Oleg, 1 Aeros Combat 13 UKR 3826
4 ALONZI, Mario, 4 Aeros Combat 2 FRA 3685
5 HEINRICHS, Gerolf, 3 Moyes LiteSpeed S4 AUT 3628
6 NÉNÉ ROTOR Wills Wing Talon 143 BRA 3473
7 SCHMITZ, Betinho, 12 Moyes LiteSpeed S BRA 3397
8 BADER, Lukas, 114 Aeros Combat 2 DEU 3336
9 WEISSENBERGER, Tom Moyes LS4 AUT 3265
10 SALVENMOSER, Seppi Moyes LiteSpeed 4 AUT 3249

Saskia <staff@Icaro2000.com> sends this article from Christen Ciech:

Here we are, another time in this beautiful place. This time I'm competing with the flex wing (instead of rigid), because I need points and training for the next World Championship.

Unfortunately, it seems that I'm not in a good condition and in the first two tasks I miss the goal by many kilometres. Alex Ploner seems to be in the opposite condition: he's able to beat everybody and he's in first place, with a good advantage.

In the third day I leave the take off early to try to earn some points and position. It's the best day I ever seen here in Millau, but when I reach 3000 meters I'm still in a 3 m/s lift and Antonio Corradini calls me by radio to say that task is cancelled because the wind conditions at launch are bad. Bruno Guillen, on this day, climbs to 4200 meters over the first turnpoint.

On the 4th day, task is 121 km. Conditions are still good to the north but really difficult around the take off and start area. I leave with the top pilot's goggle at 15.15, but I chose a different direction and start flying by myself. I find very good thermals and easily climb to 3700 m and the task seems really easy. But on the way to the turnpoint I make some bad decisions about the lines to follow and lose 15 minutes.

The lead goggle catches me again and then over takes me. They are able to close the task because they make cloud base at 3000 m at 27 km from the goal. I reach only 2700 m and I miss the goal again. Alex Ploner was flying much faster than everybody, but he made a big mistake at that start and I lose 30 minutes of starting time. And he's still in front of everybody: it's incredible!!

Finally I'm able to reach the goal in the 5th day. We have a 70 km task from Serran take off, about 60 km south-east of Millau. With a maximum altitude of 1400 m the flight is technical even if it is all along some ridges. It seems to me that today I can understand a little more the conditions and close the day in 10th position.

Alex lost 8 minutes from Manfred who it seems doesn't want to play Alex's game any more. But after this day Alex is still leading the competition with only a one point advantage in front of Manfred and Oleg. Just the trip back to Millau in this beautiful landscape and magic light of sunset, it's a good reason to be here.

6th day is another non-fly day, because of a strong south-east wind.

7th day: It seems to me that I'm not able to fly as well as other times. 70 km of task with weak conditions at the beginning, with some high clouds that stop the sun light. I try to do the 14.00 start gate but before 15.00 I didn't reach the altitude; I thought it’s necessary to stay in the air. So I remain more or less alone and even if the thermals are pretty good, I can't fly very fast, because of the low base altitude.

I lost a lot of time and I close the task in 21st position. The fastest is Gerolf Heinrichs who completes the task in 1 hour and 36 minutes. With 1 hour and 51 minutes Manfred is second separated only few seconds from Oleg and Alex who loses first place overall. So Manfred first with about a 10 point advantage on Alex. Oleg is about 100 points behind.

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Millau

Tue, Jun 24 2003, 2:03:02 pm EDT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Alex Ploner|Betinho Schmitz|Gerolf Heinrichs|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon

http://millauclassic.free.fr/intro.htm

The report is that after five days Alex Ploner leads Manfred by 1 point.

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 PLONER, Alex, 91 Icaro Laminar 14 MR ITA 3082
2 RHUMER, Manfred Icaro Laminar 4.2 AUT 3081
3 BONDARCHUK, Oleg Aeros Combat 13 UKR 2965
4 ALONZI, Mario, 4 Aeros Combat 2 FRA 2914
5 SANDOLI, Alvaro, 11 Wills Wing Talon 143 BRA 2760
6 HEINRICHS, Gerolf, Moyes LiteSpeed S4 AUT 2682
7 SCHMITZ, Betinho Moyes LiteSpeed S BRA 2628
8 BADER, Lukas, 114 Aeros Combat 2 DEU 2621
9 WEISSENBERGER, Tom Moyes LS4 AUT 2565

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Midwest Regionals – the final day

Sun, Jun 15 2003, 6:03:00 pm GMT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Airborne Climax|barefoot|Bubba Goodman|Carl Wallbank|cloud|competition|cost|David "Dave" Glover|David Glover|flight park|Krzysztof "Krys/Kris" Grzyb|Moyes Litespeed|Oz Report|Paris Williams|photo|Raven Sky Sports|release|Rik Bouwmeester|Ron Gleason|Russell "Russ" Brown|safety|sport|students|tug|weather|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.flytec.com/mwregionals

Check out the animated track logs (click “Top Tracks” - you have to wait for a few minutes for them to begin animating).

Check out the photo gallery (http://flytec.com/mwregionals/gallery.html)

Have I said often enough just how much fun it is flying and competing here in the Midwest? Twin Oaks/Raven Sky Sports is a great flight park and the air conditions here in southern Wisconsin are phenomenal. We’ve had a great competition with seven days of flying out of nine days.

Competition developed out in the west with the big air conditions back in the days when hang gliders were more hang than glide. With the outstanding performance we can get from our super ships these days, we can have very valid competitions in areas where only short flights were possible in the past.

Competitions are competitions between glider pilots. Everyone is in the same conditions and you’ve got to see if you can do better than the next guy in whatever conditions you’re in. It doesn’t matter that conditions are “weak” and scratchy. If you can stay up in those conditions while everyone else goes slower or lands out than you’re the top dog. So what if it takes two hours to go twenty miles?

Any half witted hang glider pilot can get up and go far in strong conditions. Just what are competitions in such conditions telling us? Who can handle the rough stuff?

It takes real skills to be able to fly together with your friends in minimal lift conditions with no sunlight under black clouds.

Of course, not every day has been extraordinarily weak. We’ve had plenty of lift on most days and the last two days a significant number of the pilots have made goal. And as I found out on the practice day, conditions here can be booming, if you like that sort of thing (I don’t).

“Low and slow.” Didn’t that use to be a major identifier for hang gliding in general? Here in Wisconsin we are practicing it every day and frankly it is the most fun you can have in hang gliding. The country side is very beautiful here, the people are friendly, the fields are in clover (I’m flying barefoot). What more could you want?

Did I mention how great it was here at Raven Sky Sports? How well we’ve been treated by all the staff and the owner Brad?

http://www.hanggliding.com/

We didn’t get to see that much of Brad as he takes responsibility for the marketing, sales, and reservations end of the business (and he definitely has the feel of a business oriented type a guy) from his home office. It seems that Brad started off possessed like all other folks who are starting a new business with no money and almost succumbed to “founders” syndrome where the founder can’t ever let go of the business and let it grow.

Finally Brad realized he was either going to go nuts or he was going to hire good people and have them take responsibility for the flight park (and of course he had to get out of their way so they could). One way to do that is spend your time at home making sure that there are students coming to the flight park for lessons from your crew.

Thanks to Brad for making sure that we could come here and have a great competition and to David Glover for assuring him that it would all work out even if we didn’t have 50 pilots. Thanks also to Brad for his support for the Oz Report and for helping out with my tows in exchange for my weather forecasting. Forecasting has turned into a nice little income (actually cost reduction) supplement.

David Glover, America’s best meet director, has turned in another low key behind the scenes performance keeping everything working and letting the pilots make all the tough decisions – tasks, safety, and protests.

Speaking of tasks. The weather forecast was for stronger lift (400-500 fpm) and 15 knot winds out of the northeast. There would be cu’s, but little if any vertical development in them. Cloud base was predicted to be 6,000’, but the height of the lift was predicted to be 4,000’. Funny, that doesn’t really work out.

When we get out on the run way it looks a lot more northerly than easterly, so I go back and come up with a 44 mile task due south to a farm grass strip just south of I 90 in Illinois. After the launch window opens but before anyone goes we decide to use that task instead of the same task as yesterday. Our goal is to get two thirds of the pilots to goal.

There are cu’s but they are small. There is a big block of cirrus right over us which is cutting off the lift. The tug pilots take us to the east where the clouds are lining up pretty nicely.

Russell Brown is in second place and is the only pilot who has a chance to catch me on this last day. Paris is far ahead in first in the flex wings, but three pilots are close for second. Paris could be caught if he falls down.

We get towed over to the clouds but there is very little lift. We have to work everything we can find and the strong wind is pushing us to the southwest off the course line. I’m slowly climbing to cloud base with Chris Grzyb, but we are alone. I’m covering Russ but he’s gone back toward the air strip and is down to 300’. Ron Gleason has to land.

Chris and I are at cloud base at the start circle circumference, but there is no one to go with. I decide to fight back up wind to cover Russell as he is getting up with an ATOS pilot (Jim or Dave), but my Velcro on my nose nappy comes loose and the glider starts vibrating. I don’t know what the problem is by Chris can see it from above.

I get back to the air strip and after trying to get back up with all the flex wings and rigids now high above me decide to land and get towed back up. I find the problem with the nose cone right away and it is quite a relief to fix it.

I’m towed up just as the last start window starts and I release 6 minutes after it starts up high. After one else has taken the 1:45 PM start time and I’m starting at 2:08 for the 2 PM start time.

The wind turns out to have a lot of easterly component in it and there is a big blue hole to the south of the start window. I push southeasterly for six miles to get under some forming clouds and get my first lift out on the course line. I’m down to 1,200’ so I take the 60 fpm that is offered and stick with it for 12 minutes before I can slide with an extra 500 feet over to a better cloud and climb out to 4,000’ AGL. That thermal will average 300 fpm.

The next two which get me to 5,000’ AGL will average 600 fpm. Whoa, this is the best lift I’ve seen during the contest. My average climb rate over the task today will be 250 fpm, much better than any previous day.

The strong lift gets me fifteen miles down the course line and I finally see four flex wing pilots off to my right a mile. I won’t get any more strong lift, but I’ll get enough to get over 3,500’ AGL a couple of times. I haven’t seen Russell or any of the ATOSes and no flex wings other than the four to my right.

There are plenty of clouds in front of me and now the question for me is can I get in quick enough to beat Russell in speed or at least get close to him so that I can win the meet. Since I can’t see him I’ve got to keep trading off rates of climb (which are weaker now) with how fast I can get down the course.

Four miles out I’m down to 1,600’ AGL as I had assumed that I would have hit something a bit better after going on what I though was a final glide at 11 miles out at 3,500’ AGL. My IQ-Compeo was saying I had 650 feet above my best glide line. I was slowing the glide way down to 35 mph to make sure I was flying near best L/D speed (and , of course, I was watching the vario to make sire I was doing that).

I decided that I needed 500’ at 100 fpm in order to make it safely into goal, as the IQ-Compeo was telling me that I was only 100 feet over my best glide line. The height of above goal had been jumping all over the place just like it use to on the IQ-Comp (same algorithm).

I zipped on into goal with 400 feet at the quarter mile cylinder. Since I had been pulling in for the last two miles, it was clear that I would have made it without taking that last bit of lift and spending 5 minutes climbing 500 feet.

As I come over goal I see that Russell has just landed a couple of minutes before me. All the other rigids are there also. They all started 23 minutes before me.

Paris, Bo and Andreas are also there. They were the first three into goal coming into together after flying together within a few seconds of each other. Why didn’t Bo start doing this when the meet started?

Terry, Dennis, Chris, Bubba and Carl all come in a few minutes later. It is the first time Carl has made goal.

The goal is just a grass strip at a farm. Apparently no one had been flying out of it recently as the grass is a foot high. They have been mowing the lawn though, so we break down there. No one is home.

Flex wings today:

Place Name Glider Finish Total
1 OLSSON Andreas Moyes Litespeed 4 15:14:44 971
2 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat 15:14:46 948
3 HAGEWOOD Robert Aeros Combat 2 15:15:05 922
4 PRESLEY Terry Moyes Litespeed 4 15:48:23 627
5 PAGEN Dennis Moyes Litespeed 15:52:04 599
6 GRZYB Krzysztof Icaro MRX700 15:52:43 592
7 GOODMAN Bubba Moyes Litespeed 4 16:05:37 520
8 SAYER Wayne Moyes Litespeed 3 382
9 CIZAUSKAS Rich Wills Wing FusionSP 188
10 MORRIS Dan Wills Wing Talon 134
11 BOUMEESTER Rik Aeros Stealth 129
11 BURICK Carl Airborne Climax 129
11 DUGGAN Dan Icaro MR700WRE 129
14 GILLETTE Rhanor Wills Wing Ultra Sport 0

Flex wings total:

Place Name Glider Total
1 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat 4462
2 OLSSON Andreas Moyes Litespeed 4 3912
3 PAGEN Dennis Moyes Litespeed 4 3572
4 PRESLEY Terry Moyes Litespeed 4 3498
5 GOODMAN Bubba Moyes Litespeed 4 2961
6 GRZYB Krzysztof Icaro MRX700 2785
7 HAGEWOOD Robert Aeros Combat 2 2579
8 SAYER Wayne Moyes Litespeed 3 2039
9 MORRIS Dan Wills Wing Talon 1550
10 BURICK Carl Airborne Climax 1505
11 BOUMEESTER Rik Aeros Stealth 1278
12 CIZAUSKAS Rich Wills Wing FusionSP 1226
13 DUGGAN Dan Icaro MR700WRE 751
14 GILLETTE Rhanor Wills Wing Ultra Sport 550

Rigids today:

Place Name Glider Time Total
1 BRANDT Dave AIR Atos 1:41:37 938
2 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos C 1:44:48 831
3 BROWN Russ Flight Designs GhostBuster 1:46:26 802
4 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos C 1:43:56 799
5 LAMB James AIR Atos C 1:56:50 780

Rigids total:

Place Name Glider Total
1 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos C 4875
2 BROWN Russ Flight Designs GhostBuster 4518
3 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos C 3646
4 BRANDT Dave AIR Atos 3200
5 LAMB James AIR Atos C 2990
6 BOWEN Campbell Flight Designs Axxess + 2026

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Midwest Regionals – cu nimbs and guys at goal

Sat, Jun 14 2003, 6:03:00 pm GMT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Airborne Climax|airspace|altitude|Bubba Goodman|Carl Wallbank|cloud|competition|Dave Brandt|James "Jim" Lamb|Jim Lamb|Krzysztof "Krys/Kris" Grzyb|Moyes Litespeed|Paris Williams|photo|Rik Bouwmeester|Ron Gleason|sport|tail|tow|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.flytec.com/mwregionals

Check out the animated track logs (click “Top Tracks” - you have to wait for a few minutes for them to begin animating).

Check out the photo gallery (http://flytec.com/mwregionals/gallery.html)

The FSL forecast shows that there is the possibility of over development, but while I inform the task committee of this possibility I forget to mention it to the pilots. There is large patches of cirrus both north and south in the late morning, and the cu’s are forming slowly and they look soft and weak.

The wind dummies are up and staying up, so it’s a good sign. We’ve got the option of launching at 12:30 PM with a 2 PM start window (way more time than we need to get everyone in the air with four Dragonflies waiting to pull us up).

I notice that Jim Lamb is suiting up early and he’s thinking that its time to go soon after the launch window opens. The task is a 46 mile dog leg to the east south east, away from Class D airspace at Janesville and over to an airport at Monroe where hang gliding pilots use to truck tow.

The five rigid wing pilots all notice that Jim and Dave are getting ready so we all get ready and we are all in line together by ourselves as the flex wing pilots look on. No body wants to be left behind.

We’re up in a few minutes and it is a quick climb to cloud base at 4,400’. The flex wing guys get in line right behind us and everyone other than Paris who has been sitting around in a lawn chair is off before 1 PM. No waiting around today.

The cu’s get thicker and thicker and it looks like we won’t be waiting until the 2 PM start time. Dave Brandt heads out to the south and the rest of us rigid wing pilots up high follow him and Russell out toward the start circle. But Dave doesn’t get up and everyone but Russell turns back to get back up again with the flex wings.

Dave gets lower and lower out on his own, as he’s not willing to come back and join us low, and I’m wondering what the point is. This meet has taught us to work with our friends above all else, and I can’t figure out why Russell and Dave have gone out on their own, way early.

The rest of us are back working lift and getting back up to cloud base. We drift down wind under the clouds and get right up to cloud base and near the start circle circumference. I watch as Ron Gleason and Jim Lamb head out on course as I hold back. Three flex wings cross the line also. I wait and let them check out the lift out in front while I get to start my start time later than them.

Finally I head out and head right for the rigid wings who are five miles out. I get there with their altitude and I’m feeling great. We’ve got six guys together and it looks like we’ll have plenty of helpers.

Eleven miles out we encounter a large cu nimb just to our south. We are working on the northern edge of the cu nimb. The ground is completely shaded. The cu-nimb stretches to the west for another fifteen miles. Thank goodness we are just on the northern side of the cu-nimb and the winds are out of the northeast.

Brad sends over this graphic that shows the raining part of the cu-nimb.

We climb up slowly at first with everyone looking around. Jim and Ron are just above me climbing a little bit better. I have no idea where Russell is.

I’m looking back and seeing Rik Boumeester flashing his wings in a high bank. Ron and Jim who were just above me have gone further along the course line and don’t see Rik a few hundred feet behind us. I go over to him and soon Krzysztof Grzyb and I are two thousand feet over the five guys who’ve gone ahead.

The cu-nimb is right next to us as we head west quickly trying to run past it. Everything is as dark as can be, both the sky and the ground. We continue to find bits of lift on the edge of the cu-nimb and we can see the rain coming down five or ten miles to the south.

As we are circling up I see a lightening strike to the south about five miles away. I’m wondering if the cell is going to come our way. I can see that if we go another ten miles to the west we should be able to get around the storm. I’m hoping that there aren’t any gust fronts or more lightening.

I’m nervous about the storm so I’m leaving lift earlier than usual. I’m leaving everyone behind and I got out fast on my own hoping to get away from the storm. Whoa, I’ve caught up with Russell. I come in under a few hundred feet below him. It is great to be able to cover Russell.

We’re almost to the Albany turnpoint and I climb back to cloud base as Russell heads out. I can see a few of the guys I was with behind me getting up from below. I’ve got to hang with Russell now.

Things are happening fast as it is only an eleven mile leg to goal. I’m at 4,000’ AGL 14 miles out, three miles before the turnpoint. I’m hoping that this is enough with a good tail wind to make it to goal.

Nine miles out I see Russell come in a few hundred feet over my head. We work a bit of lift gaining two hundred feet. I can see the guys behind me at the turnpoint climbing high. Given how low they were when I left them, they must have found much stronger lift than I did.

Four miles out from goal I’m at 1,250’ AGL. That’s a 17:1 glide to goal, so I decide to take the weak lift I’m in and climb 500 feet. Russell continues on to goal to get there first. A few of the pilots behind me catch up and keep going just over my head.

I will have the extra 500’ when I get to goal with 500’ to spare.

Paris started late at 1:45 PM and wins the day getting to goal as the first flex wings. Ron gets across the goal line a few minutes before me. Bubba, Chris and later Dennis comes in.

All the times get moved to 2 PM as everyone started before the 2 PM start clock. The finish times just represent there total time to goal.

Flex wings today:

Place Name Glider Finish Total
1 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat 15:20:06 932
2 PAGEN Dennis Moyes Litespeed 15:34:24 776
3 GOODMAN Bubba Moyes Litespeed 4 15:35:28 756
4 GRZYB Krzysztof Icaro MRX700 15:36:56 742
5 MORRIS Dan Wills Wing Talon 464
6 BURICK Carl Airborne Climax 452
7 OLSSON Andreas Moyes Litespeed 4 420
8 PRESLEY Terry Moyes Litespeed 4 357
9 SAYER Wayne Moyes Litespeed 3 351
10 HAGEWOOD Robert Aeros Combat 2 327
11 CIZAUSKAS Rich Wills Wing FusionSP 258
12 DUGGAN Dan Icaro MR700WRE 68
13 BOUMEESTER Rik Aeros Stealth 59
14 GILLETTE Rhanor Wills Wing Ultra Sport 0

Flex wing totals:

Place Name Glider Total
1 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat 3556
2 PAGEN Dennis Moyes Litespeed 2997
3 OLSSON Andreas Moyes Litespeed 4 2987
4 PRESLEY Terry Moyes Litespeed 4 2899
5 GOODMAN Bubba Moyes Litespeed 4 2461
6 GRZYB Krzysztof Icaro MRX700 2209
7 SAYER Wayne Moyes Litespeed 3 1679
8 HAGEWOOD Robert Aeros Combat 2 1669
9 MORRIS Dan Wills Wing Talon 1416
10 BURICK Carl Airborne Climax 1378
11 CIZAUSKAS Rich Wills Wing FusionSP 1035
12 BOUMEESTER Rik Aeros Stealth 971
13 DUGGAN Dan Icaro MR700WRE 631
14 GILLETTE Rhanor Wills Wing Ultra Sport 409

Rigids today:

Place Name Glider Finish Total
1 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos C 15:35:27 986
2 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos C 15:36:03 930
3 BROWN Russ Flight Designs GhostBuster 15:45:16 793
4 LAMB James AIR Atos C 15:53:01 718
5 BRANDT Dave AIR Atos 274

Rigids total:

Place Name Glider Total
1 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos C 4076
2 BROWN Russ Flight Designs GhostBuster 3716
3 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos C 2815
4 BRANDT Dave AIR Atos 2262
5 LAMB James AIR Atos C 2210
6 BOWEN Campbell Flight Designs Axxess + 2026

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Midwest Regionals – sunshine, cu’s, goal finishers

Fri, Jun 13 2003, 6:03:00 pm GMT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Airborne Climax|altitude|Bubba Goodman|Campbell Bowen|Carl Wallbank|cloud|competition|Dave Brandt|gaggle|James "Jim" Lamb|Jim Lamb|Krzysztof "Krys/Kris" Grzyb|Moyes Litespeed|Paris Williams|photo|polar|Rik Bouwmeester|Ron Gleason|Russell "Russ" Brown|safety|sport|tail|Terry Presley|triangle|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.flytec.com/mwregionals

Check out the animated track logs (click “Top Tracks” - you have to wait for a few minutes for them to begin animating).

Check out the photo gallery (http://flytec.com/mwregionals/gallery.html)

While it has been great fun flying in overcast conditions here in Whitewater, Wisconsin (half way between Milwaukee and Madison in southern Wisconsin) today we were actually blessed with sunshine. While it has been a while since we’ve seen that luminescent orb during the flying part of the day, we quickly adjusted ourselves to the prospect of calling a task and having pilots actually make it back to goal.

There was a low pressure centered off to our southwest with an east/west front in Illinois. We could see the upper level clouds from the front overhead as the task committee met. The one o’clock BLIPMAP showed weak lift, and very low cloud bases but the 3 PM FSL chart showed good lift and high bases (4,000’ MSL). At least they both agreed that the winds would be light.

Given that we are conflicting forecasts for lift and heights we called two triangle tasks to the south (hoping for the flatter, hotter bare field to the south), one fifty miles and one thirty. A short time later Jim Lamb who had suggested we go south, thought better of his suggestion given that the southern sky had the high clouds and the weaker looking cu’s underneath. I came up with a 50 mile triangle task to the north and east.

As one o’clock rolled around the high clouds had disappeared as the front headed off to the south and east. There were cu’s ever where and it looked like it might be possible to go 50 miles, and not settle for a 32 mile out and return, which was now our secondary option.

I got towed up after Bo and immediately climbed out to 4,000’ MSL and cloud base. We were repeatedly able to touch the bottoms of the clouds today without any fear of being sucked up given the light lift.

The cu’s got big, and the ground got dark. In spite of all the sunshine it would have been good to use the yellow lens, but I had my orange ones.

Everyone was getting up under the dark cu’s and shaded ground and we all gathered up to take the first clock at 2 PM. Might as well if everyone else will go with you.

There is a northeast wind going to the first turnpoint, and we don’t get out very far as we find the first lift, after leaving the three mile radius start circle at cloud base. At 3:11 (four minutes before the next start window), we have drifted back right next to the start circle. Still no one goes back to take a new start time. Paris and a few others have been holding back and will take the 2:15 PM start time.

Half the field is with us as we head out after climbing almost back to cloud base. The ground is shaded ahead and there are dark cu’s everywhere. It is hard to find any sunlight. But, then, this is what it has been like the past few days, so it is not a great worry. We are already getting 1,400’ higher than we were over the last two days, so a little (or a lot) of shading doesn’t hold that much terror for us.

While a couple have dropped out, we climb back to cloud base at 4,300’ MSL and look out to more shading, but now under clouds that are flat and gray, not puffy and back. It looks like a dead zone in front of us, and we are slowly progressing into the wind toward the first turnpoint nineteen miles to the northeast.

A few flex wings are out in front and Bubba finds very light lift at 800’ AGL under the a gray sky with the tiniest bit of light on the ground. Soon there are eight of us in the gaggle. Luckily I’m on top, because the middle six are all on the same level with Terry Presley on the bottom. Six pilots have to learn to get along on their marry-go-round and I merrily float above them as though I had hollow bones or an extra hit of helium.

It takes 17 minutes to climb 1,000’. The clouds disappear and there is sun every where and we get over a hot spot to the north and we get up to 4,500’. Now the dark clouds are much further apart. There is sun on the ground and things are looking better.

I’m with Ron Gleason and Russell Brown on rigids and Terry Presley on a flex. As we approach the first turnpoint I can see four flex wings to the south high, obviously a mix of later starters and some of the flex wings from our previous gaggle. Ron heads out first toward the turnpoint as Russell and I hold back. Ron gets ahead by finding a good thermal on his own just before the turnpoint.

The flex wings from the south, Russell and I come in under Ron, get high fast and I make the turnpoint as Russell has already taken it.

Now it is a chase as Russell, Dave Brandt in an ATOS, and I push to catch up with Paris Terry, Dennis and Ron. We are just behind and below them in the next thermal and Paris, Ron and Russell get away from the four of us five miles before the second turnpoint. We can see them getting high two miles before the turnpoint as we work a thermal also getting high two miles back.

Terry, Dennis and I get to the cloud that Paris, Ron and Russell left five minutes previously and we climb to almost 5,000’ two miles before the second turnpoint. I head out as we hit cloud base on a mission to catch up with Russell so that he doesn’t gain too many points on me.

I find Dave Brandt south of the turnpoint as he didn’t go to the good cloud with us. We’ve got a sixteen mile leg back to Twin Oaks, due south with an east wind (just as forecast). I spot Paris way high above and out in front of me climbing under very small clouds. He’s right on the course line so I go for him and start climbing in lift that averages 200 fpm. Good for the day that averages 130 fpm.

I’m down to 2,400’ AGL when I enter the thermal and 13 miles out. I climb to 3,500’ AGL before it gets weak. It’s 19.6 to 1 to get to goal. My IQ-Compeo says I’m 350’ above the best glide line. It must think I’ve got a tail wind. My polar is about 17 to 1 at best L/D speed of about 32 mph.

I go on glide as I can see good clouds ahead of me if I need any lift. I’m watching the final glide calculator. I’m aware that the goal is a quarter mile cylinder so I have a little extra margin of safety.

At eleven miles out I come in under the clouds Dennis and Terry are way back below me and Dave has gone way off to the east to get under some clouds. I get 500 fpm as I glide straight. The vario says I have the goal so I just push out and don’t turn. I climb 400’ and am at 3,500’ AGL 10.5 miles out. It’s a 15.8 glide to goal. The IQ-Compeo is saying I’m 1250 feet over the best glide line and that I’ve got goal by 1,250’.

I keep flying straight given the IQ-Compeo reading and my feeling that I’m going to make it. Also I really want to catch up with Ron and Russell and I know they aren’t at goal yet, but I haven’t seen them.

As I keep gliding suddenly I see Ron and Russell 700 feet above me a mile to my right more on the course line. They are just a little in front of me and now I’m sure that I have to keep gliding so that they don’t get into goal too far in front of me.

I glide for 10.5 miles in sixteen minutes averaging 39 mph over the ground. I tried to fly at the indicated best L/D speed over the ground. My average rate of sink over the last 10.5 miles was 220 fpm.

I came into Twin Oaks at 100 feet over the quarter mile cylinder and would have made the goal with zero altitude to spare. I didn’t speed up at the last minute I’ll tell you that.

I wonder what happened to the 1,250 feet of extra room over the best glide line. Was I just going too fast? Perhaps I should just have made sure that my air speed was 32 mph.

Ron and Russell are first and second into goal. I’m two minutes behind Ron. Paris uncharacteristically came in high behind me, but won the day as he started at 2:15 PM.

Terry and Dennis were able to get to goal also along with Dave Brandt. Campbell Bowen left to go to a wedding so he wasn’t here to fly the last three days of the meet. We will fly through Sunday.

Paris moved from third to first and Andreas moved from first to third. Terry Presley stayed in second.

Flex wings today:

Place Name Glider Finish Total
1 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat 17:03:10 906
2 PRESLEY Terry Moyes Litespeed 4 17:22:04 749
3 PAGEN Dennis Moyes Litespeed 17:22:36 737
4 OLSSON Andreas Moyes Litespeed 4 474
5 GRZYB Krzysztof Icaro MRX700 333
6 GOODMAN Bubba Moyes Litespeed 4 328
7 SAYER Wayne Moyes Litespeed 3 238
8 CIZAUSKAS Rich Wills Wing FusionSP 182
9 HAGEWOOD Robert Aeros Combat 2 163
9 GILLETTE Rhanor Wills Wing Ultra Sport 163
9 MORRIS Dan Wills Wing Talon 163
9 DUGGAN Dan Icaro MR700WRE 163
13 BURICK Carl Airborne Climax 0
13 BOUMEESTER Rik Aeros Stealth 0

Flex wing total:

Place Name Glider Total
1 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat 2766
2 PRESLEY Terry Moyes Litespeed 4 2656
3 OLSSON Andreas Moyes Litespeed 4 2637
4 PAGEN Dennis Moyes Litespeed 2338
5 GOODMAN Bubba Moyes Litespeed 4 1747
6 GRZYB Krzysztof Icaro MRX700 1497
7 HAGEWOOD Robert Aeros Combat 2 1352
8 SAYER Wayne Moyes Litespeed 3 1336
9 MORRIS Dan Wills Wing Talon 954
10 CIZAUSKAS Rich Wills Wing FusionSP 783
11 BURICK Carl Airborne Climax 765
12 BOUMEESTER Rik Aeros Stealth 750
13 DUGGAN Dan Icaro MR700WRE 569
14 GILLETTE Rhanor Wills Wing Ultra Sport 163

Rigids today:

Place Name Glider Time mph Total
1 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos C 2:59:52 17.03 1000
2 BROWN Russ Flight Designs GhostBuster 3:00:32 16.97 946
3 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos C 3:01:48 16.85 908
4 BRANDT Dave AIR Atos 3:22:08 15.16 739
5 LAMB James AIR Atos C 209
6 BOWEN Campbell Flight Designs Axxess + ABS 0

Rigids total:

Place Name Glider Total
1 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos C 3146
2 BROWN Russ Flight Designs GhostBuster 2923
3 BOWEN Campbell Flight Designs Axxess + 2026
4 BRANDT Dave AIR Atos 1988
5 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos 1829
6 LAMB James AIR Atos C 1492

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Midwest Regionals

Mon, Jun 9 2003, 6:03:00 pm GMT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Andreas Olsson|Belinda Boulter|Bubba Goodman|Campbell Bowen|Carl Wallbank|cloud|competition|Dennis Pagen|gaggle|Ghostbuster|Krzysztof "Krys/Kris" Grzyb|Moyes Litespeed|Paris Williams|photo|Raven Sky Sports|Rik Bouwmeester|tail|Terry Presley|Wayne Sayer

http://www.flytec.com/mwregionals

Check out the photo gallery (http://flytec.com/mwregionals/gallery.html) and the animated track logs (Top Tracks button - you have to wait for a few minutes for them to begin animating).

With a strong west wind we initially call a 75 mile out and return due south (east takes us into Milwaukee). But as we get ready to launch this task looks less and less like a good idea given the winds. We quickly switch to a crossing tail wind 35 mile leg to the northeast, and then a final 50 mile leg north-northeast along the coast of Lake Superior. We’re hoping for a little bit of convergence from an on shore flow going against the strong west wind. Maybe just enough to cut down on wind speed.

The BLIPMAP forecasts 500-600 fpm lift (not climb rates) and 7,000’ cloud bases at 1 PM. It sure is looking a lot lower than that at noon, about 4,000’ MSL, and it’s not clear that it is going to get warm enough on the ground to get us that high.

Bo is off first at 12:20 and I’m right behind him. We’ve got 1 to 1:30 PM start window times with 15 minutes intervals. I climb out to cloud base at 4,400’ MSL and immediate head to the north to get at the top of the five mile start circle, so that I can be upwind of the northeast leg with the west, northwest wind.

I hang out there for almost an hour until finally Campbell Bowen, Terry Presley, Andreas Olsson, Wayne Sayer, and Dennis Pagen join me just before the 1:30 and last start time. Bo has already taken an earlier start time thinking that I went on course, when in fact I went five miles to the north. He’ll find himself out there alone.

Given the strong winds (measuring 16 mph), I am absolutely not going to get caught down wind of the first turnpoint and keep pushing north, assuming that I’ll drift to the east when ever I’m thermaling. The rest of the pilots started the task along the course line or down wind of it so we don’t ever see them.

Given my paranoia about not getting caught down wind, I’m soon on my own as the rest of the gaggle moves along the course line to the northeast, except for Campbell whose just south of me. Ten miles out I find myself down to 240’ AGL, but I’m in zero sink. The wind is blowing fiercely and this is usually a bad combination – light lift, strong winds, down low. But this time it works out as with a help of a couple of hawks I slowly climb out to 2,000’ AGL.

There are cu’s every where and the forecast was for strong lift, but other than right over Twin Oaks airport and Raven Sky Sports, the lift has been very light. I’d already warned myself that I had to be especially careful, now I had just been given another warning and a reprieve. Fifteen minutes later I was back down to 450’ AGL.

Two warning and now I was going to make sure that I started working weak lift a lot earlier and not wait until I got too low. The average rate of climb during the task for me was 150 fpm, which is pretty darn low. So much for the forecasted lift. I should have paid more heed to the FSL chart which showed that the lift wouldn’t be as strong as forecast by the BLIPMAP.

With more patience I spend more time in the weak lift (rarely finding any better) and start getting a lot higher. Still it takes a little over two hours to cover thirty five miles. Getting low really slows you down. Weak lift doesn’t help either.

I find the best thermal of the day right at the turnpoint northwest of Milwaukee, and climb to a little over 5,000’ MSL. Campbell Bowen joins me for the ride up, the first pilot I’ve seen in a while and when we head out we almost immediately catch up with Terry Presley and Andreas Olsson.

It’s great to have three more pilots to help out finding the lift and we worth together heading north-northwest trying to stay upwind of the course line. Campbell gets low about eight miles out from the turnpoint as the three of us head northwest to get on the front side of some clouds and avoid the blue hole to our north. This turns out to be a mistake and looking back on it we should have gone northeast to the clouds more on course line. We’re still trying to make our way upwind, when the winds have actually died down some.

It’s a long glide and Terry Presley gets a bit lower and lands. Andreas finds the light lift a mile behind me at 500’ and I go back to join him. The lift is extremely light and we spend the next twenty minutes gaining 2,000’. Andreas is about 500’ over my head having reached the lift first.

It’s now 6 PM and the day is dying. We are still more than 30 miles out. Terry Presley on the ground calls Belinda up and tells here how impressed he was with our low save and that Campbell is high to our east, more on the course line.

Andreas and I work out way slowly to the north working very light lift under any clouds we can get to, but they are drying up, there is cirrus overhead to the north, the sun is filtered and at about 25 miles out the cu’s give out. We land about two miles apart. Campbell is able to eek out another mile and a half not having to make the save that we did.

Flex wing round two:

Place Name Glider miles Total
1 OLSSON Andreas Moyes Litespeed 4 62 900
2 PRESLEY Terry Moyes Litespeed 4 53.1 813
3 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat 42.9 697
4 PAGEN Dennis Moyes Litespeed 4 41.1 675
5 GRZYB Krzysztof Icaro MRX700 30.9 540
6 SAYER Wayne Moyes Litespeed 3 22 430
6 HAGEWOOD Robert Aeros Combat 2 21.9 430
8 GOODMAN Bubba Moyes Litespeed 4 19.9 400
9 MORRIS Dan 17.8 363
10 BURICK Carl 16.2 331
11 BOUMEESTER Rik 15.5 316
12 CIZAUSKAS Rick 7.3 131
13 DUGGAN Dan 0 0

Cumulative:

Place Name Glider Total
1 OLSSON Andreas Moyes Litespeed 4 1556
2 PRESLEY Terry Moyes Litespeed 4 1301
3 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat 1287
4 PAGEN Dennis Moyes Litespeed 4 1059
5 GRZYB Krzysztof Icaro MRX700 841
6 SAYER Wayne Moyes Litespeed 3 831
7 GOODMAN Bubba Moyes Litespeed 4 753
8 HAGEWOOD Robert Aeros Combat 2 752
9 MORRIS Dan 524
10 BURICK Carl 498
11 BOUMEESTER Rik 483
12 CIZAUSKAS Rick 334
13 DUGGAN Dan 139

Rigid wings, round two:

Place Name Glider miles Total
1 BOWEN Campbell Flight Designs Axxess + 63.4 900
2 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos C 60.3 868
3 BROWN Russ Flight Designs Ghostbuster 32.2 501
4 BRANDT Dave AIR Atos 22 385
5 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos-C 19.9 358
6 LAMB James AIR Atos C 12.6 239

Cumulative:

Place Name Glider Total
1 BOWEN Campbell Flight Designs Axxess + 1800
2 STRAUB Davis AIR Atos C 1768
3 BROWN Russ Flight Designs Ghostbuster 1400
4 BRANDT Dave AIR Atos 877
5 LAMB James AIR Atos C 731
6 GLEASON Ron AIR Atos-C 565

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Canadian Nationals »

Mon, May 12 2003, 5:00:02 pm EDT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|competition|Mark Dowsett|Mauricio Hoyos|Moyes Litespeed|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.dowsett.ca/cdnnats

Mark Dowsett reports on the Canadian Nationals:

Place Name Glider Time Total
1 HAZLETT, Brett, 10 Moyes Litespeed 1:07:53 928
2 DOWSETT, Mark, 6 Moyes Litespeed 1:07:54 914
3 REMPEL, Jeff, 22 Airbourne Climax 2 1:52:30 738
4 BORRADAILE, Tyler, 2 Aeros Combat 2 686
5 BRITTINGHAM, Mauricio, 3 Wills Wing Talon 657

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Paris on the Aeros Combat 2

Sat, Apr 26 2003, 1:00:03 pm EDT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|competition|Florida|gaggle|Gerolf Heinrichs|injury|landing|Paris Williams|sprogs|Wills Wing|XC

Paris Williams <parisflies@hotmail.com> writes:

It seems that Robert Handmart and his friends have been having fun drawing a lot of false conclusions about Oleg and the Combat 2, so I feel compelled to try to set a few things straight:

"While Manfred and Oleg seem busy to make their own one-off gliders perform good, that Litespeed makes everyone happy!"

I can't speak for Manfred and his glider, but I distinctly remember one occasion when Gerolf told the audience upon receiving a first-place trophy that "he was holding a little something back." Perhaps just his way of a joke, who knows?

As for Oleg, there's no question in my mind that Oleg's not hiding anything from us other competitors or the public about his personal glider. Oleg and I have become really good friends in the past few years, and what's probably impressed me most about the man is his pure-hearted honesty and genuine humility. Typical human nature does not make it easy for one to climb to the top of the ladder and still treat others with genuine equality, and yet Oleg always seems to find the time for anyone.

Here's a story that shredded any remaining doubt in my mind that he might be trying to hide some secret advantage over his fellow Aeros competitors: Last year, when the new gliders arrived for the Florida Comps, Oleg and a fellow competitor were standing over two new Combats, and Oleg asked him which one he wanted--the fellow competitor picked one, Oleg took the other and then proceeded to kick everyone's butt at both meets.

This year, the only difference between the competitors' Combats from the previous stock combats are new lighter leading edges. Aeros wanted the competitors to try these out before introducing them to the market, in hopes that the handling would be improved while not harming performance. We've definitely found this to be true (the handling was lightened significantly while performance didn't suffer), and now these new leading edges come stock on the latest Combat 2's (and can be installed in older models). The only other thing we did to tune our gliders differently than stock Combats was to lower the sprogs a bit. Of course anyone can drop their sprogs if they like, if they're willing to take the risk of flying a glider with reduced pitch moment.

So I can personally verify that the only difference between Oleg's Combat, my Combat, and the Combats sold to the public, are the positions of the sprogs.

"We saw from your report that Paris Williams left Icaro now to try Aeros - with only little success so far!"

So why were my latest results a bit lower than average? (9th place at Flytec, and Incomplete at Wallaby due to an injury on launch) Well, for one, I don't claim to have the experience level of pilots like Manfred and Oleg who've been competing steadily for over 17 years (this is only my 5th year competing), and two, there's always a "dialing in" period for any new glider (it's always been realistically about 20 hours for me).

My very first thermaling flight on the Combat 2 was day one of the competition! Not ordinarily a wise choice to fly a new wing at a big meet, but I definitely don't regret it. Considering that, I'm pretty happy to get into the top ten. I was actually feeling more dialed after two days than I'd ever felt on the Laminar, but since my first two days weren't so good, I took a lot of big risks in my strategy during the remaining days to try to make up, and unfortunately the big risks didn't always pan out.

Overall, I'm extremely happy with the glider--I didn't give up any performance at all (in glide nor, surprisingly, in climb, nor in ease of landing) going from the Laminar to the Combat, but I've gained a lot more handling and quick maneuverability which has helped me to work through my "gaggle aversion" and wrestle it out with the thick gaggles a lot better (something that has always been a weakness of mine).

"To us it looks like lately only Moyes cares for the ordinary XC and competition pilots. The Florida results/reports show this also quite clear."

OK, let's look at the top ten results at Flytec: Out of the 68 full time (no absences) competitors, there were 27 Litespeeds, 11 Laminars, and 9 Combat 2s. In the top 10, there were 6 Litespeeds, 1 Laminar (Manfred), and 3 Combat 2s.

33% of the Combat 2’s made the top 10; 22% of the Litespeeds made the top 10; 9% of the Laminars made the top 10 (though winning the meet).

And if you want to talk about taking care of ordinary pilots, why not take a look at the prices?

(editor’s note: For the Wallaby Open, the numbers are: 22% Combat 2, 23% Litespeed, 12.5% Laminar, 0% Wills Wing, Avian, La Mouette, Airborne)

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The 2003 Wallaby Open

Sat, Apr 26 2003, 5:00:01 pm GMT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Alex Ploner|Betinho Schmitz|David "Dave" Glover|Eric Raymond|Icaro Laminar MR|Jerz Rossignol|Kari Castle|Kraig Coomber|Moyes Litespeed|Nene Rotor|picture|Wallaby Open 2003|weather|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon|Zapata

http://www.wallaby.com/wallabyopen/2003/

Heavy rains during the night.

Overcast in the morning. The forecast is for improving weather during the day, but not enough improvement as the winds are predicted to be even higher than yesterday. Winds measured by the buoys are already over 20 knots.

The overcast goes away around 1 PM, and we have blue skies with cu’s at 1,500’ to 2,000’ with winds out of the west.

Things change. The provisional results I received earlier had something wrong with them, so here are the latest results:

Flex wings:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 BONDARCHUK Oleg Aeros Combat 2 UKR 3984
2 HAZLETT Brett Moyes Litespeed 4 CAN 3728
3 SCHMIDT Betinho Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 3723
4 BOISSELIER Antoine Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 3721
5 WALBEC Richard Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 3670
6 COOMBER Kraig Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 3599
7 DURAND Jon Jr. Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 3586
8 RUHMER Manfred Icaro Laminar MR AUT 3567
9 ALONZI Mario Aeros Combat 2 FRA 3518
10 WARREN Curt Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 3511
11 LEE Jim Wills Wing Talon 150 USA 3501
12 CAUX Raymond Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 3472
13 BESSA Carlos Wills Wing Talon USA 3434
14 OHLSSON Andreas Moyes Litespeed 5 SWE 3297
15 WOLF Andre Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 3290
16 ROTOR Nene Wills Wing Talon BRA 3232
17 CASTLE Kari Icaro Laminar MR700 USA 3025
18 MULLER Chris Wills Wing Talon 150 CAN 3022
19 RICHARDSON Ron Avian Cheetah GBR 2914
20 ROSSIGNOL Jerz Icaro Laminar USA 2840

A picture of Oleg from Dave Glover.

Rigid wings:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 PLONER Alex Air Atos C ITA 4512
2 CHAUMET David La Mouette Tsunami FRA 4140
3 CIECH Christian Icaro Stratos ITA 3988
4 BARMAKIAN Bruce Air Atos USA 3707
5 POSCH Johann Air Atos C AUT 3414

Alex Ploner taken by Dave at Zapata.

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The 2003 Wallaby Open

Fri, Apr 25 2003, 8:00:01 pm GMT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Australia|Betinho Schmitz|competition|Florida|Flytec Championships 2003|game|harness|Icaro Laminar MR|Jim Lee|Jon Durand snr|Kari Castle|maps|Moyes Litespeed|Nene Rotor|Paris Williams|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon|Worlds

http://www.wallaby.com/wallabyopen/2003/

The FSL MAPS modeled data for Kissimmee:

Shows winds predicted to be up to 29 mph at 3,000’. The top of the lift is forecast to be 3,200’, with the lift predicted to be 400 fpm (subtract your sink rate). By five o’clock the top of the lift is forecast to be 2,600’ with the lift at 200 fpm.

There is a warm front to the northwest in Panama City in the Florida panhandle where there are presently (around noon) thunderstorms. With the strong winds we would have to call a task to the northwest toward the area of likely thunderstorms this afternoon.

Malcolm calls the day at the 10:30 AM pilot meeting, based on wind strength in the field itself. The forecasted wind conditions for tomorrow are for similar strengths with more of a west component.

Results so far:

Rigids who made goal on day five:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 PLONER Alex Air Atos C ITA 2:06:49 988
2 CIECH Christian Icaro Stratos ITA 2:06:51 973
3 CHAUMET David La Mouette Tsunami FRA 2:09:17 915
4 BARMAKIAN Bruce Air Atos USA 2:13:00 863
5 POSCH Johann Air Atos C AUT 2:13:49 848
6 POUSTINCHIAN Mark Air Atos C USA 2:14:16 837
7 STRAUB Davis Air Atos C USA 2:14:48 827
8 GLEASON Ron Air Atos USA 2:15:03 821
9 YOCOM Jim Air Atos C USA 2:15:26 814
10 ENDTER Vince Icaro Stratos USA 2:17:41 792
11 BOWEN Campbell Flight Design Axxes USA 2:25:03 733
12 PAQUETTE Eric Air Atos CAN 2:29:04 704
13 LAMB Jim Air Atos C USA 3:06:31 497
14 VAYDA Tom Air Atos USA 3:13:23 464

We averaged 27 mph, which is pretty slow, given the fact that we averaged 36 mph on the last and longest leg.

Rigids after five days (and likely the final results):

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 PLONER Alex Air Atos C ITA 4515
2 CHAUMET David La Mouette Tsunami FRA 4144
3 CIECH Christian Icaro Stratos ITA 3988
4 POSCH Johann Air Atos C AUT 3424
5 BARMAKIAN Bruce Air Atos USA 3391

As at the 2002 Worlds, Alex, Christian, and David are in a separate class from the rest of us duffers. Christian just missed goal one day or he would be in a tight contest with his friend Alex for first place.

Flex wings:

On day five:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 RUHMER Manfred Icaro Laminar MR AUT 2:14:44 947
2 BOISSELIER Antoine Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 2:12:09 939
3 HAZLETT Brett Moyes Litespeed 4 CAN 2:16:48 920
4 WOLF Andre Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 2:17:16 911
5 SCHMIDT Betinho Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 2:13:17 907
6 ROTOR Nene Wills Wing Talon BRA 2:13:18 903
7 BONDARCHUK Oleg Aeros Combat 2 UKR 2:13:19 900
8 WALBEC Richard Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 2:13:36 893
9 BESSA Carlos Wills Wing Talon USA 2:15:35 862
10 LEE Jim Wills Wing Talon 150 USA 2:15:51 857

The pilots that started at 2:15 PM were the quickest into goal, not being held back by the lollygagging rigid wing pilots, but Manfred was first to goal, so that counted for something.

Yesterday, before the task, Manfred was in twelfth. Today after winning the fifth (and likely last) task:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 BONDARCHUK Oleg Aeros Combat 2 UKR 4159
2 BOISSELIER Antoine Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 3898
3 RUHMER Manfred Icaro Laminar MR AUT 3765
4 DURAND Jon Jr. Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 3754
5 WARREN Curt Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 3684
6 BESSA Carlos Wills Wing Talon USA 3620
7 SCHMIDT Betinho Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 3554
8 ALONZI Mario Aeros Combat 2 FRA 3548
9 WALBEC Richard Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 3488
10 OHLSSON Andreas Moyes Litespeed 5 SWE 3468

Oleg benefited immensely when Manfred didn’t make goal two days in a row and he then kept the competition far away from him. Oleg ended up only 100 points behind Manfred at the Flytec Championships and when Manfred didn’t make goal at the Wallaby Open the first time, Oleg jumped ahead of him by enough points to make it very difficult for Manfred to catch him. Perhaps that was his consideration when he raced to goal and landed 1 mile short of Wauchula on day four.

Antoine, after not even registering on the applause-o-meter in Australia (but doing well enough to come in at 11th at the Flytec Championship), did very well at Wallaby. He was able to gain a few extra points on the fifth day by racing ahead and getting a minute on everyone else at goal. Funny how things change so rapidly.

After Paris and Mikey took themselves out of the competition, Curt flew well and was the first American. He was 10th at the Flytec Championship just behind Paris and ahead of Mike, so he definitely improved. Too bad he landed after gliding with me on the third day or he could easily have been in second place at the Wallaby Open. All he had to do was keep gliding over the Bok Tower. I would have appreciated his help at that point.

Carlos has yet to decide whether to fly for the Brazilians or on the American National team (if he makes it). He beat his fellow Brazilian Betinho after finishing at 16th at the Flytec Championship behind Betinho at 11th there.

Jon Durand Jr. finished very well again doing a little better overall in this competition than the last one where he was sixth. Jon is a strong pilot who is willing to take risks, and came out the top Australian in the Wallaby Open.

There were two Aeros Combats in the top ten at the Wallaby Open with Paris out and three at the Flytec Championship. This is certainly a jump in their top numbers.

Only Manfred is representing the Icaro 2000 Laminar in the top ten. Kari Castle on the Laminar did very well at the Flytec Championship to come in 14th (and perhaps hold her place on the US National team). At the Wallaby Open she dropped down a little to 16th, behind Jim Lee at 14th. She is still looking for a harness that works for her and doesn’t cause such pain in her chest (maybe I can get her to try my harness).

Moyes continues to win the numbers game with six Litespeeds in the top ten. Lots of pilots fly the Litespeed and many of them do well (right after Manfred and Oleg). Wills Wing had Carlos on the Talon, so that rounds out the top ten pilots.

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The 2003 Wallaby Open

Mon, Apr 21 2003, 8:00:01 pm GMT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|aerotow|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Alex Ploner|altitude|antenna|Belinda Boulter|Betinho Schmitz|Brett Hazlett|Bruce Barmakian|cart|Christian Ciech|cloud|competition|control frame|David Chaumet|dolly|Eric Raymond|fire|flight park|Florida|Flytec Championships 2003|gaggle|game|GPS|Icaro Laminar MR|insurance|Jerz Rossignol|Kari Castle|Mike Barber|Moyes Litespeed|Oz Report|Paris Williams|Quest Air|Steven "Steve" Pearson|survival|transport|Wallaby Open 2003|Wallaby Ranch|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.wallaby.com/wallabyopen/2003/

In the competition between the flight parks, 93 entrants at the Wallaby Open and 110 for the Flytec Championship. I guess that bragging rights (for quantity at least) goes to the Quest Air Flight Park (largest aerotow meet ever).

Here at Wallaby the rigid wing class was decimated with the number of pilots falling from 28 to 17. You’d think that once that got here with their difficult to transport rigid wings, they would continue flying in the Wallaby Open.

The launch line on the first day.

So the top two American flex wing pilots have taken themselves out of this premier US competition. Yesterday Mike Barber cut open his knee (the pictures were gross and I publish the least gross one – see below) down to (but not into) the ligament. Today Paris Williams bounced off the cart and smacked into the ground taking out his control frame. You’d think he would be familiar with dolly launching at aerotow parks in Florida. ☺

The story according to Belinda who watched it happen (and who spoke with other observers) is that the cart hit a bump while he was going plenty fast (just at the point where you would take off), the glider came off the cart (Paris wasn’t holding onto the rope), his hands slipped off the control bar, and the Aeros control frame dug into the ground in front of the cart. The glider pancaked into the ground. People rushed over and took the glider off Paris who was then up and walking around. He didn’t fly the task.

Mike Barber didn’t fly the task today either. He is on crutches and happy enough with the fact that he will make the US team without doing well in these meets and get to go to Brazil. Same for Paris.

Speaking of the task here it is:

There are two separate tasks today for flex wings and rigids. The rigids are to start from a start circle seven miles to the south on highway 27, then go through the Bok Tower control point (to keep us away from the sky diving contest at Lake Wales airport), next to Avon Park airport (25 miles miles further south) and then back (through Bok Tower waypoint) and on to Wallaby Ranch. With a five mile start circle radius this puts are start point twelve miles to the south of the Ranch. A total of 81 miles.

The flex wings will be starting behind us (to the north) in order to separate the classes. The assumption being that it is harder for the flex wings to catch the rigid wings rather than the other way around. Their start circle is centered one mile north of the Ranch but with a five mile radius they will in fact be starting four miles south of the Ranch, eight miles behind the rigid wings. A total of 89 miles (from the edge of the start circle).

To keep the two classes further separated, the rigid wings will be starting at 1:15 only and the flex wings fifteen minutes later at 1:30 PM. That’s right it’s a race start, as predicted/urged in the last Oz Report.

With launch opening at noon there is plenty of time to get everyone off in time for the single start time. Many of us will get to the edge of the start circle twenty minutes early, but eventually everyone will be there. The lift is diffuse enough so that we don’t get in each others way too much.

I hear from Oleg that the flex wing start gaggle is not too bad either. There are plenty of cu’s with 4,000’ bases to choose from so perhaps they spread themselves out in a sensible fashion.

It’s great to have a race start. No worrying about whether someone is behind you catching you. You get to see all your competition and the guy in front is winning the day.

We are at cloud base at 1:15 as the start window opens and everyone together takes off spreading out to find the next lift. I’m on the left side with Alex Ploner wandering about. He’s got a good glide, but it seems only slightly better than mine. David Chaumet doesn’t display any better glide either. Interesting how things change each day.

Staying to the left I get a little better line and then hit the first thermal 3.5 miles out. Christian Ciech and the other pilots behind me come and join me, while David, Alex and a few others continue on not knowing that we are climbing behind them. We get a thousand feet on them right away as they don’t find any lift.

I’m leaving with Christian trying to keep him from getting away from the group (or at least from me). I’m just a few hundred yards behind him as we glide and a hundred feet below him climb through Bok Tower and to Lake Wales.

It’s a long glide into Lake Wales and Christian finds something that I can’t seem to find right under him. I’m down to 1,800’ when I get under him but under a cloud with lots of sunshine around and I go looking around for the lift. I don’t find any for eight minutes.

I will spend the next seven minutes below 750’ AGL, getting down to 340’ AGL. That’s fifteen minutes of rescue time, getting myself out of a hole that I have dug and back in the game. I just didn’t want to go back home tonight having screwed up so early in the task.

Fortunately the light lift that I find is next to the only cleared field within gliding distance, so I can both feel the comfort of turning low to the ground knowing that if I don’t get up I can land safely. This lets me let the bar out a bit more and milk the broken weak lift down low.

As I climb out of there I keep my head down and concentrate on survival keeping thoughts about my stupidity at bay. Just enjoy that fact that the lift is weak and therefore not too turbulent. As I climb up it turns on strong and within fifteen minutes I’m back at base. Almost a half hour of slowing myself down. Now it’s time to race.

I make a point of going for the clouds as I don’t have any pilots to help out. I get back on the course line upwind to the east over the lakes and find lift, while most pilots follow highway 27 to the left with few clouds. I can hear from Johann that the lead gaggle (minus Christian who is way out ahead) is only five miles in front of me. I catch most of them by the time we get to Avon Park taking a completely different course to the east.

Now I head downwind to the west to the clouds as the ground gets shaded from the high overcast. They are working great and I’m getting high under them while all the other pilots have disappeared.

The overcast gets darker as we approach Lake Wales and the Bok Tower turnpoint. I stop over a fire finding 100 fpm. Its light lift like this for the next nine miles as we creep toward the tower and I spot the other rigids circling near it.

Fortunately one of them finds strong lift in the sun to the north a mile as the high overcast begins to break up. I hook up with Mark P., and Johann, with Alex Ploner and Bruce Barmakian over us.

There are still plenty of shaded areas with light lift in front of us but we are back high enough to give a few areas a look see to see where the best of the light lift is.

Eight miles out and at 3,400’ high the Brauninger IQ/Comp tells me I can just make it to goal. Belinda, at goal, says Alex and Bruce just came in low and Christian came in a while ago. Well I’ll get a chance to see if the new version Brauninger behaves any differently as I go on glide. Will it be more stable?

An article in https://OzReport.com/pub/Ozv7n106.shtml describes the changes to the Brauninger IQ/Comp.

The sky is dark and so is the ground so I don’t expect to find any more lift, but I also didn’t expect to find any bad sink. There iss no wind (a report from Belinda confirmed this) and I figure there will be net no sink or lift going to goal.

Mark P. and Johann are way off to the right working a bit more lift as I continue on glide. They want the extra insurance.

The go to goal target showed up on the Brauninger, but I couldn’t tell if it was more stable than the previous version. It seemed that way but it was hard to tell for sure. Steve Pearson sent in the description that said a distance above your MacCready altitude would be displayed, but it wasn’t. This was perhaps because the go to goal symbol never flashed while I was climbing. Who knows?

I just saw that the vario said I could make it. I saw that my sink rate was 200 to 400 fpm. I saw how far out I was and how fast I was flying and could calculate how many minutes it would take to get to goal and whether I would still be in the air for that time period. It looked good to me.

I just kept the glider at less than 40 mph for the first six miles just to keep the needle at the best glide over the ground speed as I knew I was close to not making it. When I got within two miles at 1,200,’ I could go sixty mph with ease.

Fortunately our group was able to make it in before Manfred smoked the course starting eight miles and fifteen minutes behind us.

So Alex Ploner won the first day and Christian Ciech won the second day. At the moment David Chaumet’s Tsunami looks mortal, about the same as Christian and Alex.

It seems to me that pilot skills are really being tested here (and maybe a bit of the drag of harnesses and other bits). The gliders are very close to each other (with or without tails) and David’s may or may not be that much better. Alex and Christian are just much better pilots than the rest of us (at least that is my tentative conclusion based on my scraps of observations). Maybe I’ll get more relevant observations later.

One interesting twist was the fact that we had to go by the Bok Tower which is a place where we know that under some circumstances your GPS loses coverage. This is probably due to some nearby antenna that overpowers the GPS signal. Piltos were told that if their GPS coverage goes out but that their track showed them headed for the tower, they would get the turnpoint.

I’m thinking that if you get low near Chalet Suzanne (near Bok) your GPS signal goes out, but not if you are high. Mine does go out on the way back when I’m low, but I get a Mark Enter in the .25 mile circle just before I lose it completely. What luck.

It’s easy to see the Bok Tower so there is no problem flying close to it to get the waypoint. Hopefully all pilots will do this.

The story I heard from the flex wings is that on the way back it got very iffy near Lake Wales with light lift. Just the same as we experienced. The lead gaggle was low over the Orange Juice factory, and Manfred was climbing better than the rest of the group in the lift broken stuff.

He gets high enough to go search for better lift. Brett Hazlett who doesn’t get high enough goes with him and doesn’t make goal. The rest of the flex wing pilots know their place and work the light stuff until they do get high enough to move along.

Very preliminary results for day two:

Flex wings:

1 RUHMER, Manfred Icaro Laminar MR AUT 13:30:00 17:03:05 3:33:05
2 WOLF, Andre Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 13:30:00 17:04:46 3:34:46
3 SCHMIDT, Betinho Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 13:30:00 17:06:49 3:36:49
4 BONDARCHUK, Oleg Aeros Combat 2 UKR 13:30:00 17:10:20 3:40:20
5 WALBEC, Richard Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 13:30:00 17:10:57 3:40:57
6 BOISSELIER, Antoine Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 13:30:00 17:11:28 3:41:28
7 WARREN, Curt Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 13:30:00 17:12:02 3:42:02
8 MULLER, Chris Wills Wing Talon 150 CAN 13:30:00 17:12:23 3:42:23
9 CAUX, Raymond1 Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 13:30:00 17:16:32 3:46:32
10 DURAND, Jon Jr., 49 Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 13:30:00 17:38:42 4:08:42
11 GUILLEN, Bruno, 57 Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 13:30:00 17:40:55 4:10:55
12 ALONZI, Mario, 23 Aeros Combat 2 FRA 13:30:00 17:42:28 4:12:28
13 DE LA HORIE, Geoffory Aeros Combat 2 FRA 13:30:00 17:43:02 4:13:02
14 CASTLE, Kari, 15 Icaro Laminar MR700 USA 13:30:00 17:44:15 4:14:15
15 ROSSIGNOL, Jerz, 14 Icaro Laminar USA 13:30:00 17:44:35 4:14:35

Totals so far:

1 RUHMER, Manfred, 85 Icaro Laminar MR AUT 2000
2 BOISSELIER, Antoine, 31 Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 1842
3 WARREN, Curt, 13 Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 1764
4 WOLF, Andre, 97 Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 1764
5 DURAND, Jon Jr., 49 Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 1762
6 WALBEC, Richard, 94 Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 1715
7 SCHMIDT, Betinho, 30 Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 1684
8 BONDARCHUK, Oleg, 33 Aeros Combat 2 UKR 1675
9 ALONZI, Mario, 23 Aeros Combat 2 FRA 1588
10 CAUX, Raymond, 51 Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 1574
11 CASTLE, Kari, 15 Icaro Laminar MR700 USA 1471
12 LEE, Jim, 20 Wills Wing Talon 150 USA 1418
13 OHLSSON, Andreas, 108 Moyes Litespeed 5 SWE 1397
14 BESSA, Carlos, 16 Wills Wing Talon USA 1370
15 HAZLETT, Brett, 59 Moyes Litespeed 4 CAN 1368

Rigid wings:

1 CIECH, Christian Icaro Stratos ITA 13:15:00 16:23:24 3:08:24
2 PLONER, Alex Air Atos C ITA 13:15:00 16:47:27 3:32:27
3 CHAUMET, David La Mouette Tsunami FRA 13:15:00 16:50:45 3:35:45
4 YOCOM, Jim Air Atos C USA 13:15:00 16:50:47 3:35:47
5 BIESEL, Heiner Air Atos C USA 13:15:00 16:55:12 3:40:12
6 POSCH, Johann Air Atos C AUT 13:15:00 17:00:39 3:45:39
7 STRAUB, Davis Air Atos C USA 13:15:00 17:00:43 3:45:43
8 POUSTINCHIAN, Mark Air Atos C USA 13:15:00 17:03:03 3:48:03
9 BRANDT, David Air Atos USA 13:15:00 17:04:57 3:49:57
10 PAQUETTE, Eric Air Atos CAN 13:15:00 17:12:52 3:57:52
11 GLEASON, Ron Air Atos USA 13:15:00 17:19:27 4:04:27

Totals after two days:

1 CIECH, Christian, 114 Icaro Stratos ITA 1781
2 PLONER, Alex, 121 Air Atos C ITA 1687
3 CHAUMET, David, 113 La Mouette Tsunami FRA 1511
4 POSCH, Johann, 122 Air Atos C AUT 1343
5 BIESEL, Heiner, 3 Air Atos C USA 1326

Discuss competitions at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

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The 2003 Flytec Championship

Fri, Apr 18 2003, 6:00:02 pm GMT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Airborne Climax|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Alex Ploner|Christian Ciech|cloud|competition|Curt Warren|Dave Carr|David "Dave" Glover|David Chaumet|David Glover|Florida|Flytec Championships 2003|gaggle|GPS|Icaro Laminar MR|job|Kraig Coomber|Moyes Litespeed|Paris Williams|sailplane|Steve Kroop|tug|waypoints|weather

The scores:

http://www.flytec.com/flytec_champ_03/scores.html

We called a 66 mile out and return task to the northwest in order to take advantage of the forecasted convergence. The rigids had to go 5 miles longer than the flex wings, just to keep the two classes on separate routes.

We chose a turnpoint at a little grass airstrip just to the west of Interstate 75 10 miles north of Wildwood. It sure was great to use the Florida sailplane outlanding database for our turnpoints as the task committee had a lot more to choose from.

David Glover and I massaged that database and added quite a few points to it to come up with 171 waypoints and goals for the Flytec Championship. No one had to enter any new coordinates in their GPS, which was our goal. With all the extra waypoints, the task committee had plenty of options in every direction which made it much easier to define a task based on the weather and the Race parameters.

Speaking of David and Steve Kroop, they have been very responsive to our concerns about the meet format. For a week in advance of the meet many pilots went over the proposed local rules and made numerous helpful comments that were incorporated into the rules to make the competition that much more fun and interesting.

During the meet they are also very flexible and made changes when pilots saw that things could be better or the weather changed. I appreciate their support of the task committee, and while I think we did a good job, I only wish we had done even a better job.

Seven days of flying. Strong tasks which really demanded a lot from pilots on a couple of days especially. Also some fun tasks that everyone enjoyed.

Great organization on the ground, with twenty tug pilots and very little waiting. Of course, I launched early everyday, so I never had to wait. It’s a little trick I’ll let you in on. ☺

It took about 45 minutes or less for the ground crew and tugs to get everyone in the air. There are well over a hundred pilots here. Pretty smooth.

The rigid wing pilots were hanging out north of Groveland by highway 19 waiting for the perfect start time today. We were all near or right at cloud base, and the cloud kept forming in the perfect spot at the northwest edge of the start circle. It was like so easy to stay in the perfect spot.

I had an opportunity to circle for about 10 minutes with David Chaumet on his Tsunami. He was just below me so I got a real good feel for how well he climbs. Essentially he gained about 6 inches every 360 on me. Like I said I got to watch this for a long time.

We were in light lift, and we were just hanging out waiting and waiting for yet another start time, so I got a very good view, and I can say that while David flies very well and makes very good decisions, the climb rate of his glider is about equal to mine and other ATOS-C’s and Stratoses.

Of course, later I got to see him glide. We tried to drag everyone out with us at 2 PM, but they were not to be dragged. There were about 17 rigid wings in this gaggle in the start circle, and it was hard to get them going. The start time opened at 1:15, but as the clouds to the north started late, unlike yesterday, so everyone wanted to wait to the optimum time.

Johann and I agreed to go at 2:15 and I made a dramatic move at 2:15 to get everyone to come with me. I’m relying on my reading of the studies of herd behavior, and a start circle full of rigid wing hang gliders is nothing if not a herd. Everyone goes with me.

I do glide with David, but soon he gets ahead and in front. Alex Ploner (ATOS-C) and Christian Ciech (Stratos) are with him, so it isn’t like he is totally cleaning everyone’s clock, but it is still obvious that he has the best glide.

I head northwest toward the prisons while the fastest four rigids head on a more northerly course line. I can see a gaggle of flex wings (who started 5 miles in front of us) over the prison so I don’t want to go in any other direction. The rigid guys who took the route to the right do come join us there and everyone gets up, even the guys who first get there low.

The lift is strong and this is a hard racing day. No time to wonder, just find the next strong thermal and go. Of course, a strong thermal in Florida this year averages 400 fpm.

But wait, to the north it looks shaded, dark, overcast, and devoid of cu’s along the course line. The fast guys in front are heading straight on the course line into the gloom. But on the west side of the course, two miles to the west of I-75, I see a set of obvious convergence clouds.

Now I’m thinking, maybe these guys will find really weak lift along the course line. Maybe they won’t find any lift at all. Maybe the only lift will be these clouds. I’m a couple of minutes behind, so I head for them quickly hoping to outsmart the smart guys in front.

The clouds are working. I find a thermal at 1,600’ and right away I’m joined by a hawk that knows something about clouds (or at least lift) and he really helps out finding the best parts of the lift. As I climb out I look off to the east and there is the lead gaggle, getting up okay. But getting up when I was hoping they would be groveling in the shade.

I move deeper into the convergence area and get even stronger lift before dashing back to the northwest to get the turnpoint at the Savanna grass airstrip. Pilots who’ve made the turnpoint in front of me are coming back to the convergence clouds and I come back with them for more of that good lift to 6,000’. The forecast is holding true.

Now the race is really on and it’s a quick run back to the prisons for that good lift over the concrete. It’s still there and every second counts. The fast guys can’t be caught and don’t get stuck.

I get a long glide into the prison area next to Johnny Carr on a Stalker2, the very one that I have flown. It seemed to me that his glide was almost exactly equal to mine. I then circled with him and his climb rate was also very close. I didn’t see any of the hatcheting that I had seen in Texas at the US Open. There was no yawing back and forth, just a very smooth thermaling. This was true of all the Stalker2’s that I saw during the meet. Of course, I mentioned this earlier when test flying the Stalker2.

After the prison. I race as hard as possible, get a little low 7 miles out and have to waste 5 minutes getting back up. I should have kept going as the next seven miles were nothing but lift. Almost all the rigids and over 50 of the flex wing pilots make it back to goal.

Rigid Results:

1 CIECH Christian Icaro Stratos ITA 5823
2 CHAUMET David La Mouette Top Secret FRA 5721
3 PLONAR Alex AIR Atos ITA 5195
4 BARMAKIAN Bruce AIR Atos USA 4765
5 YOCOM James AIR Atos C USA 4467

Flex Results:

1 RUHMER Manfred Icaro Laminar MR AUT 5625
2 BONDARCHUCK Oleg Aeros Combat UKR 5519
3 COOMBER Kraig Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 5457
4 HAZLETT Brett Moyes Litespeed 4 CAN 5265
5 WALBEC Richard Airborne Climax 2 - 14 FRA 5039
6 DURAND Jon Jr. Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 4999
7 ALONZI Mario Aeros Combat 2 FRA 4909
8 OLSSON Andreas Moyes Litespeed 5 SWE 4811
9 WILLIAMS Paris Aeros Combat 2 USA 4796
10 WARREN Curt Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 4752

Curt Warren won the day by having a fast time and leaving when most everyone else did. It was a very competitive meet with a strong battle for first place in both rigid and flex wings. It’s obvious that the best pilots in the world are here.

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New Aeros Combat 2

Thu, Apr 10 2003, 12:00:02 pm EDT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Australia|Oleg Bondarchuck|Paris Williams|Quest Air

There is a new version of Aeros Combat 2 here at Quest Air, the one that Paris and Bo have been flying lately. Oleg Bondarchuck came in last night at midnight and I spoke with him about it also. It weighs about two kilos less than the previous version that Oleg was flying in Australia (and winning with there).

Paris said how much he liked the lighter version compared to the slightly heavier one and Oleg mentioned that he notice that it was climbing better than the version he flew just two months ago. Oleg told me that the Combats that have been shipping since the end of the Australian competitions are the new version.

Paris felt that with the lighter version there was no more excessive tip inertia in the glider making it easier to control and get flying straight and level again after turning.

Discuss topless gliders at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

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Paris and Bo head to head

Thu, Apr 3 2003, 10:00:04 pm GMT

Aeros Combat 2|Australia|Paris Williams|XC

http://www.Icaro2000.com/Products/Hang%20gliders/MR%202003/MR%202003.htm#New%20Size

Later in the afternoon Bo on his Aeros Combat 2 and Paris on his new resized Icaro 2000 Laminar MR thingy, without the special knife edge leading edge, went up for a glide off. According to Bo (and he says Paris agrees), they were equal below 40 mph, but Bo was doing better above 40 mph.

Paris and Bo will be up tomorrow with Paris on his bigger Laminar MR, the one he did so well on in Australia, and we’ll see what the story is. Paris just pulled this new sized laminar MR out of the box and this was his first flight. He was wondering where the high speed airfoil was.

http://www.Icaro2000.com/Products/Hang%20gliders/MR%202003/MR%20Pictures%20%20&%20Developm/MR%20Latest%20developments.htm

Maybe I’ll get more out of them tomorrow, if we don’t all go XC on single surface gliders.

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Florida Report

Thu, Apr 3 2003, 10:00:01 pm GMT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Airborne C2|cloud|competition|Florida|Jamie Shelden|picture|record|Rick "Ricky" Duncan|Ricky Duncan|Timothy Ettridge

http://www.davisstraub.com/Glide/questairweather.htm

Light winds. The FSL predictions showed no clouds but at 10 AM they showed up in force. Bo took off at 10:30 in good lift thinking he could get the 100 mile record in light winds as he started early (we assume 15 mph on a single surface hang glider). He dolphin flew after getting up but only 12 miles as the day totally changed as high clouds came over quickly and thinned out the cloud streets.

Ragged cu’s with light lift under the high clouds with up and down periods for the rest of the day. Some periods of sustained lift.

Ricky Duncan showed up today. He’ll be flying in the Flytec Championships. It sure was great to see him. Jamie Sheldon also showed up last night with an ATOS-C for Mark P. Five ATOS-C’s will show up tomorrow.

Quest is beginning to fill up with gliders and pilots getting ready for the upcoming competition. Stacks of Icaro 2000 Laminar MR’s, Aeros Combat 2’s, Airborne C2’s, and Moyes Litespeeds. The joint in jumping and good flying is happening.

Timothy Ettridge <TimothyEttridge@aol.com> sends the picture of the setup area at Quest today.

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Governador Valadares

Sun, Mar 30 2003, 10:00:02 pm GMT

Aeros Combat 2|Betinho Schmitz|Carlos Bessa|Filippo Oppici|Gerolf Heinrichs|José Luiz Moura Velloso|Jos Guggenmos|Luiz Niemeyer|Nene Rotor|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.evanews.com.br/2003/valadares/resultado.htm

I asked José Luiz Moura Velloso <jose.luiz@jlv.com.br> to send me the results of the flex wings only. He sent both flex wings and rigid wings. Jose has been one of the most cooperative score keepers ever and I really appreciate his help. He is even using the HTML templates that I sent him. Hurray! He writes:

There were lots of pilots complaining yesterday about including the rigid wings together with the flex wings. They think it is not fair to score the two classes together. It would be almost the same as having a competition with hang gliders and paragliders together. There are some pilots that think that they should also have different tasks.

I talked a lot with Gerolf two days ago, and he had some good points about this, most on some unfair advantages that rigid wings have in this competition in Governador Valadares. Most of time, they use their better gliders to fly higher than the flex wings, and kept waiting on the flex wing pilots to make all the flight decisions and take the risks, knowing that they could reach then easily after they got to the next thermal.

(editor’s note: This competition is run as a race, with all pilots starting at the same time. Rigid wing pilots who hold back on flex wing gaggles are behaving in an unsportsmanlike manner. They should use their better gliders to pull the lead gaggle and not wait on others to do the hard work for them. Of course, sometimes they just aren’t in the lead, but often they are and they need to act like leaders.)

I agreed with him when we spoke, but thinking about it later, and looking at it from the organizer's point of view, I think that scoring the two classes separately is enough. The rigid wings will have an advantage, but all rigid will have the same advantage, so that’s no problem. The organizer listened to the pilots, and as a result of the complaining, I think that the next competitions in Brazil will have no mixing in scoring.

Flex wings:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 ALVARO FIGUEIREDO SANDOLI Nene Rotor Wills Wing Talon BRA 5434
2 ALONZI Mario Aeros Combat 2 FRA 4971
3 LUIZ NIEMEYER Luizinho Icaro Laminar BRA 4910
4 SALDANHA Gustavo (Guga) Moyes Litespeed BRA 4841
5 HEINRICHS Gerolf Moyes Litespeed AUT 4718
6 BUSCA Alessandro (Alex) La Mouette Topless ITA 4578
7 OPPICI Filippo - Pippo Moyes Litespeed 4547
8 WOLF André Moyes . BRA 4539
9 CARLOS BESSA Cloud Bessa Wills Wing Talon BRA 4501
10 CARLOS ALBERTO SCHMITZ Betinho Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 4477

Rigids:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 LEISER René Atos . CHE 5314
2 RIS Jurg - Jimmy Atos C CHE 4887
3 MEIER Richard Atos C CHE 4246
4 WERNER Walchli Flight Design Axxe SS 2495
5 LINDEGGER Hanspeles Lindi Atos CHE 1690
6 BAUTLER Andreas Atos CHE 1630

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Governador Valadares

Sat, Mar 29 2003, 9:00:02 pm GMT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Betinho Schmitz|Carlos Bessa|cloud|Filippo Oppici|Gerolf Heinrichs|Governador Valadares 2003|Guga|Jos Guggenmos|Luiz Niemeyer|Moyes Litespeed|Nene Rotor|Wills Wing|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.evanews.com.br/2003/valadares/resultado.htm

José Luiz Moura Velloso <jose.luiz@jlv.com.br> sends the results for the last day at Governador Valadares. Jose has been very nice to send in the results in HTML format which is much more compatible.

Sixth day:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 LEISER René Atos 1:18:21 863
2 HEINRICHS Gerolf Moyes Litespeed AUT 1:19:08 835
3 ALVARO FIGUEIREDO SANDOLI Nene Rotor Wills Wing Talon BRA 1:22:08 787
4 CARLOS BESSA Cloud Bessa Wills Wing Talon BRA 1:22:31 779
5 FÁBIO CARDOSO NUNES Fabinho Moyes Litespeed BRA 1:24:30 754
6 FERRO Marcelo Moyes Litespeed 5 BRA 1:24:45 748
7 WOLF André Moyes Litespeed. BRA 1:25:11 741
8 BUSCA Alessandro (Alex) La Mouette Topless ITA 1:25:45 732
9 MARIO ANDRE FELSKE Monex Moyes Litespeed BRA 1:26:04 727
10 MASSIMO Turiaco (Max) Moyes Litespeed BRA 1:26:22 721

The ATOS was penalized, but it is hard to figure out exactly how. Total for the meet:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 ALVARO FIGUEIREDO SANDOLI Nene Rotor Wills Wing Talon BRA 5364
2 ALONZI Mario Aeros Combat 2 FRA 4868
3 LUIZ NIEMEYER Luizinho Icaro Laminar BRA 4845
4 LEISER René Atos 4795
5 SALDANHA Gustavo (Guga) Moyes Litespeed BRA 4747
6 HEINRICHS Gerolf Moyes Litespeed AUT 4633
7 OPPICI Filippo - Pippo Moyes Litespeed 4488
8 WOLF André Moyes Litespeed BRA 4476
9 BUSCA Alessandro (Alex) La Mouette Topless ITA 4469
10 CARLOS BESSA Cloud Bessa Wills Wing Talon BRA 4439

Well, a huge win for Nene and the Wills Wing Talon. The story I heard was that Gerolf, Andre and Betinho agreed to fly together to see if they could get Betinho a win over Nene on this last day. Betinho fell down and ended up 40th on the last day falling far out of second place. He can afford to drop a day on the Brazilian ranking system.

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Governador Valadares

Thu, Mar 27 2003, 9:00:03 pm GMT

Aeros Combat 2|Betinho Schmitz|Brazilian Nationals 2003|Filippo Oppici|Gerolf Heinrichs|Governador Valadares 2003|Jos Guggenmos|Luiz Niemeyer|Moyes Litespeed|Nene Rotor|Rob Kells|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.evanews.com.br/2003/valadares/resultado.htm

José Luiz Moura Velloso <jose.luiz@jlv.com.br> writes and sends the results for the fifth day at Governador Valadares.

Only one pilot in goal today. A CB developed near the goal, and a head wind makes everybody land near the goal.

The fifth day:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 LEISER René Atos 2:18:33 1000
2 RIS Jurg - Jimmy Atos C CHE 867
3 HERRMANN Gagu Moyes Litespeed CHE 848
4 SALDANHA Gustavo (Guga) Moyes Litespeed BRA 847
4 OPPICI Filippo - Pippo Moyes Litespeed 847
6 PEDRO MATTOS Pedrão Moyes Litespeed BRA 846
6 ACAUA PASETTO NOBREGA Kawai Wills Wing Talon BRA 846
8 MASSIMO Turiaco (Max) Moyes Litespeed BRA 834
9 FERRO Marcelo Moyes Litespeed 5 BRA 833
10 MENIN Marcelo Moyes Litespeed BRA 831
10 LUIZ NIEMEYER Luizinho Icaro Laminar BRA 831
12 ALVARO FIGUEIREDO SANDOLI Nene Rotor Wills Wing Talon BRA 829
12 MEIER Richard Atos C CHE 829
12 WOLF André Moyes Litespeed BRA 829
15 CARLOS ALBERTO SCHMITZ Betinho Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 819
16 ALONZI Mario Aeros Combat 2 FRA 810

ATOSes get 10% of the fastest pilot’s time to goal added to their time to goal. In this case Rene was the only pilot to make goal, so what do you do then? Pretty funny.

After five days:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 ALVARO FIGUEIREDO SANDOLI Nene Rotor Wills Wing Talon BRA 4579
2 CARLOS ALBERTO SCHMITZ Betinho Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 4262
3 ALONZI Mario Aeros Combat 2 FRA 4216
4 LUIZ NIEMEYER Luizinho Icaro Laminar BRA 4134
5 SALDANHA Gustavo (Guga) Moyes Litespeed BRA 4046
6 LEISER René Atos 3931
7 RIS Jurg - Jimmy Atos C CHE 3832
8 OPPICI Filippo - Pippo Moyes Litespeed 3806
9 HEINRICHS Gerolf Moyes Litespeed AUT 3789
10 BUSCA Alessandro (Alex) La Mouette Topless ITA 3747
11 WOLF André Moyes Litespeed BRA 3736

The Wills Wing Talon continues to rule the Brazilian Nationals. Rob Kells here at the Wills Wing Days is far excited to see Nene doing so well.

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Governador Valadares

Wed, Mar 26 2003, 9:00:02 pm GMT

Aeros Combat 2|Betinho Schmitz|Carlos Bessa|cloud|competition|Fernando Milani|Gerolf Heinrichs|Governador Valadares 2003|Jos Guggenmos|Luiz Niemeyer|Moyes Litespeed|Nene Rotor|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.evanews.com.br/2003/valadares/resultado.htm

José Luiz Moura Velloso <jose.luiz@jlv.com.br> writes and sends the results for the fourth day at Governador Valadares.

Nice task today! 81.7 km and 41 pilots in goal (from 62 in competition). There are two pilots who reached goal, but haven’t brought in their GPS’s yet.

Day four:

These are races with all pilots getting the same start time (in this case 3:15 PM):

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 ALONZI Mario Aeros Combat 2 FRA 1:45:43 979
2 SALDANHA Gustavo (Guga) Moyes Litespeed BRA 1:46:56 941
3 LEISER René Atos 1:47:30 928
4 HEINRICHS Gerolf Moyes Litespeed AUT 1:47:47 919
5 ALVARO FIGUEIREDO SANDOLI Nene Rotor Wills Wing Talon BRA 1:47:58 913
6 LUIZ FERNANDO AZEVEDO DIAS Fernando DF Moyes Litespeed BRA 1:48:45 899
7 CARLOS BESSA Cloud Bessa Wills Wing Talon BRA 1:55:19 825
8 BUSCA Alessandro (Alex) La Mouette Topless ITA 1:57:33 802
9 CARLOS ALBERTO SCHMITZ Betinho Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 2:01:07 771
10 WOLF André Moyes . BRA 2:01:47 763

I didn’t notice any penalty yet for the ATOS.

Total after four days:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 ALVARO FIGUEIREDO SANDOLI Nene Rotor Wills Wing Talon BRA 3746
2 CARLOS ALBERTO SCHMITZ Betinho Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 3442
3 ALONZI Mario Aeros Combat 2 FRA 3406
4 HEINRICHS Gerolf Moyes Litespeed AUT 3385
5 LUIZ NIEMEYER Luizinho Icaro Laminar BRA 3298
6 SALDANHA Gustavo (Guga) Moyes Litespeed BRA 3199
7 CARLOS BESSA Cloud Bessa Wills Wing Talon BRA 3067
8 RIS Jurg – Jimmy Atos C CHE 3065
9 FÁBIO CARDOSO NUNES Fabinho Moyes Litespeed BRA 3053
10 LEISER René Atos 3052

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Governador Valadaras

Tue, Mar 25 2003, 9:00:02 pm GMT

Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Betinho Schmitz|Carlos Bessa|CIVL|cloud|competition|Fernando Milani|Filippo Oppici|Gerolf Heinrichs|Governador Valadaras 2003|Guga|Moyes Litespeed|Nene Rotor|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.evanews.com.br/2003/valadares/resultado.htm

Are rigid wings 10% better? Yah, probably. On the second day of the meet 13 minutes was added to the times for the ATOS pilots. I had heard earlier that a 10% penalty (13 minutes is about 10% of Betinho’s flight time of 135 minutes) would be added to the rigid wing pilots.

For CIVL purposes rigid wing and flex wing pilots need to be scored separately. Usually the rigids and flex wings are only scored together for the purposes of comparison, but not for any official purposes. In Brazil, which is not too happy with CIVL, scores them together and then adds the penalty. I assume that at the end of the meet, they will in fact be scored separately before the results are sent to CIVL.

So the unaltered results of the second day would show the ATOSes coming in first, second and third, with the third ATOS in one second in front of Betinho. I assume that they were gaggling together and then racing into goal.

LEISER, René: 15:28:50
RIS, Jurg - Jimmy 15:29:41
MEIER, Richard: 15:30:47
CARLOS ALBERTO SCHMITZ, Betinho 15:30:48
OPPICI, Filippo – Pippo: 15:30:50

Day 3:

1 HEINRICHS Gerolf Moyes Litespeed AUT 2:02:18 1000
2 ALVARO FIGUEIREDO SANDOLI Nene Rotor Wills Wing Talon BRA 2:03:37 963
3 ALONZI Mario Aeros Combat 2 FRA 2:04:02 952
4 FERRO Marcelo Moyes Litespeed 5 BRA 2:04:13 945
5 LUIZ FERNANDO AZEVEDO DIAS Fernando DF Moyes Litespeed BRA 2:07:05 907
6 FÁBIO CARDOSO NUNES Fabinho Moyes Litespeed BRA 2:14:19 840
7 DORIVAL AGUILHON JR Doriva Moyes Litespeed BRA 2:22:15 782
7 SALDANHA Gustavo (Guga) Moyes Litespeed BRA 2:22:15 782
9 CARLOS ALBERTO SCHMITZ Betinho Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 2:22:25 774
10 CARLOS BESSA Cloud Bessa Wills Wing Talon BRA 2:22:48 769
11 BUSCA Alessandro (Alex) La Mouette Topless ITA 2:22:52 766
12 LUIZ NIEMEYER Luizinho Icaro Laminar BRA 2:23:18 760
13 AMIR Shalon Icaro Laminar ISR 2:23:30 757
14 RIS Jurg – Jimmy Atos C CHE 2:26:43 735
15 ACAUA PASETTO NOBREGA Kawai Wills Wing Talon BRA 2:29:10 719

Fifteen minutes added to Jurg Ris’s time

Total after three days:

1 ALVARO FIGUEIREDO SANDOLI Nene Rotor Wills Wing Talon BRA 2832
2 CARLOS ALBERTO SCHMITZ Betinho Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 2670
3 OPPICI Filippo – Pippo Moyes Litespeed 2591
4 LUIZ NIEMEYER Luizinho Icaro Laminar BRA 2580
5 HEINRICHS Gerolf Moyes Litespeed AUT 2466
6 ALONZI Mario Aeros Combat 2 FRA 2427
7 FERRO Marcelo Moyes Litespeed 5 BRA 2421
8 FÁBIO CARDOSO NUNES Fabinho Moyes Litespeed BRA 2322
9 RIS Jurg – Jimmy Atos C CHE 2311
10 SALDANHA Gustavo (Guga) Moyes Litespeed BRA 2257
11 DORIVAL AGUILHON JR Doriva Moyes Litespeed BRA 2248
12 CARLOS BESSA Cloud Bessa Wills Wing Talon BRA 2241
13 BUSCA Alessandro (Alex) La Mouette Topless ITA 2207
14 ACAUA PASETTO NOBREGA Kawai Wills Wing Talon BRA 2157
15 WOLF André Moyes . BRA 2140

Gerolf has finished first twice now, but fell down on day two. Nene moved into the lead over Betinho when Betinho got a little slow today. Looks like Wills Wing is on top of the competition.

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Governador Valadaras

Sun, Mar 23 2003, 8:00:02 pm GMT

Aeros Combat 2|Betinho Schmitz|Filippo Oppici|Gerolf Heinrichs|Governador Valadaras 2003|Jos Guggenmos|Luiz Niemeyer|Moyes Litespeed|Nene Rotor|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.evanews.com.br/eva/resultados.htm

José Luiz Moura Velloso <jose.luiz@jlv.com.br> writes and sends the results for the first day at Governador Valadares.

Nobody made goal today. There was a head wind from the last turnpoint to the goal. The task has 87.1 km.

Place Name Glider Nation km Total
1 HEINRICHS, Gerolf, 128 Moyes Litespeed AUT 78,8 900
2 ACAUA PALETTU NOBREGA, Kawai, 17 Wills Wing Talon BRA 78,6 898
2 ALVARO FIGUEIREDO SANDOLI, Nene Rotor Wills Wing Talon BRA 78,5 898
4 CARLOS ALBERTO SCHMITZ, Betinho, 1 Moyes Litespeed 4 BRA 78,4 896
4 FÁBIO CARDOSO NUNES, Fabinho, 16 Moyes Litespeed BRA 78,4 896
6 OPPICI, Filippo - Pippo, 129 Moyes Litespeed 78,0 890
7 ALONZI, Mario, 114 Aeros Combat 2 FRA 77,9 888
8 LUIZ NIEMEYER, Luizinho, 96 Icaro Laminar BRA 77,8 887
9 HERRMANN, Jorge, 111 Moyes Litespeed CHE 77,7 884
10 LEISER, René, 115 Atos . 77,6 882
10 WOLF, André, 5 Moyes . BRA 77,6 882

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2003 Australian Nationals – the finals »

Sun, Jan 26 2003, 3:00:00 pm GMT

Aeros Combat 2|Air Atos|Airborne C2|Chris Muller|Combat|Gerolf Heinrichs|Jerz Rossignol|Kraig Coomber|Moyes Litespeed|Paris Williams|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.dynamicflight.com.au/Nationals/results_2003.htm

The results from day five:

1 STRAUB, Davis, 36 Air Atos C 145 USA 15:15:00 17:34:45 2:19:45 1000
2 WARREN, Curt, 1 Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 15:15:00 17:42:06 2:27:06 904
3 COOMBER, Kraig, 77 Moyes Litespeed AUS 15:15:00 17:42:27 2:27:27 897
4 DURAND, Jon Jnr., 43 Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 15:15:00 17:43:47 2:28:47 882
5 BERTOK, Attila, 55 Moyes Litespeed 5 HUN 15:15:00 17:44:21 2:29:21 874
6 HOLTKAMP, Rohan, 27 Airborne C2 14 AUS 15:15:00 17:44:50 2:29:50 867
7 BOISSELIER, Antoine, 24 Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 15:30:00 17:53:11 2:23:11 863
7 GUILLEN, Bruno, 14 Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 15:15:00 17:44:55 2:29:55 863
9 MOYES, Steve, 59 Moyes Litespeed 5 AUS 15:15:00 17:45:14 2:30:14 858
10 HAGEWOOD, Bo, 30 Aeros Combat II 150 USA 15:15:00 17:46:01 2:31:01 849

The overall results (the flex wing only results didn’t appear on the web site):

1 STRAUB, Davis, 36 Air Atos C 145 USA 4126
2 COOMBER, Kraig, 77 Moyes Litespeed AUS 4121
3 DURAND, Jon Jnr., 43 Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 3974
4 GUILLEN, Bruno, 14 Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 3904
5 WILLIAMS, Paris, 81 Icaro Laminar St14 USA 3867
6 POSCH, Johann, 42 Atos C AUT 3832
7 MULLER, Chris, 41 Wills Wing Talon 154 CAN 3801
8 HEINRICHS, Gerolf, 26 Moyes Litespeed 4 AUT 3794
9 BERTOK, Attila, 55 Moyes Litespeed 5 HUN 3753
10 ROSSIGNOL, Jerz, 64 Icaro Laminar USA 3750

I understand that the flex wing only results are a bit different, but again I didn’t see them up on the Dynamic Flight web site.

The flex wing results finally came up:

1 COOMBER, Kraig, 77 Moyes Litespeed AUS 4329
2 DURAND, Jon Jnr., 43 Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 4113
3 GUILLEN, Bruno, 14 Moyes Litespeed 4 FRA 4071
4 HEINRICHS, Gerolf, 26 Moyes Litespeed 4 AUT 4004
5 BERTOK, Attila, 55 Moyes Litespeed 5 HUN 3950
6 MULLER, Chris, 41 Wills Wing Talon 154 CAN 3948
7 WILLIAMS, Paris, 81 Icaro Laminar St14 USA 3943
8 ROSSIGNOL, Jerz, 64 Icaro Laminar USA 3906
9 BONDARCHUK, Oleg, 32 Aeros Combat 2 13 UKR 3632
10 RIGG, Gordon, 48 Moyes Litespeed 4 GBR 3619

Kraig is the winner of the Australian Nationals and the new Australian National Champion as well. After Oleg and Paris fell down, the Moyes Boys took their opportunities to dominate the meet, taking the top five places.

Chris Muller, after spending most of his recent competition time flying paragliders, warmed up to flying hang gliders and was the top Talon pilot. Paris came back with top finishes after going too fast and too boldly on the first day. Oleg recovered from his fall, but other pilots were too consistent for him to climb back to the top.

I’ll have more to say about what happened in Australia over the next few weeks.

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Bogong Cup – day five »

Sat, Jan 11 2003, 6:00:00 am GMT

Aeros Combat 2|ATOS|Combat|Gerolf Heinrichs|Gordon Rigg|Kari Castle|Kraig Coomber|Lukas Bader|Moyes Litespeed|Paris Williams|Ron Gleason|Ton Draaijer|Wesley "Wes" Hill|Wills Wing Talon

http://www.cool-ether.net.au/australianopen

or likely up on the following site earlier (thanks to the scorer, Wesley Hill)

www.davisstraub.com/bogong

The forecast is for southeast winds at 10 to15 mph out at Wangaratta, over the back of the Pines launch. We’re hoping that the south, southwest facing launch can handle that, as we have no other place to go.

We do go back to Buckland Ridge, the Pines, and there is a bit of wind coming right up the launch. It’s looking good, except for the fact that the air looks like it is Los Angeles. With the light winds and the prolific smoke producing fires, the air is full of smoke everywhere we look. Not that we can see that far. Visibility is reduces to about 5 miles.

They want to get us out and away from the area and with the short task yesterday, the task committee decides on a long one, 100 miles to the west to Rochester just south of Echuca. With a light southeasterly wind we will have a quartering tail wind, which is appreciated.

After the first few pilots in the open launch window get up good it turns scratchy at launch and I unload half my ballast. Half an hour later in ordered launch Lukas Bader is just before me in the launch line and when I notice a pilot turning sharply on our left I yell out to him to go to the left. We both head over there with Gordon Rigg and another pilot and right next to the hill side four of us work it hard to climb out in the rough air.

Lukas and I get high and head down the ridge toward the start circle 10 km to the west. By this time there are about thirty pilots just a few hundred feet over launch near the launch trying hard to stay up. The thermal stops and they all head down the ridge just skimming over the top and not far above the bomb out paddock. They need to find something quick.

The open launch pilots are high and we work lift a few km west down the ridge as the pilots who were low find it and save themselves. We can’t see the area for the start circle, so we don’t know if there are pilots there yet but a few of us head over to see if we can find lift out over the flats and get in the start circle. It’s almost time for the 2:30 start time, but we will not get there in time.

We want to get going as early as possible given the long task. There is lift in the start circle and we gaggle up climbing to over 6,000’ two km from the start circle. Gordon Rigg and I head for the circumference as the other lag behind. We spot another gaggle closer to the edge that we were unable to spot although they were only 2 km away from us.

The lift is strong enough in spite of all the smoke, but it hasn’t been mellowed out at all. We had thought it would after what happened on the last day of the Worlds in Chelan when we were almost in the smoke, but no, the air sucks, and the glider is bucking.

Our course takes us back out to Maccas on the freeway and Tony on his ATOS and I catch up with the open window pilots who got higher at the start circle given their earlier launch and we work 500 fpm back up to over 6,000’. At this point we are the lead gaggle and there are about five flex wing pilots and Tony over my head. The lift has slowed down but no one is going. The open window pilots are on top of the gaggle but as they are not the top pilots they are reluctant to lead.

I don’t want the pilots who will take the next start time to catch us, and it looks like we are with a bunch of slow pilots, so in frustration I take off on the course. Tony will follow behind me. Johann and Ron Gleason are behind and will take the 3 o’clock start time. Johann was with Ton in the start circle but lost track of him in the haze, and didn’t follow when we started.

I’m leaving the lead gaggle out of frustration with it and I know that this is almost always a bad move, especially when I don’t see anyone coming with me. The air sucks and I continue flying through some rowdy lift, not bothering to make a turn and see if anyone is coming. I find the conditions most unpleasant.

Out in the distance I see the outlines of a lake. I had forgotten to look at the map and didn’t realize that our course line would take us directly over a large lake. I can barely make it out and can’t see the extent of its far western and northern shores.

I know have to decide either south off the course line around the lake, or to the north, a bit over the lake. I can now see the south shore and with the prevalent southeast wind, I decide to stay up wind of the lake for better chances of lift.

Tony follows me for a while then notices that Oleg heads more on the course line to the right across the lake with Bruno so he turns and joins him. They will glide almost to the western end of the lake before they find lift.

I will also glide almost to the southwestern end of the lake before I find weak lift at 2,000’ AGL. After a long search I finally get the good stuff and get back to almost 6,000’.

Now I’m out on my own and I will only see one other glider briefly during the rest of the task. Tony, Oleg and Bruno will gaggle up and fly together for the rest of the task. Johann and Ron Gleason will go across the northern side of the lake, find poor lift and land there. Another small gaggle of flex wings including Paris will fly separately from Oleg, Tony and Bruno.

The lift is still rough, but the winds are light and there are plenty of small roads down below in the open range lands. I get down to 1,000’ AGL a few times, but by being careful and working light lift in the hard spots, I’m able to find much better lift. I’m wondering just how fast I’m going with respect to the other pilots as they are way off to my north and I’ve taken a much longer route.

Finally by 5 o’clock the rough air turns smooth and the thermals consistent as I climb out in 700 fpm to 6,500’. Now I’m really enjoying the flight. I hear that Tony is 50 km our having flown over Shepparton. I’m 55 km out from goal and about 10 km south of Shepparton.

With smooth strong lift I go on long runs making sure that I find myself over brown fields as the level of irrigation increases significantly in this area. I’m racing to catch up with Tony and the lead gaggle.

At forty minutes out I’m down to 1,500’ AGL, but over a brown field and in strong lift. The flying turns even better and I’m really enjoying the air. I can’t see or track the lead gaggle, so I’m flying as fast as I can.

Twenty five km out at 5,500’ AGL, I go on final glide figuring I will get near 20 to 1 glide given the 8 mph quartering tail wind. I stop for a little 500 foot gain as insurance 10 km out, but it turns out I won’t need it.

The goal is a virtual goal, at an intersection just east of Rochester. As I come in at 900 I don’t see any goal crew or any gliders. I begin to wonder if I’ve got the right coordinates.

There isn’t a great landing field near the goal so I slide over to the south and land in a big friendly field. Ten minutes later I see Tony, Oleg, Paris, and about three other gliders all come in close together. Tony will be second for the day just ahead of Oleg.

Paris, Attila, Bo (3 out of 4 of the Combat’s at the meet will make goal), Bruno, Gordon, Kraig, Rohan, Jonny, Kari, Lukas and a few others will be at goal. Gerolf will not make goal and he was in first place.

Tony won the day yesterday and now is in first overall. I won the day today and should move into the top ten, after not making goal on the first day. Felix at AIR will be happy. We get back at midnight, so the scores will be late.

I launch at the Pines.

Preliminary (twenty pilots missing) day four:

1 STRAUB, Davis, 36 Air Atos C 145 USA 14:45:00 18:12:01 3:27:01 977
2 WILLIAMS, Paris, 81 Icaro Laminar St14 USA 15:00:00 18:23:41 3:23:41 971
3 RAUMAUF, Toni, 29 Air Atos AUT 14:45:00 18:22:23 3:37:23 932
4 BERTOK, Attila, 55 Moyes Litespeed 5 HUN 14:45:00 18:23:53 3:38:53 916
5 DURAND, Jon Jnr., 43 Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 14:45:00 19:01:33 4:16:33 816
6 COOMBER, Kraig, 77 Moyes Litespeed AUS 14:45:00 19:01:41 4:16:41 813
7 RIGG, Gordon, 48 Moyes Litespeed 4 GBR 14:45:00 19:01:50 4:16:50 811
8 BADER, Lucas, 22 Aeros Combat 2 DEU 14:30:00 19:12:12 4:42:12 772
9 CASTLE, Kari, 69 Icaro MR700 USA 14:45:00 19:24:35 4:39:35 760
10 MULLER, Chris, 41 Wills Wing Talon 154 CAN 14:30:00 19:18:51 4:48:51 758

Preliminary total after dour days:

1 RAUMAUF, Toni, 29 Air Atos AUT 3651
2 WILLIAMS, Paris, 81 Icaro Laminar St14 USA 3491
3 COOMBER, Kraig, 77 Moyes Litespeed AUS 3459
4 BERTOK, Attila, 55 Moyes Litespeed 5 HUN 3424
5 HEINRICHS, Gerolf, 71 Moyes Litespeed 4 AUT 3394
6 DURAND, Jon Jnr., 43 Moyes Litespeed 4 AUS 3260
7 STRAUB, Davis, 36 Air Atos C 145 USA 3141
8 RIGG, Gordon, 48 Moyes Litespeed 4 GBR 3027
9 BADER, Lucas, 22 Aeros Combat 2 DEU 2932
10 CASTLE, Kari, 69 Icaro MR700 USA 2917

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CIVL – the local rules at the Worlds »

Sat, Nov 30 2002, 6:00:05 pm GMT

Aeros Combat 2|Airborne|CIVL|Combat|Dennis Pagen|FAI|Luiz Niemeyer|Moyes|Paris Williams|Wills Wing

http://www.fai.org/hang_gliding/meetings/200210-BureauMinutes.pdf

The Bureau minutes report:

Brazil. Regarding the local regulations Dennis has some modification and the local regulations will be finalised for the plenary. The local regulations should be discussed in the sub-committee before the plenary.

(editor’s note: Well, I wonder if CIVL is going to deal with the issue of sponsorship ads on the leading edges. I’ve spoken with more participants in the Brazilian Pre-Worlds and it just gets worse.

http://www.fai.org/documents/rules.asp

The FAI rules state:

5. 3.1 FAI reserves the right for the Organiser to provide and have displayed on any and all aerial vehicles participating in FAI Air Sport Events competition numbers which may incorporate advertising, subject to the rules set out in sub-paras a) through g) below

f. Weight-shift Microlights, Hang Gliders: If compatible with flight safety, a space of 50 cm x 50 cm on the lower surface of the wing

The flight park ads at the Pre-Worlds were much bigger than the 50 cm by 50 cm limit, were separate from the competition numbers, and located on the leading edge. That’s three violations of these FAI rules. The organizers, in effect, used the space belonging to the pilot’s without their permission. They rented this space out, made money on it, when the rightful owners of the space did not receive any direct compensation from the renters.

Again, just so people understand, I am not at all against sponsorship, I’m just questioning who should receive the direct benefit from the sponsorship. And who had the right to receive that direct benefit.

Six or seven pilots were reported to have protested by changing the letters on the advertisement or by taking off the advertisement completely. Luiz is reported to have reminded pilots that there would be a penalty if they did not cooperate and keep the advertisement intact.

The FAI steward at the Pre-Worlds, Dennis Pagen, is reported to have supported the meet organizers on the leading edge ad issue. The steward is there to help the meet organizer understand the CIVL rules. Perhaps he didn’t have a chance to read section 5.3.1.f.

After the gentle warning from Luiz, Paris Williams and one or two other pilots were hold outs. I don’t think that their scores were docked. One Italian pilot is reported to have removed the ad completely.

The flight park ads are currently scheduled to be a part of the Worlds in Brazil in 2003. I wonder if CIVL is going to pay attention to the FAI rules quoted above or not. I wonder if they are going to make the meet organizers pay the meet participants to let them rent out their leading edges.)

http://www.fai.org/documents/rules.asp

The FAI rules further state:

5. 5.1 The Organiser shall declare the name(s) of the main event sponsors at 6 months before FAI Air Sport Events

5. 5.2 Participating FAI Members shall make every effort to ensure that their teams are not sponsored by rival companies to the main event sponsors.

5. 5.3 When applying to enter FAI Air Sport Events, all teams and individual competitors shall declare to the Organiser any advertising that their aerial vehicle and/or personal clothing and/or ground equipment will carry.

5. 5.4 Any clash of interest arising from conflicting advertising shall be resolved on an individual basis between the parties concerned. If required, the ASC concerned shall mediate.

5. 5.5 Should any conflict under 5.5.4 above prove impossible to resolve through mediation, the FAI Officers shall decide with finality as set out in Chapter 7 below.

(editor’s note: I have contacted Luiz and Carlos Niemeyer regarding whether they followed these rules for the Pre-Worlds, and whether they are going to follow them for the Worlds. I haven’t received an answer, although they have had sufficient time to respond.

Imagine the situation where say, Wills Wing was a major sponsor of the Worlds. Under these rules, pilots who would be flying Moyes Litespeeds, Icaro200 Laminars, Airborne Climaxes, Aeros Combat 2’s, etc. would be likely be obliged to remove all the model and manufacturer designations from the undersurface, leading edges, and top of their gliders. These manufacturers couldn’t sponsor a national team.

The FAI rules seem to discourage sponsorship support as much as they encourage it. And I’ve only gone into some of the rules. Other rules directly contradict these rules. It is a mess.)

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WRE – Wednesday »

Wed, Jun 19 2002, 6:00:00 pm GMT

A.I.R. ATOS C|Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|AIR ATOS|AIR ATOS-C|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Bo Hagewood|David Prentice|Exxtacy|Flight Design|George Ferris|Hans Bausenwein|Jamie Shelden|Mike Barber|Moyes Litespeed|Pete Lehmann|Will Gadd|World Record Encampment 2002

Wednesday started off with cumulus clouds forming early at two lower levels. The bottom level with a cloud base starting off below 2,000’. At around 19:45 AM the sky was completely black with cumulus clouds – the great precursor of a super day in Zapata.

As the general darkness of the cumulus cover began to break up into cloud streets pilots (starting with Bo Hagewood on the Aeros Combat 2) started launching and finding good lift up to the lower cloud base at 2,400’. Pete Lehmann (WW Talon), George Ferris (AIR ATOS), Dave Watkins (AIR ATOS), Mike Barber (Moyes Litespeed), Jamie Sheldon (Flight Design Exxtacy), and Alex Ploner (AIR ATOS-C) all took off and got quickly to cloud base drifting north quickly in the moderate winds.

The wind direction was quite good and no one had any problem skirting the Laredo airspace as the clouds raised and spread out a bit.

While Gary had predicted strong winds, this turned out not to be the case. Pilots landed mostly at around 125 miles, with Alex Ploner landing near Uvalde (160 miles) and Bo going down way off the road at 184 miles, necessitating a long retrieve (without his glider).

Jamie landed at 30 miles out (automatically setting – but not claiming – the women’s rigid world record) behind two locked gates but a short distance from our friend Rick Walker’s ranch house. He later went in with his helicopter and retrieved Jamie’s glider.

Dave Prentice got up on his first tow into 800 fpm, that turned into 1000 fpm right to cloud base. He raced himself into the ground not too long afterwards. Must have got too excited. Will Gadd and Louise flew their paragliders about 130 miles before deciding to stop. They required multiple tows, as did Hans Bausenwein who landed near Dave. Both Dave and Hans hitchhiked back into town from the main dirt road to our north.

We are looking for more moisture to be pushed up across the state to make for more clouds along the route. It was clear from the satellite photos today that the clouds only went about 200 miles out. It looks like more moisture will be coming our way on Friday.

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WRE – the last few days »

Sun, Jun 16 2002, 7:00:00 pm GMT

Aeros|Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Bo Hagewood|Combat|Gary Osoba|Jim Lamb|paraglider|record|Rhett Radford|Will Gadd|World Record Encampment 2002

Given the original prediction (last Thursday) that Tuesday would be a super day, and given the light winds in Zapata, pilots flew locally Sunday and Monday while getting prepared for the big day. As Tuesday approached the issue became would the best day be Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday (you’d hate to go long – but not long enough - and not get back for the best day). Also, would the clouds start forming early?

On Tuesday at 6 AM a dark thin low cloud street formed east of the airport toward the paraglider tow paddock at Renato’s. Starting about 5 miles south of Zapata it extended to the north as far as we could see. It looked like there might a possibility of cu’s forming early.

The previous nights predicted sounding for Zapata showed diminished chances of cumulus development early in the day with lighter wind than hoped for earlier, but winds up to 20 mph on the ground in north Texas and higher at 5,000’ The direction looked very good and the winds were predicted to be stronger along the route than any of the previous two years’ record days.

There were scattered cu’s forming above the airstrip as we held our 8 AM pilot meet (moved up to be ready for the big day). Still with light winds, and low moisture there wasn’t any sign of cloud streets reforming. Bo Hagewood (Aeros Combat 2) launched at 8:45 AM. He landed about 4 miles away and we sent Rhett Radford over to pull him up again off a gravel road. He landed back at the airstrip.

A few minutes later he was off again, followed by Peter Lehmann (WW Talon) and Jim Lamb (AIR Atos-C). Gary Osoba had been up since before Bo took off in his Woodstock making sure that he was marking lift in the now blue sky for the pilots who had just released from tow.

By noon the pilots were negotiating their way around the Laredo airspace and hoping for the cu’s to start popping, which in fact a bit later they did.

Bo and Jim decided to land at Uvalde (165 miles out). Pete decided to land 20 miles out on highway 83.

All the paraglider pilots flew, with the Mexican pilots going 40-50 miles. Will Gadd and Dave Prentice landed 4 miles out. Louise landed in the Mesquite 400 yards out, was wet and hot, took off most of her clothes and burned to a crisp.

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Flytec Championship – 70 mile fish bowl »

Sat, Apr 27 2002, 9:00:00 pm GMT

A.I.R. ATOS|Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Aeros Ltd|Alex Ploner|Chris Arai|Christian Ciech|cloud|competition|Curt Warren|David "Dave" Glover|Flytec Championships 2002|Flytec Championships 2005|gaggle|GAP|Gary Osoba|Ghostbuster|job|Mike Barber|Moyes Delta Gliders|Moyes Litespeed|Quest Air|Ron Gleason|Steve Kroop|tail|tracker|tug|video|weather|Wills Wing Talon

David Glover was very smart and every day as the meet went on he would drag up folks to thank them for their help at the Flytec Championship. During the week he thanked the tug pilots, the volunteers, the ground crew, the Quest Air crew, the people who put the dinners together, Frank and Steve Kroop, the registration crew, etc. Because it happened every day everyone got more applause and more attention than if he had put it off until the last night, when everyone gets crammed together.

David and Steve did something also very clever, they had GW create a video taking footage and shots during the week. On Saturday night, the last night of the Flytec Championship, the video was ready to go and we got to see the whole video with the sound track. It was amazing that it had been done so quickly, all the while GW just looked like he was hanging out taking pictures and having fun.

But, not only did we get to see the video, all the pilots and tug pilots got a copy of the video last night. It really showed off what we do at a Floridaaerotow competition and we’ll be able to take it around and show it to our friends (if we have any outside of hang gliding).

Dave was a kick all week making announcements, telling jokes, getting pilots to come to the pilot meetings because they were so much fun. Belinda commented that we hadn’t seen Dave in his element in quite a while. While there were many many people who played keys roles in making the Flytec Championship such a great meet, I’ve got to feel that it was Dave Glover that really put it over the top and made it so much fun.

One of the key elements to its success (I feel), is that he was able to delegate responsibility to others, and in this case I’m referring to the task committee. I had written to him early on stating how giving the task committee the complete responsibility for calling the task was one of the keys to Tove’s great meets in Australia. David, like Tove, had the personality that allowed him to delegate responsibility and not get tied up into knots about it.

Chris Arai, Revo, and I had complete authority to choose the task each day, we took lots of pilot input and we did our best for the pilots to make the meet fair and fun. I can tell you that there was no barbeque task on the last day (although we did come back to Quest Air) as there has been in the past.

Having a task committee made up exclusively of pilots who without prodding from the meet director or organizer (well, we kept Dave away almost all of the time), is a key to having a meet (there are other ways to do it, but there are very very few individuals who can pull it off, and I can think of only one, Mad Dog, in Australia) that satisfies the pilots. This will continue to be a difficult issue and I hope that there will be a way to work this out at the upcoming worlds in Chelan.

Oh, yes, we did have a task on day seven. First, we heard from Gary Osoba:

Looks like a 7 day meet, thanks to the task planners, meet administrators, and reasonably good weather. Congratulations!

For a change, the entire soaring window today should provide for relatively consistent wind directions and strengths. Should make the planning a little bit easier. Here's how it stacks up:

11am Weak lift. Probably a bit early for clouds to be forming yet. When then do (likely closer tonoon), they should be around 2500'. Surface winds sse around 6. Winds aloft a little bit more southerly at 10-12.

2pm Good lift, strong in spots. Cb 5000' to 5300'. Surface winds sse 5-8, aloft sse 12-14.

5pm Moderate lift, good in spots. Cb could go to around 6000". Surface winds sse 8-10, aloft sse about 12.

"Only a fool would try to predict the weather"!

So we’ve got strong winds aloft out of the south, but good lift also. With the good lift we can come back against the strong winds, and that is exactly what we plan to do. We have really been counting on Gary’s forecasts, and he has done a great job for us. We really pick the tasks based on his weather predictions.

We call a 70 mile task (no barbeque task this one) that will first take us downwind 17 miles to the west, northwest to Bushnell, back against the head wind to Quest, south into the head wind to the intersection of highways 33 and 474, then north, downwind past Quest to Gator field, then 7 miles upwind for the final glide to goal.

The task keeps us near Quest, while at the same time making it difficult to complete. We come back over Quest to get everyone on the ground excited and it keeps us out of the swamp.

There are plenty of clouds when we start taking off, and it looks like maybe there are too many, maybe it will over develop after all. The wind seems awfully strong also, but it’s too late now to come up with an other task.

We hang around until the middle start time at 1:15although everyone is in the air in half an hour. We just stay at cloud base for an extra 15 minutes. GAP gives one very little reason to go out in front and leave the gaggle behind. Johann and I have already made up our minds that we will take the middle start time, and maybe everyone else felt that way also, or, when two pilots left, they all decided to go with us.

We can see all the darkness out to our northwest and it looks like we are jumping into a black hole. There are high cirrus clouds that dull the areas on the ground where the cu’s don’t block out the sun.

We spot the guys who took the 1 PMstart time and that makes it easier to make our way to the turnpoint through all this very gloomy looking area. Still we’re down below 1,400’ before we connect with the big lift that gets us to the turnpoint and back out again.

Well, that was a downwind task, but we averaged only 27 mph getting there, so the south wind didn’t help that much. Coming back will prove to be much more difficult (and most if not all of the pilots who don’t make it will drop out here), as the average speed will go down to 15 mph.

I’ll charge across some blue areas to get under what seems to be a cloud street, find nothing then push up wind to get under some pilots turning at 8 miles out from Quest, only to find myself at 450’ and working lift that averages 140 fpm, starting out at a much lower value. It turns out that every one will have difficulty making it back to Quest and will get low on this leg.

Christian Ciech and Alex Ploner are doing much better in this meet than the rest of us, and they have zoomed out ahead. They were half a mile ahead at the turnpoint, and I lost them coming back as I went more easterly, but they will also get quite low. They are flying together.

I’m flying with Johann, but I’ve lost him also. Given how weak the conditions are we are all struggling and it looks like a long day if we can stay up. I’ve got quite a few other gliders here with me, so we hang on and the lift improves, as we drift north away from Quest, but with stronger lift it is no problem. Twenty minutes after coming in low, I’m up to 4,000’ and on my way to Quest with Curt, Paris, Ron Gleason, and some other ATOSes.

We are styling now, hitting good lift and staying high as we come into Quest. We can see a gaggle forming to our south that includes the Swifts, so they must have struggled also. I can see Alex and Christian in the gaggle also.

Johann will lose it here and head off to the west to get under better looking clouds, while I’ll continue to the south to join up with the gaggle. Johann, who is in second place, will almost land at Quest.

I catch up with the lead gaggle, which is putzing along. I guess they don’t see any need to probe out into the blue to the south. All the clouds that we had by Bushnell have not come down here in the late afternoon, and there are mere wisps to our south.

With a bunch of rigid wings, Curt Warren, and above us all the two Italian rigid wing pilots, we start punching our way south only to find good lift, light sink in between, and long patches of buoyant air. We stay high and work light lift to get to 5,000’.

We are still running into the wind, so it takes a while, but we have no problems getting down to the south to get the turnpoint with Alex and Christian leading the way. The Swifts start to get ahead of us now, with Manfred taking the third turnpoint and coming back to greet us when we are 2 miles out from it.

As soon as we get the turnpoint, we can drift back north along 33 in strong tail winds and buoyant air. With the lift averaging less than 200 fpm in the cores, we are just taking a little bit here and there. After the long up wind grind it is a joy to drift toward the Gator turnpoint.

Now there are only rigid wings in the lead as we come into the Gator turnpoint and turn to get back to Quest. It’s been a long glide into Gator before our upwind final glide. My IQ/Comp has been acting up and not reporting any final glide info, so I’m just hanging with the four other rigid pilots. Heiner goes on glide and we all just speed up as it becomes clear that no matter that fact that we are going into a strong head wind, we will make it back to Quest without a problem.

Mike Barber who bombed out on the previous day (after passing up lots of lift trying to go faster) goes all out and will win in Class 1 as the flex wings will come in about 20 minutes behind Alex Ploner who takes first in the rigid wings. Then again he'll start fifteen minutes behind us, so you can see how much Alex and Christian were holding back, just tracking the rigids below them.

Class 5 on the last day:

1 Ploner, Alex, 65 Air Atos C Ita 13:15:00 16:20:00 03:05:00 953
2 Ciech, Christian, 47 Icaro Stratos Ita 13:15:00 16:20:11 03:05:11 935
3 Biesel, Heiner, 101 Air Atos Usa 13:15:00 16:28:30 03:13:30 848
4 Gleason, Ron, 300 Air Atos Usa 13:15:00 16:28:35 03:13:35 839
5 Endter, Vincent, 43 Air Atos Usa 13:15:00 16:28:36 03:13:36 832
6 Straub, Davis, 50 Air Atos C Usa 13:15:00 16:28:55 03:13:55 825
7 Zeiset, Jim, 66 Air Atos Usa 13:15:00 16:38:43 03:23:43 762
8 Barmakian, Bruce, 17 Air Atos Usa 13:00:00 16:34:50 03:34:50 741
9 Brandt, Dave, 60 Air Atos Usa 13:15:00 16:48:51 03:33:51 713
10 Posch, Johann, 112 Air Atos Aut 13:15:00 16:54:20 03:39:20 689
11 Campanella, Mario, 186 Flight Designs Ghostbuster Bra 13:15:00 16:54:52 03:39:52 685
12 Almond, Neville, 116 Flight Designs Ghostbuster Gbr 13:00:00 17:45:14 04:45:14 469

Class 5 finals:

1 Ciech, Christian, 47 Icaro Stratos Ita 5804
2 Posch, Johann, 112 Air Atos Aut 5354
3 Ploner, Alex, 65 Air Atos C Ita 5272
4 Straub, Davis, 50 Air Atos C Usa 4994
5 Gleason, Ron, 300 Air Atos Usa 4983

Class 1 last day:

1 Barber, Mike, 2 Moyes Litespeed Usa 13:30:00 16:41:15 03:11:15 915
2 Wirdnam, Gary , 39 Aeros Combat 2 Gbr 13:30:00 16:41:37 03:11:37 902
3 Bessa, Carlos, 155 Moyes Litespeed Bra 13:30:00 16:42:09 03:12:09 891
4 Warren, Curt, 73 Moyes Litespeed Usa 13:15:00 16:40:29 03:25:29 843
5 Zweckmayr, Josef, 18 Icaro Laminar Aut 13:00:00 16:33:16 03:33:16 841
6 Bondarchuk, Oleg, 107 Aeros Combat 2 13 Ukr 13:30:00 16:55:38 03:25:38 800
6 Agulhon, Dorival, 94 Icaro Mrx Bra 13:15:00 16:45:15 03:30:15 800
8 Harri, Martin, 31 Moyes Litespeed Che 13:30:00 16:55:41 03:25:41 797
9 Williams, Paris , 1 Icaro MR700WRE Usa 13:30:00 16:56:04 03:26:04 793
10 Bertok, Attila, 64 Moyes Litespeed Hun 13:30:00 16:56:08 03:26:08 790

Finals Class 1:

1 Bondarchuk, Oleg, 107 Aeros Combat 2 13 Ukr 5841
2 Williams, Paris , 1 Icaro MR700WRE Usa 5644
3 Volk, Glen, 5 Moyes Litespeed Usa 5584
4 Hamilton, Robin, 30 Icaro MR700WRE Gbr 5515
5 Warren, Curt, 73 Moyes Litespeed Usa 5440
6 Hazlett, Brett, 90 Moyes Litespeed Can 5437
7 Wirdnam, Gary , 39 Aeros Combat 2 Gbr 5434
8 Wolf, Andre, 117 Moyes Litespeed Bra 5389
9 Olsson, Andreas, 27 Moyes Litespeed Swe 5369
10 Rotor, Nene, 77 Wills Wing Talon Bra 5348

Preliminary results are up on the www.flytec.com web site.

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Flytec Championship – I think we are having fun yet »

Wed, Apr 24 2002, 9:00:00 pm GMT

A.I.R. ATOS|Aeros Combat|Aeros Combat 2|Aeros Ltd|Andrew "Andy" Hollidge|Chris Arai|Christian Ciech|cloud|comic|competition|Curt Warren|David "Dave" Glover|Dragonfly|Flytec Championships 2002|Flytec Championships 2005|gaggle|Moyes Delta Gliders|Moyes Litespeed|Nene Rotor|Quest Air|Robert Reisinger|tow|tug|weaklink|weather|Wills Wing Talon

Many pilots were excited about the short task yesterday and getting to goal for the first time. This really upped the mood of the competitors and brought everyone one into the fold. The new guys wanted to be included also.

I wrote a while back about Tove’s meet in Deniliquin and how she organized it so that it encouraged new pilots to join in competition. No one has taken her example and run with it yet, but maybe we’ll see more of that. We on the task committee have to set tasks for the major racers, so it would be nice to have a meet where we could see tasks for the great middle of the field.

Did I say that we were having fun yet? Seems like the competitors are really liking the tasks and enjoying the facilities here at Quest Air. Good weather helps, of course, and Floridais doing its best to makes us all happy.

There is a lot going on at Quest in addition to the meet. A new turbine Dragonfly flew tonight, so that’s bringing a lot of excitement to all the motor heads. With so many Dragonflies and trikes here, not only do we get in the air in a real big hurry, but all the tug pilots get to talk to one another and encourage each other.

With an east-northeast wind prediction and difficulty forecasting the lift, we call a straight run, 68 miles, out to the WillistonAirportto the north, northwest. We want folks to see a little bit of Florida, if they happen to look down at all. A little cross country flying wouldn’t hurt either.

There is a strong east wind on the ground, and in the air (I’ll measure 60° at 14 mph throughout the flight), so launches prove to be a bit tricky. I’ll break two weak links, which will start me off in a fine mood, nervous as possible.

With the high pressure and shearing winds, the lift above Quest is quite a handful. I’m getting tossed around something fierce and frankly I’m totally terrified. I’m thinking of landing, but the competition spirit keeps me in the air.

We’re waiting for the 2:15 PMstart time, and even with my late start because of the multiple weaklink breaks due to the action at tree top level, I’ve plenty of time to get to cloud base. Russell takes me up on the third tow and it is as smooth as can be. He deposits me under a small cloud that is working at 200 fpm, and I much appreciate it.

All the rigids were out near the start circle circumference, but they come back to join me as we wait until the last start time. I assume that they are thinking like me that we want the full heating of the day to fly our reasonably short task in.

I’m at cloud base at a little over 5,000’ and given that we are all back a mile and a half from the start circle circumference I decide to leave in time to make it there as the start time starts. Seems like some other pilots want to keep working to stay out of the clouds close to Quest.

There are lots of high clouds, and thin cu’s with cloud base at 5,000’ out in front of us. There is very little development today in the clouds, but they are numerous. They are mostly just wisps.

I go on an eight mile glide to 2,300’ and find some lift with a few other pilots under very marginal clouds. It’s 400 fpm back to 4,700’ so I’m happy to be high. I guess I only need to say this once more here. I’ll be terrified for about 75% of the flight. I experience it has very turbulent, and I can’t help thinking that the glider to going to go over at any minute. Other pilots will mention how turbulent it was.

There are flex wings who’ve taken the 2 PM start gate out in front of us, along with a couple of rigid wing pilots who also took the earlier start time. I’m falling behind as I keep leaving uncomfortable lift, and hoping to find lighter, but more comfortable climbs.

At around Wildwood I start chasing the lead gaggle – a gaggle of mixed rigids and flex wings. They are moving very fast, racing from thermal to thermal, but I’ve got the advantage that I’m following and can see where they find lift.

There is a tough stretch right around Wildwood as we head toward I-75, then things start to improve and folks get more and more into the racing mode. I’m still way behind many of the other rigids, and the top flex wings are spread all around. We’ve probably got 20 to 30 pilots in the front of this race, within two miles of each other.

Southwest of Ocalawe get under a cloud street that lasts for maybe 3 or 4 miles, and I’m somehow able to catch up with the top few pilots. We al decide to go on glide from over 5,000’ and this will turn into a ten mile glide down to 1,700 until a flex wing pilot way to my right is the first to find the lift. For the first time during the flight I’m happy to be in a thermal because it is completely smooth and takes us back to over 5,000’.

At 15 miles out my IQ/Comp is telling me to go on final. I’ve got it at 15/1. I head out, but find a small gaggle to my left that is climbing well, and make the mistake to go join them. I really didn’t need the lift and this would have been my opportunity to pass Christian and just go into goal.

The last twelve miles in are full race mode. I can see Andy Hollidge in his Top Secret way in front of me and higher, but I’m pulling in much more than he and catching him. There is little chance to go down before goal, so the only reason to slow down is to absorb the bumps from all the lift we are flying through. Andy can’t pull in any more, so he’s at a big disadvantage.

Christian Ciech is just in front of me, and there is no catching him. I’m surrounded by (but soon they are below and a little bit in front of me) Nene Rotor and Chris Arai (who took the 2 PM start time) and Robert Reisinger and Joseph Zweckmayr who took that last start clock. The first four flexies get in just a few seconds before I cross the goal, second for the day. Curt Warren started much early and came in between Manfred and Brian.

Class 2:

1 Ciech, Christian, 47 Icaro Stratos Ita 14:15:00 16:16:23 02:01:23 906
2 Straub, Davis, 50 Air Atos C Usa 14:15:00 16:17:16 02:02:16 875
3 Barmakian, Bruce, 17 Air Atos Usa 14:15:00 16:19:12 02:04:12 841
4 Posch, Johann, 112 Air Atos Aut 14:15:00 16:19:56 02:04:56 826
5 Biesel, Heiner, 101 Air Atos Usa 14:00:00 16:12:01 02:12:01 822

Class 1:

1 Reisinger, Robert, 72 Wills Wing Talon Aut 14:15:00 16:17:06 02:02:06 909
2 Zweckmayr, Josef, 18 Icaro Laminar Aut 14:15:00 16:17:07 02:02:07 903
3 Rossignol, Jerz, 6 Aeros Combat 2 Usa 14:15:00 16:19:05 02:04:05 856
4 Williams, Paris , 1 Icaro MR700WRE Usa 14:15:00 16:19:33 02:04:33 841
5 Bondarchuk, Oleg, 107 Aeros Combat 2 13 Ukr 14:15:00 16:20:12 02:05:12 830
6 Warren, Curt, 73 Moyes Litespeed Usa 13:45:00 16:04:17 02:19:17 821
7 Hamilton, Robin, 30 Icaro Laminar Gbr 14:15:00 16:23:07 02:08:07 800
8 Rotor, Nene, 77 Wills Wing Talon Col 14:00:00 16:16:57 02:16:57 799
9 Arai, Chris, 57 Wills Wing Talon Usa 14:00:00 16:16:58 02:16:58 795
10 Wolf, Andre, 117 Moyes Litespeed Bra 14:00:00 16:17:16 02:17:16 782

Manfred made the task in an hour and a half. Brian in an hour and fifty minutes. Manfred leads overall.

Christian Ciech has to fall down for anyone to catch him in Class 5.

Cumulative in Class 1:

1 Bondarchuk, Oleg, 107 Aeros Combat 2 13 Ukr 3498
2 Williams, Paris , 1 Icaro MR700WRE Usa 3443
3 Hamilton, Robin, 30 Icaro Laminar Gbr 3333
4 Hazlett, Brett, 90 Moyes Litespeed Can 3250
5 Wolf, Andre, 117 Moyes Litespeed Bra 3244
6 Warren, Curt, 73 Moyes Litespeed Usa 3238
7 Reisinger, Robert, 72 Wills Wing Talon Aut 3223
8 Wirdnam, Gary , 39 Aeros Combat 2 Gbr 3195
9 Olsson, Andreas, 27 Moyes Litespeed Swe 3179
10 Zweckmayr, Josef, 18 Icaro Laminar Aut 3062

Preliminary results are up on the www.flytec.com web site. Dave Glover had them up by about 10:30 PM. This is the fastest I can recall the results going up on the web in a major competition.

Discuss "Flytec Championship – I think we are having fun yet" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Aeros Combat 2 »

Fri, Jan 11 2002, 1:00:04 am EST

Wills Wing

Aeros Combat|Wills Wing

Aeros Combat|Oleg Bondarchuk|Wills Wing

Aeros Combat|Oleg Bondarchuk|Wills Wing

G. W. Meadows «gw» writes:

As expected, with Oleg doing so well in the competitions in Australia, I’ve had lots of calls and emails from customers wanting the “low down” on the new Combat 2. For that reason, I thought I’d give a quick overview of the glider for your readers.

Aeros has always had a philosophy of building upon current successes. Every comp glider since the Stealth 2 has been a progressive improvement over the last and the Combat 2 is no different. Over the Combat 1, the Combat 2 incorporates a slightly different sail cut, airfoil, span wise sail tension and rib distribution. It utilizes a completely different cloth on the leading edge, which allows for more reliable shaping throughout the speed range of the glider.

Handling is improved, as are the landing characteristics. One large difference with the Combat 2 is the availability of the “micro-drag” control frame which utilizes the Wills Wing upright profiles with our own new state-of-the-art corner brackets as well as the best designed carbon speedbar you’ve ever seen.

The overall package provides a tremendously high performance glider that will keep up with any on the market – I think Oleg is proving that right now! I might point out that the exact model of glider that Oleg is flying right now in Australia is available to the customer. Oleg decided a few years ago not to fly gliders that were “questionable” in stability. For this reason, we are able to offer the same Combat 2 to the customer. Complete pitch testing has been done on the current Combat 2 and it passed with “flying” colors.

I am currently working on a significant incentive for customers in the U.S. who order a new C2 before the end of February. I’ll update your readers as soon as it is finalized. U.S. Aeros will be committed to making purchasing a hang glider in 2002 as affordable as possible.

(editor's note: Jerz Rossignol did very well on the Aeros Combat 2 yesterday. If he hadn't been looking at the wrong goal location (the one on our GPSes instead of where they moved it to), he would have been the first flex wing to goal.)