Oz Report

Tue, Jan 12 2010, 5:43:01 pm AEDT

Just a few more days to send in the money

(Grotta, Monte Cucco, PG, Italy)

Flavio Tebaldi|Pre-Worlds 2011

Flavio Tebaldi «Flavio Tebaldi» writes:

I would like to remind you that in order to confirm your place please pay and send the organisation the payment receipt no later than the17^th January. Confirmed pilots whose receipt of payment does not reach the organizers by 17^th January, will be moved to the bottom of the waiting list. All other pilots accepted afterwards, will have 10 days to pay the registration fee before their place is reallocated to another pilot.

Sun, Jan 3 2010, 8:49:03 am AEDT

150 out of 250

(Montecucco, Italy)

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Corinna Schwiegershausen|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Pre-Worlds 2011|World Pilot Ranking Scheme

The preliminary pilot list has been updated with the latest WPRS rankings. You'll find it here: http://www.cucco2011.org. Click Pilot Info, then Pilots List. If your name is on the list you have until January 17^th to pay your entry fees in order to hold your place on the list.

As of Sunday night there are 150 pilots listed: 145 male, 5 female. Gliders: 58 Moyes, 38 Aeros, 23 Wills Wing, 21 Icaro, 5 Airborne, 3 Laminar, 1 Aeros, 1 unspecified.

• ARG: Marcelo Chaves
• AUS: Jonny Durand, Steve Blenkinsop, Cameron Tunbridge, Rod Flockhart, Bruce Wynne, Trent Brown, Neil Petersen, Tony Lowrey, Richard Heffer
• AUT: Manfred Ruhmer, Thomas Weissenberger, Robert Reisinger, Michael Friesenbichler, Manfred Trimmel, Wolfgang Siess, Günther Tschurnig, Christl Elmar, Christian Tiefenbacher
• BEL: Michel Bodart
• BRA: Michel Louzada, Alvaro Sandoli (Nene Rotor), Jose Lessa, Konrad Heilmann, Eduardo Oliveira, Alexandre Trivelato
• CAN: Brett Hazlett
• COL: Mike Glennon, Eitan Koren
• CZE: Radek Bares
• DEN: Nils Dalby, Bo Klint, Johnny Christiansen, Jens Henrik Badsberg
• ECU: Raul Guerra, Rafael Arcos
• ESP: Blay Jr Olmos Quesada, Pedro Garcia Morelli, Daniel Martin Mota, Jose Antonio Abollado, Lucio Nelli
• FRA: Mario Alonzi, Gianpietro Zin, Luis Rizo-Salom, Antoine Boisselier, Laurent Thevenot, Eric Mathurin, Eric Wyss, Fabien Agenes
• GBR: Carl Wallbank, Gordon Rigg, Bruce Kavanagh, David Shields, Richard Lovelace, Dave Matthews, Anthony Stephens, Gary Wirdnam, Graham Phipps, Nigel Bray
• GER: Gerd Doenhuber, Lukas Bader, Corinna Schwiegershausen, Tim Grabowski, André Djamarani, Markus Ebenfeld, Roland Wöhrle, Stefan Boller, Christian Zehetmair, Joerg Bajewski, Hans Kiefinger, Konrad Schwab, Monique Werner
• GUA: Giovanni Vitola, Jose Herrarte, Dieter Meyer, Rolando Mansilla, Mario Leon
• HUN: Attila Bertok, Endre Kovács, Attila Kis, Zsolt Balogh
• IRL: Shaun O'Neill, Geoffrey McMahon, Philip Lardner, Justin Beplate, Kenneth Hickey
• ISR: Amir Shalom, Ron Wiener, Yaron Levin
• ITA: Alex Ploner, Christian Ciech, Elio Cataldi, Davide Guiducci, Tullio Gervasoni, Anton Moroder, Arturo Dal Mas, Filippo Oppici, Paolo Rosichetti, Fabrizio Giustranti, Sergio Bernardi, Suan Selenati, Edoardo Giudiceandrea, Vanni Accattoli
• JPN: Koji Daimon, Hiroshi Suzuki, Takahiro Matsumura, Shogo Ota, Keita Kokaji
• LTU: Justinas Pleikys
• NED: Mart Bosman, Martin Van Helden, André Disselhorst, Joost Eertman, Erik Van Keulen
• NOR: Vegar Hansen, Petter Peikli
• POL: Dariusz Perenc, Sebastian Olifiruk
• RUS: Vladimir Leuskov, Artur Dzamikhov, Anton Struganov, Natalia Petrova, Julia Kucherenko, Maxim Usachev, Oleg Andreev
• SLO: Primoz Gricar, Stanislav Galovec, Iztok Jarc
• SUI: Roberto Nichele, Christian Voiblet, Francis Gafner, Chrigel Kuepfer, Carole Tobler, Beat Howald
• SWE: Hakan Andersson, Joakim Hindemith
• TUR: Tugrul Yilmaz, Halil Caner Atilgan, Kamil Demirkan
• UKR: Dmitriy Rusov, Pavel Yakimchuk, Sergey Semenov, Dmytro Teteretnyk
• USA: Zac Majors, Dustin Martin, Jeff O'Brien, Davis Straub, Jeff Shapiro, Derreck Turner, Ben Dunn

Sat, Jan 2 2010, 6:58:31 pm AEDT

150 out of 250

(Montecucco, Italy)

Ben Dunn|Davis Straub|Dustin Martin|Jeff O'Brien|Jeff Shapiro|Pre-Worlds 2011|Ubaldo Romano|Wills Wing T2C|World Pilot Ranking Scheme|Worlds 2023|Zac Majors

The best guess so far: http://www.cucco2011.org/test_romano/ Click Pilot Info, then Pilots List. Based on December 2, 2009, WPRS ranking, will change when January ranking is available. US pilots chosen to go to the pre-Worlds, so far:

Zac Majors, Wills Wing T2C-144
Dustin Martin, Wills Wing T2C-144
Jeff O'Brien, Wills Wing T2C (144 or 154)
Davis Straub, Icaro Laminar MR1000
Jeff Shapiro, Wills Wing T2C-144
Derreck Turner, Moyes Litespeed S5
Ben Dunn, Moyes Litespeed

Each nation gets up to five pilots independent of WPRS ranking. If more than five pilots from one country apply for the pre-Worlds, then the top five in that nation as per their January 2010 WPRS ranking are allowed in. When all those nations' slots are taken (some nations won't have five slots because less than five pilots pre-registered from that nation, for example, Turkey), then the remaining slots are available by WPRS ranking to the pilots who pre-registered.

Turns out a lot of pilots from Italy pre-registered and they have a lot of good WPRS rankings, and so fifteen pilots are coming from Italy. Derreck Turner and Ben Dunn got in with their WPRS rankings. Many US pilots did not.

Everyone has to get their entry fee in with ten days (January 17^th) or they go to the end of the line. Starting on the 17^th, pilots are chosen for the now empty slots by pre-registration date.

The actual five man teams will be decided at the competition.

Update: The January WPRS ranking it up and the pilot list will be updated soon.

Fri, Nov 6 2009, 8:58:57 am PST

The limit is 150

(Grotta, Monte Cucco, PG, Italy)

Pre-Worlds 2011|World Pilot Ranking Scheme|Worlds

http://www.cucco2011.org/

Apparently hang gliding is not dying at the level of World competitions (or at least pre-Worlds) The Italian based pre-Worlds is over subscribed already, just a few days after opening the registration to the waiting list. The local regulations state:

Registration will open on 2^nd November 2009. Priority will be given to national teams of up to 5 pilots per country.

Places will be allocated starting from 7^th January 2010 to pilots on the waiting list.

Allocation will be based on WPRS ranking on 1^st January 2010 followed by order of registration for any unranked pilots.

As from 7^th January, all confirmed pilots will have ten days time in which to pay the registration fee, in order not to lose their priority position in the pilot list.

Therefore, confirmed pilots whose receipt of payment does not reach the organizers by 17^th January, will be moved to the bottom of the waiting list.

All other pilots accepted afterwards, will have 10 days to pay the registration fee before their place is reallocated to another pilot.

Fri, Jun 11 2004, 12:00:00 am GMT

Tossing and turning, what's the key to keeping us upright?

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Belinda Boulter|Bruce Barmakian|Christian Ciech|David Chaumet|Gerolf Heinrichs|Jamie Shelden|Jim Yocom|Kari Castle|Natalia Petrova|Tove Heaney|Worlds 2004

http://www.drachenflieger.at

It didn't seem that bad. At least as far as I could tell. Wasn't quite as nice for me as yesterday, but wasn't bad (well, more about that later). Tove thought it was the smoothest and most fun day yet.

But, Kari Castle tumbled in her new Icaro 2000 Laminar at 11,000' over the range to the south of Greifenburg while thermaling up. Tove was high above her when she saw a glider first showing its white top, then the Red Bull undersurface, then the top, then the red side, and on and on. She knew right away that it was Kari and was waiting to see the parachute which finally came out after the glider destroyed itself.

Tove was thermaling up in a nice little thermal at almost 12,000' and was enjoying the lift and searching around a bit for more of the core. This was the thermal that Kari came over to and joined. She was just thermaling up as usual, when the glider got yawed around in the opposite direction. Then suddenly the bar was jerked down. She held on tight.

The next thing she knew the glider was rotating around as she continued to hold on tight to the control bar. Soon the glider was breaking up into pieces and after a while the control bar was pretty much all she had that was intact.

With plenty of time she reached for her chute found a clear area and hucked it out. Now she found herself coming down on the ridge top, with lots of rocks below, so she started trying to steer the wreckage around to guide herself to one side or the other hopefully over to the trees.

But the steering didn't do all that much as the winds took over and she ended up unhurt on the steep hillside with her parachute holding on to a tree and the wreckage about to slide down the hillside.

A sailplane pilot also saw the tumble and called air traffic control which got a chopper out right away. They still didn't have good co-ordinates, but Natalia Petrova did and got those to the chopper. They also apparently triangulated on her cell phone and found her. She was airlifted out under the chopper in the same manner that we saw last week at Gnadenwald, with a rescue person with her at the end of the line. Kari said that she loved that part of the flight.

Kari has a few minor cuts and bruises but she was doing fine when we saw her and talked with her a few hours later. The women's task was called for the day.

But, Kari wasn't the only one who tumbled on Thursday. Apparently Uschi Broich, flying a Seedwings Vertigo (according to the scorekeepers), also tumbled near where Kari did and threw her chute. I don't have her story, but it was said that she was drinking a beer at the goal field.

Also, a rigid wing pilot, an ATOS pilot, I assume, had trouble with one of his spoiler wires and decided to throw his chute. He first reported that he was having a "technical difficulty." Maybe he didn't know how Jamie Sheldon and Bruce Barmakian have recovered and corrected these problems in the air (see earlier Oz Reports).

Just to add to the carnage today. A free flyer doing a high bank turn coming into the landing field here at the Fliegercamp broke his Laminar at 400' and got his chute out in time to save himself. A paraglider pilot apparently stalled his glider at 20 feet at the Fliegercamp and broke his back and leg and had to be helicoptered out. And there was another paraglider accident at launch.

The weather forecast was for northwest winds at 25-35 km/h at 3,000 meters, pretty much like yesterday with a cold front approaching on Friday from the west. The trigger temperature was 30° and cloud base was expected to be around 14,000'. I dressed with two coats and stayed warm.

Our task in class five was to head northwest on the north side of the valley beyond Lienz, then back north of the launch to the east end of the valley, back to the castle on the south side past the goal field at Berg, then back to Berg, 156 km.

The weather man was very concerned about the chance of over development again and even more so on Thursday. He felt that there was a good chance of gust fronts in the valleys if there was a thunderstorm at the top of the valley. They called for the task to be stopped in advance at 5 PM.

No one seemed to be concerned at all about the forecasted winds, even when I pressed the point. Later there was plenty of over development and cu-nimbs but just not along our course line.

Given our late start yesterday everyone was ready to launch early and it was no problem climbing up to over 12,500' and moving down the range to get to the start circle. We were facing a 20 km/h west wind as we moved west.

There were forty gliders milling around at 13,000' just before the start circle at 1:15 the start time and we all went on a long glide to get to the hills just above Lienz.

Flying past Lienz, the wind changed from west to south, and I wondered where this north west wind was supposed to be. We were staying high, well most of us were, and racing over the snow fields at the peaks to get to the first turnpoint. A few of us climbed up to over 14,000'.

Marcuse, a Swiss ATOS pilot, would later mention that he got into a situation near here where the wind noise completely stopped, then in slow motion his nose rotated until it was straight down, still no wind noise, then slowly rotated back up, still with no wind noise.

Racing back from the turnpoint, I decided to take the less direct route and stay in the Drau valley instead of the valley and hills to the north. That slowed me down a little, but I found sweet lift on the ridge lines that made me enjoy the flight a little more.

Getting to the second turnpoint past the east end of the valley, I had Jim Yocom and Vince just behind me. They had taken the back route. Bruce had just gone down in the Drau valley after taking the turnpoint ahead of us. Ron hadn't gotten up at launch and was reporting conditions.

I raced to a paraglider on the south side and slowly got up while Vince and Jim headed to the north side to find better conditions and get ahead of me. I soon made my way over there to find that there was light lift all along the hill side on the north side and I could just fly straight and come in over the launch with plenty of height to make the turnpoint and goal.

Jim and Vince had just reported no sink on the way to the turnpoint at the castle and back downwind to goal so I kept going. Unfortunately within the next few minutes everything changed.

As I approached the castle on the south side of the valley with 3,000' AGL I suddenly turned into a leaf in the wind and was falling at 1,000 fpm. I stupidly continued and made the turnpoint only to land after racing back to the north side hoping to get out of what I assumed was rotor.

In fact the south winds had suddenly picked up and Jim and others were now having a hard time getting down safely at goal a few kilometers away. I thankfully had a safe landing, even if it was a slider in a recently manured field.

When we got back to the goal field, everyone was freaked out about all the incidents. It was unclear why the women's task had been stopped (and therefore not scored as no one was in goal from that class). Perhaps it seemed like the pilots were raining out of the sky and it was unsafe to continue.

As an outsider I don't understand the conditions here and have to take people's word on it on what are safe conditions. I spoke with Gerolf and he says that locally the wind will go to south with an approaching front. Perhaps this clash of air masses was the cause of some problems over the southern range.

I asked Gerolf about foehn conditions and he says that it requires an upper level layer of stable air and that you can usually see the lenticulars. There has been no indication of upper level stable air except perhaps a bit on day two.

The preliminary results have Christian Ciech winning the day, a Aeros Phantom pilot in third, David Chaumet in fourth and Alex Ploner fifth.

Belinda's shot of the launch over Berg on Thursday morning. We get up there at 9 AM..

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