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topic: South Florida Championships 2004 (7 articles)

The South Florida Championship - a review

Thu, May 6 2004, 1:00:06 pm EDT

Ron Gleason looks back on what happened there.

David Glover|Dr. John "Jack" Glendening|Ron Gleason|South Florida Championships 2004|Steve Kroop|weather

Ron Gleason «xcflying» writes:

The task calling was difficult due to a number of reasons:

  • Limited local knowledge. We can resolve this next year with more local folks available on the task committee and better marked up maps with do not fly over or land here areas.

  • Limited known landing areas. When we looked at tasks that had return legs toward the field we never know if potential landing areas were available. Plus many of the small airports are unknown. For next year it would be great to have more identified and known LZ’s to the East, NW and North. I spoke with Dennis and he claims that the staff at the ridge would be willing to do this if we tell them what we need.

Flying tasks at the ridge in my humble opinion is more technical and difficult. Because of the number of swamps and areas of nothing, it is best to keep pilots close to the roads for retrieval and safety. With better weather, less wind and higher cloud bases, a lot of these issues are mitigated, but we need to be prepared for shorter but harder tasks. Parameters defined to RACE.

In my opinion the tasks that are able to be run at the ridge will be shorter in duration and distance than at Quest. Therefore the RACE parameters, specifically nominal distance and nominal time, may have to be set differently than at other competitions.

Elsa and I enjoyed the ridge, even though I flew badly. I have been thinking a lot as to why I flew so poorly but it boils down to a couple of issues; I never slowed down my flying for the early launch times, low cloud bases and slow climbs. Secondly I never got comfortable flying over and around the large areas of nothing with minimal altitude and the poor glides I was getting.

(editor's note: More local knowledge would be great. I actually spoke with Dennis, who works at the Ridge and was lauded for how important he is to its success, about various areas and what we needed to do to avoid them. Dennis was part of the first and second task call with Ron and I and approved of the tasks. Dennis was assigned to help out the task committee, but he often had many other tasks to accomplish and it was difficult to coordinate with him at times. I also relied on local Steve Larson.

Ron got low on the first day over the worst area on the task (an area Dennis said we could fly over) and so he got a real good dose of how bad it can be in some places. We were sticking to the main roads on this day and every other day, but still there were swampy areas.

It would be great to have more detail for the difficult areas. Often I had to pick them out from what I could see on Street Atlas. If the Florida Ridge crew were to mark and describe them on Street Atlas we would have an electronic map that we could reuse. We need to know where the swamps are, where the behind locked gate areas are, etc.

Also, few pilots have flown cross country from the Ridge, so local knowledge is also limited. The more pilots who fly at the Ridge who could contribute to this mapping project the better.

David Glover created a waypoint list one day before the meet with many small airfields on it from the map, but we need to contact the owners of a number of these fields in order to be able to land at a bunch of them. It would be great if over the next year David, Dan, Dennis, and I coordinated a project to check them out and come up with a new list of waypoints and goals, now that we've seen the area in some detail.

I think that we should continue to stay close to the main roads and roads that we know are unlocked or public. We continually made judgment calls about what pilots could reasonably be expected to do when having to cross terrain behind locked gates (like just four miles north of the Ridge), and for the most part we got that right. With more information, and maybe keys to the gate to the area to the north, we'd be doing even better.

I believe that tasks were under called during the competition for a number of reasons. First, unfamiliarity with the local weather. After one day we moved to two hour earlier start times compared to Quest and Wallaby based on the advice from Steve Kroop, Steve Larson, and other locals. We also noted the very early cu development and that put us on notice to get going early.

Second, the forecasts changed drastically between 8 AM and 10 AM. I got much better at figuring out what was going on by the last three days of the meet. Thankfully that was three or of four days that we flew. I think we might have been able to do an early task on day two before the front, if we had been prepared for any eventuality.

Third, after three days of wind and rain, it was unnerving to call a long task on a day that had a forecast for weak lift. I didn't realize 300 fpm lift (minus your sink rate) would be just fine. And that 2,000' to 3,000' cloud bases would actually mean 3,500' to 4,000'. I wasn't use to interpreting Dr. Jack's cloud base forecasts and I normally used top of the boundary layer and he forecasts three different cloud bases. The FSL charts helped, but sometimes it was hard to get them.

Fourth, without known landing areas at small private fields, we had to compromise and take the fields where we had permission to land. This sent us to the Arcadia airport twice. They were very nice to us.

On one day, that it turned out we didn't fly, a whole bunch of us looked at a series of tasks, and just found it hard to come up with one. We were able to evaluate a lot of options using local knowledge, and given the winds, it was just hard to find something that would work. One option was to fly along interstate 75, but there was just too much swamp along the highway.

I was also trying to call a task or two in which some of the less experienced pilots could have at least had a chance of getting to goal. This was often difficult because we had to have cross wind legs in the middle of the task to stay on the roads, and cross wind is difficult for these pilots.

On the last day I wanted to give it one more try to get some of the newer pilots to goal. It was a day that we could have left early and flown to Quest, but that would inconvenience everyone. I also didn't want to go cross wind given the 13 mph south winds predicted, because again I wanted to get the newer pilots to goal.

The task was only an hour and a half, but a number of pilots who hadn't made goal got there on this day. Nobody had to fly over the more urban areas if they didn't want to. It was a fun day and Bo made it back to Quest.

I really do think that we can have bigger tasks in South Florida, as it is wide open and a great place to fly. We just have to take more care in knowing what the land is going to be like under us before we go.

I very much appreciate Ron's comments and the willingness of the Florida Ridge folks to help with this "mapping" project. I obviously take task calling very seriously (maybe too seriously) and try to do my best.

South Florida Championships - the final day »

Mon, May 3 2004, 2:00:00 am EDT

The best weather of the meet.

Belinda Boulter|Bo Hagewood|Brett Hazlett|Campbell Bowen|Davis Straub|Dean Funk|Dr. John "Jack" Glendening|Dustin Martin|Kevin Carter|Kraig Coomber|Oleg Bondarchuck|Oleg Bondarchuk|record|Ron Gleason|Russell "Russ" Brown|South Florida Championships 2004|Steve Kroop|weather

The flight and the task:

http://olc.onlinecontest.org/olcphp/2004/ausw_fluginfo.php?ref3=5546&ueb=N&olc=holc-usa&spr=en&dclp=88ba6cda4e1fd2363b2dd89ddbb9d133

The forecast.

I'm now use to Dr. Jack's forecasts for South Florida. He predicts 345 fpm to 2,600' at 11 AM, 323 fpm lift (subtract your sink rate) to 2,200' at 2 PM, and 80 fpm to 1,600' at 5 PM. He predicts the winds at 18 knots of out the south. Just because the predicted lift looks weak doesn't mean we can't have a great time.

The FSL chart isn't working, The Windcast isn't working, The marine forecast is for 10 knot winds out of the southeast. The ADD winds aloft shows south southwest at 10 knots at 3,000'. The local NWS forecast is for drier conditions than the last two days. The showers are supposed to be scattered with a 30% chance of rain.

I'm looking up at the sky full of cu's and and it is looking good to me even though some of them are towering. I've seen that come to nothing over the last few days, so it's not a worry.

There is a front just north Florida, and it flooded at Quest to Saturday. The front is forecast to send rain and clouds south into central Florida. late in the day.

The task.

With the change in the wind direction to south after two days of southeast, I'm thinking that the perfect task would be a downwind dash 127 miles to Quest to set a new record for the longest task called in Florida. The problem is that most folks have to come back to the Ridge to collect there stuff. I'm having Belinda drive the truck and trailer north to Quest, so it would be a fine task with me.

The pilots vote to fly 60 miles to the Avon Park airport north of Sebring. The task will take us right up highway 27. This should be a fast task given the tail wind.

We could go a cross wind leg, but the problem is we have to stay with the roads to make retrieval reasonable, so this limits our options. There is no need to throw in a hard leg on this last day. Besides I'm also looking for  a task that will get some of the less experienced pilots to goal. I want to see a bunch of the Puerto Rican team at goal, not just Oleg, Kraig, Kurt, Brett, and Radek.

The start.

The start cylinder is five miles wide, and with the strong wind I figure that the best mode is to launch late to get the last start time at 12:30. Bo is obviously thinking something different, as he launches before the launch window is open, (Bo says he wasn't told that it was too early) and gets a zero for the day.

Bo will cross the start circle circumference at 11:04 and land four hours later at Quest, having gone over the goal at Avon Park an hour and 36 minutes later, but to no avail. He'll win $100 for the longest flight from the Florida Ridge ever. All he had to do was wait ten minutes to launch at 11.

I'll be almost the last to launch at a couple of minutes after noon. There are working cu's everywhere and within fifteen minutes I'll be at cloud base at 4,000' (see forecast above) pretty much the same altitude that we've seen for the last two day off of launch.

It is quite possible to stay away from the start circle circumference even in the 14 mph winds that I record aloft without having to drive upwind. The cu's seem top be moving north at a slower rate than the wind. And cu's are forming in front of us to the south so we can just left them drift over us and we can stay up and in the start circle.

I've got Oleg, Brett, Kevin, Junko, Dustin and a few others nearby with all of us waiting for the 12:30 start time. Kraig and Kurt have taken the 12:15 clock and are out of site downwind.

Russell has taken the 12 o'clock start clock. Ron Gleason has come back to join us but is about 300 feet below us at the 12:30 start time. At 12:30 we all leave together and head due north to end up four miles to the east of highway 27.

The task.

I've got my eye on Oleg, figuring that I can fly with him and have a fast flight. Still I'm above him and Brett gets a good climb and glide to the east about a mile. I split the difference between Oleg and Brett with each one of them one mile off to the side as we glide for nine miles before Oleg finds the lift first on the west side, as Brett and I chase him down.

We are heading now to the north north west as we contemplate the fact that there are a large number of good sized lakes to the north of us on both sides of highway. Oleg is out leading with Junko is tow, and the rest of us behind. We stop for worse lift as Oleg gets low.

I've noticed that Oleg does a lot of searching about as he flies, going from side to side looking for lift. He doesn't just fly straight hoping to run into it.

We climb up to 4,200' and cloud base just south of Placid Lakes (the town) and the lakes and we head north over the built up areas. There are trees and groves and houses everywhere and I'm checking out the available landing areas.

We're down to 3,200' over all this urban area and looking for lift next to one of the lakes. Junko, Brett and Oleg are higher and I'm trying to find the core. Finally I find the best core and in three minutes I'm up to 4,700' and not so concerned about landing areas.

 It's now just Oleg and I as we head north on a ten mile glide over built up areas where we are getting about 30 to one. We're spread out and Oleg finds the lift first again and we climb up at 400 fpm to 4,700 once again.

We are now only 16 miles out and it's 20 to 1 to goal. Oleg and I go on a 12 mile glide averaging 24 to 1. I'm watching the required L/D decrease on my 5030, but we're down to 1,800' four miles from goal before I find something strong along a line of zero sink.

I spend two minutes climbing 1,000'. Oleg spends one minute climbing 500'. I decide not to chase him as I'm not racing him. I just need to make goal to win the meet and now we are only three and a half miles away.

Of course there is lift all the way into goal so it is hard to get down.

It has been great flying with Oleg during this meet. Since we threw the rigids and the flexies in together I had plenty of opportunities to fly with them, just like I do in Australia. It's a great learning experience seeing how pilots fly up close.

Ron Gleason had a terrible meet after doing so well at the Flytec Championship. He landed out again along highway 27. Maybe he got off on the wrong foot not making goal the first day. I bet he was feeling as bad as I did at the last meet.

Kraig and Kurt made it into goal fast and were the first ones there along with Russell who started earlier after their early start. Junko made goal early also, but didn't turn in her GPS by the time she was scored.

Rigid results:

Place Name Glider Time Total
1 STRAUB Davis Air ATOS VX 01:28:55 799
2 BROWN Russell Air ATOS B 01:44:03 741
3 GREGORY Ollie Air ATOS C 01:54:21 640
4 BOWEN Campbell Flight Design Axxess 01:55:36 567
5 LARSON Steve Flight Design Exxtacy 02:28:37 408
6 GLEASON Ron Air ATOS C 23.9 233
7 NAKAMURA Junko Aeriane Swift Lite 0.0 0

Rigid cumulative:

Place Name Glider Total
1 STRAUB Davis Air ATOS VX 3422
2 BROWN Russell Air ATOS B 3056
3 NAKAMURA Junko Aeriane Swift Lite 2248
4 BOWEN Campbell Flight Design Axxess 1778
5 GREGORY Ollie Air ATOS C 1628
6 GLEASON Ron Air ATOS C 1197
7 LARSON Steve Flight Design Exxtacy 854

Flex results:

Place Name Glider Nation Time Total
1 COOMBER Kraig Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 01:27:55 858
2 BONDARCHUCK Oleg Aeros Combat L UKR 01:27:40 810
3 WARREN Curt Moyes Litespeed S4 USA 01:30:21 802
4 HAZLETT Brett Moyes Litespeed S4 CAN 01:30:09 756
5 MARTIN Dustin Moyes Litespeed S4 USA 01:35:13 701
6 BARES Radek Aeros Combat CZE 01:36:54 684
7 FRANQUIZ Nelson Icaro Laminar 2000 PRI 02:15:20 490
8 FONTANEZ Edwin Wills Wing Talon PRI 02:26:35 426
9 CARTER Kevin Aeros Combat L USA 46.8 314
10 FUNK Dean Moyes Litespeed S 4.5 USA 35.6 268
11 LANNING Tom Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 33.7 257
12 VIEIRA Flavia Icaro Laminar BRA 20.8 169
13 MOLINA Miguel Moyes Litespeed 5 PRI 11.3 93
14 BURICK Carl Moyes Litespeed S4 USA 0.0 0
14 FRUTIGER Mark Moyes Litesport 4 USA 0.0 0
14 ALDRICH Erik Moyes Litespeed S4.5 USA 0.0 0
14 KROOP Steve Icaro Laminar 07 USA 0.0 0
14 NEUBAUER Lois Aeros Combat L BRA 0.0 0
14 LANE Bob Icaro Laminar 07 USA 0.0 0
14 LOPEZ-URBINA Carlos Icaro Laminar MR PRI 0.0 0
14 SALAMONE Linda Moyes Litespeed 3 USA 0.0 0
14 HAGEWOOD Bo Aeros Combat 'two' USA 0.0 0

Flex cumulative:

Place Name Glider Nation Total
1 BONDARCHUCK Oleg Aeros Combat L UKR 3055
2 COOMBER Kraig Moyes Litespeed S4 AUS 2976
3 HAZLETT Brett Moyes Litespeed S4 CAN 2908
4 WARREN Curt Moyes Litespeed S4 USA 2653
5 MARTIN Dustin Moyes Litespeed S4 USA 2235
6 BARES Radek Aeros Combat CZE 2218
7 CARTER Kevin Aeros Combat L USA 1717
8 FRANQUIZ Nelson Icaro Laminar 2000 PRI 1202
9 HAGEWOOD Bo Aeros Combat 'two' USA 1197
10 LANNING Tom Moyes Litespeed 4 USA 1077
11 FONTANEZ Edwin Wills Wing Talon PRI 857
12 VIEIRA Flavia Icaro Laminar BRA 850
13 FUNK Dean Moyes Litespeed S 4.5 USA 759
14 FRUTIGER Mark Moyes Litesport 4 USA 661
15 SALAMONE Linda Moyes Litespeed 3 USA 624
16 MOLINA Miguel Moyes Litespeed 5 PRI 567
17 KROOP Steve Icaro Laminar 07 USA 550
18 NEUBAUER Lois Aeros Combat L BRA 323
19 ALDRICH Erik Moyes Litespeed S4.5 USA 230
20 LANE Bob Icaro Laminar 07 USA 137
21 BURICK Carl Moyes Litespeed S4 USA 119
22 LOPEZ-URBINA Carlos Icaro Laminar MR PRI 0

South Florida Championship - day three »

Thu, Apr 29 2004, 2:00:00 am EDT

Wind and waves.

Bobby Bailey|Dustin Martin|Oleg Bondarchuk|South Florida Championships 2004

The front came through on Tuesday and on Wednesday we had higher winds out of the northeast coming off Lake Okeechobee. While there was plenty of moisture in the air there were few cu's forming over the Florida Ridge.

Now at the Flytec Championship we had plenty of higher wind days also out of the east or east northeast, and plenty of lakes to the east, so we figured that it might be okay. We called a task for later in the day to let the day heat up and hopefully improve.

What look like cloud streets began to form around one, but the strange thing was that they seemed to be at an angle to the wind direction, maybe even ninety degrees with respect to the wind we were seeing on the ground. Dustin came up with an explanation, saying that the lake was cooling the air blowing across it, and the air was falling downwind of the lake setting up thermal waves as it bounced after falling.

The clouds definitely did look more like wave clouds than like cloud streets. They were diffuse, high, and appear roll shaped.

Bo volunteered to take off early and we watched to see what would happen. Bobby Bailey took him up  and they experienced a bit of uncomfortable turbulence. Enough to make it a not fun experience.

While he did find lift, it was not enough to get up and he landed back at the Ridge. The pilots voted to call the day.


Oleg. Photo by Tim Ettridge

South Florida Championship - day two »

Wed, Apr 28 2004, 3:00:00 am EDT

The front comes through South Florida.

South Florida Championships 2004

Finally, a non flyable afternoon, but not morning in Florida. If we had been ready to go at 9 AM, we would have had a good task. But, we didn't have good enough information about when the front would come through.

The cu's form around 9 o'clock and at least one local pilot takes a forty minute flight. But to the northwest the we can see cells on the radar and it is raining in Orlando to the north. The satellite shows a thick band of clouds associated with the front.

The cirrus clouds approach at 11:30, and by 12:30 we call the day based on a pilot vote.

The Florida Ridge is a perfectly fine little field, a former orange grove, just off highway 80 west of Lake Okeechobee. The field looks like well mown grass when you are on the ground, but from the air it looks sandy, like an ex-grove.

They are expanding the field, taking out an old grove and lengthening the the north/south runway. It seems plenty big right now and is surrounded by flat areas.

This being south Florida there are a series of dikes and canals around the field which allow you to drain the field and pump excess water into holding ponds.

The operation has a new office building, a few storage trailers, and a couple of white fabric hangars. You'll also find a volleyball court, a swimming pool, and a ping pong table. In the upper loft of the office there is currently a massage therapist's table.

It's location in the middle of nowhere seems to be quite an advantage as there are plenty of fields around for landing out. Miami is only a couple of hours away to the southeast and Fort Myer is an hour to the west.

South Florida Championship - day one »

Sun, Apr 25 2004, 1:00:01 pm EDT

It's flat, its smooth, and its beautiful.

The task and the flight:

http://olc.onlinecontest.org/olcphp/2004/ausw_fluginfo.php?ref3=5059&ueb=N&olc=holc-usa&spr=en&dclp=9f0cef87932bb0fd4431083159ed582f

The forecast is for light southerly winds, clouds, strong lift, and a front coming through tomorrow. It is warm and moist, like Florida is supposed to be. It feels like we are in the Keys. The southern Florida fly boys, like Steve Kroop, say that they would normally launch at 9:30 on southeast days, like today, and head north around Lake Okeechobee under fleecy clouds.

Some folks want to fly back to Quest, but it doesn't look like it is so strong (maybe 9 mph) that we have to go down wind. In addition, we are concerned about landing behind locked gates, in swamps, and in wildlife areas.

Ron Gleason and I form the task committee and decide on a box task that keeps us close to the paved roads. We call for pilots to head twelve miles to the west to the airport at La Belle, south ten miles up wind to an intersection, east seventeen miles to an other intersection, north back to highway 80, then six miles into goal at The Florida Ridge, a total of about 60 miles.

The clouds do start early and there is a strong east wind so it is confusing thinking about how to handle the task. But as the morning progresses the winds die down and it looks like the task is possible.

We've got a seven mile entry start circle around the airport at La Belle, which gives us five miles to get to the edge of the start circle. With the south winds we are blown north of the Caloosahatchee River (channel) going right over the RV Park where we are camped. The clouds are thick and dark and we get up to over 4,000'.

You never get to see what is going on around here becasue it is so flat, unless you get up in the air. I've flown over this area a few times flying from Wallaby Ranch, and I remember how pretty it was. There are plenty of open cattle pastures, orange groves, and swamps. The swamps in southern Florida don't have trees so they look like open invitations to land there.

We work our way west, trying to punch up wind as much as possible, but the lift is to the north of highway 80 so it is difficult to get up into the wind. I've reached deeply into my savings and purchased the AIR ATOS VX that Alex Ploner flew in the Flytec Championship, and it is feeling especially good. I climb up through Bo.

The rigids and the flexies are flying together as there are so few rigid wings down here at the meet. David is scoring Junko and her Swift with us rigids also, as otherwise she would be on her own. Mark Mullholland went off internet dating at the last minute instead of flying in this meet.

While we get high before the start circle, a bunch of us are back down at 2,500' at 7.5 miles out and working 100 fpm. Bob Lane from Quest Air gets antsy, heads out in front and goes down. This is something I was doing last week.

I'm playing well with others, hanging in light lift with friends and knowing that I can afford to be patient. Oliver Gregory on an AIR ATOS - C gets disoriented and takes a 1:44 start time instead of 1:45, penalizing himself 14 minutes. Ron Gleason is high above us and gets the start circle at 4,700' at 2 PM. Those of us below Ron climb for a few minutes more before we head out under the clouds toward the airport.

Ron and I are on the radio with Russell Brown from Quest Air who is flying the AIR ATOS that Jamie Shelden flew last week. He's a little behind us and Ollie is way out front.

We find lift about half way to the start point at the airport and climb back at 600 fpm to cloud base. We have to be careful because we keep getting close to the clouds without realizing it.

Ron is about one mile ahead and I point out to him that there is a flex wing thermaling south of his course line and that he should join him. He declines saying that he'll come back for the thermal after getting the turnpoint. I've got less of an angle to make to get to this guy so I and those with me join him and climb well as we drift back toward the turnpoint. Ron will have to run back to the southeast quite a bit below us to get back into this lift. Campbell Bowen from Quest Air is out in front of us by himself to the southwest. He will soon by down to 500'

After grabbing the turnpoint at the airport and getting back up over Ron, Kraig Coomber, Brett Hazlett and I will head southwest toward Ollie Gregory who is turning low about three miles away. He doesn't look to be going up all that fast. Later he tells us he was at 500 feet over a sewage treatment plant and used the smell to get up.

We find 600 fpm just under him and climb up again to cloud base. Kraig, Olli and I are the first ones back out on the course and spread way out to lead the pack behind us. Kraig is running right down the highway at a higher speed than Oli or I who are preserving our altitude and finds bits of lift as we go along. Ron is behind and a little below us.

Four miles out from the turnpoint Olli finds the lift first a mile to my east, and I turn left to join him. The guys behind are also heading his way. Kraig is low out in front and has to come back to join us. Brett, Kurt and Oleg are high with Olli and I as we again climb back to cloud base and head for the turnpoint. It will take Kraig a while to climb back up.

Finding no lift at the turnpoint, we turn and head southeast, south of the highway, upwind toward the swamp that is to our south and east. Ron Gleason reports that he finds 400 fpm at the turnpoint when he gets there behind us, and we are diving into the swamp getting sink and then zero lift down to 2,500' a few miles away from him. It looks like he's in a much better position.

We find 100 fpm, and Cracky heads out further southeast looking for better lift as we slowly climb up behind him. There is swamp every where. As we slowly climb I get a report back from Ron that he is getting low along the east west highway as his lift at the turnpoint quickly gave out.

Cracky finally hits it and within half a turn Oleg is headed his way. Brett and I chase after him and we center up in a strong thermal to cloud base. Ron is low to our north and getting worried, working light lift. Dustin is even lower way north of the highway over the swamps. Ron is reporting seeing alligators, snakes, and gar fish under him at 800' as he struggles to stay up. He wonders how Dustin will get back to the road if he doesn't make it up.

Oleg and his three little klingon's (Kurt, Brett and I) head east and stay high. Even when I go into the lead I've got my eye on Oleg just to make sure I'm following his moves. At one point I keep going straight as he punches up wind to find lift and have to run over to him as Brett and Kurt do. We all climb again in strong lift to cloudbase. We are basically not going on glide until we are forced to by the clouds.

Olie Gregory is following us but from about 1,000' below. Still it's good for him to have some help out here even if he can't quite keep up. He originally got behind us when he declined to join us when we pushed strongly south over the swamps.

After catching the southeast turnpoint, Oleg guides us to the northwest even though our next turnpoint is to the north, in order to go up wind and to get under the clouds in that direction. I figure I'm in the lead gaggle, all the rigid wings are behind me. Ron Gleason, who was the top placing American rigid wing pilot last week, has gone down, and there is no reason to hurry. Besides if I left this gaggle of four I would be totally out on my own, and I'm thinking that Oleg is making much better decisions than I would.

The race after all is the race against the other pilots, not the race to race yourself into the ground taking lots of unnecessary chances. Of course, that hasn't stopped me before, but with the VX, I'm feeling that I have the performance to stay up with anybody in the competition, so there is no need to get desperate.

We do find some minor lift under the clouds and make for the last turnpoint to the northeast drifting down wind into it. We haven't climbed that high because we didn't find all that great of lift, but when I round the turnpoint I see that I've got a 9.3 glide into goal.

We take a few turns and then go on final glide to the goal six miles away. All four of us have stuck together for each others help (well the three of us for Kurt's and Oleg's help) and now it is time to race.

We make goal easily with the following finish times:

Oleg      16:13:25
Kurt       16:13:41
Davis      16:13:46
Brett      16:14:21

Starting at 2 PM, the task will take a little over two hours.

Many of the pilots who work at Quest Air are here flying in the meet, helping out on the line or flying the tugs. Steve Kroop and Bob Lane have entered the competition, and it is great to see them having a good time. Flavia and Lois are in the competition. Russell and Campbell also. As well as Bo.

There are six Dragonflies here and five of them came down from Quest Air. Quest is very very generous with it's tugs. Bobby Bailey is here flying one of the tugs. It is great to see how generous Quest is with its tugs, and its great to see them here helping out like they have done in the past in Zapata and at the Nationals in Big Spring. They are a huge asset to the sport.

David Glover is the meet director and score keeper. He spent the last week learning from the master, Tim Meaney, how to make CompeGPS work as well as it can. So far David is doing great with getting the results out in this smaller meet.

Rigid results:

Place Name Glider Time Total
1 STRAUB Davis Air ATOS VX 02:13:46 920
2 BROWN Russell Air ATOS B 02:31:14 725
3 GREGORY Ollie Air ATOS C 02:51:37 676
4 NAKAMURA Junko Airean Swift 03:29:11 468
5 BOWEN Campbell Flight Design Axxess 03:53:15 415
6 GLEASON Ron Air ATOS C   302
7 LARSON Steve Flight Design Exxtacy 224

Flex results:

Place Name Glider Time Total
1 BONDARCHUCK Oleg Advance Combat L 02:13:25 864
2 WARREN Curt Moyes Litespeed S4 02:13:41 841
3 HAZLETT Brett Moyes Litespeed 4 02:14:21 821
4 COOMBER Kraig Moyes Litespeed 4 02:29:53 717
5 MARTINI Dustino Moyes Litespeed 4 02:47:51 642
6 HAGEWOOD Bo Aeros Combat L 03:26:45 519
7 CARTER Kevin Aeros Combat L 53.3 444
8 KROOP Steve Icaro Laminar 07 19.6 290
9 BARES Radek Aeros Combat 19.4 288
10 LANNING Tom Moyes Litespeed 4 16.0 264
11 MOLINA Miguel Moyes Litespeed 4 15.4 258
12 SALAMONE Linda Moyes Litespeed 3 14.3 247
13 FRANQUIZ Nelson Icaro Laminar 13.3 233
14 VIEIRA Flavia Icaro Laminar 11.7 212
15 LANE Bob Icaro Laminar 07 7.5 146
16 FONTANEZ Edwin Wills Wing Talon 6.9 135
17 FUNK Dean Moyes Litespeed S 4.5 6.1 126
17 ALDRICH Erik Moyes Litespeed 4 5.6 126
17 FRUTIGER Mark Moyes Litesport 4 5.3 126
17 BURICK Carl Moyes Litespeed 4 4.1 126
21 NEUBAUER Lois Wills Wing Talon 0.0 0
21 LOPEZ-URBINA Carlos Icaro Laminar MR 0.0 0


Lois landed along the highway by the swamp, and didn't get picked up until much later, so he didn't get scored yet. Flavia and Dustin went out and found him. Steve Kroop is flying a stock Laminar and Bob is flying with a cocoon harness. Linda Salmone, a fellow Blind Squirrel, is in her first competition outside of the Team Challenge and flying Clare's Lightspeed. She had her first cross wind flight last week.

I'll have a lot more to say about the AIR ATOS-VX as the week goes on. Obviously, I am very very happy with it. I really enjoyed flying with it and that is the main thing. Obviously part of that is its performance, but that s not the only reason I'm so pleased. Of course, my finish today is due in very very large part to the VX.

Discuss competition at the Oz Report forum

Flytec Championship - it hurts to be popular »

Mon, Mar 1 2004, 9:00:01 pm GMT

The Flytec Championship is way over subscribed this year, many are on the waiting list and many have been turned away altogether.

competition

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USHGA sanctioned meets are required to have an opening date and time for the beginning of registration. This is a requirement to ensure that pilots can register for the meet and be accepted on a first come first serve only basis. The USHGA feels that the system that is most fair to all the pilots is one with a stated registration date and time and first come first serve.

Also the USHGA requires that 66% of the available slots for a meet be set aside for US pilots, until there are no more US pilots on the waiting list.

The 2004 Flytec Championships registration date and time was 9 AM EST on December 15th. Within two hours the thirty one foreign pilot slots were filled up. The ever organized French team had taken twelve of those precious spots.

Within two days the fifty nine US pilot slots were full. Currently that are nine US pilots on the waiting list and twenty nine foreign pilots. There are twenty five class five rigid wing pilots in the meet.

According to Steve Kroop this is the greatest demand by foreign pilots for any of the Flytec Championships. Perhaps the good word about how much fun it is to fly here in Florida has gotten around. This level of enthusiasm has been sustained even though originally when these guys signed up there was no talk about a second meet in Florida, now there is the South Florida Championships at the Florida Ridge.

Steve had originally thought that foreign pilots would re reluctant to come to Florida for only one meet, but it seems not to be the case. Competition turns out to continue to be very popular.

So with a long waiting list it appears as though some pilots will be disappointed this year. Perhaps they can get into the South Florida Championships. As USHGA BOD Competition Committee Chairman I am working hard to get other US competitions USHGA sanctioned so that we can provide more high level competition opportunities.

Check out the ads here in the Oz Report for the Team Challenge and the South Florida Championship. Also check out the Oz Report calendar at https://OzReport.com/calendar.php.

Steve hopes to have additional towing resources at the upcoming meets so that he can allow for more competitors, but it is not clear that he will be able to do so. Perhaps tow pilots can piggy back on the South Florida Championships if enough people enter, so as to afford to come down to Florida.

Discuss "Flytec Championship - it hurts to be popular" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

The race for the Worlds in Oz

Sat, Feb 14 2004, 2:00:01 am GMT

Bo Hagewood|Bubba Goodman|calendar|Carlos Bessa|Chelan XC Classic 2004|Chris Zimmerman|Claire Vassort|competition|Curt Warren|Davis Straub|Dean Funk|Dennis Pagen|Flytec Championships 2004|George Stebbins|Glen Volk|Jerz Rossignol|Jim Lee|Kari Castle|Kevin Carter|Krzysztof "Krys/Kris" Grzyb|Larry Bunner|Mark Bolt|Mike Barber|NTSS|Paris Williams|Phil Bloom|Richard Sauer|Scott Angel|South Florida Championships 2004|Steve Rewolinski|Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge 2004|Terry Presley|USHGA|US Nationals 2004|Worlds 2004

The points from the Australian meets add up as we look at the NTSS standings for US flex wing pilots and how they effect who's going to the Worlds in Hay in 2005.

https://OzReport.com/compPilotRankings.php

The race to be on the flex wing national teams is on. Pilots were in Australia flying to gain points on their country's team so that they can go to the Worlds in Australia next January. In the US, the pilots are chosen on the basis of their four best competitions results. They can use their two best flights from 2003, and their best flights from 2004. One new rule is that only two flights from competitions outside the United States count. Here's how things stand today:

1 Hagewood Bo 1498
2 Williams Paris 1150
3 Warren Curt 1059
4 Lee Jim 1014
5 Bessa Carlos 994
6 Rossignol Jerz 975
7 Castle Kari 965
8 Zimmerman Chris 898
9 Sauer Richard 886
10 Presley Terry 827
11 Carter Kevin 811
12 Goodman Bubba 806
13 Straub Davis 733
14 Pagen Dennis 719
14 Bolt Mark 719
16 Bloom Phil 662
17 Vassort Claire 657
18 Grzyb Krzysztof 635
19 Angel Scott 632
20 Rewolinski Steve 629
21 Barber Mike 628
22 Bunner Larry 557
23 Volk Glen 516
24 Stebbins George 512
25 Funk Dean 476

Of course the pilots who went to Australia got a head start. Bo has four meets that count now and Kevin has three meets. Other pilots have only two meets that count. Both Bo and Kevin have meets with low points that can be overcome with better results in 2004.

It takes about 1,900 NTSS points to gain a place on the US National flex wing team. That means you've got to average about 475 points per meet to make it. Placing first in a fully valid, well attended meet gives you 660 points.

There are five USHGA sanctioned meets in the US in 2004 - Flytec, South Florida, Team Challenge, CXCC, US Nats. All these meets are worth at least 330 points to the flex wing winner (with a minimal number of days flying). The rest of the pilots get a percentage of the winner's points.

See https://OzReport.com/calendar.php for a list of the competition in 2004.