Oz Report

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

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

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

JD writes:

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

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

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

Should the 200 point penalty that Daniel received be rescinded and he be given the 10 point penalty as per CIVIL Section 7A rules?

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A careful look at the data

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

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

JD Guillemette writes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Start and turnpoint cylinders

FS|Jarda Balas|Joerg Ewald|Tiago Worcman|XC Track

Tiago Worcman writes:

I am in contact with XC track developer. XC track seems to be the software that has more updates and a lot of attention on it. It runs only on Androids.

On the latest software version they have eliminated the exit and enter start direction option when creating a start gate.

I asked the developer to bring it back because we are still using the enter / exit cylinder on our comps and here is what Jarda wrote me back.

I thought is worth sharing because it looks like CIVL is removing exit/entry start directions worldwide.

Jarda Balas writes:

The entry/exit is totally obsolete and doesn't make sense anymore (for a few years it's not in the rules, scoring program (FS) doesn't count it etc). Actually two days ago we received the mail from the CIVL committee https://www.fai.org/commission/civl, where they're asking us to remove this option:

"I'm once again suggesting to you to remove the start direction from competition task activity. It has been more than two years since CIVL approved the removal of the start direction. There is no more ENTER or EXIT. It's becoming more and more confusing for the pilots when there is no such thing in the official task setup, but they have to pick something in their instruments. I'm writing similar emails to all other instrument manufacturers."

Joerg Ewald writes:

For any given task, the crossing direction for each cylinder is implicitly determined, and does not need to be specified. FS follows that concept, but up until 2 years ago, it insisted that a start cylinder can only be an enter cylinder if the first TP is a smaller cylinder around the same waypoint. This created a lot of support cases when task setters set non-concentric first TPs inside of start cylinders.

That’s why CIVL finally decided two years ago to drop this concept altogether. Any crossing in any direction is valid, but given the nature of our sport, pilots will always cross “in the right direction”. Your race time starts always at the last crossing that then gives you the most distance along the course. In your case, only when you cross back out.

On the 6030, like many other instruments, the software does not detect crossings (like FS does), but simply determines once every second whether you are inside or outside the next cylinder. This is faster and easier. Changing that to detecting crossings would be an awful lot of work, and we would only be able to do that if somebody is willing to pay that development time. Until then pilots will have to do a little bit of thinking ahead of time, while entering the task, and determine for each cylinder in which direction they will cross its boundary.

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Daniel Velez Bravo's analysis

Daniel Vélez Bravo|Davis Straub|Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

https://danielvelezbravo.wordpress.com/

Translated into English:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Day six, canceled

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

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

NWS, Today:

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

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

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

HRRR, 1 PM:

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

HRRR, 4 PM:

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

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

What the sky looked like near noon:

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

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

The final results are found here:

https://OzReport.com/26.68#1

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Day five, canceled

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

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

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

NWS, Today:

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

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

RAP, Noon:

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

RAP, 4 PM:

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

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

SkewT shows slight chance of cu-nimb here.

58°F at CB.

The task:

Wilotree 10 km
Midflo 3 km
Zimmrr 400 m.

71 km

This is what the sky looked like this afternoon:

The winds at Leesburg Airfield:

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

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

NWS:

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

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

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

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

HRRR, 4 PM:

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

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

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Day four, results

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

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

Open task:

Cumulative:

Sport task:

Cumulative:

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Day four, light winds and cu's

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

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

NWS, Today:

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

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

RAP, 1 PM:

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

RAP, 4 PM:

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

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

SkewT show reduced chance of cu-nimb here.

53°F at CB.

The task:

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

78.7 km

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Day three, looks like a much better day

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

The forecast:

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

NWS, Today:

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

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

HRRR, 1 PM:

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

HRRR, 4 PM:

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

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

SkewT doesn't show cu-nimbs

47°F at CB.

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

The task:

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

77 km

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was almost 4 PM.

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

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

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Day three, results

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

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

Open task:

Cumulative:

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

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

The forecast:

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

NWS, Today:

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

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

HRRR, 1 PM:

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

HRRR, 4 PM:

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

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

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

50°F at CB.

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

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

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

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

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

82 km

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Day two, results

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

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

Open task:

Cumulative

Sport task:

Cumulative:

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Day one, results

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

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

Open task:

Sport task:

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

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Day one, trying for 30% in goal

Wilotree Park Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

The forecast:

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

NWS, Today

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

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

HRRR, 1 PM:

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

HRRR, 4 PM:

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

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

47°F at CB.

Task:

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

77 km FAI triangle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The podium

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

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

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

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A bit of a disappointment

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

Not everyone was disappointed, of course.

The forecast for the day:

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

NWS, Today:

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

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

RAP 13, 1 PM:

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

RAP 13, 4 PM:

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

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

Area of no lift north of Williston.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The big picture

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

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

How did it go?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Results from the last day, day six, task five

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

Results:

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

Open task:

Final

Sport task:

Final:

https://fb.watch/cL6leG3tdx/

https://fb.watch/cL6D847gFM/

https://fb.watch/cL6GHm4uLa/

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A strange day five

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

The forecast:

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

NWS, Today:

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

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

Model surface wind and gust forecasts for 1 PM:

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

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

HRRR, 1 PM:

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

HRRR, 4 PM:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Results, day five, task four

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

Results:

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

Open task:

Cumulative:

Sport task:

Cumulative:

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Day four canceled, too windy

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

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

NWS, Today:

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

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

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

Model surface wind and gust forecasts for 1 PM:

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

HRRR, 1 PM:

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

HRR, 4 PM:

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

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

At Leesburg Airport to our north:

At Kissimee to our south east:

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Flying day three

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

The task to the northwest:

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

83.8 km FAI triangle

The forecast:

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

NWS, Today:

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

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

RAP, 1 PM:

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

RAP, 4 PM:

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

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

CAPE shows no chance of over development

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

A front is coming through before 2 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Results, day three

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

Results:

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

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

Open task 3:

Cumulative:

Sport task 3:

Cumulative:

https://fb.watch/cG18_kqR9-/

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The flight, day two, Tuesday

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

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

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

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

153 km

The forecast:

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

NWS, Today:

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

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

RAP, 1 PM:

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

RAP, 4 PM:

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

Temperature at CB at 2 PM: 44°F

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discuss "2022 Paradise Airsports Nationals" at the Oz Report forum   link»   »

The flight, day one

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

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

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

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

NWS, Today:

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

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

RAP, 1 PM

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

RAP, 4 PM:

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

Temperature at CB at 2 PM - 46°

Suggested Task:

Task committee meeting 9 AM
Pilot briefing 10 AM

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

Launch 12:30 PM

Launch spot west launch area

Task start 1:30 PM

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

125 km

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discuss "2022 Paradise Airsports Nationals" at the Oz Report forum   link»   »

Results, day two

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

Results:

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

Day Two Open:

Cumulative:

Day Two Sport:

Cumulative:

https://fb.watch/cH88jSU1mV/

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Locals rule, day one

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

Results:

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

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

Open class:

Six locals out of the top ten.

Sport:

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

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Lighter east winds than forecast

Paradise Airsports Nationals 2022

(Wilotree Park, Groveland, FL, USA)

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

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

NWS, Today:

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

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

RAP, 1 PM:

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

RAP, 4 PM:

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

Suggested Task:

Wilotree 3 km
Dunnell 8 km
Williston 1 km

109 km

or

Wilotree 3 km
Turn33 1 km
Wilotree 400 m

40 km

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

Here's what the sky looks like:

We'll see which task pilots attempt.

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• Peter Cairns
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We took off early, but not that early

cloud|Jim Prahl|Tiago Worcman|Wilotree Park

The wind was south blowing at about 10 mph and Jim Prahl had us back at the north end of the north field so that we wouldn't get hit by any turbulence coming off the trees as we got towed out of Wilotree Park. For sure there was very little turbulence at all and the wind speed was really not that high so that we would have had to worry about it.

Kacey pulled me up right behind Larry at 11:40 AM and when we got to the cloud that he was climbing under I pinned off to find only about 30 fpm, but at least I was going up. I climbed, so to speak, to 2,900' and Larry at cloud base 600' over me headed northwest. Since I was not progressing all that well I headed northwest also and then west over a pond where I could see some thermal activity making patterns on the water.

While Larry didn't find anything under all the cu's around I found 200 fpm watching the ground and he had to fly back and come in under me. This would be the second time this season that we would get to start together.

I climbed to 3,600' and had to leave Larry behind as I was almost in the cloud. I headed for the cloud over the chicken coops to the northwest north of Mascotte. I found 50 fpm on average there with the wind blowing at 14 mph out of the south southeast.

Larry came in under me and we worked the weak lift while drifting quickly. I climbed to 3,300' but the lift stalled and then I hit 500 fpm down. I raced away to get to the next dark looking cu's to the north. Going under one cu after another I did not find anything and it wasn't long before I setup to land in a huge field.

Larry hadn't hit the massive sink that I found as he was a bit further west of me at the time. He continued circling and circling and circling in weak lift and not getting high. A few kilometers northwest of me he decided that they day was just not that good and preferred not to go it alone, as Tiago had landed back at Wilotree after not finding any lift.

Looks like it was a pretty good idea to land as there would have been a lot of rain along our course line to the Keystone airfield to the north.

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Finally Airtribune responds

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

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

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

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

Discuss "Registration Open for Florida Spring Competitions" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Every Day Since the Competition Ended

Maybe it will rain tomorrow

Wilotree Park Nationals 2021

This is what the sky has looked like every day since the Wilotree Park Nationals ended on April 25^th:

The cu's started forming at 9:30 AM.

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals

Task 4, the last day

Attila Plasch|Bobby Bailey|Butch Peachy|competition|Davis Straub|Derrick Turner|John Simon|Konrad Heilmann|Leonardo Ortiz|Moyes Litespeed RX|PG|Robin Hamilton|Tim Delaney|Tyler Borradaile|Wills Wing T3|Willy Dydo|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021|Zac Majors

The Replay: https://airtribune.com/play/5021/2d

It was a difficult day to end a meet that proved to have difficult days. The day started with a little bit of rain as a thin line of thunderstorms brushed by, then dark skies for a few hours which made the prospects of staying up seem remote, then after 2 PM the sky started to open up, the clouds went away and we had a blue day. The wind was out of the west but not nearly as strong as all the models as well as the National Weather Service predicted with not so strong gust factors either.

Yes, Derrick, Willy Dydo, and Alan Arcos took off and only Derrick was able to stay up for a good while before landing. The task committee then changed the task to an open window. Pilots were very reluctant to get going while there were start gates because they feared getting blown out of the 5 km start cylinder with weak lift and strong winds (those were forecast at least).

Pilots kept hesitating which is why we changed to task to make it so there would not be a penalty for leaving the start cylinder, but finally they started launching after 3:30 PM, and I was able to get pulled up by Bobby Bailey at 4:06 PM. It was the best tow I've every had from him as I insisted that he tow me straight up wind and do not do any turns. With the wind still seeming to be strong I wanted to get upwind as far as possible and he took me as far as Osborn field.

We had been in lift it seemed and I found 300 fpm right off tow. I was all alone and could not see any other pilots so I was completely happy to be turning at a radius that maximized my climb rate without having to look after other pilot's circling. That did not last long. Bruce immediately came over to me, just above me and JD just below so at least they were not a bother. Then Zac and Robin, but again Robin was below and Zac up with Bruce, but it was starting to get crowded. At least no one else was at my altitude. Bruce was 60 feet above me.

The wind was only 12 mph out of the west, so all the scary forecasts about 22 mph at 2,000' were not the case and I wondered why the pilots who had gone up earlier reported strong winds and kept us on the ground.

Alan Arcos, Derrick Turner and John Simon joined the thermal and things got very choppy. You can see the result of going in and out of the core on the SeeYou altitude graph. We quit going up for a few minutes then slowly climbed to 3,600'.

Following Zac we all headed southwest into a 17 mph west wind. We found it a bit to everyone else's east and nine pilots came together to bother each other in another weak thermal (100 fpm). I was only able to climb to 2,700' before JD and John Simon lead out and headed southwest again.

They found weak lift just west of highway 33 at 1,400' I came in at 700' and wasn't willing to stay under them for more than one turn not finding anything. There was a very inviting field to the north a little and I landed there followed soon by Alan Arcos and Butch Peachy.

After that it was only six pilots left in the air and slowly Robin, Zac and Bruce had them drop out below them. Zac and Robin were able to make it a total of 30 kilometers down the course line landing near the mines north of Wallaby Ranch.

https://airtribune.com/2021-wilotree-park-nationals/results

Task 4:

Finals:

Sport Class Final Results (they didn't fly on the last day):

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/2771828

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/25.4.2021/20:06

Pedro and Tyler collide while thermaling

CIVL|collision|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021

Below you will see frames of the period just before and at the time of the collision taken every two seconds from their track log files. You can make your own interpretation of who should have done what to avoid this incident. Tyler is the red glider (978) and Pedro the blue one (969). I have left the pictures at their original size as taken on my computer.

Be aware that at launch Pedro's instrument measured 140' and Tyler's measured 120' of elevation (GPS altitude). Therefore the altitudes displayed in these frames could easily be off from each other by 20' (or more) or not at all.

You can make your own interpretation of what you see here. Note the different climb rates between the two gliders. Both gliders were flying after the collision and both pilots followed the CIVL section 7 rule: "A competitor involved in a collision in the air must not continue the flight if the structural integrity of his glider is in doubt."

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2021 Wilotree Park Nationals

We don't go that great up wind when it is windy

Dragonfly|Larry Bunner|PG|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021

Dragonfly|Larry Bunner|Naviter Blade|PG|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021

Replay of the task: https://airtribune.com/play/5020/2d

On Friday, after a delay to move the start box to the west side of the east/west runway we had the first start window at 3 PM. Launch went smoothly for the open class, but there were further delays for the Sport Class.

I had a galloping tow behind Mick Howard in his 582 2-cycle powered (under powered) Dragonfly and when the rope went completely slack at 1,600' and we both went sideways, him to the right, me to the left, I pulled the release, but the weaklink (200 lbs.) broke at the same time and the bridle went for an unexpected flight into a small pond. We had just been in 400 fpm so it was easy to turn around and start climbing.

Half a dozen pilots were soon at cloud base which was over 4,000'. There were plenty of cu's and they were all working and you just had to be careful about the 11 mph southeast wind and not let it blow you too far outside the 5 km start cylinder. I was able to start at 3:04 PM as I watched the count down on the Naviter Blade and listen to its messages about when to get to the edge of the start window. It seemed to know exactly when to go.

With a strong southeast wind we were racing over the ground at almost 50 mph. There were multiple cu's ahead so little worry about finding lift. The first turnpoint was downwind to Center Hill.

With everyone in the first thermal along the course line we were going up at 400 fpm on average to 4,900'. After touching the turnpoint at Center Hill we headed north toward the 15 km turnpoint cylinder around Dallas, a waypoint at the northwest corner of the Villages. The waypoint had been expanded to account for the delay at launch.

It was 12 km to the next thermal from the previous one with a 17:1 glide ratio. A 300 fpm climb rate and then the next thermal just northwest of the prisons and south of the Turnpike at 400+ fpm to 4,900' before heading for and tagging the Dallas turnpoint just on the south edge of the Villages.

Now we had to turn into the wind and things did not go as well. The lift miraculously got much weaker with a climb of 100 fpm and then a little less than 200 fpm over a lake on the north side of the Turnpike with a 13 mph east southeast wind. About a dozen pilots were all in the lead gaggle just north of the Turnpike.

I left the thermal at 3,800'. We were getting to almost 5,000' just a few minutes earlier. Now we weren't getting as high as we would like heading into the east southeast wind. The half dozen gliders above me headed a little more southerly as I headed right down the Turnpike trying to get upwind of the course line back to Wilotree Park. Zac was heading that way also as there were good looking clouds in that direction and a lot fewer clouds south of the Turnpike.

The back and forth had begun. I found 230 fpm 4 km to the east and climbed to 4,300', then went east again and climbed to 4,500' at 150fpm with Larry Bunner. Heading toward the better looking clouds north of the Turnpike I was able to gain a total of 8 km to the east and get upwind of the course line but I was now down to 2,700' and not finding anything.

I saw Larry turning back behind me and turned around to see if I could get up in that thermal. That cost me half the distance I had gained and I found only weak lift that I'm able to use to climb to 2,500'. Larry got to 4,000' and flew to the south southeast landing soon there after.

I hooked up with Maria Garcia in the light lift and after topping out we headed south east toward the east west road for a safe landing with good retrieval. Down to 900' AGL we found a little spot of lift and started turning in an extremely pleasant climb. We climbed at 80 fpm and then I noticed Tavo Gutierrez circling below us just south of the highway and went over to him to find almost 200 fpm. I climbed to 3,800' over the prisons losing 4 km.

Topping out I headed east down the highway toward highway 48 and along the Turnpike toward a good looking cloud but found a net pf no gain at 1,000'. I should have just kept going, but I turned around and landed in a friendly field to the west. The lift was negative on the upwind side of the cloud. Retrieval from the Turnpike was not as easy as from the surface roads, but it was possible.

Pilots were scattered about in this area except for Bruce, Zac and Robin who while also had to do back and forths were able to get further south and a lot closer to Wilotree Park.

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:davisstraub/23.4.2021/18:23

https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/2768418

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2021 Wilotree Park Nationals

Results from Task 3

competition|Davis Straub|Gary Anderson|John Simon|Konrad Heilmann|Larry Bunner|Moyes Litespeed RX|Raul Guerra|Robin Hamilton|Tyler Borradaile|Wills Wing T3|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021|Zac Majors

Replay of the task: https://airtribune.com/play/5020/2d

Results: https://airtribune.com/2021-wilotree-park-nationals/results

Task 3:

Cumulative:

Results from Task 2

competition|Davis Straub|John Simon|Konrad Heilmann|Moyes Litespeed RX|Robin Hamilton|Tyler Borradaile|Wills Wing T3|Willy Dydo|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021|Zac Majors

The forecast for the day:

How is Thursday different from Wednesday?

The wind shifts from northwest to northeast.

Day starts off sunny.

Be aware of the lake effect where Lake Apopka suppresses the lift just to our east and over us.

Winds are lighter at 4 PM (about half the wind speeds on Wednesday).

There will be a high pressure centered on the Florida/Georgia border.

Six degree lower surface temperatures and lower high temperature for the day, 79 vs. 84.

NWS:

Thursday

Sunny, with a high near 80. Northeast wind 5 to 10 mph.

Hourly forecast for the afternoon: Northeast surface winds at 9 mph decreasing to 7 mph, cloud cover 7% dropping to 4% by 4 PM.

https://www.wunderground.com/maps/surface-analysis/24hr

Shows cold front in Miami at 2 PM tomorrow, clear skies to the north.

HRRR

1 PM:

Northeast surface wind at 1 PM: 9 mph, 2000' 11 mph

TOL at 1 PM: 3,300'

Updraft Velocity at 1 pm: 440 fpm

CB at 1 PM: 3,300'

B/S at 1 PM: 3.4

Cloud cover 7%

4 PM

Northeast surface wind at 4 PM: 7 mph, 2000' 9 mph

TOL at 4 PM: 3,800'

Updraft Velocity at 4 PM: 460 fpm

CB at 4 PM: 0'

B/S at 4 PM: 5.6

Cloud cover 9%

Skew-T:

1 PM:

TOL: 3,200'

Temperature: 56 degrees at TOL (73 on the surface)

https://airtribune.com/2021-wilotree-park-nationals/results

Task 2:

Cumulative:

Eleven Sport Class pilots made goal with Attila winning the day and he is first overall afater two tasks. See results at link above.

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals

Results from Task 2

Butch Peachy|competition|Konrad Heilmann|Moyes Litespeed RX|Robin Hamilton|Tyler Borradaile|Wills Wing T3|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021|Zac Majors

https://airtribune.com/2021-wilotree-park-nationals/results

Task 1:

2021 Wilotree Park Nationals

Rain on day two, but blue on day three

Task 1:

Zac and Tyler way far in the lead.

Tyler and then Zac first and second for the day. All other pilots who are in the air are 40 km behind.

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2021 Wilotree Park Nationals

Rain

It cleared up around 3 PM, but didn't show much prospects of lift then. We went for a bike ride, https://www.strava.com/activities/5156726742.

Good chance of rain on Tuesday then things clear up on Wednesday.

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We almost lost it

COVID|Facebook|Oz Report|Paradise Airsports Nationals 2021|Wilotree Park|Wilotree Park Nationals 2021

You might have noticed that it's been a tough year for most of us. Hang gliding continued without many competitions which would have lead to gatherings which were either frowned upon or completely forbidden by the authorities. Here in Florida we continued life outside where it is is 19 times safer (https://bestlifeonline.com/coronavirus-indoors/). Due to travel restrictions we canceled the Sport Class, Rigid Wing and Women's Worlds as well as all the Nationals competitions. Same for Big Spring.

Now a year later we are planning for the 2021 Paradise Airsports and Wilotree Park Nationals in April to be run under COVID protocols with continued international travel restrictions: https://airtribune.com/2021-paradise-airsports-nationals/info and https://airtribune.com/2021-wilotree-park-nationals/info.

During the year of crises mode we also decided to move to a new web server to reduce our costs. This transition has not been without numerous glitches as the Oz Report is a complex web site. For example, yesterday the host automatically updated PHP which caused all sorts of problems for Scare. Hopefully over time the situation will stabilize.

At one point we considered just going strictly on Facebook which would relieve us of all the web hosting issues (the high cost being the primary concern). We also were getting most of our content via Facebook posts, so it made sense to go to our Facebook version of the Oz Report.

This would mean that we would drop our email push of Oz Report issues. Also, those who find Facebook objectionable would no longer get to see our content. After a few disappointing experiments we decided to leave well enough alone. There is a Facebook version of the Oz Report and a stand-alone version. Sometimes content from the Facebook version comes over to the stand-alone version.

You can just go to the Oz Report on Facebook and ignore your news feed: https://www.facebook.com/ozreport

We don't know where things stand with our readers. We've decided not to publish every weekday unless there is news every weekday. Before it was publish or perish five days a week for 24 years. Now we are taking a bit more relaxed attitude and publishing when something interesting is happening, and hopefully with a new year and good changes to our pandemic situation coming, there will be more interesting things happening.

Thanks to all the Oz Report readers for their support over the years.

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