The Oz Report (12)

The Oz Report

Volume 6, Number 89
10 PM, Thursday, April 25th, 2002
Wallaby Ranch, FL, USA
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."
Named Newsletter of the Year for 2002 by the USHGA

Flytec Championship – pilot’s choice

While the meet is on I’m a little strapped for time, so I just get out what I can. I’ve got a few other articles that I’ll get to when the meet is over.

Yesterday I wrote:

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

Dave wrote back:

While I appreciate the compliment I need to redirect the credit. Tim Meany, Scorekeeper Extraordinare for the Flytec Championship 2002 is the reason why the scoring and web updates are so correct and timely. GW (by himself) routinely was able to finish scoring by 9pm almost every night at his meets.

Tim and Dave (who are working together as a team) got the scores up on the web by 7:45 PM tonight. They also have an intranet setup to display the scores (Flytec goes high tech) on a separate computer (in this case a Mac). Pilots don’t have to wait until the wood chipper (otherwise known as a printer) prints out the latest updates of the preliminary scores. They can go right “on-line” and see the scores and all the latest pictures from the meet, right at headquarters upstairs at Quest.

I was interviewed by one of the three local newspapers that are covering the Flytec Championships today. They wanted to know from me how we did the weather. There was also a camera crew from the Orlando CBS affiliate here all day getting great shots of pilots launching and coming into goal. The video may go nationwide, so if you see it, please write in.

Gary ’s forecast was for winds at 14 mph out of the south, but the windcast said more westerly than southerly. We decided to go with Gary ’s forecast with the winds at Quest in the morning were strong out of the south.

The task committee decided to let the pilots help make the choice between a 91-miler straight out to the north to our favorite airport at Keystone, and a 53 miler triangle, up to Coleman, down to the north end of the Green Swamp and then back. Of course, the straw poll from the pilots spilt about down the middle, so our fallback was for the triangle.

Turned out that once we got in the air, the winds at altitude were out of the west instead of the south, so it was fine to have a triangle task, although in this case it would bring us home with a tail wind. Gary had been worried about the possibility of over development, and we did get some shadowed areas and vertical clouds, but no rain on the course.

Most pilots waited around for the 2:15 PM start time. This is just a waste of time, and reflects the fact that we aren’t using OzGAP or maybe GAP 2002 (although no one was quite sure what to make of GAP 2002 after the debacle of scoring at the Wallaby Open). All the rigids were at cloud base for almost half an hour just hanging out until forced to go. Even then they didn’t really want to go so I cursed them and headed out on my own at 2:15 PM .

That got me a bit low being the guy in front with no one to watch, so I came into the first thermal low, which can be good as the lift is often better down below, before it tapers off, and you’ve got guys out in front that you can now follow. In this case, it wasn’t so hot (unlike yesterday).

All the rigids are sticking together and we haven’t caught the flexies who start out 2 miles in front of us. There are thick clouds every where, but long patches of blue and sink also, so we’re hoping not to run into a shadowed area with no lift as we head toward the prisons. Christian, Felix, and Johann are together in front and on top.

There is a lot of darkness on the ground and in the air as we approach Coleman. Some of us run to the west by the prisons just to be sure that we get some sunlight mixed with the clouds and get upwind a bit of the clouds so that we can get up before the turnpoint. Even with all the shadowed ground there is lift by the Coleman turnpoint, and we are able to get high.

By this time (one hour into the flight) we’ve caught the flex wings and it’s all a big jumble of gliders spread out over a mile, as there are lots of bits of lift. We head south toward the Green Swamp to get the next turnpoint.

After a five mile glide (long for the day), I find myself with Oleg working 90 fpm at 2,500’. We’ve gone out in front of the gaggle a bit, although there are rigid wings ahead of us. This lift is pretty piss poor after 400 fpm average in the last thermal, and finally we see that Andy Hollidge out in front of us in his Top Secret has found a much stronger thermal down low.

This thermal will average 500 fpm, get us over 4,000’, and make it easy to get to the next turnpoint and on toward goal. All the fast flex wings are in this gaggle, but Alex and Christian are way ahead. Alex will come into goal after making the course in an hour and 46 minutes. Christian is four minutes behind. Belinda has already told me the news on the radio.

A few miles past the turnpoint, we all stop for a thermal that averages 150 fpm. After climbing to 3,000’ with Oleg, I decide that I can find something better than this on the way to goal.

In fact I do find much better lift on the way to goal, but I get down to 1,200’ before I get it. Oleg says that the lift picked up after I left and this enables the gaggle to come over my head and get to goal 2 minutes before me.

Class 5:

Class 1:

Cumulative in Class 1:

Curt Warren (new pilot of the meet last year) is doing very well as is Paris just behind Oleg. They don’t have Manfred to fly with (he won the day again in Class 2), and maybe Oleg would have challenged Manfred in this meet, after sneaking by him in the Wallaby Open.

It is great to see all the top competition gliders doing well against each other. There doesn’t seem to be a clear advantage to any flex wing, but Oleg is always blaming his glider for his good performance. This is a much different story than the one I reported last year at this time.

Jim Lee has returned to New Mexico after having problems with his neck, that’s why you don’t see him in the results. Robin Hamilton returned to his Laminar after flying his Swift in the Wallaby Open and is doing very well also.

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

To view the Oz Report on the web go to http://www.davisstraub.com/OZ/.

To view this issue of the Oz Report on the web go to http://www.davisstraub.com/OZ/Ozv6n89.htm/.

Davis Straub
co-author of Windows Me Secrets
"I gotta tell you; you took a total moron and turned me into a guru! I couldn't have done it without your books!"
davis@davisstraub.com
http://www.davisstraub.com/secrets