The Oz Report (13)

The Oz Report

Volume 6, Number 90
11 PM, Friday, April 26th, 2002
Wallaby Ranch, FL, USA
"Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."
Named Newsletter of the Year in 2002 by the USHGA

Flytec Championship – tighten up

Finally we have an “interesting” task here in Florida . We’ve had so many races (at least while I was still in the air), and it’s just been climb and go, climb and go, final glide, finish. Today we had time to stop and smell the roses. Or was it the cow manure? Whatever it was it was really close by.

Not that it started off that way at all. With Gary calling for over development and rain possibly, we were concerned about whether we could get back to Quest without running into unsafe conditions. We have two proposed tasks, an 88-mile out and return, and a 68-mile run down to Avon Park airport to the southeast that should get us away from any over development.

We move all the start times up to 1, 1:15 and 1:30 to get everyone going before the chances of OD get too high. The windcast shows the convergence zone (where you would expect the OD) right down the middle of the state (north or south). The BLIP forecast shows the highest CAPE index to our north, so if we run south we’ll have the best chance of avoiding the OD.

The winds are light (as they would be in the convergence area), so it is even difficult to tell which runway to launch from, but then does it really matter? We are expecting good lift and a cloud base at 4,600’.

After blowing the second day, I’m down in the pack so I do have to run my glider out to the staging area. This time at least I have a cart. Bubba Goodman and I have a sprint first across the runway to get a cart (but it is all in fun as we know there are two carts). Great exercise before the actual competition.

The task committee is meeting on the flight line to decide which task to choose. If there is no sign of over development at 12, then we will choose the out and return task. There are only a few small cu’s around at noon so we say, let’s come back.

Fortunately no competitors launch for the next fifteen minutes, and in that time a number of cu-nimbs form out over highway 27 to our east. We quickly reconvene the task committee and change the task to a straight run to Avon Park .

By 12:30 the cu’s are thick around us and over us with lots of vertical development. I’m wishing that we didn’t push the start clock back 15 minutes, as it would be great to leave at 1 PM instead of the 1:15 PM first start time. Heck, it would be great to leave at 12:45, as it took but a couple of minutes under a black bottomed cu’s to get right up to cloud base at 4,000’ right over Quest Air.

The tugs are pulling pilots out of the air park at an astounding rate. It seems like everyone is in the air in way less than 30 minutes. Yesterday they were launching folks at a rate of one every 15 seconds. The pilots are being especially helpful by being ready to go when they get in the launch line.

A plane is landing or taking off every 8 seconds (not including the hang gliders) whenever there is a launch line, so this makes the Sheets airport the busiest airport in the world for about half an hour. Same can be said of the Wallaby Ranch during the Wallaby Open.

Many parks have provided multiple tugs for the event and there are more Dragonflies assembled at the Flytec Championship than have ever been in one place at the same time (pictures later). Wallaby has provided two tugs, for which everyone is quite grateful, and two highly skilled (and experienced) pilots. It’s great to have tug pilots who’ve been at this a long time.

With the task decided at the last minute it is a big scramble on the ground and in the air, but everyone is taking it in stride. We on the task committee are just trying to do our best for the pilots, and apparently they are really appreciative. We hear nothing but praise from everyone.

Johann and I have agreed to take the first start time no matter what. I’m not high at the time, but I don’t care. I leave anyway and head out toward the gaggle of flex wings at the 5 mile point. A few miles beyond that Johann and I hook up with the first gaggle of flex wings on the course. These guys have taken the first start time also, and they found something good over highway 33.

Johann is much higher than I and there are plenty of flex wings over my head as we climb up but only to 3,400’, 800’ below cloud base, when the thermal stops and we all spread out. I keep leaving low as I want to get as far away as possible from the guys who are going to take the next start time. I don’t want them to see our thermals.

Getting out in front is a tough assignment because you’ve got to find the thermals and race without knowing what is in front of you. Much easier to follow. We go early because we think that maybe the over development will shut down the guys behind.

We’re with a dozen flex wings and we are all spread out moving quickly down 33, finding bits of lift, climbing for a minute or two then moving quickly on to keep up with the guys in front. Everyone is helping everyone else as we search in front here. We need all the noses we can get if we want to go fast.

We aren’t finding much when a glider in front of me and to my right runs into good lift just south of 474. This baby is 700 fpm to cloud base and 4,700’. I get on top with Brett Hazlett and a few other of the fast flex wing boys and so I’m now the lead guy.

My leading sucks, and I have to go east and west to finally find an average 150 fpm at 1,600’ just northeast of Polk City . Oh the shame of it all. Thankfully we do get up enough to be able to join another small gaggle to our southeast over Old Grade Road just north of I4. This thermal is quite a bit better averaging 350 fpm to almost 4,000’.

We are entering the go fast part of the race, although other than slow climbs we haven’t exactly been dawdling. I’m kind of surprised at the direction that the guys, including Johann, who are now out in front are taking, more south southwest toward the east side of Winter Haven. The notoriously weak area around the Winter Haven airport is coming up, but the clouds are saying come along.

I get great climb rates of between 450 fpm average to 550 fpm average in a couple of the thermals, climbing to over 5,000’. There are flex wings every where and one rigid catches us for a moment before we leave him behind. Johann and I are running scared thinking that Alex Ploner and Christian Ciech are just behind us.

As we get southeast of Winter Haven taking care to be out of the airspace from the Bartow airport way off to our southwest, we can see the high top of a cu-nimb to our southeast and right on the course line. It’s well shadowed underneath and looks like there may be some virga around it.

I have gone into the lead again as I cut the corner and ignored some lift. It is always good to just bypass the gaggle when you are high and there looks to be lift ahead. I’m thinking that there may be too much lift ahead. I’m happy that there are a couple of flex wings near me way below that are diving toward the cloud also. I hoping that they are not as nervous as me.

I’ve put my hang point on ATOS ¼” more forward. Maybe it is the air, and maybe it is the hang point, but the glider seems to be having a much better time of it. It’s not bucking around quite so much and I’m enjoying the Florida air.

While I stay on the right sunny side of the cloud, some pilots go right underneath it. Doesn’t seem to be a problem, but I do notice that we get a bit of rain. I want to put this cloud behind me and get to the next ones.

As we get a couple of miles south of Lake Wales, and a mile west of highway 27, Curt Warren, Johann and I head for a cloud a little bit to our right that seems to be working. We’re spread out and make a thorough search of the area, but we can’t find anything like what we’ve had until now. I’ll drop from 2,500’ to 550’ AGL as all three of us go round and round trying to find the lift.

Johann and I are in radio communication so he brings me back one more time to get under Curt and him just next to a small lake. I’m way low and way below them, but we climb up enough and when Curt goes over to the east and finds a better core, they climb to 3,000’, while I’ll get up to 2,500’. We’re alive.

Johann and a bunch of gliders are out in front now on a long glide. I’m going carefully and slowly as possible. There are no clouds nearby, as the rain cloud has wiped when all out. The air is very smooth and I hear this also from Johann ahead of me.

Alex Ploner gets on the radio and says that he and Christian Ciech have landed 7 miles from goal in Frostproof. They took the start time 15 minutes after us and raced through the gaggles to get past us as we groveled on the deck. Now they are on the ground and we are almost on the ground.

At 12.5 miles out from goal I tell Belinda that I am at 1,000’ and will probably land at 10 miles from goal. I’m checking out just how far I can glide over the trees to get to a landable field.

Then Johann gets on the radio and says that they have lift at 10 miles out. I’m gliding toward him and wondering which fields I can land in. At 450’ I come in over a tractor working in some burnt off area a mile short of Johann’s thermal. There’s a beep on the vario and I start searching it out.

There are plenty of gliders around, all above me, and numerous gliders with Johann, so there is plenty of encouragement to stay up in whatever is available. There are no clouds, and the landing fields are scarce. Time to hang in there and be patient as the day is much different now that the first two place guys are on the ground.

I work this thermal to 2,900’ and actually leave it too early. Numerous gliders above me have gone out in front and are way ahead so that we can’t see them. I go to where the flex wings are working the lift that Johann has left, but just get zero for 3 minutes at 2,500’. Finally I’ve had enough of this head out now in the lead of the fifteen or so pilots in the neighborhood.

At 7 miles out from goal and at 1,700’ I know that I’ve got to find something, anything to make it in. I feel the barest hint of some lift nearby and start turning looking for anything. There are plenty of orange groves below and I prefer them as thermal generators to green pastures.

For four minutes I don’t gain any altitude, but I also don’t lose any. Then things get a bit better as the little gaggle joins me. This thermal will average 175 fpm and take me to 3,100’. Glen Volk will be just above me the whole time.

It stops at 3,100’ and although I wanted to go to 3,500’ before I went on final glide, I’ll take what I can get. There is a large patch of trees and houses before the airport, so I’m worried about the final glide in addition to the distance.

The air is completely smooth, and my sink rate averages only 200 fpm. I try to keep the air speed at about 32 mph, for best L/D but I seem to have averaged 37 mph over the ground. I don’t think that there was any wind. 3,500’ would have given me goal at 10:1. I’m hoping for 15:1 and I’ll get 16:1.

Glen will comment later how much better I’m gliding at these lower speeds than him as he sees me rise up above him as we cross over the unlandable areas. In the last field before the houses and trees I spot three flex wings. Then at the very end of the field, washed up as though by the sea, I will spot a dozen gliders and three rigids. I’m sure that they are cursing me as I fly over their heads at about 1,400’ two and half miles from goal.

I spot the goal and one glider. It seems to be the Swift, but in fact it is Johann. The Swifts have been moved to a spot near the hangars. Johann will be the first hang glider into goal, I’ll be second, quite a few minutes behind him. Glen Volk will be the first flex wing into goal.

All the top five pilots in each class (other than Johann) will not make goal. This means that the scores will be quite tight for the final day. Anyone could win the meet (and probably will).

Class 5 today:

Class 5 cumulative (going into the last day):

Class 1 today:

Cumulative Class 1:

Robin Hamilton is flying Manfred’s glider. He says that he didn’t know that Oleg had landed. If he had, he would have stayed one more minute in the last thermal and made goal.

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/Ozv6n90.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