Why two are better than one – Very good visualization. (It landed safely after a fuel dump)
Monthly Archives: January 2007
Heading home
I just dropped off Olav, Nils Aage and Jon at the airport. Olav and Nils are heading home, while Jon is going to Thailand for a few weeks of vacation. Georgia and I are flying home tomorrow afternoon. It’s sad to pack up and travel home, we met a lot of the other pilots at the factory as they are packing up and heading home too. We did not get nearly enough flying as the Bogong cup was a huge dissapointment with only one task (That I did not fly)
So next up is probably the comp in Bassano in easter, and then the Norwegian comps early spring and summer before the Worlds in Texas.
Oz 2007, Bogong Cup
You can have a hanggliding competition anywhere in the world, and it will rain there. We are professional drought breakers now, any farmers needing some rain can just arrange a big international competition where pilots travel around half the world to fly.
Actually we got to freefly after the task was cancelled yesterday because of rain and overdevelopment. It was strange air, probably because of the moisture that made the thermals weak and difficult. Still it was good to be in the air again.
Today it pours down. We will pack up and head to Sydney as the forecast is not good at all for tomorrow. Looks wery good for next week, and in Manilla it’s been very good, pilots have been flying 240 and 270km triangles up there. Wish we had gone there, but hindsight is very precise.
Oz 2007, Bogong Cup
Not much flying here lately, we went to Mystic (Or Septic as some call it now) again, under grey and rain-laden clouds. We got a little rain on us while we waited there until 14:30 when Heather gave up and announced a spot landing comp. The winner would get $500. I went down with Olav’s new Canon EOS 400D digital SLR camera to watch the carnage. It turned out quite boring, not a single broken upright and just a few whacks. Olav did well though, and shared first prize with Johnny Jr. Jon got a prize for most spectacular landing when he slided through the spot and wrapping himself in it.
Today we already had 2 briefings because of rain approacing. The organizers are optimistic about having a late task from Mt. Emu, we can only hope.
Olav nailing it
Jon wrapping himself in the spot
Bogong Cup, day 3 and 4
Day 3 saw lots of smoke, and we went to Mystic in Bright in case it would clear up. It was pretty grim there with loads of smoke, and none of use were really keen on flying. In the end it cleared up a little, and we got a task back to Mt. Beauty via 2 TP. Jon and Nils set up, while Olav and I did not want to fly. I was just not in the mood and did not feel like flying. Jon bombed out, while Nils Åge made it to goal. It was very turbulent in the beginning, and got quite good after a while when some pilots got to 3800 meters.
Today we went to Buffalo since the Mystic launch got closed due to fire danger. But the winds were too strong to take off there. We spent the day looking at perfect clouds. It overdeveloped here tonight, and I guess we get a severe thunderstorm here tonight. We are debating what to do, maybe we should go back to Manilla, but it’s 12 hours drive…
Oz 2007, Bogong Cup, day 2
Here’s a few pictures from this afternoon. We went to Bright in case it would be brighter (heheh) there, but there was no point going up the hill in dense smoke. It’s become even worse here tonight, and many teams are concidering leaving for clearer air. The forecast is not very good regarding clearing the smoke.
Litespeed RS4 impressions, Bogong Cup task 1
I’ve really needed the 20 + hours to get friendly with the glider, mostly due to me being out of flying shape. The glider looks and feels quite different from my last S4, the sail has a lot more double surface, the frame and span is larger. I’ve only done some minor adjustments to it to tune out a small left turn when glider is tight. (Shortening the left leading edge tube to take away some tension from the tip)
As some of you have asked about the setup of the glider it’s a size 4, with full carbon leading edges front and back, Zoom A frame with carbon speedbar, carbon sprogs, and the Smoke Inlaid sail. 4 out of 6 under surface battens are carbon, and most of the top surface battens are also carbon/aluminium combination. (Straight section is carbon, curved profile is alu, with a glued and shrinkwrapped joint). The glider feels lighter than before, the sail is lighter, and all the carbon options contribute to shave off a few kilos.
The glider tows nicely with 1/2 VG, bar pressure feels solid all the way up to just before full VG, where it becomes very light onto full VG. Handling of the glider is light, and in thermals and turbulence I would describe it as slightly nervous. In Forbes I experienced that it requires a lot of high siding, and constant input in the thermals to make it stay on course, but we had quite rough air there.
Having said that it was quickly clear that the more nervous handling equals more performance. The RS4 performs extremely well both in climb and on glide. I could stay with the top pilots on both glide and in climb, I could never do that on any of my previous gliders. All the RS4’s seemed to perform equal, so it looks like the gliders are very competitive out of the box.
Landing is relatively easy, and the one foot launch I did off Mt. Emu in light winds and hot air felt like every other Litespeed – no problem if you just keep the nose down and run well. The lighter weight is nice in nil-wind conditions.
In summary it’s a glider made for competition pilots that fly quite a lot, and want the best performance available. No suprise there, but I would say this glider is the most racing tuned glider I’ve ever flown, and also the most demanding to fly efficient. I probably need 10-20 more hours to get comfortable with the glider.
Bogong Cup 2007
Today we went up to Mt Emu, with a lot of smoke in the air from the bushfires. We started the 97km task, but it was stopped as the easterly winds brought a lot more smoke into the valley. About 35 pilots had taken off before it was stopped. Olav flew the whole course as he did not have working radio, Jon got the message, but flew the task for training. The rest of us just flew down to the airstrip and packed up there. It’s very poor visibility here now, I can see the smoke obscuring the trees just 50 meters from there. I guess we have less than 700 meter visibility on the ground here this afternoon.
Jon also got attacked by an Eagle that put some nasty rifts in his leading edge, they can be very aggressive here, possibly the smoke makes them even more irritable and hungry… Hard to tell what we can do here, we might get stuck in smoke the whole week. There’s no big fires just here now, but it’s remains from earlier fires, plus smoke from the big fires to the SE.
Forbes
The tasks were quite long, I flew 23 hours and more than 1110km in 5 tasks, Vicki mentioned at the prize giving that we had flown more than 80000 km in total. We saw quite high speeds on the tasks too, we are gliding at much higher speeds than before, and the glides are longer because of the better gliders. Both out and return tasks we had average speed at more than 50 km/h for the winner, and the downwind 200km+ tasks we were still gliding at 70+ km/h airspeed between the thermals.
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Oz 2007, Forbes finished
The last few days we had very good conditons, and since the wind died down enough to fly back home we got some out and return tasks. Task 5 was 177km north to Tullamore and back, with totally blue skies and predicted 30-35 km/h crosswind it looked like a hard day. I got in line early to tow, and hit turbulence behind the tug at 150 meters that snapped my weaklink. I landed back close to the towing line and Vicki slotted me back in as number 2. I got in behind Grant on the trike, and almost at the same spot the line got slack and I did not fly smooth enough to save the weaklink again. I was pissed off and frustrated at 100 meters above the ground, as the time to start gate was getting closer. The thermal felt quite strong as I drifted back over the airstrip, I concentrated fully on taking it up, and it actually got me to 1800 meters where I could join up with the rest of the huge and at times chaotic gaggle, up to 2800 meters at the start circle.
From there the conditions were quite good, and a few whispy clouds indicated the thermals in front of us. The gaggle is always right on blus days, so we stuck together in good conditions towards the turnpoint. I joined up with Jon and Olav, and we had Oleg, Andreas and Gerolf in the same gaggle so the speed was good. At the turnpoint we hit massive sink, since I was among the first to turn at the TP I could not see the better lines, and lost height in 4-5m/s sink and headwind. Finally I spotted a few gliders turning when we were getting critically low, and a rough 4 m/s thermal took us back up into cool air. By this time my muscles had enough flying, and I was too tired to fly efficiently enough to keep up. I’ve been flying more than 4 hours every day, and with no practice at all before it’s very hard on the body. I had to let the main gaggle go at 40 km from goal, and just slowed down in the thermals and on glide to I could relax a little and make it back home. I did the final glide with Balaz and Atilla, but could not beat them to goal even if I had a better height. I had enough controlling the gliders with cramping shoulders and back. I got in at 24. place. Jon did very well with 8. place, and Olav at 17. Nils struggled, and had to land 30 km before goal.
The final day I went for a massage in the morning to loosen up a very stiff upper body. It helped a lot and I felt pretty good in the back, but my left shoulder was still very sore. We got a “short” task of 127km out&return, in what looked to be similar conditions to the day before, this time to the south with a head/cross wind on the return leg. I was among the last to tow up, as most people went very early, and joined up with Steve Moyes and Olli at the start circle. The air was very rough, with blue conditions and some very strong cores punching through the inversion. We got up to 2900 meters, and glided towards the south in two main gaggles. I went with the right gaggle, as it was the smaller one, and had Oleg on top of it. I took it very easy, and let everyone fly in front to save my shoulder that was starting to cramp up again in the rough air.
At the TP the gaggles split up even more, and I had a few small gaggles in front marking lift so it was easy to stay high and find good lines pushing into the wind going back home. At 30 km out, and at 2800 meters I started an optimistic final glide. With the headwind I would probably need more lift than sink to make it in. Boy did I find lift… I could not get down, flying as fast as I dared and could, I still passed the goal line at 1600 meters. Olav came in just behind me and had the same experience, while Jon and Gerolf had the opposite and hit the massive sink that were around the lift. They decked it 8 km out from goal. Nils Åge had taken an earlier start and got in on 24. place, me on 25, Olav 31. Andreas won the day. Jon Jr. won the comp, Robert Reisinger on second, Oleg third.
Total results at http://www.moyes.com.au/Forbes2007/Total.htm
All in all the flying in Forbes was very good, and despite one bad day I’m happy with the results. We’re now in Mt. Beauty for the Bogong cup, here’s quite a lot of smoke in the air from bushfires, and it seems to overdevelop today.
I’ll try to upload more pictures later.
Oz 2007, Forbes, task 4
Another long task, 237km dogleg. I had two weaklink brakes, the second at 100 meters, but I hooked on to the thermal that came off the towing strip and managed to climb out. From there it was slow in the beginning and better and better during the day. I took the first start gate as I had dropped out of the top 30, and the lead gaggle caught us 50 km before the first TP. From there I stayed with the lead gaggle all the way to Goal. I came in as number 7 or 8 across the goal line, but since I have 15 minutes slower time I guess I’m around 15. place. Olav also made it quiickly, while Nils was unlucky and landed just after the start circle, and Jon 47km before the first TP. Gerolf won the day. We were not home until 0:30, now sleep. There’s rumours about a 300km task tomorrow…