Competitions, New gear

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.

Competitions

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.
.

Competitions

Oz 2007, Forbes finished

2 Comments

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.

Competitions

Oz 2007, Forbes, task 4

2 Comments

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…

Competitions

Oz 2007, Forbes, task 3

Two days ago was the best day I’ve seen in a long time, perfect cu’s, low winds and high cloudbase. As I wrote before we did not fly because of the accident the day before. See the Ozreport and other blogs for more speculations about the accident, but beware that there’s a lot of rumors and inaccurate information out there. We do not have all the facts, and everyone seems to love to speculate. I’ve seen the pictures of the failed bridles and hangloops, the main hangloop failed just above the harness slider, the parachute bridle was intact, so something in the attachment to the harness broke. Check your harness for wear and tear as normal, if everything looks good you should be safe. If it’s very old or worn you should replace it.

Yesterday we got a 179 km dogleg task. We were a little slow getting going because of strong winds at launch. I got 100 meters and then Grant on the trike hit a thermal that left me no chance to save the weaklink. I tried to take the thermal, and drifted back and over the airstrip, but I had to glide back as I drifted too much. That put me in a very bad position as I was among the top 30 and had to take the race start at 14:30. I was now one hour behind the rest of the pack, alone, and just had to fly very conservatively under the thickening cirrus. I eventually got to goal after 4 hours in the air, but I was heavily penalized and dropped 11 places in the overall scores. Feels quite unfair, as there was nothing I could do to to avoid it. No one would be able to hang on in that air.

Jon did a great flight and came in at 4. place. Olav and Nils had good flights too. Easy retrieves with everyone in goal, but still we are not home until 23:00.

Today the front came through, with wind and rain. Probably no flying.

Results.

Hanggliding

Oz 2007, Forbes, task 1 and 2

1 Comment

First day was gray in the morning after a huge storm system with lots of rain had gone through the day before. It had not rained here for 6 months, and now it came with the pilots as usual… The first task was 157km straight to goal with a medium to strong tailwind. Total chaos at the tow paddoc, with no order even if we were supposed to launch in seeded order. I had a lot of stress trying to fix some instrument problems, and got at the end of the line even if I was ready long before others seeded after me. I got up withouth much drama, and took a late start time. As the GPS portion of my Compeo did not work I had no idea where to go, or where goal was, so I just had to follow some other pilots. All of those pilots landed before 100 km, so I had to follow the same line and just look for the goal fileld. I knew my backup GPS inside the harness was on and logging, so I would get scored if I could just find the goal.

I got lucky and saw a glimt of a glider turning low, and flew crosswind to find goal. All of the Norwegians made it in, with Jon first, then me, Nils and Olav. Dave Sieb won the day.

Today looked very god, and we got a 234km task via one TP. I was seeded in the top 30 after yesterday, and had to take the second launch for a Race task with the other top 30 pilots. Olav and me took the start together, and Jon was just behind us and much lower. He had to land soon after. I stayed in the gaggle, until around 150 km out, where I took a more westerly line towards some good looking cloudstreets. That did not work as well as I had hoped, and Olav who stayed on course got a better run to goal. The final glide was very tough as I was alone from 80 km out, and hit shitloads of sink from 40 km. I had to drift along in weak lift for a long time before getting back up to a 10/1 glide for safety to goal. Olav came in before me and Nils behind, don’t know the scores yet, Nils may have beaten us because of later start time. Around 50 pilots in goal, Robert Reisinger was first.

It’s the longest flight in km I ever did, and my back, shoulders and arms are now hurting seriously. It was quite turbulent air, and I’m not used to the glider yet so I use a lot of force to get it going where I want.

Unfortunately we might get a rest day tomorrow as we had a fatal accident again today. One pilot freefall from 2000 meters as his harness was somehow disconnected or broke free from the glider, and the parachute broke free from the harness on deployment from freefall. We do not know much more, both me and Olav saw it happen from the air as we were gliding from the start circle.

More info as we get it, it’s almost 02:00 here from the long drive home.

Hanggliding

Oz 2007, Forbes

3 Comments

After spending a very nice vacation on the coast at the Moyes beach house Georgia and I returned to Sydney to start preparing for the competitions. We had planned to get a big car since we are 4 pilots and driver, and I had reserved a Landcruiser that would be the ideal hanggliding car with racks and roo-bar. Unfortunately the reservation did not work out, and I had to get on the net and find a new car to rent. It turned out to be difficult as all rental companies were empty for the bigger 4WD cars during the holidays. I finally got a Subaru Forester, and picked it up in Sydney.

Nils and Olav arrived on the morning of the 28. and we picked them up at the airport before heading to the factory to arrange gliders, roofracks, and all the stuff needed. We then drove up to Manilla, as we heard the weather was good up there. Michi and Gerolf had been doing some big triangles from Manilla, and Michi did a 300+ km triangle on the first day we were there.

The weather turned bad the next day, and we got the message there would be towing in Forbes, so we drove south again arriving in Forbes on the 30. We will spend the days and hopefully get some practice here before the comp start. It’s a lot of small things that need to be fixed and put in place before the flying, headsets and radios are always a hassle, new instrument pods need to be adjusted, and so on, so it was good to have some time in the morning. Here’s Nils Aage fixing up his headset.
Nils headset

Yesterday we got a few tows in the afternoon, it was overcast and calm – good conditions to testfly the gliders. The new-years eve party at the hotel was very nice and lasted until late, so none of us were keen to fly today.

Michi and Dave Sieb mucking around in the bar.
Michi and Dave

It was nice in the morning, but we got some overdevelopment and it was gusty at the airport. One dragonfly was turned upside down on landing in a gust, the pilot was OK but the plane needs some repairs…

Jon’s very green glider.
Jon Green

Olav, Jon and me got the new Litespeed RS4, while Nils Aage had shipped his old Litespeed S from Texas to Australia. There’s a lot of changes to the RS compared to the S. Most noticeable is the new sailcut and larger frame. My glider is a size 4, it have the same frame as the previous size 5. That gives more wingspan, and a leaner sailcut. The sail is smoke inlaid, and has a lot more double surface than before. My RS4 have a lot of carbon on it with both inner and outer leading edge tubes as carbon fibre, as well as the sprogs and most of the battens. I only got two test flights on it, but first impressions are very good. All the pilots I’ve talked to have been very positive about the new glider, looks like another winner. I’m really looking forward to flying this one.

Me on landing after the first flight.
RS 4

Looking at the settings.
Justering

Olav landing.
Olav lander

I got a new Skyline Zero Drag Full Race harness just before I went to Australia. The harness feels very nice, with lots of nice details, and looks just right. Here’s me hanging around on the hotel veranda, I need to get smaller heels on my shoes as they are sticking up a little.
Skyline ZDFR

Weather is a bit unstable, it’s not been any rain here this year, but as soon as the hangglider pilots come into town it starts pouring down. Should be very good post-frontal conditions though. I hope we can get a good flight tomorrow.

Non flying

In Sydney

1 Comment

In Sydney, jetlagged and a little hungover from the Moyes christmas party yesterday. Nice to be back here again, even if the weather is not very nice at the moment with rain and wind. Georgia and me will be tourists for the next weeks, before the comps start.

Blog, pictures, videos, and articles from my flying adventures aound the world. Content in English.