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The Oz Report Volume 6, Number 80 Wallaby
Open – death gaggles and stop times We are in a very stable weather pattern with light winds out of the east southeast and lots of moisture in the air (and on the ground). Lift is for the most part pretty light and cloudbase is low. This makes for interesting and difficult tasks. The forecast calls for convergence on the western side of the state with a trough forming right along the west coast in the late afternoon. I advise the other members of the task committee that we probably want to stay away from the west as the convergence will probably be just too much for us. The rain chance is 30 percent, a little less than the day before, and scheduled for the late afternoon. We on the task committee call a Wallaby Ranch friendly
task, a bit longer than the day before – 65 miles. The idea is go north to
Quest Air flight park (Sheets) back to highway 27 and 192, the road that
goes to Disney. This gets us up on the
With an east wind predicted this gives us an out and return task that should be mostly cross wind, although some forecasts show a bit of a southerly wind component also. Coming back over the Ranch will give all the kind folks who are volunteering to help out with the meet a chance to see the competitors in action. Given the shaky weather conditions we are again out
early for an At the last minute we agree to stop the day at
With seventeen tugs and trikes there are the resources
here to get every one in the air in a very big hurray. Rhett Radford was
instrumental in getting the two Rhett Radford put Robin Hamilton’s Swift back together last night so he’s ready to take on Brian Porter (who got a score for the first day) in Class 2. Robin was hoping he could carry his time from flying his Laminar into Class 2, but no go. Jim Lamb got a borrowed ATOS to fly from Jaime Ruiz. Mike Z is still working on his broken keel. With the I slowly climb out and now it is a question of whether
to get the start time late or wait for the I’ll get to see a lot of the race today as I now have the opportunity for a whole lot of gaggle hoping. Unfortunately the first gaggle is going to be the stragglers and you’ve got to be very careful. Use them for lift markers, but ignore what they are doing. With cloud base at about 3,600’ it is a slow slog up to Quest for most of the pilots. With the lift averaging 300 fpm I find Adam Parer in an Airborne Climax a bit north of the Seminole Lake glider port and we work into 400 fpm to 4,200’. The day is looking good. There is no over development and the winds are light. Just to our north there are half a dozen gliders working weak lift right over highway 33 and they are down low. I slide off to the left downwind a bit to the west of 33 under the clouds and get the rewards that such a move so justly deserves, 500 fpm to 4,100’. There’s a gaggle over Quest and it is a quick glide from a commanding altitude to get to it after making the turnpoint. I’m on a mission to make up for the 15 minute handicap I have made for myself. The leading gaggles are a great help in this quest. I average 27 mph getting the Quest. No one is waiting around in puny lift and we are hard charging to the south east toward the intersection of highway 27 and 192. We over the low swamp lands and sand mines, but our goal is the ridge. We’ve got a bit of a head wind, and broken lift that’s averaging 350 fpm. While it takes 48 minutes to cover the 22 miles to Quest from the Ranch, it takes 42 minutes to cover the mere 16 miles to the intersection and my average speed is down to 23 mph. I come in under the main lead gaggle half way to the
intersection, but it proves hard to climb up through them. Everyone is
pushing to get to goal before the clock runs out. We get high just before
the turnpoint and now it is a race down the ridge to the south turnpoint
at To the south we can see a big cell dumping hard on the
swamp to the east of Time is now getting very short. Everyone is thinking about getting as far as possible before the time runs out. We are all bunched up so it is quite a squadron that passes by Wallaby and gives the folks there a thrill. The storm to our east is adding a bit of texture to the
air and suddenly the climb rates get quite strong. I come in low at the
mid I’m thinking that the rigid wings should be out in front but they seem to be mixed in with the rest of the gliders. I guess the gravitational influences of the flex wing gaggle just held them back. Too bad. With ten minutes left we are all racing toward the
turnpoint or just racing back from it. There is so much lift that you just
have to ignore it and know that you are going to stay up as much as you
need until
Making the turnpoint at
Manfred and Alex Ploner (Italian, Ladino) are out in
front and racing. There must be thirty gliders just behind them and the
pilots all know that the goal is not obtainable. If we (or I) had only
said Some pilots are racing to the ground and others decide that a mile or two isn’t worth not making it back to the Ranch. There is plenty of lift so you can fly straight and fast toward the Ranch and still make good distance before the bell tolls. Manfred gets a better line and gets ahead of Alex. He is 47 seconds too late coming into goal with Alex half a minute behind him. Manfred dives in, pulls up after the goal line, skims across the top of the dinner tent, dives back down and lands with a no stepper on the goal (or former goal) line to the great applause of all the volunteers at the Ranch. Everyone is vectoring into the Ranch no matter where
they were before In the morning you should be able to find the latest scores at: http://www.elltel.net/peterandlinda/Wallaby_Open_2002/Wallaby.htm There seems to be a problem scoring this type of task with a stop time. We’ll see how Peter Gray does it tonight (maybe all night) with Compe-GPS. GAP 2002 gives folks who only make it half way as many departure points as the fastest pilots. This seems a bit odd to say the least (although who really cares). Yesterday The four fastest elapsed times yesterday were the Icaro Stratos (with the AIR control frame), two ATOS-C’s, and an ATOS-C prototype. (Bruce Barmekian is also flying an ATOS, not a Stalker.) Gerolf Heinrichs won the day in Class 1 one second in front of Oleg covering the task 5 minutes faster than Manfred who flew on his own in front. Manfred was third with his early leading bonus points even though he was slower than all but two of the top ten pilots. Jersey Rossignol was the top American finisher with
Paris and Mike Barber right behind him. Paris and Mike took the third
start time (like we did most often in
Nancy
Smith crashes Nancy Smith came into land in a field that looked good from above but turned out to be full of fences and other obstacles. Just before she ran head on into a telephone pole she flared hard driving her keel into the ground, but wrapping herself and the glider around the poll. She suffered two broken ribs, broken collar bone, and broken femur. She’s in the hospital tonight.
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/Ozv6n80.htm/. Davis Straub |
