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The Oz Report Volume 6, Number 86 Flytec
Championship – the sea breeze The weather forecast calls for west winds at 10 mph, no
cu’s, moderate lift. The task committee wrangles over a 66 mile task down
to the south to the This will put us in an area of weak lift at the
We push back the start times given the prognosis of
weak lift and no cu’s early assuming that pilots will not be eager to
launch while things look weak. Then at The cu’s build and spread and within an hour there are
cu’s every where. They aren’t getting high, but they are definitely there.
This is plenty of encouragement and pilots are talking about starting at
the first start time, Mike Barber calls Patty on the west coast and finds out
that the sea breeze hasn’t started by Pilots are eager to go and we get a lot of pilots in the air quickly. With the strong winds out of the west, its pretty easy to get under a cloud on the west side and climb up. The lift is light to the west of Quest and strong downwind to the east. A couple of flex wing pilots head almost straight
upwind toward the We’re thinking about the earliest start time (
The track log shows me circling and drifting to the east to get into the 4 mile radius start circle just in time.
The altitude graph shows me topping out at Alex Ploner, Johann Posch, Christian Ciech and I take
the Christian comes in under me at the intersection of 474
and 33 as I enter a gaggle with the earlier rigid wings and Christian and I climb at 200 fpm to 3,800’ and go on glide. Hmmm! Unlike the previous day, now I’m gliding right with him. It sure looks like my misaligned tail was causing the problems. I will go on two more four mile glides with him, and I find myself now able to glide with him. John Vernon will be sending a new fin for the T-tail that will allow the tail to make a -1 degree angle with the mean chord line, instead of -6. Should be here on Wednesday. We’ll try the tail again then. Christian gets me on the fourth climb and gets a few hundred feet over my head. We have completely caught up with all the pilots in front of us. The run south down highway 33 has been consistently good with climb rates at about 400 fpm, and our top out heights rising.
We climb out south of I-4, 5 miles out from the turnpoint at Winter Haven to 4,400’ and go on glide due south hoping to come up on the airport from the west. There are about a dozen gliders in this first gaggle. Christian is on top heading more toward the turnpoint. A number of rigids are heading with me and the flexies to the south. We are surrounded by lakes, so we are looking for areas of dry land that are continuous to the west, hoping that the cloud streets are setting up over the land. It doesn’t happen and by the time we are all at the airport turnpoint we are down to 2,300’. This is in an area of weak lift so things look bad. It is at this point that I make a crucial error, but the gaggle doesn’t. I head back to the northwest to get on the west side of a small lake. The gaggle heads straight north downwind of me. The error – don’t try to go upwind when you are relatively low, find lift first. I choose to ignore the gaggle, also not a good idea when you are relatively low, and then ignore them again when I see them start turning, thinking I can find my own lift. I don’t and soon land. The gaggle continues north toward I 4 and back toward 33. Meanwhile back at Quest Air, the sea breeze has kicked in and the wind has increased to 15 mph on the ground. All the clouds are wiped away in the area near the flight park. We don’t see this yet further to the south. As the pilots move north, it becomes clear that the clouds that they are flying under are ending to their north. Some pilots drift east toward Wallaby Ranch to stay under the clouds. Others venture out in the blue to find weak lift. We made the turnpoint at about Other pilots will dribble into Quest working their way slowly through the blue. The rigid results so far: Today – Ciech, Mario, Ron, Heiner (make goal). We will see Johann land about one mile due east of goal. Cumulative - Christian, Mario, Ron, Alex The flex results so far: Today – Cumulative – Oleg, Paris, Hazlett, Hamilton, Wirdham, Wolf, Warren, Reisinger, Olsson Not quite 25 percent into goal. David Glover is remiss in not putting up preliminary results on the http://www.flytec.com/ web site. They should be up some time tomorrow. Day one finish position by Class: Flex, Rigid, Swift Warren, Ciech, Porter Class 2
just got more interesting Manfred on his third Swift flight scored in the nine hundreds today, coming in ahead of Brian by 45 minutes (both start at the same time). Brian in the 600’s. The cumulative after two days Manfred – 1917, Brian - 1580. I haven’t found any scores on http://www.flytec.com/.
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/Ozv6n86.htm/. Davis Straub |
