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The Oz Report Volume 5, Number 149 US
Nationals Bo moves into first place The current US National Champion moves up into first place from third after his go first and go alone strategy pays off in a big way. He gets a little less than 1000 points and pulls ahead of Paris by 24 points. The task committee commits to an 80-mile triangle with a forecast of light winds, but agrees to a secondary task of 104 miles. This gives Steve Burns the opening that he's looking for. He quickly turns the secondary task into the primary if we spot clouds around noon. Gary is not sure that there will be clouds. I'm looking at the same models as he is and they say clouds to me. The cu's start popping, a little bit, at noon, and Steve just can't be held back. He wants a 100-mile triangle to show off the great air here in Texas. We rigids have to go clockwise (I let the flex wing pilots in the task committee choose whatever way they wanted), and the flex wing guys go the other way. A hundred-mile triangle is nothing to sneeze at and it looks like the rigid wing pilots are sitting pretty because they get to go first. The days close down at 6 PM here (due to the sea breeze from the Gulf), except along the river to the west, so its a good idea to get going soon. Now this is written after the fact, and at noon, the cu's are very sparse, so it doesn't look all that good right then. Again I launch early at 12:15, an hour and fifteen minutes before the last rigid start gate, break a weaklink at 1,500', make a couple of low saves over the airport at 600', and climb up to over 5,500'. While the rigid wing pilots are launching early, the flex wing pilots wise up and realize that they should lobby for a few early start gates, like at 1:15 and 1:30, instead of having to wait until 1:45. I mean this is a long task we've got to complete. Steve agrees, and the flex wing pilots are suddenly in a big hurry to get going. Most of the rigids are off fairly quickly, so there are the resources to get the flexies in the air. Once in the air, the clouds are forming and things are looking a lot better. In fact it looks so good that there doesn't seem to be any reason not to go at the first start gate at 1 PM. Bruce Barmakian was able to beat me yesterday and got early bird points. I don't want that to happen again. Turns out a bunch of us, not including the two Swifts, get going at 1, so there are a few folks to mingle with for the first few miles. There are plenty of clouds on the course toward the Marlin airport to the east of town, so there isn't any great need for thermal markers. At 1:15 Bo gets the start gate on the other leg heading toward Marquez. The winds are out of the southwest so the flex wings should have a fast first leg. We're not doing too bad on our first leg to the north northwest. There is plenty of lift, as well as the accompanying sink. I see Bruce at the first turnpoint after losing him earlier, just as I run into 1000 fpm to 6,600'. Bruce doesn't come over and it is goodbye Bruce.
With the winds out of the southwest at about 15 mph (stronger lower), I drift off to the north on the second leg heading east to Marquez. About half way through the leg there's Bo, out in front running fast by himself. Looks like there will be flexible thermal markers ahead, and indeed there are. Very quickly I see the next twenty flex wings 5 or so miles behind. As I come into the second turnpoint at Marquez, I spy Robin Hamilton behind me. I'll just bet that he started 30 minutes after me. I was assuming that he and Brian would catch up, and I'm hoping to get a bit of help from them this far into the course. It's been a bit slow on this second leg. The third leg looks the toughest as now we are heading straight into a head wind. I catch lift at the second turnpoint and drift back down the highway as I climb out. The forecast calls for lighter winds aloft and lighter winds in general in the afternoon above 1,500'. I'm hoping that starts happening. Mark Poustinchian who also started at 1 PM, catches me a few miles past the second turnpoint. I can see flex wings on the ground below. Robin is passed us and as we climb out under some nice clouds I see him getting up a few miles ahead. There are plenty of good-looking clouds ahead for us. I race to Robin, but don't find anything under him. While Bo has started early, other pilots took later start gates. Paris took the 1:45 PM start gate. This would have normally been the first flex wing start gate. The day still looks good, but what will happen. Will the winds pick up on the surface as the windcast states? After missing the lift under Robin, I drive forward getting under more clouds trying to find something. Finally I'm down to less than 1,300' AGL over some chicken farms where I spot a dozen vultures low but circling. I'm hoping that there isn't a dead cow in the vicinity. The lift is very marginal with the vultures, but it isn't going down, so I stick with it. After a few turns I'm going up at 50 fpm. I can see some other vultures going up faster behind me, but I'm not high enough to risk going to them. I keep working until I get up enough to take the chance. Mark Poustinchian comes and joins me at this point and we both climb out and get back on track toward goal. Robin and a half-hour later Brian will get there first. After the low save it is a piece of cake getting to Hearne with lots of clouds to mark the way. Mark stays really high as he landed out the last two days. I get into goal after the two Swifts and I'm stinking high also. There was just no sink for the last fifteen miles. Bo will arrive within about half an hour. A few rigids will dribble in, but it is very quiet at the goal line. Not only that, but it is getting late and the day is dying early. The clouds are quickly disappearing. It is a long time after Bo before the next flex wings start appearing Glen Volk will come it from the west instead of the north-northwest as he'll veer way off to the right of the course line to get under some clouds by the river. Terry Presley will get in before Glen going the same route. Next come Sandy Dittmar, Jerz Rossignol and Mark Bolt. That's all who will make it to goal from the flex wing crowd. Paris will land closest to goal, 2 miles out in a big field overgrown with sunflowers. Bo wins two days in a row without ever winning a day previously in a meet. The current national champion will jump into the lead. The results are up on the Austin Airsports web site (http://www.austinairsports.com/). US
Nationals Robin is the new bully on the block And us first graders are so happy to see the old bully get licked, every day. Robin Hamilton is flying his Swift and he is just clobbering Brian Porter. Nothing against Brian, but those of us who have been continually clobbered by him are quite happy to see him get his comeuppance. On this first day I ran away from Brian and he was on his own to find the goal. He got lost going to the wrong goal without anyone to help him. The next day, and every day thereafter Brian has tried unsuccessfully to hang with Robin. Robin has employed a different strategy every day to shake Brian. Yesterday Brian was tracking Robin before the start gate when Robin went off on a completely different direction. Brian got on the radio to ask Robin where he was going. Robin pretended that he had radio problems and hid on the other side of a cloud. On the second day Brian and Robin flew together for the first two legs. After the second turnpoint Brian was 500' over Robin. Robin knew that if they just continued under the cloud street to goal that Brian would win. He decided to take a sharp turn to the left and get under a cloud street quite a ways away. He got there, got low, and then started climbing. Sure enough there was Brian coming in under him as he got up. With real competition from an experienced flex wing pilot flying a comparable craft Brian would be crazy to continue to pimp off us slow rigid wing hang gliders. This makes the flying much more enjoyable for us. Robin pushes it a lot more than Brian ever would and is taking quite a few chances to go fast. He gets low, but he gets back up. He's using all the skills that he learned as a flex wing pilot to do well. Brian who by circumstances learned to pimp off others because there was really no other winning strategy given the circumstances, has no winning strategy to fall back on. Please don't see this as a personal attack on Brian. He really had no other choice than to do what he did when he was just flying against us. Anyone in his position would have taken the conservative winning strategy of pimping off your inferiors. So this is not Brian's personal defect. None-the-less we are so happy to see things turned upside down. There is a real competition going on and Brian has to adjust to a new world. There is a second competition going on among us rigid wing hang gliders and it is good to see that Robin and Brian aren't really a part of that competition, but have their own. US
Nationals Two new world records Both Robin Hamilton and I set new world records for speed around the 150 kilometer triangle. There was no existing record, so our times set the new records. CIVL has proclaimed that caged glider records will be moved into Class IV, so I am making the assumption that both records will stand as Class IV and Class II records. At the moment this is still an assumption. Robin flew the course at about 35-mph. I did the task averaging about 24 mph.
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/Ozv5n149.htm. Davis Straub | |
