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The Oz Report Volume 5, Number 150 US
Nationals – Did I say that we were having fun? This has been a great meet so far. Really fun flying, great tasks, hard racing, long tasks for strategy, and today even more excitement. The weather has been the big "If" at this meet. Would it be possible to get a task off, or would it over develop, or would there be so many high clouds that there wouldn't be any heating at all? We could see from the radar graphs that the storms were just a bit to the north and west. Would they get to Hearne? Would the sea breeze convergence kick off another area of too much instability? Give all the uncertainties the task committee calls a 55-mile out and return. To all my European readers, this is called a short task. J They don't have a turnpoint to the east, so we pull one off the map. Sure is great to do this all virtually off the GPS. We are going east to keep away from the OD to the north. We don't go south because that would mean that the return leg would be down wind. The task committee always wants the last leg to be the most difficult. A short task is called because it looks like it will OD later in the day. But, we've got to get enough lift earlier to get up and on course, so there is a narrow window of opportunity. The rigids and the flex wings will fly together and have the same start times. This keeps the early bird points fair. It means that there is a bigger impact on the tug/trike resources at launch time as we are all going together. The first start times are 1:15 and 1:30, but the lift isn't there early. Four rigid wings stay in the air but climb very slowly, everyone else comes down. Pilots are reluctant to launch in the poor lift conditions. The start gate times get pushed back twice, finally to 2:30 and 2:45 PM. I launch the second time at 1:15 and that gets pilots going. Still it is a slog, finding lift at 900' AGL and working 50 fpm until it finally gets good. All the tugs drag pilots over to my pitiful little thermal. The high stuff goes away and we have lots of cumulus clouds as the day progresses. We're climbing up to 5,200'. Lift gets plentiful and we are so happy that the day wasn't called earlier when the lift looked poor. Six miles east of the airport we hang in light lift near cloud base waiting for the start times. Only a few pilots take the 2:30 PM start time as we go through a lull and lose 1,000' just before this first start time. The opposite happens just before 2:45 PM and we are at 5,600' AGL when the last start gate opens at 2:45. All the flexes and rigids are together so we are really mixing it up. Even the ultralight sailplanes are there. With a few pilots out on the course and flashing their colors as we head out, we are in racing mode and ready for action. Brian and Robin race out in front high. They will fly the whole course together. Everyone is moving very quickly and not stopping for poor lift. Soon all the rigid wing hang gliders are out in front (not counting Robin and Brian who are really out in front). We are all tightly bunched together and gliding for long distances together. The performances seem pretty similar. Reggie Jones is just in front (and he wanted me to mention that he does make goal, and that Ghostbusters do get to goal – sometimes J). I mentioned to Reggie that I had taken out ten pounds of ballast. I had taken it out earlier in the morning when I was doing some flying for a pilot film (more about this later). This may have reduced my glide speed a little. Reggie kept his non deployable ballast in his harness. J Johann was gliding quite fast with his new ATOS-C. We found a strong thermal just a mile and a half from the turnpoint and clumped together. The flexies were far below in the same thermal. Mark Poustinchian who took the early start gate was coming back from the turnpoint. The Swifts were getting by far the best performance, then many of the rigid wing hang gliders were ahead of the flexes. This was a task that really selected for performance as it was easy to race and find lift. We hit the turnpoint after a fast climb and then began the crosswind task back to Hearne. The winds were out of the south at about 5 to 10 mph, so it was no big deal to work with the crosswind. To our north a cu nimb or two or three had formed while we were out on course. It was quite dark just a few miles to our north, but I didn't see any rain and there was no lightning or thunder. It looked safe, but you sure wanted to get back quickly and stay away from the shadowed areas. It was a fast race back to the goal under lots of clouds that were starting to get vertical. Still plenty of sun while the rigids were getting back but it was getting iffy after us. Robin and Brian into goal first, Mark Poustinchian, myself, and then Bruce Barmakian who also started at 2:30 PM like Mark. Ten minutes later the lead gaggle of flex wings came across the line with Gerolf in the lead and Jim Lee very close behind. Paris was a gaggle behind and Bo didn't make it to goal, as the clouds thickened up and the lift stopped. Ooh, the contest is getting very interesting as the top spots in the flex wing category are getting very close together. This is a real competition with a number of pilots with a legitimate shot at winning the meet. It takes me 1 hour and forty-five minutes to complete the 49-mile task. It takes 45 minutes to fly the 22 miles from the circumference of the start circle to the turnpoint (29-mph) with average lift while circling at 393 fpm. It takes 1 hour to fly the 27 miles back to goal. We've got one more day of flying. If not tomorrow then Saturday – eight days to get seven. As I write this, the "infirmary" next door is having a full-fledged party. The "Wallaby Ranch" pilots are renamed to Gimpy (Carlos), Ichy (Curt), Stumpy (Sugarman), and Chimpy (Pete). Valerie is in charge. Speaking of Curt, he had a spectacular goal crossing coming into a strong head wind low over the pilot's trailers and airport building and just making goal. Jamie Sheldon bonked herself on landing out 6 miles from goal. She was a little loopy when we got to her about an hour later. We had JZ take her to the hospital for a check up. The only damage to the glider was a whack tube that she took out when she turtled the Exxtacy. Bruce and I packed it up and wheeled it out of the huge, well manicured field. The results are up on the Austin Airports web site (http://www.austinairsports.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/Ozv5n150.htm. Davis Straub | |
