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The Oz Report Volume 5, Number 152 US
Nationals – The party's over First last year at the Lone Star Championships we had seven days of great flying and strong conditions. Then this year, seven days in a row of pretty darn good to absolutely incredible conditions. It would suggest that this is a record for a single flying site in the US. Two years in a row of completely valid meets. I would suggest that this marks Hearne, Texas as the premier US site to hold national hang gliding contests. Not only has the weather been good throughout both meets, but the air has been incredibly pleasant to fly in. This as compared with Florida, which because of the drought over the last two years has been a bit rougher than we'd like. Now, you know I'm pulling your leg a bit here, as Florida has some of the nicest air in the northern hemisphere, but still east Texas has definitely been the more pleasurable site for the last two years. (It's been raining quite a bit lately in Florida, so maybe the air will be back to its soft puffy self this coming fall and spring.) Pilots who haven't come down to Hearne for these last two meets should be kicking themselves. European pilots who think of Texas as a real foreign country, but like Florida, should really think about coming here to fly in super conditions. It's pretty clear that the last two years with the WRE and the Lone Star meets, Texas is now on the hang gliding map. More than just a few people know that there is some incredibly nice hang gliding flying to be had here, and some of those folks are taking advantage of the opportunity to come here. The awards dinner/party took place tonight. You wouldn't believe how many people helped out putting on the nationals. It seems like there is one helper, organizer, tug pilot, scorekeeper, etc. for every pilot who flies in the meet. We really do appreciate all their good work and hope that they are enjoying themselves as much as we are. This doesn't include all the personal pilot support crew, which really puts the support personnel numbers way over the number of pilots. I think that we should encourage Steve and Gaye at Austin AirSports to put on another US Nationals next year and go all out to encourage foreign pilots to come on by on their way to the pre-Worlds in Brazil. They'll get the best opportunities to check out flat land flying in the northern and southern hemispheres. Last year there were five rigid wing gliders here. This year there were twenty-two. The rigid wings, which represented one fourth of the total number of gliders, flew one third of the total miles. While the Swifts dominated the meet, the rigid wings dominated the flex wings when doing the same task. Class I:
Class II:
The final results are up on the Austin Airports web site (http://www.austinairsports.com/). A few odd and funny asides: Steve Burns kept putting his cowboy boots in his mouth during the awards ceremony and we all had a great time laughing along with him. He introduced Bruce Barmakian as the guy who was flying that not quite up-to-snuff equipment in the Florida meets, then proceeded to dig himself in even deeper. Gerolf in his acceptance speech admitted as how the Laminar was doing very well this year, as though a pilot who out flew him hadn't just beaten him. I guess coming in second to Manfred at the Worlds and second to Paris at the US Nationals has to hurt. Gerolf is a very emotional guy, which is often a great thing, but he did throw what were described as temper tantrums during a couple of launch periods during the week. We all appreciate Gerolf's great contribution to our sport, so we are always willing to overlook a bit (ok, more than a bit) of bad behavior. Paris was genuinely very excited to win the US National Championships. He said that he has been working for four years to win this meet, and he certainly flew superbly. We all appreciate his good behavior. Apparently every day Brian told Robin that he, Brian, was going to be the Class II National Champion so it didn't matter that Robin would beat him every day. Also, Brian's Swift has a dangerous flutter problem (not true of Robin's). Apparently wear has loosened the spar mechanism near the back, allowing it to move up and down, and effecting the control mechanism very adversely. Witnesses indicate that it looks like he is going to explode the wing when he flies it fast into goal. I'm sure that interested parties will want to contact eyewitnesses, for example, Gary Osoba.
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/Ozv5n152.htm. Davis Straub | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||