Day 2-3 - 3 July 2008

Good Evening Race Fans:

Well, we’ve got ourselves a race going here in Northern California. We’ve gotten in three out of the first three days and are looking at flyable weather the rest of the next 7 days. The CD, Gary Kemp, told us today that he would evaluate the need for a rest day based on the look in our eyes.” Might we have a 10 day contest?

The weather forecast for the foreseeable future… Incredibly smoky soaring conditions with a chance of spatial disorientation. Seriously, last night’s social and this morning’s pilots meeting were filled with tales of spatial disorientation, incipient spins, and just flat out scary conditions. Only the very professional conduct and very high skills of all the pilots so far has prevented anything other than concern over the situation. We are all here to race and that’s what we intend to do.

With a major fire burning just to our west at Happy Camp, it looks like the western part of the local task area (Scott Valley area and ‘The Marbles’ mountain range) will remain problematic. The days are dawning with flecks of ash on my truck’s hood, somewhat clear skies, but then rapidly going to smokier and smokier conditions as the task opens up about 2:30 pm and then getting worse as the afternoon goes on.

For a pilot like me flying his first contest here (and in a new-to-me glider to boot), it’s been like trying to race/navigate in a foggy phone booth when going even a little bit west into the start area (Gunsite Start). This is a terribly technical place to fly fast in and it is super difficult when you can’t see the clouds and terrain more than 2-4 miles ahead of you. Especially in a 30/1 glider like the Sparrowhawk, if you want to make a big jump into a new soaring area over these wide valleys, you need to have some visual assurance that there is lift working where you are going before you make a major strategic move.

The visibilty to the east of the airport (Butte Valley area) have been better. However, this better visibility has not prevented many a pilot from either landing out or being caught very low and having to laboriously dig oneself out of deep trouble in this eastern part of the tasking area.

We’ve got a cooling period for today and tomorrow (July 4th) with highs going from the mid 90’s to 90 to a forecast high of only 83 here in Yreka tomorrow. The temps should begin to cook back into the mid to upper 90’s by Sunday and Next Monday. Odds are this will improve the soaring – but also stoke the fires.

Steve Northcraft (SN) has won the first two days and is really showing his knowledge of the site gained by racing here over many years. Day Three results are not up yet, and all results are going to be tweaked a little bit as the handicaps have not been adjusted for over/underweight competitors.

I’ll just give you a little feeling for how I’ve seen the days play out:

Day One 3 hour MAT, Gunsite Start, China Start TP, Medicine Lake…
This is an odd contest in that the center of the start cylinder we are using (Gunsite Start) is about a 17 mile “commute” (in the words of one pilot) from the Siskiyou County airport.

The release area is on top of Craggy Ridge. There you can expect to get to between 6-8+ thousand MSL before the start opens. It is then up to you to pick your way over to the start cylinder and then get up over the higher mountains and ridges to the west of Yreka.

The release area seems to have very pronounced cycling and it is not uncommon to have to hang out on the ridgetop for quite some time before getting enough height to get over into the start cylinder. So far this initial climb and transition has been pretty kind to me in the little yellow glider.

The pattern that held true on this day has held true the next two days: Everyone out of the cylinder in good shape at the top of the cyclinder (10,000 feet Msl for this contest so far), pretty decent runs to the China Start TP on the ridges at China Mtn., then get a good climb here to set you up for the rest of the day. Then the decisions…

This day (and the next) a LOOOONG glide across the Shasta Valley in the lee of the mighty giant Mt. Shasta (14,000+feet msl) ensued, hope to hook into a climb at Deer Mtn or Whaleback Mtn, and then off to the next (and last) mandatory TP. This day saw altitudes of up to 12-13K being achieved at China, then glide over into the Lee of Mt. Shasta where a lee side thermal and or weak wave enabled most people to tank up, then a long flat glide into the Medicine lake Tp. Medicine Lake TP is at about 7300 feet Msl and saw many competitors get too low for comfort over unlandable terrain. But it was the last mandatory Tp and there was no option but to go for it. Most dug out a decent thermal just short of Medicine Lake and then were able to get going north onto a relatively good shear line.

I followed the crowd and put my head down in my 11 meter ship and was going along doing my thing when I got caught a little low when the Butter Valley are “cycled” off. For about 40 minutes I searched and searched and searched… and then landed out at Butte Valley airport. Not the most auspicious start to a contest! An easy aerotow back home and I was home for a grand total of 300-ish points. How good is the Sparrowhawk’s handicap???

Day 2, 3 hour minimum MAT, China Start TP, Three Sheds TP…

This day saw pretty much the same thing as Day 1 saw. This time there was a fair amount of high level wave/rotor/rotor induced thermals happening. Most had an easy run to China Start TP, then the long glide to three sheds began for most of us.

I was able to get a good run across the valley and yet still found myself low at three sheds looking for a thermal. Eventually I dug out a one knotter that got better with each ascending thousand feet, eventually ending up as a good 9 knotter on the averager in the last thousand feet of the climb. From there I just played out the lift lines and had a good flight of about 150 miles (raw).

I should mention here that I am flying Greg Cole’s personal Sparrowhawk. In the keeping with my new theory of keeping it simple. I elected not to install my instruments in the plane. Can anyone offer me any hints on how to use Winpilot more effectively???

All I know is that my entire flight was spent doing battle with Winpilot and the Ipaq. So much so that I missed the Three Sheds TP by about .85 of a mile. Ooops! So what was a 924 point, 6th place day ended up a 813 point day for 13th place. I’m starting to feel a little more comfortable with the task area. But it sure would be nice to see the area at least once while I am here.

Day 3, 3 hour minimum MAT, China Start TP first turn.

This day began smoky and only got worse as the day went on. In keeping with my new outlook on contest score sheets (As per Uli Schwenk, multiple time German national team member, who does not look at them), I do not know any of the results since I, too, am not looking at them this contest.

I had a really great flight going on while keeping relatively close in until I ran out of Turnpoints sitting over the home field at 4,000 feet agl. Argghhhh! I should have probably extended a little bit more into the western mountains. BUT, with the smoke, being as bad as it is, the commitment to go for the next mtn range west without being able to see what was going on there would have been a huge gamble. I think I put about 140 miles in the box and we’ll see how that scores

Remember that portable FAA control tower the fire bomber operation requested a few days ago? Well, it showed up while we were out on Task today. So for about 20 minutes this afternoon, the Siskiyou Country airport was a little bit like ORD at rush hour. For me, this was one of only a handful of times I’ve ever had to talk to a tower. And this time it was under the pressure of a contest finish. Fun. There were many looks of utter amazement on the faces of the pilots at tonights social hour.

Stay tuned for more news on the wackiness of the 2008 Sports Class Nationals.

See Ya,
GC (EY)

Sports Class Day 1 - July 1st

Good Evening Race Fans:

Team EY is here at the US Sports Class Nationals in Montague, California enjoying the “smoky” hospitality of Northern California. Unfortunately, I’ve had to shelve my “Echo Yankee” ID for yet another contest. But fortunately, this time is for a very good reason.

With the Sports Nationals returning to Northern California in 2008, I got an email from Greg Cole back in December offering his personal Sparrowhawk for me to fly. Having heard a lot about the potential of the new technology in this glider (all pre-preg carbon fiber construction, very light weight, brs (ballistic recover system), etc.), I jumped at the chance. So Team EY will be competing as team GC – “Golf Charlie” at this contest.

I’ll have more to say about the Sparrowhawk, and maybe even about its much-anticipated big brother the Duckhawk, as the contest goes along. But so far, I am enjoying the ship very much.

So what’s going on here at Montague?

With the very active wildfire season here in Northern California, the Air Tanker base at Montague is quite active. With 2 ex-Navy P-2 Neptune firebombers and a couple of turbo commander “lead planes” based here, the contest is definitely prepared for the possibility of conflict. Rex and Noelle Mays had done a lot of prep work for this contest which specifically included working out a plan to work with the firebombers. Well on practice day one, the plan went out the window and the firebomber folks both would not work well with us AND made an official request to the FAA for a portable Control Tower to be brought in here. Argghhhh! With the fires stabilizing a little bit in the past couple days, the threat of us being run out of here has gone down. But you never know.

We’ve got a great field spanning the full gamut from quick young hotshots, to really quick old wiley veterans. Add in US Team members tuning up for Lusse, Germany next month, ex-US team members, those pushing for the US Club Class Team, past US National Champions in many different classes, and you have the makings of a great race.

We flew both practice days with pretty good weather as long as you could deal with the effects of all the wildfires here in Northern California. Practice day one saw few pilots flying the task and many taking local familiarization flights. The smoke was so bad that I was over Duzel Rock (well known local thermal source) at about 10K msl and I could not really see it!

Day 2 saw better conditions, especially to the Northeast (Klamath Falls area) and more pilots starting to sharpen their racing skills. Unfortunately, my loggers had some “issues” and I was not able to turn in a score for day 2. I pushed the little yellow Sparrowhawk pretty well and probably won or came close on the day. In the end, Practice Day 2 was won by Ed Salkeld (5S) followed closely by Seam Franke (HA) at around 58 mph (handicapped).

Today, the first official contest day, dawned a little less smoky, but with the threat of quite a bit of cirrus moving in off the Pacific Ocean throughout the day. Today’s Day 1 task was a 3 hour MAT with China Start (53) and Medicine Lake (?) the first two called turns. Then we were free to go wherever.

One thing that the reports about flying at Montaguie do not make much of is that cirrus is a VERY big factor in contests at the coastal (or relatively so) sites like Montague. Today was a perfect example. When the sun was able to hit the ground the day really cooked. I got one terrific 10 knot climb around the China Start turnpoint enabling me to tank up before setting off across the Shasta Valley to Medicine Lake.

But before then the day was very slow getting going and the gate did not open until 14:21 pm local. The very smoky skies, combined with the cirrus shelves movingo into the area had drastic effects on the heating of the day. The run to China Start was pretty straight forward. Then the fun began as the field crossed the Shasta Valley in the lee of 14,000+ foot Mount Shasta going for the Medicine Lake TP. With hints of wave in the upper atmosphere, the field slowly got across and pulled into turn at Medicine Lake quite low. From there, the most logical thing was to run the convergence going up toward Radar facility (40) and the Klamath Falls. Oregon Area. Then some ran back down the convergence south before heading home.

That’s what I tried to do as well. I found myself on a marginal on a glide from Radar to home, with 1 hour 20 minutes left to go and I went back to Butte valley airport hoping to work the convergence line I had used to get there, get up and then go home. But with the sun angle catching more and more smoke and the bands of cirrus coming and going, I found myself stuck and had to land out at Butte Valkley Airport. The day just died where I was and that was the end of Day 1 for me. A very expensive aerotow back to home and GC was returned to its box safe and sound.

It seems the day was none too kind to the Sparrowhawks, with Bill Thar (G8) also landing out on the strip at Longbell Ranch coming out of the first turn.

I have not looked at the score sheet, but I am hoping that a combination of many people under time and the new scoring rules making landouts less of a total disaster will enable me to stay in the race to some degree. We’ll see.

That’s it from Montague.

See YA,
GC (EY)

New soaring podcast

There's a new soaring podcast by Boulder, Colorado pilots Doug Weibel and Colin Barry. They interviewed me about the GP experience for their second episode. Hear it here.
There's also a comprehensive article about the contest in the Feb/March issue of Soaring NZ, Jill McCaw's new magazine.
Tim

December 28, 2007 - Last Day of Air Games

All of the pilots pose for their official portrait.

Friday December 28, 2007

Gidday Race Fans!

After yesterday’s wash-out, today dawned crisp and clear for the second, and last day of the New Zealand Air Games. In view of some of the scheduling conflicts with even yesterday’s shortened program, all the leaders of the individual airsports got together and hashed out a new timeline for today that worked pretty well.

The GP Task was a 178 km drag race from Wanaka to Cotters (midway up the Dingle Burn), south to Tomsons (back south of our old favorite from last week, Goodger), down to the most southern turnpoint of Cromwell (at the bottom end of the Dunstan range), then back home with a steering turn at Tarras. The weather was pumping pretty good by the time we launched at 2:30 p.m.

The launch at this new site went very well with everyone getting up on the Pisa range (or Pizza Range in Brian Spreckley-speak). There is a fair amount of airspace around Wanaka due to its proximity to Queenstown, so we were capped out at 7,500 feet MSL before the start. The max start height was 6,000 feet MSL. Lucky for us the working band was not much above 7,000 feet anyway. This start line was an even smaller 3 km and it provided quite the spectacle as we roared out onto course right above the fair sized crowd and live on the internet.

The scheduled air service taxis by our "dummy" grid.

The crowd watches the action on the bog screen. They paid NZ$18 each for entry.

Everyone got onto the course within maybe 200 feet of vertical separation. The run down the Hawea Ridge to Timaru Creek and Dingle Mountain was fast and aggressive, with many gliders getting right into the rocks. There was a a lot of high speed bobbing and weaving with everyone trying to eeek out the best possible lift from the craggy mountains, wind and sun angles we were given.

TM was able to pull a nifty little move with DW and MS to go into the dingle Burn on the downwind side of Dingle Peak. Pucker-factor high, but it worked and got me caught back up. A quick transition to the range separating the Dingle Burn from the Hunter River Valley led us all into the first turn and then onto the Dingle Ridge (downwind).

It was here that the field spread out a little bit with many gliders trying different cruising altitudes (some on the rocks, some up at cloud base) and ground tracks. TM went cloud hunting and had a pretty good run down to the end of the Hawea Ridge.

At this point, I was pretty much alone and had gotten down to about 4,000 feet MSL (less than 1,000 feet above the terrain). Or so I thought! Suddenly the camera helicopter appeared to be descending to my altitude and coming toward me. As I ground my way out of this minor hole, the helicopter positioned itself about 1 km away from me and stuck with me. Look ma, I’m on T.V.!

It did not immediately click that I might be with the leaders. Instead I thought, “Oh no, here goes TM giving the broadcast crew another hard luck “save.” Had I pushed a little harder at this point, I might have been able to make a little more headway. Oh well!

The “black rocks” at the end of the Dunstans around Cromwell worked like a charm with a 4 knot thermal building to 8+ knots both on the way into the turn and back out of the turn. At this point in the task more than a few of us should probably have taken and extra hundred feet in that 8+ knot thermal.

If you were just a hundred feet higher or 20 knots faster at the last turn at Tarras, you had a pretty easy go of the final glide. But, if you we on the backside of that energy curve, then you had another Pucker-factor high final glide. As I was slowly sinking under my polar on final glide, a caught site of Petr Krejirik (CZE) rapidly descending and then landing out right ahead of me. Yikes – better slow down and hope to get home.

It was about this time when I was really wishing for a better glider, as old tired TM was just not performing with the new ships. As Christophe Ruch (FRA) came past me about 20 knots hotter I was seriously considering the field at the bottom of the end of the runway if I got any lower on energy. Just then a little energy line formed ahead of me and I was able to make the field – not handily, but safely. It was quite a sight to see about ten other gliders waiting at the far end of the runway and me entering the flare with Giorgio Galetto (ITA) blowing past me at 50 feet about a wingspan to my right. Manage the energy, roll to a stop, and this GP is over!

The satellites that brought you the webcast. www.r2.co.nz

The final exhibition race went as follows: 1st Sebastian Kawa (POL), 2nd Mark Holliday (RSA), and 3rd Michael Sommer (GER). Unfortunately, the first pilot back to the field, Ben Flewett (NZL), was not the winner today. The GP format really lets fans see who wins at the end of the task, but even that winner has to make all the turnpoints! Ouch…

With most people on tight timelines to get back home. Peter Harvey (GBR) and Oscar Goudriaan immediately took tows back to Omarama. Most of the others will grid up again tomorrow at about 10 a.m. for the aerotow back to Omarama. TM will be returning to its snug hangar, while all the other Europeans who brought their own ships face the daunting prospect of loading the shipping frames back up with gliders and getting the frames into the containers before they leave for home. Once again there is some trepidation on the part of the glider pilots as the holes for the GPS aerials are going to be fixed tomorrow AND the gliders need to be loaded tomorrow before most pilots leave for Europe.

With the GP family breaking up, I will have some more thoughts on the GP when I get back stateside. But I will leave you all with the final and most fitting glider activity of this event.

At the end of the task the four remaining German pilots did not dump their water and landed short on the runway. After a short time back on the ground, all four took off, organized themselves into a trailing line abreast over the field, then made a high speed pass down the length of the field in front of the crowd, dumping water, and then peeling one glider way in the missing man formation in honor of Herbert Weiss, “29”

Herbert, you are missed.

That’s it from here in New Zealand. Team TM will be going back to Omarama tomorrow and then off for some sightseeing in the day and a half we have left in country. We’ll catch you all back in the states in the new year.

Happy New Year to all and See Ya! Tim/TM

December 27 - Wanaka

December 27, 2007

Gidday Race Fans!

Well, the GP has packed up and hauled itself to Wanaka and the New Zealand Air Games. Billed as the largest air sports event ever in the Southern Hemisphere, this event is basically the FAI’s attempt at a dry run for the 2009 World Air Games in Turin, Italy. Run by the New Zealand Aero Club, the event provides a venue for the other 9 air sports that will be at the next WAG to come up with media-friendly “games”/competitions.

This event, as well as the concluded World GP Championship, is being backed financially by AirsportsLive, Peter Newport’s company designed the event to bring all the FAI sports to the world through new technology and outreach to the media. This appears to be the only game in town for the FAI and all of our airsports as we begin the journey to modern day sponsorship in our sports.

As a jumpstart to a brave new world of sponsorship for our sport, and others, Airsports paid for the GP pilots’ airfares here, some of the glider costs, some food and hotel, and tows for the GP Final and this Exhibition in Wanaka.

So basically we are obligated to indulge in this “exhibition” here in Wanaka as part of the “sponsorship” we all received.

The Sailplane Grand Prix concept is by far the most mature of any FAI airsports here and is in fact the only event here that is officially sanctioned by the FAI as an event. So, while we come with a working product, the other sports are basically making things up on the fly (Ha-ha…).

Hopefully all this will go safely and prove out the bigger concept for all the airsports. We are racing for “fun” and have been requested to make a show rather than race with our elbows out. The looks on my fellow GP Pilots at the briefings have been amused to say the least… some of the world’s best pilots throttling back?

This event, which is basically being anchored by the gliding element, is a real tricky thing with every event programmed into a very tight schedule for safety and efficiency reasons. For example, gliding is working with all the other airsports, a daily scheduled ATR flight that arrives at 2:45 p.m., as well as the local skydive operators – or “meat bombers” as they are colloquially called in these parts. This makes for a very complicated ballet of moving ships and crew vehicles on and off the runway.

So did we fly today? No. We watered up and pulled all 18 gliders on to the “dummy grid” for a move to the real grid en-mass at about 1:30pm, for a scheduled launch at 2:30 and a start at about 3 pm. Had we launched at about noon, the 181km wave task would probably have been a fun little run around the local wave system as we had strong NW winds and were surrounded by stacks of Lennies. But by 1:45, the weather was closing in on Wanaka from the NW and the Makaroa/Hunter Valleys were in heavy mist and rain.

Brian Spreckley, CD, made the wise decision to pull the plug on things and hope for better tomorrow. He did offer a number of pilots the chance to launch and demonstrate final glides with water dumping for the crowd. But after 4-6 gliders had towed down to the real grid, the rain really started and even they came back to the tie-downs without flying.

Team TM took the opportunity to go touring to Queenstown. Like most touring for glider pilots, the awesome mountain views were obscured by rain (remember, rain = rest day), but we did get a feel for the very touristy nature of the “capital of extreme adventure”, as well as a very cool view of the snow frosted Remarkable Range from the highest sealed road in New Zealand!

Tomorrow’s weather looks like a great, post-frontal thermal day so I hope we can put on a good show for the crowd while getting in some more, and our last, “fun” racing of this competition. Wish us luck.

See Ya! Tim/TM

P.S. It has come to my attention that some GP-style racing has, in fact, taken place in the U.S. That’s great! Then maybe we can get some resources going for organizing a US Qualifier like the IGC DESPERATELY wants, for next year (2008). If you like the concept, give it a thought and get in touch with Eric Mozer,the U.S. IGC rep.

Dec 24th - We have a winner!!!

Gidday Race Fans:

While all the detaisl of the score sheet are still being worked out, Sebastian Kawa (POL) drove his Diana 2 around the short course and won the day and the title of World GP Gliding Champion!!!

The day was very late getting started and then ended up being an undercall, IMHO. We left the line sometime after 3pm local, and the sky was still cooking with convergence lines, thermals and even hints of wave when we raced home form the far turnpoint at Mt. Hayes (near Burkes Pass).

TM managed to resurrect myself after yesterday's poor choices and poor flying. I was right in the running at the first turn and thought the decision to go back to weak wave was the best one for the glider I was flying at the time. Everyone really had the hammer down the entire wayua roudnhte course. The thermalling was som of the tightest, unforgiving I have ever done. It was really like thermalling with your "elbows out". But things were safe and we got a great race in.

I will be continuing my blog for at least a few more days as the GP Circus packs up for the Exhibition Racing (more on this later) at Wanaka and the NZ Air Games. Whether or not I go to Wanaka is a bit up inthe air right now as the really do not want us doing real racing for the public, but instead want staged finshes for the media. That's jsut not my style. I wish we had some more days to go racinginthis wonderful paradise of Omarama - but htat is the GP Format: Short and Sweet!

See Ya! Tim/TM

All the GP

December 23 - Day 4

Good Evening Race Fans:


Today was another race day for the GP pilots here at Omarama. After issuing an A & B, then a C & D, then an F task we were able to go racing. I joked that the F task meant we were all F'd - funny that the joke was on me.


I hope I gave all the fans of the Stars and Stripes a bit of an adrenaline rush as I drove the Ventus C hard on down the course out of the start line. For the first two legs I was going pretty well and hanging with all the top dogs. Then the long cross-wind traverse to the third turnpoint in the Grampian Mountains (to the East-Northeast of Omarama) got the better of me after I lost sight of basically everyone in the field.



Day Winner Bruce Taylor (2nd from left) with Uli Schwenck and Giorgio Galetto. (Tim Timoshenko (our Russian crew friend) is on the far left.

Left to my own devices, I was looking at running a convergence line north and then getting on another to cross the Mackenzie Basin to the turnpoint. Had it worked, it would have caught me up with the leaders - or so I thought at the time.


Not known to me at the time, Uli Schwenk had gotten out to a 25 km (!) lead on the hard-driving Aussie Bruce Taylor and Sebastian Kawa in the Diana 2. However he did this by ridge soaring (!) the entire way from the second turn Tomsons to the eastern shores of Lake Benmore (!!!) For anyone who has flown here, the wind was a strong northerly. The ridges do not really line up, but somehow Uli made it work until he was stuck for a long while.


Uli Schwenck ended up 2nd on the day. The day winners were 1) Bruce Taylor (AUS), 2) Uli Schwenck, (GER) and 3) Ben Flewett (NZL). This brings us to the overall leaders of 1) Ben Flewett (25 Points), 2) Steve Jones (GBR)(24 points), and 3) Uli Schwenck (23 Points)

My personal flying day went from really good to really slow in about 20 minutes. Once I realized I had lost sight of the leaders, I saw a few guys down on the ridges going into the helicopter-only retrieve valley at the base of the St.Bathans range. After the loss of Herbert Weiss two days ago, I decided the better part of valor was to stay safe and to not go for broke low down on the ridges. Well the staying safe part was held partly true, but the thermals just did not work well for me after that decision. I basically ended up stuck on the local mountain Little Ben and then having to ridge fly my way up to the peak of Big Ben, just eat of the field, transition into pathetic thermals and then tiptoe out into the Mackenzie basin in search of lift under some very ragged looking cu’s. Me and Vladimir Panafutin (RUS) in our old ships (Ventus C and LS-6c) just did not have the performance for the drag race today. We met up going into the Grampian turn, but my heart was just not in it at that point in time and I let him get away to finish ahead of me. No points for 18th place.

So basically, after the brilliance of the first 1/3 of the flight, and the desperation of the middle 1/3 of the flight, the last 1/3 of the flight, while not easy, was just focused on getting home in one piece. As the lead 9 gliders blew past me coming out of the Grampian turnpoint, I figured I should just slow down. Once the lead 9 gliders are home, there are no points under this GP Format. It is harsh, but in the scoring my pathetic 95 kph was worth just as much as Giorgio Galetto’s11-something something kph– exactly 0 points.

It would sure have been nice to be able to find and ASW-27 or Ventus 2ax to fly in this comp. The GP Start (all gliders together at one time), does really show the difference in performance of the older vs. newer ships, and even between the new ships and the other new ships. When you start together, a Ventus or LS-6 are going to have to take just a few more climbs of x-meters, when put up against a new ship, to get around the same course. When the time comes to top of the tank, the newer ships , in the hands of superior pilots, have the opening to squirt away from the older ships. Given that all 18 ships are being flown by very proficient pilots, it is no wonder my Ventus C comes up just a bit short.

In the race between the ASW-27, the Ventus 2ax/bx, and the Diana 2, I would have to give the advantage to the small fuselage Schempp-Hirth product. Most of the pilots were flying these, and were it not for Ben Flewett’s local knowledge, the Ventus 2 would have shown its superior speed in the hands of these world class pilots. If we get in a fifth day tomorrow, then maybe the V2’s can take the title. The Diana 2 can be a spectacular machine in the right hands, but investing in one is a game for very wealthy racers as it will never be a “fun flying” ship for the local club pilot.

IMHO, given the desire of the GP Organizers and the FAI to have this media friendly format that really tests and shows-off pilot skill, GP races should be ideally run as one design events like in Nascar with their Car of Tomorrow (COT). By that I mean all Ventus 2, or all ASW-27, or Standard Cirrus’s for that matter. Only when all ships are relatively equal, will the regatta start of the GP and subsequent racing truly be the measure of the pilot.

Maybe this is the opening for a truly successful one design class (i.e. World Class) to emerge from the disaster of the current World Class. Maybe if we could get Schleicher and Schempp-Hirth, and DG (or whoever else is interested) to compete to be the sole designer/supplier of a “new” world class glider for both a new world class at the WGC’s and single design GP events, will GP pilots truly be equal when a GP race starts.

I’ll get off my soap box now.

Tomorrow is the last day of the officially sanctioned GP World Championship. We have 4 of 5 days in the bag and that makes an official contest under GP Rules. Hopefully we will get a fifth day of racing in to close out these championships.

The outlook is for the front that dogged me with overcast as I fell behind the field today, to pull through sometime in the late morning tomorrow. The rate and degree of clearing that we see will determine if we get in this last contest day. Should it clear by noontime, we might be treated to a wave task. But if the forecast of the clearing is off by just three hours later in the day, then the contest will be over.

See Ya! Tim/TM



South Africans Oscar and Mark

Me with Marc and Rod, friends from Southern Soaring