2008 World Gliding Competition

Back in Canada and lessons learned

2008-08-20T13:17:00.003-04:00

Virginia and I arrived back in Toronto last night where we were met by Dave Carter after clearing custom's and chatted with him for the 20 minutes it took for our luggage to arrive on the carousel.

After picking up the luggage we were met by Martin Brassard who drove us back to his house where a very happy dog was waiting for us. This is the longest she has been away from us in seven years! Fortunately, she knows Martin and Christina really well and can tolerate Cosmo's persistence.

Our last day in Germany was spent touring the Alexander Schliecher Factory. We had a personal 2 1/2 hour guided tour and saw everything. We saw SOSA's two K-21's on the production line and were also able to see the new ASH-30 in development.

Now it is back to SOSA for the Youth Camp for the next 10 days.

Some lessons that we learned at this contest were real eye-openers. In North America, we consider contest flying an individual effort, while at the Worlds it is really a team effort. Besides the obvious team effort of multiple pilots in one class helping each other, the large teams have a huge support staff on the ground as well. These people are looking at real time satellite to advise of changing weather conditions, spying on the other teams to determine when they will start and of course passing all of this information to their pilots.

This is something that we were missing, although by having a shared frequency with the Irish and Japanese team, we were able to garner some good information by listening to them.

Another lesson is the need for a good ground station and high antenna so the team on the ground can make contact with the pilots throughout the task area. We were extremely limited by our handheld radios.

Another big challenge for us was the 220 V electrical supply in Europe. All of our battery chargers/ radio chargers were 110 V and running them through transformers was not very effective.

All in all the competition was an amazing experience and I would like to thank everyone here who sent their support to us throughout the contest and I would also like to thank everyone who helped support us through donations during our fund-raising - you made this possible!

Wasserkuppe

2008-08-17T11:43:00.010-04:00

Yesterday, Virginia and I drove the glider back to Poppenhausen and today we drove up the the Wasserkuppe to see this famous gliding site. The site is marked by the fleiger Denkmals a monument that was erected in 1923 to honour early gliding pioneers who lost their lives during the early days of the quest for motorless flight.

The Wasserkuppe is actually the name of the mountain and flying activities have been going on there since about 1910. Today, there is a soaring club/school/ commercial operation. I counted 3 Duo's and 3 K-21's that were busy doing flights for visitors, and there were hundreds of people standing around watching.

There was also para-gliding for the mentally unstable on another corner of the hill top.

and RC gliders ridge soaring on another corner. There were some amazing models. I saw one model of a Ka6 that had a wing span of about 2 m. In the air it looked real.

Tomorrow we are off to the Schliecher factory for a morning tour and a look at SOSA's K-21's that are currently in production.

Berlin Sight Seeing

2008-08-15T11:40:00.007-04:00

On the last rain day virginia and I took the train into Berlin for a little sight seeing. The first picture shows the Reichstag building complete with dome. The last time i was in Berlin in 1992, there was no dome. It had been destroyed in the second World War and only recently rebuilt.

This is the victory column (Siegessäule) built in the ;ate 1800's to comemorate the vitories in the Danish- Prussian, Franco-Prussian and Austro-Prussian wars.

The Bradenburg Gate is a major attraction in Berlin and was one of the first places where the fall of the communist GDR government was celebrated before the unification of Germany. This picture is taken from the east side of the gate in what was once the communist area of Berlin.

Starbucks is everywhere - I though this picture was quite a juxtaposition of the symbol of capitalism - Starbucks - located in the former communist zone of Berlin right beside the Bradenburg gate! It was not there in 1992 during my last visit.

Tomorrow, Virginia and I head back to Poppenhusen to drop off the glider and we will stay there a couple of days and visit the Wasserkuppe and particularly the Gliding Museum at the Wasserkuppe.

Day 8 - more cirrus

2008-08-15T02:33:00.001-04:00

The task for today was a 422 km triangle to the east and then south. The eastern most turnpoint was in Poland as was most of the second leg. The run to the first turn was quite good and I averaged 134 km/hr. Then the cirrus came in for the second leg. My speed on this leg was a meager 66 km/hr! In hind sight I deviated too much to chase the cu and flew 123 km to cover the leg distance of 88 km.

On the third leg I was able to connect with the gaggle of the British and French Teams and thought that we were doing well, as it turns out they were having a bad day and our gaggle was 20 km/hr slower then the rest of the class. In this gaggle were 5 of the top 10 pilots in our class, so I thought I was in good company. Our gaggle averaged 2.3 knot lift on the 173 km leg home and the other gaggles in front of us averaged over 3 kts.

Tomorrow is the last day and it looks like a rain day.

Dave

Day 7 - a costly minute

2008-08-14T02:35:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I taggged the Berlin airspace and as a result was scored as a landout at that point - 10 km into the task! I was trying to re-boot my PDA and wasn't paying enough attention to navigation. This was a very costly minute as it dropped me from 18th on the day to last and also dropped my overall position from 23 to 38.

Despite this I had a reasonable flight yesterday and as you can see from the picture the conditions were pretty good. The wind was blowing again at 25-30 kts, but some nice cloud streets formed. On the one leg into the wind I managed 102 km/hr with an L/D of 93 flying along a cloudstreet. The last leg was across the cloudstreets, but still with a headwind component and it was quite difficult as we had to jump from street to street.

Dave

Rain Day

2008-08-12T07:25:00.001-04:00

Today is another rain day and at the 1230 briefing the day was cancelled, so Virginia and I are on our way into Berlin for the rest of the day to see the sights.

Dave

Day 6

2008-08-11T15:51:00.001-04:00

Today we had a mixed bag of weather with cu spreading out to start the day and then cirrus moving in later. Fortunately, the moisture dried out to stop the spread out and most of the cirrus stayed south of the task area.

Unfortunately, for the third day in a row we had a turnpoint at Torgau which has been a hole every other day and today was no different. Torgau is just south of the Elbe river and there is not much lift along the river. Needless to say I had a bad time on that leg and spent most of it between 2200 - 3300 AGL..

I was 95 km/hr today and most of the pack was in the 105-110 range, so the few holes lost me lots of time and speed.

There have been very few days here where the weather has not had some sort of trick to it, be it wind, or spread out or cirrus clouds, but the airmasses have been unstable enough that we can still get around.

Dave

Day 5

2008-08-09T13:12:00.001-04:00

Today was another good soaring day in Lusse. The forecast called for the clouds to spread out and cause the lift to cycle - which it did, but the best lift was in the 6 kt range today and I hit 6000 ft once.

The preliminary scores show me at 17th on the day with a speed of 107 compared to the winner at 116. I thought I had a good start with a cloud street lined up to the first turn, but then I ran into a hole at the second turn and that slowed me down. The guys who started 15 minutes later didn't have the hole as the good clouds drifted into the turn with them. But it could have turned out the other way too.

All in all, i am happy with the flight, but of course would rather have been faster!

Dave

Day 4 - Flight Log

2008-08-08T12:44:00.003-04:00

It was the last two climbs that made all the difference yesterday. They got me back up to about 5000 ft and gave the range to get across the lowlands and round the third turn and then try the forest on the way home. In the end, I was about 2000 feet below glideslope and the day was over!

Day 4 - a mass landout

2008-08-08T01:43:00.002-04:00

Today everyone in the class decided to play start gate roulette. The conditions were forecast to be blue, so no one wanted to be the first to leave. The one thing that concerned me was the forecast 6 pm end of convection and we were on a 405 km task with a gate opening of 1350, and then the games started. In the end we all landed out because of the games.

I landed out about 40 km from home at 1850 needing 1 more climb to get me home, unfortunately nothing was working anymore. But my distance was good enough for 999 points on the day.

I was able to stay ahead of the gaggle most of the day and flew a lot with the 18 m gaggle where our tasks crossed. The 15 m gaggle was a furball, while the 18 m guys were much more repectful. Today I have lodged a complaint against one of the Italian pilots who insists on trying to climb up the middle of a 30 plane gaggle and continually turns inside everyone cutting them off in the thermal.

Day 3

2008-08-06T01:36:00.003-04:00

Today was another challenging day, with 20 - 25 kt winds, but the lift was strong and there was much less spread-out of the clouds.

I was one of the first to launch at 1115 and after tow immediately climbed in 3 kts to 3500 ft and then headed upwind to the startpoint with 3 other gliders and found nothing to climb in. Eventually I decided to take are-light instead of struggling at 1000 ft like some of the other guys.

After the relight, conditions were better, but still just as windy. By the time I climbed to cloudbase I was 19 km downwind of the startpoint!

Fortunately when I arrived at the startpoint most of the 15m class was still milling around waiting to start. I had some trouble getting a good start since as soon as you circled, you were blown away from the start zone. I was finally able to start about 10 minutes after the pack and had only a couple of companions on the first and second leg. On the third leg, I met up with a bunch of 18 m guys as was able to move along quickly. On the fourth leg, I flew with some open class gliders.

In the rush to take off in the morning, I copied the task from the previous day in my computer and forgot to change the last turnpoint zone from 1 km to 0.5 km, so I missed the final zone by 150 m, thus the 50 pt penalty for the day, damn stupid mistake!

Day 2

2008-08-05T01:20:00.004-04:00

Well day two didn't go so well for me. The weather was much like day 1 with lots of clouds spreading out and creating large holes, but to complicate things just a little more, we had 25-30 kt winds from ground up to cloud base.

After searching under a cloud for a thermal with another glider and not finding anything worthwhile, I headed for the next few clouds I looked back to see him turn into something, but kept going. As it turns out I couldn't find anything under the next clouds and he made it home.

Once you dropped below 2000 ft it was almost impossible to climb away in the thermals that were being broken by the wind.

The day could have been worse - for example two pilots on the German team landed out 4 km from the start line and to make things worse, one of them hit a deer when he landed and damaged his glider. It has now been taken back to Schleicher for repair and at a team Captain's meeting it was agreed to let him fly a different glider for the remainder of the contest.

Day 1 -part 2

2008-08-04T02:28:00.003-04:00

It seems that for the preliminary scoring, the centre to centre distance for the turn areas was being used to calculate a speed over your task time and this was ginving some preliminary scores in the 120 km/hr range. This morning the score sheet shows the winner at 109 km/hr, so I feel better about my 96 km/hr. This also moves me up 100 points from the preliminary scores.

This morning it was raining at breakfast, but Dr Jack is showing some posibility of 4 kt lift this afternoon, so we will head to the airport at 9 am and start to rig just in case.

Day 1

2008-08-03T16:17:00.003-04:00

Well to say that today was a tough day is a bit of an understatement! Fortunately, the 15 m class had the easiest time compared tothe other classes. We had an area task while the 18 m and Open had assigned tasks, forcing them to reach 0.5 km cylinders.

The weather was forecast to be flyable, but there would be significant spread out and cycling as the clouds shaded the ground. This caused many 18 m pilots to land out near their first turnpoint.

We had a good cloudstreet running to our first turn, then lots of shade an no cu for the second leg. I elected to back track down the first leg ( a big deviation) and then try to hit the second turn from the north.

As I entered the second turn area I met up with a gaggle of gliders that I had been with atth first turn, so things looked OK. By the time I entered the third turn area, I had about 40 minutes left to cover 75 km, so I turned short in the third cylinder and made it home 4 minutes over time.

I am really curious to see where the fast (120 km/hr) pilots went to make up the extra distance!

Opening Ceremony

2008-08-02T07:30:00.003-04:00

Today we had the mandatory pilot's meeting at 11 am where all the teams were introduced. There are 130 pilots from 34 different countries. 36 in Open Class, 50 in 18 m class and 44 in 15 m class.

This afternoon we all go to nearby Belzig for the opening cermony where the teams will be paraded across a stage and introduced. On the stage will be a number of former World Champions who have all been invited for the ceremony.

Today, Philip Neuman from South Carolina dropped by after the meeting to say hi to Virginia and me. Philip flew in the Sports Class at Waynesville (Region 6) a month ago with us. He is in Germany on a school exchange program and has a couple of open days before he has to go home so decided to camp out at the contest.

Practice day 2

2008-08-01T02:19:00.001-04:00

We had another great soaring day, with the best conditions and fastest speeds of the contest so far. The open class winner was 144 km/hr the 18 m at 140 km/hr and the 15 m was 138 km/hr.

I posted a speed of 128 km/hr, so I am happy with that.

The course for the day took us under the 6500 ft outer ring of the Berlin Terminal area to the first turnpoint, then across the same wetlands on the second leg as yesterday, and finally along the high sandy pine forests for the way home. For the practice days the task setter is trying to show us all of the areas, good and bad.

The wetland area has lots of little lakes and streams and for the past couple of days has required about a 30 km glide to get across it. Fortunately we were able to climb enough before crossing that the arrival on the far side was at 3500 ft, straight into a 6 kt thermal under some good looking cu.

The third leg, following the sandy pine forests was the best leg with cloud base at 8000 AGL and little need to circle for about 95 km along the cloud street. At the Elbe River, the cloud street suddenly ended and I had to deviate across the river to another cloud street where I was able to pick up 5 kts for a 2800 ft climb to get on final glide and then zip home at about 100 kts.

Dave

First official practice day

2008-07-30T07:07:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the first practise day and the same assigned area task of about 300-500 km was set for all the classes. Lift was 5-6 kts and I had a good run down the first and second legs under cu based about 7000 AGL. After the second turn, the sky was blue and the leg took us over a lot of little lakes. I had a long glide of about 30 km with no lift and eventually found some weak (2 kt) thermals to keep moving towards the thrid turn and was now working 2500-4500 AGL. To throw another wrench into the mix, high cirrus from an approaching cold front was now shading the way home.

I worked a weak thermal just inside the third turn area and gained enough height to glide over the class D control zone on the way home. I was abe to follow the edge of the cirrus shadow and the forests for about 30 km and eventually saw a dust devil kicking off ahead of me and at 2000 AGL took a 2 kt climb. Then my flarm showed traffic ahead and above me and when I looked for it I saw an ASW-22 climbing better then me about 1 km away. I joined him and took a 2.5 kt climb to final glide height and came home.

It was good to get home, since I saw at least one glider on the ground on the third leg and then the cirrus shutting us down of the fourth leg, but I was slow again with 99.5 km/hr over 412 km and the top speed in the 15 m class was 127 km/hr over 465 km!

Dave

First flying day in Luesse

2008-07-28T16:01:00.000-04:00

Today Jerzy and I flew the task that was assigned by the Polish team captain. The Polish team has lots of experience in this contest area, so we took advantage of their knowledge and tagged along. We both flew about 550 km today, with Jerzy flying 125 km/hr and I was slower at 105 km/hr. There are numerous airspace restrictions in the flying area and some are open and closed on a daily basis and unfortunately I was not aware that some of the restricted airspace showing on my GPS was actually open today, so I deviated around it on two legs.

At the end of the day, I was slowed down getting home as I had to take a bunch of 2 kt thermals down from the previous 4-6 kt averages earlier in the day. This cost me a good 30 minutes. But today was a good chance to wring out the 27 and make sure that everything was working.

Looks like tommorrow will be another nice flying day.

Dave

Arrival in Luesse

2008-07-27T15:55:00.001-04:00

We arrived in Luesse last night (this morning) at 1 am and checked into the hotel after a 5 hour drive.

Yesterday we flew about 330 km around the SW corner of Poland in the southern part of the contest task area. Today we decided not to fly, although it was a really good day.

We both went through our technical inspections, weighing and measuring to ensure the glider meets spec. Art Grant from the Winnipeg Gliding Club is working with the technical inspectors, so we had a chance to talk a little and then had a few beer together at dinner.

The airport has a beer garden set up and a restaurant on the field, so there is no need to leave the airfield to find dinner. The hotel has a wonderful european breakfast so we can make sandwiches for luch from the breakfast buffet. This means we have everything we need right here!

Tommorrow we plan to fly.

Dave

The Antanov AN-2

2008-07-25T16:04:00.004-04:00

I also had the opportunity today to fly as a passenger in the AN-2 that I showed in the picture yesterday. Jerzy used to crop-dust in an AN-2 and he says it is a 1000 hp radial engine. The picture below is looking out the window at the second AN-2.

The pilot was quite busy in the cockpit, and it took both of them to fly the plane. The control forces looked pretty heavy, the second pilot had to operate the throttle, while the first pilot concentrated on controlling the plane!

Besides the flying today, both Jerzy and I managed to get the gliders set-up, I installed my PDA and replaced the metric Altimeter with feet. Tomorrow looks like it could be a soaring day and we are ready to go.

Grunau

2008-07-25T15:22:00.008-04:00

Many pilots have heard of the Grunau Baby an early German glider design - well Grunau is actually in Poland and is a hilltop satellite field for Jelenia Gora. It was used in the 20's and 30's to bungee launch gliders off the top of the hill (by the Germans - look up Sudetenland for the History of the area) . Now it is used to teach pilots how to land on uphill slopes.

Jerzy and I took a couple of flight each in the Puchacz today to practice landing up the hill at Grunau.

The picture below shows the hill - Grunau - from the towplane. The area in the purple box is the landing area, and then you roll uphill to stop on the realtive flat near the hangar (to the left of the purple box).

This was my first landing, and it turned out OK.

Ready for take-off. You can see the downhill slope to the left of the glider, this is where we landed. The towplane is a Polish radial-engined PZL-101 that I am told is a close copy of the Russian YAK-12.

The take-off is exciting too, as you start up the upslope on one side of the hill the towplane disappears for a few seconds as it crests the hill until the glider also crests the hill.

Jelenia Gora

2008-07-25T02:51:00.002-04:00

I arrived here last night around 7:30 in the rain. The drive from Poppenhausen was good for most of it with a sky full of Cu, of course that always happens when driving to a flying site!

There are two Antonov An-2's parked in front of the building - they have to be the biggest biplanes I have ever seen.

The weather today does not look like we will fly, but that's OK since I still need to open the trailer and get the cockpit set up.

Arrival in Germany

2008-07-24T04:02:00.003-04:00

I am now in Poppenhausen after having navigated the German Train and Bus system to get to the small town west of Frankfurt to pick up the car. I had a bit of help from people I asked at the train station and on the train, but for the last leg the bus driver did not speak english, but we managed to sort it out. In part thanks to the directions I received while in Canada and by my TomTom GPS.

The car pick went smoothly, except the car was sitting for about the last 5 months so the battery was flat and we had to push the car out of the garage and then boost it to get it going. The car is being borrowed from a German glider pilot who has relocated to Canada. His mother looked after all the car arrangements and this was made a little more challenging by my limited German and her limited English, fortunately, her nephew was able to come over and help out as an interpreter! It has also helped catapult me back into remembering my German from when I lived here in 1970!

After the drive to Poppenshuasen the battery is fully charged and everything is running smoothly.

When I first arrived at the factory (it is closed for summer shutdown) I met Martin Heide (the H of ASH) who was working on his ASH-26. He showed me the glider I am renting and we talked about German weather and the best routes to drive to get to Poland from here.

I also met Gerhard Weibel (the W of ASW) who is lending his glider to Karl Striedek for the contest. Gerhard told me the hotel to stay in, so I had a great dinner with Gerhard, his wife, Karl and his brother Walter.

Next its off to Jelenia Gora, Poland to meet Jerzy and fly a couple of days in the south end of the contest area.

Dave

It's time!

2008-07-22T13:08:00.002-04:00

The time is finally here, and I am leaving home in a few minutes for the airport - so the next report will be from Germany!

Air Transat Ticket Winner!

2008-07-22T09:29:00.002-04:00

The draw for the Air Transat Tickets was held this weekend at the SOSA Board of Directors meeting and the Grand Prize winner for the two Air Transat tickets to France was ticket #26 - John Keifer

The second prize of a $50 CARA restaurant gift card is ticket #105 - Teresa Violi

A big thank you to everyone who participated in support of the team!

Dave

ET

2008-07-08T18:14:00.002-04:00

Many thanks to Udo Rumpf, who lent me his ASW-27 "ET" for the past few weeks, I have been able to re-familiarize myself with the 27 before heading to Germany.

I was able to fly the Training Camp contest at SOSA in the 27, so I now have the feel of the airplane back after flying Walter's 27 in Sept and February.

Both Walter and Udo have been very generous to Jerzy and I allowing us to fly their gliders to prepare for the worlds - Thanks Guys!

The Airport at Luesse is closed for the few weeks before the contest while they make final preparations, so Jerzy and I plan to fly a few practice days at Jelenia Gora in Poland about 200 km from the contest site. This will be my first trip to Poland and I am very much looking forward to it!

Dave

Canadian Team Training Camp- Day 8

2008-07-07T14:42:00.004-04:00

The last day of the camp was another good soaring day giving us 5 flying days out of 9 total, with 4 days straight at the end of the camp.

The initial task called for a turnpoint to the north, but as we launched, cu started to form in the south so a task change was made in the air to avoid the blue conditions to the north. As the start gate opened thermals were 3 kt average to 5000 ft.

In the advanced class, Joerg won his second day in a row moving him into first place overall.

The seminar/contest concept worked extremely well and all the competitors found it a worthwhile experience and the fun meter was certainly pegged!

Canadian Team Training Camp - Day 7

2008-07-05T21:45:00.005-04:00

Another good soaring day for the contest. The conditions were forecast to be blue, and they were! Dr Jack was forecasting 4 kts and that is what we saw with lift up to 6000 MSL, although it weakened above 5200.

The task was set as Toronto Soaring (35 km), Aylmer (30 km), Oshweken (20 km) for a minimum of 180 km, nominal of 320 and max of 470 km with a 3:30 minimum time.

The best distance of the day was 300 km and the best speed of the day was 82 km/hr.

Today's seminar was FAI badges and OO's given by Walter Weir.

A Polish sausage BBQ was held with great sausages from a local Polish deli in Cambridge.

Canadian Team Training Camp - Day 6

2008-07-04T21:14:00.005-04:00

click on images below to enlarge:

The forecast for today was the best we have seen for the contest. Dr Jack was calling for 4-5 kts with light NE winds. At the meeting we asked how many pilots wanted to attempt their 300 km flight today. All the hands in the novice class went up, so the contest task was set to Priceville Tillsonburg a 305.8 km triangle.

Paul Fish was the only pilot to complete the 300 triangle - congratulations Paul!

The seminar for today was how to use Winscore the scoring program.

We started the launch at 1230 with some heavy cirrus to the north that was threatening to shut down the leg to Priceville. South of the high cloud in the sunny areas clouds were already based over 5000 with 3 kts lift. We decided to stick with the task as called despite the high cloud.

As the gate opened, most gliders were about 5 km south of SOSA as the northern part of the start cylinder was in the shade. After a smooth glide across the 10 km to the north edge of the cylinder we were on course under the shade. Most made it to the cu over Guelph and and slowly made their way north. Some got low in the Guelph area, but eventually connected with cu in the Fergus area. In the Priceville turn area the cu were based at 6000.

By now, the high cloud had moved sputh out of the task area, but the second leg was blue, and many had trouble in the Elmira area. Once south of the 401 we were back in to the cu still based at 6000 ft. My final glide home from 51 km out took 19 and a half minutes!

The weather for the weekend looks good, so we are hoping for 2 more flying days.

Canadian Team Training Camp Day 5

2008-07-03T20:49:00.000-04:00

click on the images below to enlarge

The weather forecasts called for the cold front to clear the area early in the morning making way for a task in the afternoon with about 3 kts lift. The task was set to Mount Forest and back to ishweken with 30 and 20 km circles.

The seminar for today was final glides presented by Joerg Steiber and Walter Weir. After the seminar and pilots meeting, the sky was clearing as forecast and cu were developing, but there was some lingering high cloud.

We launched a sniffer at 1345 and he reported 23 knots to about 2500 AGL, so the fleet was launched into a sky of developing cu. To the north the sky was blue, but to the south under the high cloud there were cu. The task comittee advised the CD to change the task in the air to use the southern area, with the new task of Woodstock, Oshweken with 20 km circles.

The lift was weak, but the task change was a good call, considering the blue to the north did not develop any lift.

Canadian Team Training Camp - Day 4

2008-07-01T20:58:00.006-04:00

Today we flew! Dr Jack predicted good conditions along the Lake Erie shore, so the task was set Hagersville Aylmer for the Advanced Class and Hagersveille Tilsonburg for the novice class.
Jerzy gave the seminar today, discussing thermal techniques.

The 1 hour seminar finished with lots of questions and was then followed by the pilot meeting and safety briefing by John Brennan about landing out.

We launched at 1245 and found lift off tow to about 4000 agl. Cu had already started to pop to the south along the shore line. Perfect for the tasks! The gates opened and everyone headed out. We had no landouts today, so there were lots of smiling faces around the BBQ dinner.
the Canada Day Fireworks are planned to be set off as soon as it gets dark.

Scores are below (click on the image for a full size view):

Canadian Team Training Camp Days 1,2,3

2008-06-30T22:48:00.003-04:00

The weather has not cooperated for flying yet, but it looks like tomorrow it could be the day. We have 25 competitors flying 23 gliders registered in the Camp. The format is a combined cross-country clinic and contest with seminars every morning and contest tasks in the afternoon.

Both Jerzy and I have been able to borrow ASW-27's for the camp to continue practising for th worlds. I am flying Udo Rumpf's 27 (ET) and Jerzy is flying Walter Weir's 27 (2W). In turn, Udo is flying my LS-8 (F1) and Walter is team flying with Luke Szczepaniak in the SZD-55 (XG)

Day 1

Everyone met in the clubhouse at 0900 for registration and a briefing on local procedures and Contest Rules. Following that was a briefing on Airspace in the contest area. At noon we scrubbed the day. In the afternoon we watched a DVD of a talk that George Lee gave at Darling Downs in Australia for a club seminar about cross crountry and task flying.

A steak BBQ dinner was hosted by the Junior Soaring Team as a fundraiser and all enjoyed fabulous striploin steaks.

Day 2
The seminar for day 2 was provided by Joerg Stieber who talked about the different types of tasks, MAT's and AAT's and the strategies that should be used in each task, as well as how the rules apply to each task. The forecast for the day showed a very small window of soaring weather, but not enough for a task so the day was again scrubbed at the pilot meeting.

A Fine Week of Soaring, with Karl Striedek flying in a Duo at Mifflin was enjoyed by many and by the end of the movie the sky had cleared and cu were popping, so a few people flew, but again the window was too small for a task.

Dr Jack showed a small area of good convective activity over Rockton, and he was right. It was raining in Cambridge and Hamilton, but the sliver of sky over top had cu.

Day 3

The seminar today was weather by Joerg Steiber. The topics covered were internet weather sources, a refresher about weather systems and how to read a tephigram. Joerg walked everyone through his routine for forecasting the soaring weather.

The airmass for today was very moist resulting in cloud around 2500' AGL for most of the afternoon. The forecasts called for continued low cloud during the afternoon, but showed a clearing trend between 4 and 5 pm. At the noon meeting the day was scrubbed, based on Dr Jack's predicted buoyanc/shear ratio of about 2.

A few people rigged for local flying and prepared to launch around 2:30 when some light rain moved through, but sure enough, just after 4 pm cu could be seen to the north and before 5 they were overhead. The gliders launched and were able to fly for about an hour in broken thermals.

News!

2008-06-16T18:40:00.003-04:00

Willem has withdrawn from the competition, so I am now going to Luesse.

Jerzy will replace Willem in the 18 metre class flying an ASG-29 and I will replace Jerzy in the 15 metre class flying the ASW-27 shown below.

Region 6 - Day 6

2008-06-14T15:52:00.005-04:00

The last day was scrubbed. Severe thunderstorms and associated wind gusts were expected throughout the task area.

The day 5 scores were published and I did win the day for a total of 4 day wins out of 5 days and a 995 point third the other day. That put me 5 points off a perfect contest! It also put me 599 points ahead of second place with a total of 3847 points compared to 3248.

The weather was not great for most of the contest, but we did manage to fly 5 days in some pretty challenging conditions and I had a chance to see a 2 plane F-16 formation up close and personal.

Pilot meeting video on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZqG6ilN4xk

Region 6 - Day 5

2008-06-12T20:13:00.004-04:00

Another flying day today. We waited on the grid in 90 degree weather and almost no wind as high cirrus cloud passed by. The tephi showed an unstable atmosphere, so we were expecting a great day. Finally around 2:30 the sniffers were able to stay up as the cirrus moved away.

We launched the grid and flew a 1:30 hour MAT. I flew through a little bit of rain to get into one turnpoint and was a little worried about getting home. After making the turnpoint, I ducked back to the west of the rain and was able to climb back up and keep moving. The clouds ahead looked better then they had earlier in the day and I started to see some high 2 kt averages - WOW!

I flew 75 miles at 44 mph today and that is certainly good enough to stay in first overall.

Youtube video of the pilot's meeting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoTII7uj9Hk

Region 6 - Day 4

2008-06-11T19:17:00.003-04:00

Today was the best day of the contest so far, but still not a bullet-proof day. The forecast was for blue conditions up to about 4500 agl. The list was to be in the 2-4 kt range.

The task was a 2:30 hour turn area with 20 mile circles for a min distance of about 116 miles. We won't bother with the max and nominal distances since no one could make those distances today! Just about everyone was overtime flying close to 3 hours.

I flew about 138 miles at 44 mph today and that was good enough for third on the day with 995 points. The winner and second place were about 0.25 mph faster then I was. My plan for the day was to fly with the 15 m class gaggle and have lots of markers on course and it worked. In fact only one pilot in the 15 m class was faster then me today.

I am still in first place about 600 points ahead of second place. So tomorrow is another get home day - fly with the pack and don't take any silly risks!

Youtube video of the Pilot's meeting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0_B1E8M8I0

Region 6 - Day 3

2008-06-10T20:21:00.003-04:00

The day stated off with overcast skies and the sound of rain on the roof. At the 10 am pilots meeting, the CD called for another meeting at noon since the forecast for the afternoon was for soarable weather.

We gridded at 1:15 ad waited, you could see the edge of te cold front to the west with Cu behind it. Once the front passed two sniffers were launched and they stuck, at 14:50 the launch started with a 2 hour turn area task with one cylinder 44 miles to the west. By the time the gate opened we were getting 2-3 kt climbs to 5000 AGL.

I started at 14:47 and ran a good cloudstreet for 31 miles until it ended, then I had to make a major deviation to the north to get to some better looking clouds. The wind was again in the 19 kt range and lift was about 2 kts making the run upwind to the turnpoint challenging. About 2 miles from the turnpoint 1:13 into the task, I decided to head home knowing I would be undertime.

With a 300 point lead over 2nd place going into the day, I needed to get home and not land out, so I did just that. Talking to some of the other pilots it sounds like we all did about the same distance, so It looks like I will preserve my lead - and that was the goal today!

Tomorrow looksl iek we could see some classic post-cold front weather.

Region 6 - Day 2

2008-06-09T20:13:00.000-04:00

The forecast was the same as yesterday, weak lift and strong winds. The task was a 2 hour turn area. The ground was still drying out from last weeks rain, so the lift was again dampened.

I spent a lot of time low today, but managed to find something and climb away each time. In the second turn area, I was down to about 1000 ft and drifting away from home, but I had to keep moving downwind to find lift, there was no chance moving into the wind. Eventually I managed to get up to abour 3000 ft and started for home against a 19 kt headwind. A couple of weak climbs and then bang, 5 kts. 20 miles from home and just on glide slope I pushed ahead and after a few tense moments managed to make it home.

There were only two finishers in the Standard Class today and I won the day at 34 mph, but better to get home slow then be in a field!

Region 6 - Day 1

2008-06-08T21:59:00.004-04:00

We got a contest day in today, but it was not a great day. The task was a 1:30 hour turn area with a maximum distance of about 91 miles. After a rainy practise day Saturday the ground is pretty damp so a lot of the sun's energy went into drying the ground instead of creating thermals. To add to the challenge today, the winds were forecast to be about 25 kts.

In fact, the weather was weak enough that around half of the contestants landed out today. I was one of four in the Standard Class to get home, along with Chris Gough.

Today was another one of those days where a good defence is a good offence. You can't often win a contest on a day like today, but you can certainly lose the contest if you land out. My goal was to get around and not land out. As it turns out it looks like I won the day in the Standard Class by not getting into trouble and not having any low spots.

The Next Contest

2008-06-04T20:21:00.002-04:00

Region 6 at the Ceaser Creek Soaring Club near Dayton Ohio is the next contest on the schedule this summer from 8-13 June.

The flying area and weather are very much like we experience in SW Ontario, with a whole lot less lake effect modifying the weather.

The link for the contest website is:

http://ssaregion6.org/index.php?n=Contest.2008

Worlds Article in the Lufthansa Magazine

2008-05-31T16:33:00.001-04:00

The sport of soaring is getting major publicity this summer from Luthansa who have placed a 10 page article in their in-flight magazine about soaring and the world contest. Click the link below to read it. It is written in both German and English

http://wgc2008.org/uploads/media/Artiicle_Lufthansa_Magazin_Schleicher_by_Marc_Bielefeld.pdf

US Standard Class Nationals

2008-05-27T10:22:00.004-04:00

I'm back from competing in the US Standard Class Nationals in Cordele, Georgia. We managed to fly 6 out of the 10 days, but the weather was pretty marginal.

Two of the six days had mass land-outs and I was able to get home both of those days. One day everyone landed out as high cloud and strong winds came in and completely shut down the lift.

All in all it was challenging weather to fly, but I did OK. I placed 5 out of 28 at 96.3% of the winner's score. I beat one of the US Team members going to the Worlds in Reiti this summer and was only 29 points behind the other US team member.

Complete Scores and details are available on the SSA website at:
http://www.ssa.org/members/contestreports/ContestResultsDetail.asp?id=289

The News is in

2008-05-15T14:34:00.003-04:00

Willem and Joerg talked to the DG factory yesterday and they have confirmed that Willem's LS10 will be ready in time for the contest. This means that as a result of the cut in Team Canada from 3 to 2 pilots by the organizers that Willem and Jerzy will be competing in Luesse.

If there are any cancellations between now and the contest there is still a chance that I can compete. So I will keep things on hold for a while!

A retrieve vehicle is found

2008-04-30T18:31:00.005-04:00

Since there is some uncertainty as to whether or not Willem will be able to secure a glider for the contest, I am continuing preparations despite the cut to the Canadian team.

The last item I needed to put in place was a retrieve vehicle during the contest. During the SOSA work weekend we had a couple of visitors from Germany who arrived at SOSA and rolled up their sleeves and pitched in. One of them had visited SOSA in 2006 and spent an afternoon at the club while touring through Canada. He has now moved to Canada and is in the process of job-hunting. (Fomerly an IT guy in the banking sector).

While talking about the contest I mentioned that the last thing I needed was a car and he very generously offered the use if his car in Germany that he has not yet de-registered! What a stroke of luck!

So for now we sit back and wait to see what happens with Willem's glider. We will know by May 15th whether or not Willem's glider will be ready or not for the contest.

When the time comes, at least I knowI have everything ready to go.

Disappointing News

2008-04-10T18:11:00.001-04:00

As we reported earlier, the contest is over-subscribed, so the organizers started to scale back entries and the Canadian Team has been affected by the cut. We are now allowed to enter only two pilots in the contest. Since Willem is #1 on the Canadian list and Jerzy #2, I am now on standby.

This in stark contrast to Germany who has 8 pilots, and England with 7. In total 6 pilots were cut from the contest in the name of safety. In the big picture, I fail to see how 6 pilots out of 140 total pilots will make a material difference to safety!

All of the cuts were made to overseas teams, those who have likely started planning the soonest and invested the most effort in putting together their entry.

In the case of Team Canada, Gliders are rented, airfares paid for, hotels reserved - money paid out.

The cuts were made based on the IGC's new ranking list. A Eurocentric list if one has ever been made! The list is heavily biased towards European competitions and the large European countries and awards more points to European competitors then overseas competitors. How are small countries like Canada, Israel, Chile, Argentina and Lithuania (all the countries that have been cut) expected to compete?

Going forward, the process needs to change, Countries need to be guaranteed a minimum number of pilots to remove the inequity of Germany's 8 pilots to Canada's 2 pilots. The IGC ranking list needs to be reviewed for fairness for all countries and the European bias removed.

This can only be done at the IGC meetings and it will be an uphill battle since the entire IGC is Eurocentric.

WestJet provides two passes for the Team

2008-04-01T18:08:00.001-04:00

Thanks to SAC member John Mulder who flies for WestJet, we have two passes from WestJet for any flight within Canada.

We neeed to determine how best to use this passes to the benefit of the team, but may be able to auction them amongst SAC members.

Air Transat provides Sponsorship for the Team

2008-03-27T15:01:00.003-04:00

Through Hans Juergensen who flies for Air Transat, the team received the following from Air Transat:

"Air Transat is pleased to confirm its participation to the 2008 World Gliding Championships. For this occasion, Air Transat will provide you one (1) pair of airline tickets for two (2) persons.
The prize:

• Two (2) confirmed passes from Toronto or Montreal to any France destination.

We wish you great success with your event!"

We are still trying to determine the best use of these tickets, but are looking at Auctioning them on Ebay. Based on current ticket prices we hope that we can raise about $1800 for the tickets.

Of course if any SAC member is thinking about a trip to St-Auban - I am sure we can come up with a good deal on these tickets for you!

Some Good Winter Practice

2008-03-05T21:34:00.005-05:00

During Reading Week, Virginia and I took the motorhome down to Seminole Lake Gliderport in Florida where I managed to get 5 good flights.

Walter Weir was again kind enough to lend me his ASW-27 (2W). I had two flights in 2W, the first was a 199 km flight on a mediocre day, but it helped me get the feel of the 27 back.

A couple of days later, Rich Owen and I flew the DG-1000 for almost 2 hours and struggled with 25-30 kt winds at altitude. It was a fun flight and good practice. It was so windy, that in one thermal we drifted 4.5 km in 8 turns!

A couple of days later after a cold front passed, I flew 2W again This time I was able to fly a task with Ed Hollestelle in the LS10. We flew about 320 km together and it gave me a great opportunity to see how I was flying the 27 as Ed and I stayed together for most of the flight. At one point we decided to try different routes home and both seemed to work about the same. I went downwind of a hole caused by smoke and Ed took the upwind route.

The next day, Ed landed at 3 pm after a 100 km/hr 345 km flight and I launched in the LS10 ten minutes later and flew another 190 km before landing just before 5:30. Together we flew over 500 km in consecutive flights that day.

Ed offered me another chance to fly the LS10 and I had a nice 380 km flight running streets with a good SE wind. There was a significant difference in weather north and south of the airport with almost 6000 ft cloudbase to the north and 4000 ft to the south. With the low cloudbase around the airport, many others landed early as they did not want to venture downwind towards the better clouds.

The LS10 was a pleasure to fly. Having owned an LS6 and LS8, I was immediately at home in the 10. It handled just like the other LS gliders and took little effort to thermal. My only regret is that I didn't fill it with water on the last flight, with the cloudstreets and strong thermals it would have really flattened out the glide.

Preliminary Entry List

2008-02-04T19:44:00.000-05:00

The preliminary entries for the contest have been submitted to the contest organizers in Germany and for now the contest is oversubscribed. There are 163 preliminary entries listed on the Contest Website from 34 countries!

click picture to enlarge

The organizers want to limit entries to 130 total! This means that we need to get our entry fee of 950 Euros per pilot to the organizers before the 31 March deadline. Missing this deadline will be the first cut-off to reduce the number of pilots. If there are still too many pilots after entry fees are submitted, the entries will be ranked by the Country's standing on the IGC Ranking list.

At the moment Canada is ranked 28 out of 37, but it looks like we can move up to 25th once some of the 2007 contests are counted. This would place us above Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Serbia, and Ukraine.

Ebay as a fund-raising tool

2008-01-02T15:29:00.001-05:00

Over the last few weeks I have raised about $150 selling some old stuff on Ebay. As part of a major house clean-up campaign Virginia and I have been going through old boxes in the basement and finding "other peoples treasures".

Of course not everthing sold on Ebay, but enough did to make it worthwhile. The question now is if we can find more pearls to list for sale.

Satellite Picture of Luesse

2007-12-17T19:25:00.000-05:00

Here is a satellite shot of the gliderport at Luesse - it is a huge grass field. In the satellite shot you can see the gliders on the runway, as well as the hangars, clubhouse and campground.

For the real google satellite page click here this will allow you to zoom in and move around the area.

Landhotel Dahnsdorf

2007-11-15T16:05:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Maria and Jerzy's research, the team has made reservations at the Landhotel Dahnsdorf located about 10 km from the airport in Luesse.

The hotel has high-speed wireless internet, so we will be able to provide reports from the contest at the end of each day.

The cost is also reasonable at 63 Euro per night including breakfast.

Things are coming together, but we still need to sort out car rentals and this is always difficult considering we need trailer hitches in case of land-out.

A Glider is Found

2007-11-08T12:18:00.000-05:00

After sending a few emails to glider pilots in Germany I have been able to secure a glider for the contest. I have an ASW-27 booked. This is actually a club-owned glider and it was arranged through Ulli Kremer at the Schleicher factory. From what I understand the club is associated with the factory and is in the Wasserkuppe area near Frankfurt.

This glider was flown by John Coutts in the Worlds in Sweden last year and posted the fastest speed of the contest in the 15 M class. The factory re-profiled the wings last year so it is ready to go.

The rental cost on the glider is 125 Euro per day, and this is a good price!

The glider is equipped with an LX7000 flight computer, so I will be familiar with the instruments - I think I will bring an altimeter in feet though because flying in meters is just too wierd.

What Class to fly?

2007-10-07T20:11:00.000-04:00

After deciding to compete in the World's next summer the first decision was whether to stick with the Standard class and fly an LS8 - a familiar ship, but in the Mountainous terrain around Rieti, Italy or to fly the flatlands in the 15 metre class around Luesse, Germany.

I decided that it would be better to fly in flatland conditions in the 15 metre class in Luesse. It has been four years since I sold my LS6 and competed in the 15 metre class, but with 11 years of flying in the ASW-20 and LS6 in the 15 metre class I figured that the flap hand would remember what to do.

I decided that an ASW-27 would be my best bet instead of a Ventus 2 for the Worlds. I have already flown a 27 and found it comfortable to fly and an easy transition. I have heard that the Ventus is not so intuitive.

So Jerzy and I borrowed Walter Weir's ASW-27 (2W) for the months of August and September and both managed to put in a lot of time to get accustomed to the ship. One day in September I went out for a training run with Joerg in his LS8 and me in 2W. Joerg and I typically fly together in our LS8's and are pretty evenly matched, so I was pleased to see that we were still flying about the same for most of the flight, but the 27 did pull away from the LS8 on the run.

All in all it was a good comparison!