Day 14 - outlandings

para1783 · Post by **para1783** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 3:47 pm

On day 14 we have seen a large amount of outlandings due to the dissapearance of thermals during the course of the race. I'm one of them

I don't know what could have been done differently (except for flying faster and starting early obviously!)

Could one of the finisher maybe share his experiences?

Regards
Chris

TimKuijpers · Post by **TimKuijpers** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:16 pm

The thing you had to do was start early.
depending on your piloting skills you could chose to wait a bit longer.
But when you start end of may, at 15:00 you know you will get difficulties at the end of the day.
So then it's wise to start early anyways.

Then, with the sun comming from the west and no wind, you should know that ridge thermals will be there at the west side of the ridges.
What I did (and in the end didn't seem to be the right way to go) was flying to the ridge west of the airfield on 2nd leg.
That way I would be able to find strong thermals at the ridge for sure (with 50km ridge ahead you will always find one thermal)
I hoped to find one at the end of the ridge, close to the TP, but I didn't.
So I had to find one in the flatlands.
No big problem because there were plenty clouds, but unfortunately I found all clouds to die when I made 1-2 circles underneath them.
And finally in the blue I found another one, where I could increase MC1.1 to 2m/s

If on such a task, you are not fast enough to reach the last thermals, it might help to stay as high as possible.
Fly slow, and you will have most chance on finding that last thermal.

But most important was to start as soon as possible, especially when you know you won't be fast at all.
If you know it will be hard to finish, all the others will have difficulties too.
So the chance there will be many speedpoints is not so big.
That way finishing at all will be payed with 700points.
While normally you get only ~400points if you fly maximum distance.

Keeping that in mind, it doesn't matter that much if you make a finalglide with MC0 instead of pushing your luck trying to find that one good thermal to take you home 5 minutes faster.

Polewka · Post by **Polewka** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:33 pm

I'm not one of the finishers, but I know exactly what I should have done... Get high/at cloudbase (preferentially with a FG with VERY good margin, to pass the plateau, see under) close after TP 2, where, at least for me, the thermals turned off...

The (killer)plateau was well known from the 21/07 15m SB-task...

Cya

Tonyh · Post by **Tonyh** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:12 pm

I started early, flew west facing ridges and reached TP2 quite fast and high. On track to TP3 were not so many clouds, but there were plenty to the right of track. I decided to play it safe and head for the area with several clouds which meant flying about 50 degrees off track. My first cloud died leaving me with DDH +150 at MC 0.5, but another cloud close by got me upto to MC 2.

As it turned out I didn't need the 150 metres reserve, the plateau was not so bad from this direction Rene, and the last 20km were flown at MC 3.2.

Normally I wouldn't fly such a big angle off track, and it cost me about 5 minutes compared to others who went more direct. But I knew that I would still finish with quite a good time and score and decided to play safe and just make sure of finishing.

ambrozic · Post by **ambrozic** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:21 pm

personaly i really enjoyed this task.

Freebird · Post by **Freebird** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:58 pm

As Tim said the date & time meant an early start was important, I flew the ridges to & from TP1 then took a climb to cloudbase near the end of the ridges. At that point there were plenty of clouds ahead over the plain although in the distance, to make sure I had plenty of options when I got to the clouds I turned down my MC setting a bit to conserve height (I had just enough to make the TP) That leg was fairly straightforward but the thermal I took after TP2 died before I got to cloudbase leaving me with a marginal FG so I flew left of track aiming at the corner of the finish line so I could fly a little faster as the terrain was a bit lower to the left.

thermal · Post by **thermal** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:08 pm

As usual, I was called away about the same time the start line opened.
When I came back, I found myself at 1200 meters.

Knowing the date and the probability of the thermals die-ing out early, I decided to waste no time climbing and crossed the start line at ~1100 meters.

That gave me a speed handicap right from the beginning, and track selection, as Tim explained above, became essential to even finish the task.

Funny to see that Tim's track and mine are an almost exact match, even though we flew on different Servers in different time zones.

Very nice task with an exciting final glide.

Icarus · Post by **Icarus** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 1:46 am

Who would have guessed that 112km/h would yield 848 pts!!!

For a change I count myself as one of the finishers....I've been doing a lot of landing out...becoming expert

Learning a few lessons along the way (finally!); I'm paying a lot more attention to these little details now. Picked the late start and time of year, so started as soon as the gate opened....reasonable progress on the ridges but I could have been more aggressive.

By 16h00 well into the second leg I could see the day was dying and had my last "drink" 16km into the 3rd leg to cloudbase, wound the Mc back to 0.5 and made a 72km nail-biter final glide round TP3 and home....my impatient friends landed out ahead of me

This was an interesting task with a combination of strategy, ridge and thermal flying.

See you guys on Thursday

H9

Tonyh · Post by **Tonyh** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 10:32 am

Nice one Hank

One of those tasks where finishing will give good points, you made the right decision to make a slow final glide.

Icarus · Post by **Icarus** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 12:06 am

Thanks Tony, it's nice to have a few moments of satisfaction to punctuate the dark pool of despair that has followed my SBC 08 so far

Have a good Xmas mate....I'm on three weeks holiday from next week so I'm going to get reacquanted with a fully ballasted Discus on a hot thermic day and go do some X-Country flying.

Cheers

H9

Tonyh · Post by **Tonyh** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 12:41 am

Lucky b*gger

Have fun, I did manage to get a few days in Benalla in february some years ago, they only had a Junior available, but you can go a long way in one of those with your conditions down there

Freebird · Post by **Freebird** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 6:02 pm

I'm on three weeks holiday from next week so I'm going to get reacquanted with a fully ballasted Discus on a hot thermic day and go do some X-Country flyin

Its not nice reading that with the central heating on & the temperature just about to go below zero outside

but as its Xmas I'll wish you good luck.