[SBC2013] Competition Days

[Simicro]

[SBC2013] Competition Days

[Mikko]

When entering thermal, please turn to the same direction as the first one, regardless of the height difference. One contributing factor to my crash because on same height one decided to go to opposite direction than the first and I had to make a change of plan. Of course in the end the fault was mine as I decided to go head on with the Mr. Rock rather than the glider

Br,

Mikko

[RaiderOne]

Hi Mikko,

Were you (circling) in a thermal less than 10km from the start line ?

[Mikko]

I was about 30km on the the task, flying along a ridge. Plan was to turn left like the first one already thermaling much higher but a pilot in front turned right. I thought it's better to go same direction as the height difference was small but ended up rubbing carbon-fiber against the ridge But like said, my fault as I didn't leave enough space for the turn.

Br,

Mikko

[JJJ]

Competition Day 1:

Checking the briefing and see that you'll fly in Provence 2, my favorite scenery.
The evening started quite well to be honest. After checking the weather in Condor twice or even more I've decided my route already. As I've flown many and when I mean many I mean ALOT of hours in Provence I know the area almost without looking at the map.

I've decided to take the ASG29 full of water and CG of -2.
After releasing from the cmelack I got a thermal of 1,6 m/s average, climbed till 1750m and went on route for a test.
Flew 30km on track and the ridges were doing what I've expected. Enough to fly along them. Hopefully some clouds would pop up, but as the sun and the wind were standing at the ridges that was not a guess just aknowledge. Flew back after those 30km and decided not to take a thermal before the start but just some ridge flying to look how it works with the full balasted ASG 29 and the auto rudder (My joystick decided that my rudder won't work anymore..) Also figured out that outside view was disabled. That was a small bummer for me but anyways waiting for the group to come together and Simon (Berx) joined me on the ridge. Had some small dogfighting and started the race. Together with Simon, Quinten and Thibeau which missed us and started a bit behind but quite easily got near us because we had to center the thermals.
Our first thermal was about 3 m/s near on of the first ridges around 20km after the start. Here we saw we were just alone as noone joined us. So we were with four people, could we finish closely together?
After that thermal we took the ridges on ridge again but a bit higher so a bit more safety. (Can still remember how Thibeau and Quinten said, I think we need a thermal soon because this is low above the trees, Simon already knew my flightstyle so he was laughing :) ). We saw a new cloud popping up and with four in a row we got into that thermal quite high (in my perspective). Only 2m/s average, did expect a bit more there anyways after winning some altitude we could get over the next hill where an old cloud was screaming at us to come as fast as possible!
We arrived there and I didn't dare to make a full circle near the ridge so I made two eights to get above the ridge and making circles, again 3 m/s+ Thibeau and Simon lost a bit altitude there because they were a little bit lower as Quinten and me. After that cloud we flew on and from there on it was peace of cake, atleast that's what I tought. We still did need a thermal to reach the first turnpoint. Found one where everything changed.
Quinten and I had about 2,5 m/s average while we saw Thibeau coming up quite fast, he probably got 3 m/s there but we had to take it and get over the ridge, Simon had the same as Thibeau but decided to take it a bit longer. Now the group was split as Simon took another way and Thibeau, Quinten and I were a bit in the lead, ca 5-7km. Norbert (CN) and DB1 joined our little train and we flew along the ridges with good lift, I knew we did not have to turn anymore, Ahh again I was wrong we did need serveral eights to get over the last ridge and I lost 200m there because of heavy sink on the Leeside which the others didn't get.. Suddendly I was the lowest of our team.. On finalglide I pushed and pushed to gain some distance between us so I would finish first and try to make the best time to have enough points as I knew Thibeau started 1min later. We all finished quite near eachoter and landed. Simon got low near the ridge and just couldn't make it, so he had to use a very weak lift and finished a bit behind us.

After the race we saw that the team worked fine altough I think a bit more help in centering would have made a 1,2,3 for Belgium.

[snip]

No comment about day 2 JJJ?

Your first one was very appreciated! Thanks for that.

[JJJ]

No comment about day 2 JJJ? ;)

Your first one was very appreciated! Thanks for that.

Will do that tommorow ;)

[JJJ]

Competition day 2

Oooh bloody hell, West Swiss.. One of the sceneries were it works in the ridges, but once in flatlands It's over with me..
Before the start I didn't prepare any route at all, I tought it would've been lot's easier with this wind as last Thursday.
Anyway before the start the ridge south east of the start was working quite well and I could fly up to the Jungfrau and climb to 3000m, that was a goal before start :).

Simon Berx couldn't join us tonight cause he was at work so it was just TIB, QAS and me. When we got close to eachoter before the start we went over the line and I saw that 8K also started at the same time as us. So we decided to go north of track to the nice ridge which was on the wind. After flying on the ridge for about five kilometers I was kinda worried that I've not seen any cloud on the ridge, and the ridge was not working that fine aswell.. So I decided to return and so did QAS and TIB. After going back for the restart I was looking to the map what could we do if it isn't working again? I've decided to go more south this time so we have time enough to make a third restart if neccesery. This time the start went quite oke, we had CIA just started infront of us which gave us 2 great thermals and we had a nice speed going '8K' was still behind us as he also did need a restart. After a wrong circle I got 100m below TIB & QAS and I could not reach the ridge that well anymore so I was losing more altitude by every second passing by. We got a lift of +3 m/s again and they started to glide over the Bex valley to the next ridge with 2km of advantage and a bit of altitude more as me. Anyway I decided to pull the brake up and not rush everything up cause we still had the flatlands to go. After the bex valley I catched a lift of 2m/s but CIA, TIB and QAS did not flew that exact route so they've missed it. A little while later (approx 1min :)) 8K joined me aswell.
I was a bit irritated because he was all flight flying slow but enjoying how we were giving 'em the thermals. I should not have done that but anyways we went on and I saw 8K on the PDA turning in behind me, I was like hmm? maybe not a bad idea.. Looking back infront and I saw TIB and QAS turning in their reporting 1,8. When I arrived there we were back with 3 together at the same altitude but the lift was not 1,8 anymore.. It got into the lee side and was only 0,9 when we left.. Then we heard that Patrick Hoeve said that the average lift was not more as 1m/s so we were waiting for that cloud 45° of track to give us a good lift and we did spread out under the cloud, couldn't find anything.. I was sure we couldn't reach the ridge anymore so i've changed course to CIA who reported 1,6. TIB and QAS flew on and got 1,3 near the ridge while I could not catch that 1,6 lift of CIA.

This is the point were I did lose TIB and QAS.
I had to fly back to the ridge and saw I had not enough altitude so I flew to the lake and waited for a thermal there.. after 200m of struggeling in 0,4 I decided to dump my water and flew on to the next cloud. I had a bit of luck as I reached it with only 70m AGL. It was 1,6 m/s and I decided to climb till the cloudbase as it was a new cloud, but because it was so late the thermals are dying lot's faster as around 1'o clock. Just below cloudbase and 500m below glidepath mc. 1 I decided to move on as the cloud did dissapear and I flew to the turnpoint. Two new clouds popped up and gave me 1,9m/s average up to the cloudbase and I was finalglide mc 1. I heard from other guys that they were all landing out, while 8K already finished (15min before me!!) I was happy that I could make it and saw others landing out, to bad I did not have any water so my finalglide was only at 120kmh with a small headwind. After the long glide I landed and was statisfied with the result, still 917 points for being so slow. It was like a present for fighting so hard.

To bad Erwin (EDB) couldn't make it, I was at teamspeak until he landed 6km before field after 18:10 condor time. He got stuck on the first ridge and still had the courage to fly on and had a 5:30h flight!
Well done anyways Erwin!


PS: Next will be with screenshots if I can fix my graphics in condor.

[arneh]

Like many I struggled in the second half of the task. I just totatlly misestimated how weak the lift would be.

The first half of the task was very smooth, riding ridge all the way. But once I got into the second half and had to circle in thermals, and only found 1 m/s thermals I figured they were bad thermals and it had to be something better further on. That ended up in me reaching the ridge on the north side of Lake Geneva at very low altitude, having discarded all the thermals on the way there as too weak. I was mostly able to keep altitude by flying slowly on the ridge, but not gaining anything. I was hoping to find some thermals on the ridge, but they seemed to be too high on the ridge for me to reach.

Just when I was about to land out, I got some lift from a blue thermal. I dumped most of my water to be able to climb it, and it gave a reasonable 1.5 m/s. Saved at the last moment! But still believing there were plenty of better thermals around (I was quite stubborn in my belief that it was a good thermal day, despite all the evidence to the contrary ), I left it after having climbed a few hundred meters, and set off for some nice looking Cu a little further on on the ridge.

But those didn't give anything, and I was again in trouble flying slowely low on the ridge. And now the ridge was running perpendicular to the waypoint too, so I wasn't gainging any distance anymore either. And there were no Cu further on on the ridge to give me any hope of finding any more lift either. So I had to fly out to the south towards the few Cu I could see, completely the opposite direction of the turnpoint. The first one I headed for died before I got there, and so did the next one. I now was low above the terrain and 15 km further from the waypoing than when I started that last hunt for thermals. But finally I did find a working thermal. It gave me about 1.2 m/s, but I had by now finally realized that thermals were horrible today, so I didn't care, and didn't want to be low again, so I climbed that thermal for more than 1000 m, which took an eternity.
The rest of the task I stayed high, and somewhat wiser from my experience didn't care that the thermals I took weren't that good, now I just wanted to finish.

Great was my surprise when I still got over 900 points for that flight. Pretty sure it's the first time I've gotten 900 points for a flight when I flew 15 km in the opposite direction to climb in a 1.2 m/s thermal

[arneh]

To bad Erwin (EDB) couldn't make it, I was at teamspeak until he landed 6km before field after 18:10 condor time. He got stuck on the first ridge and still had the courage to fly on and had a 5:30h flight!

Wow, that's persistence!

[JJJ]

To bad Erwin (EDB) couldn't make it, I was at teamspeak until he landed 6km before field after 18:10 condor time. He got stuck on the first ridge and still had the courage to fly on and had a 5:30h flight!

Wow, that's persistence!

I went to bed at 03:10 while he just uploaded, but it looks like they didn't open a slot for him to upload hes FTR @ Competition day 2

[EDB]

Jup... 5u 35m 51s (5u 52m 40s total)
Still very tired...



Too bad I wasn't allowed to upload later.

[JJJ]

Competition day 3

Shot444.jpg

Decided to fly in team again with Simon and Tadej also joined us.

Shot449.jpg

Plan was to start east get a thermal and fly along the ridges for the rest of the task.
We could not catch any decent thermal and every thermal was below 1,5 so we flew on and couldn't get the next cloud so we all flew another route. Trying my best to get up but didn't work at all, flew to more as 10 clouds and nothing was giving a better lift as 2m/s while it was moderate but I wanted to finish.. Once I got on the west of track again and being stuck for more as 10 minutes and probably even more my flight improved, got faster and still managed to fly a very good last leg.

Shot456.jpg

I would like to ask to the competitors what their reason was for the low clouds and why they always put a low start.
This task was a bit dangerous because of that clouds and you had to have lots of luck to get no clouds on your planned track
Anyway see you sunday, hopefully a bit better task but out of 35 tasks you can't make 35 perfect task anyway!

Best Regards

[arneh]

Competition day 3
No Comments.

Haha, yeah, that one didn't go quite as planned!

[guyyom]

I made a good first leg, but the wrong choice on the second cost me 3 minutes , I hope next time I will be more intelligent