Midnight Oil - Flying condor competition when you really should be sleeping

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janjansen
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Re: Midnight Oil - Flying condor competition when you really should be sleeping

Post by janjansen » Wed Mar 06, 2019 8:41 am

I watched 2 live streams yesterday, by Viking (V.soaring)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/390909674##
and Jose Luis Bres.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDx8rNAAB7A

Thanks for providing them, its a fun way to follow the race. Even though Im at best a mediocre pilot myself, Im going to give some unsolicited advice / remarks.

@Viking, man you fly close to the trees! You seem to have it under control and maybe its a little easier in 3D with your goggles, but Im constantly just waiting for you to hit a tree or mountain with a wingtip, its truly scary to watch lol. I wonder what would happen if I increase turbulence or you fly an open class ship :).
Anyway, use the PDA map; unless you are using an external app, I dont think I have once seen you check the map, and as a result, you boxed yourself in and lost a lot of time and needed a minor miracle to get over those ridges on the first leg. If you had checked the map, you might have seen that you would need more height, or that going round south was a more obvious solution.
You seem to love skimming ridges at low alt, and you are good at it. But they wont always get you to the finish lines, especially not in my tasks. When the ridges cant carry you along the flight path, or when they are almost at a 90 degree angle to the flight path, you sometimes need to get some altitude. There is more wind and thus more ridge lift at higher altitudes, and thermals also strengthen with height. Altitude gives you better lift and more options, a faster ground speed to boot and when you fly downwind, the stronger wind helps even more. When you approached the Sisteron TP, you where low, there was no ridge along the path. You ignored a flock of of pilots turning a thermal on your left, flew past a couple of nice looking Cu clouds and when by sheer luck you flew in to a strong 5m thermal that had not yet formed a cloud, you pulled up a little and then carried on at a few 100m above ground. Why? The ridges only gave you ~2m/s and there where no real usable ridges along the last leg, just some hills you had to cross with wind from behind that might provide some lift on one side, but similar sink on the other. Add to that a large lake, which the previous task(s) should have taught you, is killing thermals :) Had you turned in that +5m/s you would have won, easily.

I will say this: I dont think I could keep up with you on pure ridge tasks. You do seem to have some talent there!

@JL Bres
First of all, congrats :). Although there is still a second session tonight, this may be the first Spanish victory in MNO!
I noticed you where running xcsoar nav boxes on top of condor, and Im curious how you achieved that? Or was that just in the stream, and did xcsoar run on a second monitor?

Most of the information shown in those boxes is already available on your condor PDA and variometer. A better us of xcsoar is to show the things that the PDA does not, like cross section of the terrain or your reach on the map. To have most of the things xcsoar shows you now, you just need to set your McCready value in condor PDA/variometer. Doing that will also help you flying an optimal speed. Too often I saw you speed up in strong lift and slow down in heavy sink. And you final glide was... not optimal? On final glide, set your mccready so the red dot is in the center (DDH altitude = 0) and then the little blue and red arrows in the variometer will give you a good indication of optimal speed to fly. Earlier in the task, when flying thermals, set McCready to your expected lift and also use the arrows to help determine your best speed. Dont chase those arrows, but use them as guidelines. In general I think you fly too conservative especially when you had plenty of altitude and every reason to expect strong thermals. Last point, Im not entirely sure you where carrying water ballast?

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Viking
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Re: Midnight Oil - Flying condor competition when you really should be sleeping

Post by Viking » Wed Mar 06, 2019 12:05 pm

Hi Jan :)

First off ... thank you so very much for your extensive and perfectly justified unsolicited advice / remarks about my horror flight yesterday evening.
It was totally done on purpose im afraid to say.!, but nonetheless i truly appreciate that you have taken the time to comment on my flight.
When i started out yesterday i was so tired that i could stand on my eyelid`s, and my arm`s were so long that i could stand straight up and tie my shoelaces.
I flew that task with my BED pictured in my mind, before my horrendous attemt to land on a bridge of all thing`s around me :shock: , and with the mindset of : It hold`s as long as it last`s !
I more or less knew (With you as tasksetter) that this ship wont reach the finish line, but im so addicted to this soaring stuff that i started out anyway.

A few things about my diving goggles i wear when flying ( Oculus Rift ) .

It`s amazing to fly with first off all, but it does have some drawback`s

The picture inside the headset is only so clear, and you dont have zoom funtion`s or the like as you would have with feks. flying with a Track IR wich i flew with up until the day they released VR.

Another thing is the typing in chat : CG, congrat`s or THX ...... i use glases for reading and stuff, so evey time i have to type one of those thing`s into the chat i have to take of Ocullus ..... put on my glasses .... type whatever... lay down the glases ...put on my headset again and adjust the headset to finally continue my flight.

If you find my stream and soaring close to the ridgeline and just above treetop level interessting / adrenaline jumping, then just think of me when im trying to type with no headset .... hands off my controller`s... fiddeling after my glasses ( where did they go last time i typed CG ???) then fear not, there`s at least 1 other guy praying that he trimmed the aircraft so and so before removing he`s eyes out of the sim :D

Just a few day`s ago i found out that there is a way around importing 3 party thing`s into my VR experience, so i might give XcSoar a shot again, cause i soarly ( pun intended) miss it.

To all of my fellow pilot`s who might read this post :

Please forgive me if i miss a CG or Congrat`s now and then, im doing my best to appriciate everyone`s effort to get around these MNO task`s, it`s just an abnormal pain in the back every time i have to go through the above mentioned. :shock:

My biggedt wish is that we could all join up on TS, that would make my online soaring experience so ENORMOUS much easier to cope with.

Thank you again Jan for commenting on the flight, i really appriciate it :)

Best flight`s to all. :)

I might try to refly the task later on today, as thing`s are not that hectic around here today :roll:
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blacksun
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Re: Midnight Oil - Flying condor competition when you really should be sleeping

Post by blacksun » Wed Mar 06, 2019 12:54 pm

Had a crap flight, firstly I didnt get the task and was in a rush to join. Secondly the batteries ran out on my decision making device (brain)!
Flew over a ridge that would have kept me up and allowed me to get back on line to TP1 for another ridge behind that looked like it would run closer to TP1. Turned out the ground rose up so that ridge was about 3m high with a shallow slope in front. Probably with Vikings skill I could have managed to follow it, but I put my gear down and landed on an upslope. My excuse is I fly in VR with the Oculus Rift and the instruments aren't that clear so was unable to read or zoom out the map.

Viking, I have the same problem as you using the rift with poor eye sight. I can't help with reading the instruments, but one thing I did try yesterday which worked was VoiceAttack. You can use this for free providing you don't need too many phrases and only want one profile.
As I ran out of buttons on the joystick, I've set up voice commands for things like 'M C down', 'M C up', 'M C big down', 'M C big up', 'p d a 1', 'p d a 2', 'p d a 3', 'p d a 4', 'grats', 'hello', 'water'. So by saying one of those phrases (dont press the team speak push to talk button), voice attack presses the corresponding condor keys as if you had typed them yourself. Make sure you tell it to send the key presses to Condor 2.0.6 (see picture). I used the recorder button in voice attack to record button presses as it seemed more reliable and for the chat remember to press the backspace key followed by what you want to type then return.
It seemed to work quite well but you are limited to typing the comments you have previously setup but you don't need to take the visor off and I can say hi and cg, well done, etc.
grats.png
Hope to try again tonight as it was a really challenging task.
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janjansen
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Re: Midnight Oil - Flying condor competition when you really should be sleeping

Post by janjansen » Wed Mar 06, 2019 2:11 pm

Viking wrote:
Wed Mar 06, 2019 12:05 pm
The picture inside the headset is only so clear, and you dont have zoom funtion`s or the like as you would have with feks. flying with a Track IR wich i flew with up until the day they released VR.
But you can just move your head forward to "zoom in" on the PDA, no? Is it then still too bad to make use of the map feature?
Another thing is the typing in chat
Yeah I totally get that. I dont expect VR pilots to type at all :) And there should be a rule against "cg" . I mean, its polite, and well intentioned of course, but it gets pretty annoying especially on large servers where 50+ pilots get congratulated by 50+ other pilots for every TP. I even changed the audio file for the message thing because the chirping noise drove me crazy.

Anyway, about chat, I agree, Teamspeak is the solution here. The Spanish battalion seem to have their own teamspeak channel/server where they speak Spanish. Not sure about the others.

But to anyone interested, even if you have some regular "wing man" or wing men, you can set up whisper channels in teamspeak, so you can still join a larger group or one where english is spoken, but "whisper" to your mates in whatever language you want. Also useful for cursing :)

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Viking
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Re: Midnight Oil - Flying condor competition when you really should be sleeping

Post by Viking » Wed Mar 06, 2019 2:13 pm

@ Blacksun

Holy smokes Blacksun :shock: I have owned that program for years and have used it likevice on DCS for years flying my beloved tankbuster the A-10c.
Incredible i havent given it thought at all ...???? :oops: :oops: :oops: !!! ( cant see the forest for tree`s ) !!!

So THANKS A BUNCH Blacksun for reviving some of my battery capacity upstairs, mabye with all the help i get i will end up fully charged :mrgreen:
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Viking
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Re: Midnight Oil - Flying condor competition when you really should be sleeping

Post by Viking » Wed Mar 06, 2019 2:28 pm

@janjansen
But you can just move your head forward to "zoom in" on the PDA, no? Is it then still too bad to make use of the map feature?
Totally correct ! There`s no excuse for not using the map feature at all.!
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janjansen
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Re: Midnight Oil - Flying condor competition when you really should be sleeping

Post by janjansen » Sat Mar 09, 2019 1:11 pm

Last Midnight Oil task this evening. Points will count double and there will not be a refly session tomorrow. Instead Low & Slow will kick off on Monday, feel free to sign up there if you havent already:

https://www.condor-club.eu/comp/show/0/?id=338

Tonight could be a tricky task. I think Viking will love it, but for everyone else I strongly recommend the ASG-29Es.

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UrosM
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Re: Midnight Oil - Flying condor competition when you really should be sleeping

Post by UrosM » Sat Mar 09, 2019 11:57 pm

Tricky one for the last day.

It was fun. 'till next race.
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blacksun
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Re: Midnight Oil - Flying condor competition when you really should be sleeping

Post by blacksun » Sun Mar 10, 2019 12:49 am

thanks janjansen for a great competition with a really interesting set of tasks.
Looking forward to the next contest.

Congratulations to everyone that completed tasks, I am blown away by the speed many of you manage to fly round these tasks, thanks also for all the help and advice.
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janjansen
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Re: Midnight Oil - Flying condor competition when you really should be sleeping

Post by janjansen » Sun Mar 10, 2019 1:29 am

blacksun wrote:
Sun Mar 10, 2019 12:49 am
, I am blown away by the speed many of you manage to fly round these tasks,.
Maybe it helps to watch some live streams, see if you notice if we do anything really different. Here is mine for the last flight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb2m5BGwOt0

TKM also streams all his flights, and he is (usually) a better example:
https://www.youtube.com/user/71timmadsen

blacksun
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Re: Midnight Oil - Flying condor competition when you really should be sleeping

Post by blacksun » Mon Mar 11, 2019 5:14 pm

Thanks janjansen it was very interesting to see how you both tackled the task.

I've also found another source to study, on condor club's website under the task results page, there is a link to view the replay.
By checking up to 5 results and including my own in there it makes it easy to see how and where I start to fall behind.
As an example
https://www.condor-club.eu/showrace/0/? ... &rp=120936
(not sure what the glitch is with the site, but one of the gliders some how seems to start the race with a bit of a head start)

Basically I tend to fly conservatively and maintain height at the cost of speed. In addition I need to improve my map reading and navigation skills.

Thanks again for running this contest and congratulations to Jiri Adam on the win.

See you all in the low and slow flights.
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janjansen
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Re: Midnight Oil - Flying condor competition when you really should be sleeping

Post by janjansen » Mon Mar 11, 2019 5:56 pm

blacksun wrote:
Mon Mar 11, 2019 5:14 pm

(not sure what the glitch is with the site, but one of the gliders some how seems to start the race with a bit of a head start)
You have to click "task time" to sync the flights based on crossing the startline. The difference between the servers/sessions is probably due to start gate opening being delayed by someone lingering in the notam, or maybe I reset the jointime of the server upon first connection so there could be a few minutes difference between sessions.

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