Neville Almond and Steve Elkins stepped off the plane to find a very warm Orlando. After being finger printed and filling lots of forms we managed to get our hire car without any problems.
The same was not true for one of the Italian pilots. He had been involved in a student demo in 1968 and was thus refused entry at Olando and sent home. The story has various versions but even the efforts of the Italian consulate could not change their decision so the Italians were down one man.
The British team is very small this year with only two pilots. When we started planning the trip our team looked quite strong with both Jason Prior and Mike Stephens putting their names down to go. However our star pilots have deserted us: Jason has had all leave and weekends cancelled until 2012 (He is sorting out the Olympics.) Mike Stephens bought a new glider but felt uncompetitive. (His wife Hilary won the competition for sporting support this year. Good luck Hilary.)
We drove straight to Quest to find out if our gliders had arrived. It was a great relief to find lots of big boxes and even better when we found our names on the gliders. Well done Christoph Lohrman from AIR. He looked pretty tired but had managed to get all the gliders to Quest in good time.
I had forgotten quite what a beautiful airfield Quest is. It has a lovely relaxed feel to it, (that may have been enhanced by the gliders being there) and is such a nice setting. We witnessed a lovely Sunset.
1st Practise day, Quest 16th May 2006.
We woke to find grey skys and rain. Not much flying! A shame but a bit more opportunity to get sorted.
At the team leaders meeting there was a fair bit said about scoring, setting up, ballast, scoring, scoring parameters etc.
The new slimline Dave Glover looks like a great meet director. Each time anything contentious came up he quickly said that he would talk about that later.
Angelo Crapanzano had a bit to say about the scoring and Dave agreed to discuss it all with him the next days. (Angelo is the middle character of the GAP scoring design trio so we are lucky to have him here. Dave seemed very ameanable to change if it would improve the comp.)
Since I last saw Dave Glover he was 25kg larger. He really does look much healthier and younger. That can not be said for all the other pilots: The fact that one of the younger pilots was sent home for taking part in Student riots in 1968! Gives you a flavour of the age here; There is a significant grey tinge to quite a few of the pilots.
The youngest in Class 5 is probably Primash. He is flying the Aeros Phantom. He flew very well last years so is definitely one of the pilots to watch in Class 5.
The meet consits of 3 competitions all taking part at the same time:
The Class 5 (ATOS type rigid wings). 60 + competitors.
The Class 2 (Swift type rigid wing with pilot fairings.) (Nearly 8 competitors and we need 8 to make it valid.)
The Womens Class 1 (Flex wing hang gliders.) 14 pilots.
2nd Practise Day, 17th of May 2006. (Last day before the comp.)
We awoke to a very good forecast but with a bit of wind from the NW.
For Nev and Steve it’s the last chance to fly their gliders before the comp. Nev got his glider rigged and went for couple of hours flight.
A few of the women were getting further instruction on their towing: There were some pretty wild looking flex wing tows which made being a spectator quite exciting.
Robin Hamilton arrived (Class 2) and started putting his Swift together. Robin bought the glider that Manfred flew at the last world Championships. It has a full carbon cockpit and significantly reduced frontal area. Robin says that Manfred has done some other bits to it sealing the control surfaces better. Robin also says that Manfred was dissapointed to find that he was flying a standard swift and couldnÕt get another like Robins.
A lot of the US pilots did not fly but the airfield was pretty busy and the sky looked great.
David Chaument from the French team is flying and interesting glider the Impact. It looked like he was totally rebuilding it on the airfield. It has amazingly long leading edge spars. You can see just how much longer they are than the VR.
Steve rigged had quite a lot to do including checking his new parachute with Angelo Crapanzano, checking hang lengths etc. Finally Steve got his new VR rigged and a tow at about 3pm.
“It was a great relief to get in the air and find that the glider flew really well and the hang loop was the right length.”
Conditions were good and the climb out above quest was uneventful. Steve pushed into wind to the last cloud before a big blue band of sky. It was a practise day so might as well find out how conditions were in the blue. ÒI could always just turn round and glide back to Quest.Ó It was then that Steve noticed the GPS had lost coverage (not uncommon around here I am told.)
There was a good field ahead, it even had a tractor in it so a bit of a dead cert. There were a few bumps but nothing really going up. “So I turned round and flew back towards Quest. It was starting to look a bit of an optomistic glide to say the least so I diverted over a large chicken factory. Reduced sink and fortunately a nice field to land in. Seeing one of these places close up really does make you think.”
It was only 5 miles back to Quest, “and I can confirm that it is much easier flying than walking back with your harness.”
This was not quite the practise Steve had hoped for but we returned for the opening dinner very relived that our gliders flew well and all our kit seemed to work.
We were entertained that evening by a guy from Gator Land. Fortunately the Aligators that he had bought along had their mouths taped shut. Hopefully IÕll manage to get some photos of people wrestling with Aligators.
In the queue for food we met Carlos from Spain. His glider had still not cleared customs which was pretty bad news with the comp starting the next morning. Carlos was also looking for a retrieve driver. We explained that we had a car and a blow up roof rack but no driver. At that point Jim Yocum introduced us to John Coyne and said that he could drive for us. We felt a bit for John as he was really put on the spot and had had no warning. Neville told him that there would probably be no retrieves as we would get to goal. Brave talk. Jim then told us that we could also use his car which was setup to carry 3 Rigids. So in two minutes we had a retrive driver, car and a an extra pilot.
First Competition Day, 18th May 2006
The forecast of a couple of days ago was pretty accurate. Conditions looked excellent if a little windy from the North West.
Some decisions have been made about the scoring:
Gap 2002 will be used.
Race 2002 will be used.
What this means? Well Angelo says he knows: It means that their will be a leading bonus: In an extreme case this means that if you lead all the way to goal and land just short you can score more than somebody who gets to goal.
There will be two start gates with half an hour between them. (I don’t know if there will be any leading bonus if you take the 2nd start?)
Angelo has also persuaded Dave to try another idea: That is quite a large finish line cylinder, in this case 1 mile radius. At this point your time stops. You then have to fly on to a _ mile radius goal line to get full points. If you cross the first but don’t make the 2nd you loose 20% of your speed points. The idea is to try and prevent people trying to cross the goal line at full speed just above the ground. (Sounds like a good idea.)
Due to various concerns raised by Dider, the French team leader the staging of gliders is quite complicated. We are split into three groups and well line up. To be honest I can’t see the point. Pushing my glider out to the start I was moved from the first line to the 2nd where apparently there was one too many so then to the other side of the airfield where I took up my place at the back. I don’t think I have fully got the hang of it yet.
The first day of a comp is really quite exciting. We all want to get going without doing something stupid and making complete fools of ourselves.
The task was a 65-mile dogleg. The first leg was cross wind and the 2nd down wind.
Neville took off quite early and Steve quite late. However the tug turn around was pretty good so the time to get the whole field up was pretty good. There seems to be quite a variation in power of the Dragonflies with the various engines. Both of us felt that we had been really wrenched into the sky. With a minute or two to 2000 feet it doesn’t last long.
Neville positioned himself perfectly to the upwind side of the start cylinder to set off almost at cloud base at the first start window with Christian Chech, Jacques Bott.
Steve made a bit of a hash of it: released into a weak climb then chasing off downwind to circling gliders twice before realising he was low and unable to glide back to the airfield. “Seeing a few birds was a relief but they weren’t circling. Finally the powerful climb I found was so welcome that I totally forgave it the fact that I went weightless a few times. Very foolish flying!”
Steve Finally got himself to a reasonable position in time for the second and final start window. He set off with about 20 to 30 other gliders. Everybody at this start set off with quite an upwind track avoiding a good cloud more on the course line. Steve flew to the cloud and right past it before finally getting a reasonable climb.
Neville had a good run all the way to goal for a reasonable time.
Steve had the GPS go out a few times approaching the first TP. It came back on and then, gliding towards the TP, went out at 2.7miles to go. “I didn’t know what to do so I just kept on going on the same course. I didn’t know which intersection it was so I just kept going. There were a few gliders climbing and I climbed with them but I could not get GPS coverage. I really didn’t know what to do. There was a strong wind and hanging about was going to be very difficult. Also I was not sure if others were having the same problem.”
Steve pressed on towards goal, under some pretty good clouds, and the GPS finally came back on. “It’s a horrible feeling knowing that your turn point is doubtful but I was really unsure what to do. ” However Steve’s GPS surprises were not over; at about 12 miles out he set off on glide. “The numbers looked like I would be high, at goal, so I pulled on a lot. I got down to about 5 – 6 miles out and then the GPS changed and said I had over 10 miles to go! I’ve never had that before. Fortunately I flew into some strong lift did a few turns and the GPS then changed back to 5 miles to go. Very frustrating! I arrived at Goal miles to high and it took me ages to get down.”
“At goal I found out that most had not had GPS problems and certainly not over the turn point.” Others described its location and Steve felt certain that he had managed to fly around the turn point even if his back up GPS had worked. Neville pointed out that at 2 _ miles a target of _ mile, the radius of the turn point cylinder, was not such a difficult shot.
“I was annoyed and trying to prepare myself for the worst in the scoring. I find that even with preparation the sinking feeling you get when it is confirmed that you will get no points is still pretty horrible.” Steve’s GPS was down loaded, the trace was terrible with lots of breaks and his distance was given as just less than half the distance. “Oh dear, just as I feared. I then hooked up my backup. The backup trace was perfect I had missed the centre of the turn point by about 50m so I was well in. I could not believe it. I was so lucky. Murphy’s law does not always hold etc etc.”
There were quite a lot in goal and the fastest had done it in about 1 _ hours so the score would be down graded a fair bit. (The scoring parameter had been set a 2-_ hours so the task was too quick.) Neville did it in 1.35 with the first start. Steve was delighted to get any points with 1.36.
It was discovered that the fastest pilots with the second start did not get any leading bonus. There was a bit of discussion the next morning about changing the start gates. The fastest pilots want to be able to catch up and a 30-minute gap between starts makes it difficult.
Calos did really well. He went to the Airport in the morning, managed to clear his glider through customs, got his glider rigged in time and managed to get to goal. A fantastic effort.
Chritian won the day but left his harness in the goal field.
2nd Competition Day, 19th May 2006
The forecast was good again with a slighty stronger wind from WNW.
After yesterday’s short task there was a bit of pressure on the task committee to not under set today’s task. Neville had also said many times that he hoped they would set proper tasks and “Not useless poxy little sixty five miles tasks that are over in a couple of hours. We didn’t come all this way to do some tiny tasks.” Neville also emphasised that the gliders are so effortless to fly they don’t make you tired. (With a stiff neck Steve was not in complete agreement.)
Bearing this in mind Steve’s decision on the task committee was slightly coloured. Davis assured us that the weather would be at least as good as yesterday (though it did not look as good) so we agreed upon a 127 mile (Just over 200km) cross wind task to Florida Ridge flight park. Davis also told me that one of the privlidges of being on the task committee was that you could ‘stage’ your glider where ever you wanted.
For some reason the girls decided not to launch in their window. Steve put his glider at the back of the shortest queue and prepared to launch. Nev went for his pre-flight swim.
Steve probably took off about half way through the field and made the mistake of releasing a bit early. Conditions did not seem that good. “I climbed slowly taking care. The cloudbase seemed to be about 3700 ft and there was a lot of high cloud coming in.” The task was starting to look like a long one. Consequently most set off at the first start even if they had not made a perfect start.
Nev took off near the back of the field by which time conditions had got worse. It had now become pretty overcast. While Steve struggled to stay up further down the course Neville was struggling to stay up over Quest:
“The day started well for most, but a nightmare unfolded for myself and around 10 or 15 other pilots at the back of the launch queue – near the task start time a layer of high cloud overshadowed the entire area and simply staying airborne became difficult, with cross-country impossible.
I spent 90 minutes in the company of a few others where we tiptoed within 6 or 7 miles of Quest, looking for anything but really knowing we were in a completely flat, dead area of sky, devoid of sun and cumulus.
Nearly at the point of thinking we would simply have to land and bin the day, sunshine started emerging from the west. Then, a pilot was spotted at 500ft but on the edge of the sunshine, and I used all my 1800ft gliding 3 or 4 miles for the opportunity and it worked, a valuable 3500ft. The pilot I was with earlier hesitated for just four minutes and missed this thermal and landed. I then hooked up with Campbell Bowen (USA, Atos VX) and Primoz Gricar (Aeors Phantom) and we glided 5 miles further south into even better sunshine and recommenced another low-level thermal search at 800ft. Unfortunately Primoz landed, and Campbell and I rose high enough to start our first serious glide.
From here on I had a reasonably straightforward flight in a cloudless sky, albeit the thermal getting steadily weaker as early evening approached. At 6:45 and 15 miles out my current thermal has ‘last one’ written all over it, so I maxed it out to 5200ft and glided to goal with 400ft to spare! Not a fast time, but a very satisfying 127 mile flight
I landed at 7:10 alongside at least 30 competitors that had been there for some time.”
Steve made slow progress. The GPS was still saying over 100 miles to go and we now had loads of lakes to cross, to the east of the aptly named Lakeland. The sky above the lakes was quite blue but there was the odd puff of cumulus extending round to the west.
“I saw somebody very low over one of the lakes which perhaps encouraged me to try and fly into the strong wind to get round the to west. This was very hard work and we still ended up as a small gaggle in the middle of the lakes after a lot of faffing around. One guy dropped off the bottom and the others then set off into wind. At this point I gave up and just flew to the other side by myself and then got a reasonable climb. Followed by a low save”
Steve then flew with a small gaggle to goal. With about 50 miles to go the clouds improved. “We could climb high again in strong lift and the run to goal was pretty easy.” Steve diverted upwind to fly down a cloud street to goal. “This was not a complete success as the cloud street did not quite lead to goal as had been originally intended but it was great to be at goal given the conditions at the start.” It had taken a lot of flying to get there but there were still plenty in goal.
John our driver had already arrived and Carlos was in the field but had not heard from Nev. As we packed pilots continued to arrive with much encouragement from their various teams. We had got to the point of starting to think about what we might do next if we did not hear from Nev when a loan VR appeared and circled down for a good landing.
John our driver came over with his camera to take some photos. Despite the, “No effort to fly,” Nev was looking just a bit knackered after 6 _ hours in the air. John was taking lots of photos until Nev said, “John I am going to have to put this glider down.”
We then had a very long drive back. Having signed up for the meal deal we did not eat on the way home. (We had been promissed that our food would be waiting.)
When we arrived everybody was eating and it looked quite good. Needless to say there was no food left for the stragglers. By the time we got to bed it was after 1 am so quite a long day.
In the Class 2 the task had been designed to bring the swifts back. (They don’t like having to pack them up.) However they had to fly back through the overcast.
Only one made it; Manfred having made a very large detour around the overcast. David Glover had said rather publicly that he thought Robin would win the meet after his fantastic win on the first day. After todays task, Manfred said that he thought he, “Still had a chance.”
3rd Competition Day, 20th May 2006
At the task setting meeting this morning Davis was very excited. He also said that the forecast predicted the wind dropping to very little. Climbs were going to be the strongest so far this year with cloudbase at 8200 by the end of the day. In short the best day in Florida this year was forecast.
Based on this a 93 mile closed circuit was set for class 5. A Slightly longer but very similar task was set for the swifts.
A shorter fly around the swamp was set for the women.
Davis was also keen to reduce the gap between the two windows so we reduced it to 20 minutes to see if pilots would then take the first or 2nd start.
Steve moved his glider across the field and put it next to Davis. It was a lot hotter than on previous days and rather uncomfortable rushing around trying to get ready. Davis assured Steve that as conditions would improve there was, “No rush to take off. A late start would probably be best.”
With those words Davis clipped in moved to the launch lane and took off first? “Why did he do that?”
Neville was off fairly early while Steve was towards the back. Climbs were not very strong at first and at the first gate Steve was not quite at cloudbase. Neville and a significant proportion set off. Steve followed about 1000 below and found a convienent light climb only a kilometer from the edge of the cylinder. “I decided to wait and then pop back for another start.”
The remainder of the field, probably less than half, took the 2nd start all from a pretty good altitude.
Neville glided to the first turnpoint and had to wait for a thermal. Neville’s flight was not especially fast and he got quite low on the way North to the 3rd TP.
Steve set off and had a good run to the 2nd TP. At the third he left the gaggle and diverted over the swamp to some puffs of white. It was slow going North the direct route and finally Steve diverted further East to some clouds and was rewarded with a good climb. “Pushing upwind over the prison to the turn point I thought how horrible if must be to be in there. It was very hot even at 3000 feet.”
Neville and Steve flew round for rather mediocre times. Steve never got a lot lower than 1800 feet Neville had one quite low save.
At the front. Christian said that he got low several times. Down to 200m. He took the more direct route north. He missed a climb with Alex.
Robert took the 2nd gate and just about caught the leaders. He did the 93 miles in 2 hours 43 minutes or so which was an amazing time. Robert said that he had to push very hard and got very low twice before getting good climbs. He claimed good luck but it sounds like brave flying.
In the Rigids Manfed won by a significant margin with Brian in 2nd and Robin 3rd. Robin made a mistake or two and then to add insult to injury locked his keys in the car. Fortunately Steve Croop had a car breaking kit.
For the girls 3 made goal. Kerry first, Corina 2nd and Natalia 3rd.
4th Competition Day, 21st May 2006
The forecast was for another good but this time blue day, with convergence very likely. Sea breezes from both coasts!
Davis was keen to set a very large closed task of over 120 miles. Johan and Steve managed to persuade him to keep the turn points away from the coast and reduce the size of the task a bit given the fact it was blue. So just under 100 miles was set (98.6 miles 158.7km). The start window time and interval was changed again. The first at 1.15 and the 2nd 25 minutes later at 1.40.
I spoke to David Chaumet about the Impact: He says it is not that easy to thermal. He says the problem is that it thermals 10km/h faster than the other gliders.
It certainly looks very impressive in the air and David is flying it very well.
The Swifts had a longer task taking them over a similar route to the south but much further north. There was a lot of debate about the Women’s task which went on long after the breifing. They did an out and return north to Dallas and back.
Fogive me if I have not made clear about the distinction between the different classes. There are three competitions being run at the same time:
The Class 2 World Championships. (Swift like aircraft, aerodynamic controls and pilot fairings.
The Class 5 World Championships. (ATOS like aircraft, aerodynamic control, often called rigid wings.)
The Class 1 Women’s world Championships. (‘Normal’ flex wing hang gliders.)
The swifts were launched first as usual. Then the rigids were launced before the women. The lift looked very poor with one large gaggle above Quest. Steve was not in a rush to join it and was one of the last to launch. Neville and Carlos launched a bit earlier.
Conditions were very poor with weak lift and very crowded climbs. Oh and of course there were a few of the obligatory (for hang gliding comps) looneys insiting of thermalling the opposite direction to everbody else. Steve just hung in there thinking that gliding off might well result in an early landing. Neville had enough of the gaggle and flew off to find a thermal of his own. He got down to 500 ft then got a good climb which allowed him to fly back in on top of the lead gaggle for a good start.
As staying in the air was quite difficult just getting to the edge of the start cylinder took a while and nobody took the first start gate. When it got to 1.40 the whole field set off from about 3, 3500 feet.
After a short glide it was as if somebody had flicked a switch. The next climb was a 4 up to 5000 foot. Amazing. The next was to 6000 feet.
As we approached the turnpoint conditions weakened a bit. This had the annoying effect of compressing all the pilots together again. “It felt virtually impossible to shake any of the gaggle. You could go on a long glide do a good thermal entry into a strong climb and as you came round there was a wall of rigids right behind coming straight at you.”
It really is quite noticable in this meet that the competition is almost a serial class. It does make for quite an even competition.
David Chaumet’s glider is the most obviously different wing with a much narrower cord. It’s very spectacular in the air. Its performance seems very similar to the VRs on glide and despite David saying it is difficult to thermal it seems to go up much the same as well.
David Chaumet has been busy fixing his glider while on the ground and does not seem to keen to chat. However in the air he is a delight to watch fly. He has a real feel for the air and climbs supremely smoothly just seeming to move smoothly through confused air gaining more height than the rest.
On the way to the 2nd turnpoint there were several very high clouds. Hoping for convergance Steve and another headed for them while some of the gaggle stopped for a climb. It was rough and quite strong lift but the furthest cloud had a sailplane under it which had climbed very fast. “We were rewarded with a 10 average to over 8000 ft. The only dissapointment was that the gaggle was still there and Chaumet seemed to be a bit higher.
The gaggle flew around the turnpoint and then headed across the swamp towards the last turnpoint. They took a couple of reasonable 5s but there was another good cloud which looked like convergance again. The rush continued. It was really difficult to make 100 feet on the gaggle in each glide and climb and Chaumet seemed to be sitting comfortably above. There was still 111about 25km to the last turn point but then only 20km to goal. “I was starting to think a glide to goal might be possible but I still expected another climb.”
The gaggle dived off towards the last turn point. Steve set off with them and then chose a different line to the east and slowed a bit for a more careful glide. The glides did not look that good and there were no more obvious good climbs. Concentrating on trying to take a good route, Steve meandered a bit but as he neared the turnpoint the air was quite good so he went round and flew back along a similar line. “The numbers now looked possible with just over 15:1 to goal. Looking up there was Chaumet comfortably higher and slightly ahead. He stopped and took a few turns and then set off for goal. I slowed in the lift and took a single circle and then pressed on towards goal. It was now only 12:1. I then noticed another glider just ahead. I think it was Robert. He was just ahead and very slightly above. (It turned out that it was in fact Alex Ploner.) Having said how similar the gliders are Alex proceeded to show me how it should be done; I gradually sank lower behind him (and I had everything tucked in). Very frustrating and with the prospect of flying over Groveland, I was now thinking I should have taken a few more turns in that last thermal. Just as that sinking feeling started the air improved and the glide looked possible. As I flew over the trees there was good lift and I had more than enough height to do a good approach. For the first time I was able to count the number of gliders at goal from the air.”
Carlos was in just behind as was a large group all in in just over 3 hours. Neville had a slower run but got there in the end. He reports that he has had 17 _ hours flying in the last three days averaging 106 miles per day. I said that, “I felt sure that they would tow Neville up again for an evening flight.” It seems that he has had enough flying for today!
It looks like Chaumet won the day on the Rigids.
Manfed was first back on the Swift about 10 minutes ahead of Robin.
In the Womens task Natalia won the day but the top three were in close together.
5th Competition Day, 22nd May 2006
Looking out of the window first thing it looked overcast with a grey sky.
By the time we arrived at Quest the cloud cover was not quite so even but it still did not look good.
Steve found Davis for the task setting. Davis was busy looking at his computer. There certainly is some great stuff available on the web for forecasting Florida weather. With graphic predictions for thermal strength, convergence, wind strength etc.
Steve pointed out that it did not look that good out side. Davis replied, “Don’t look out the window Steve, don’t look out the window.” Johan wanted to call a rest day there and then. However Davis felt that the forecast was very good and we set tasks for all the classes. We started by making them a bit shorter than yesterday routing them hopefully somewhere near the predicted convergence.
A later start was also set to give the high cloud a chance to break up.
We all moved out to the staging area but there was a little less urgency. The high cloud failed to break so the task was put back a few times until it was finally canned at 2pm giving us all the competitors half a rest day.
A couple of the swifts flew and then various pilots tried them. Alex Ploner seemed to get on fine. Manfred flew around in the Dragonfly for a bit
Quest then started to train with its dual glider. It shows how strong the lift was. To be fair we could see cumulus in the distance so it is pretty certain that there was good lift 15 miles north and probably the same south.
The rest day was pretty popular with Neville who spent a large part of it asleep.
Davis says the forecast for tomorrow is worse. If the high cloud moves just a bit we should be OK for a task.
Small talk.
I had the chance for another small chat with David Chaumet. He says that he has improved his Impact glider a bit. He has increased the washout which he says makes it much less frightening to fly. He repeated that it thermals 10km faster than the others.
I got Christoph from Air to show me the differences on the VRs of Alex, Christian and Robert. They are in fact almost identical. Christian’s has a slightly longer keel to further increase the damping.
They have all stuck bits of Mylar to close the gaps between the flaps.
I think the most significant difference is the spoilers. They are made of aluminium rather than composite. Air have used these before and the extra weight and flexibility does seem to make them lie very flush on the wing. However Christoph says there is quite a handling penaltly with the extra weight near the tips.
Competition Day 6 World Championships (23rd May 2006).
The day started in a very similar was to the day before. Grey sky with a bit of texture but it looked pretty poor.
During the task setting meeting Davis was alowing looking out of the window. However things looked little better than the day before.
Looking at the computer based forecasts tasks were set to try and send pilots at least in the direction in which the better lift was forecast.
We put the gliders on the trolleys and pushed them out to the staging. We then went through the process of postponeing launch a couple of times and then finally the task was called off again. We then pushed all the gliders back again and retired to the pool.
Steve and Neville took a trip down to Fantasy of Flight, an aviation museum owned by Kermit Weeks, who has been collecting vintage aircraft since a young man.
We arrived just in time to see and hear the running of a world war one ‘rotary’ plane engine. The engine looked like a radial engine. However the crank shaft is fixed to the plane and the cylinders all spin around at the same speed as the propeller providing good cooling. The cylinders each have a single exhaust valve centrally at the top operated by an external push rod. The fuel air mixture is sucked in through a ring of small holes around the bottom of the cylinder when the piston passes the holes and effectively opens them. There is no throttle so the cylinders get a full load of fuel each cycle. Speed control is by a 4 settings of ignition interuption. It runs very roughly on the first setting and less rough all the way up to setting 4 when the the engine really gets going and the noise is deafening. (There is no exhaust pipe at all.)
The aircraft also has no brakes and I imagine requires a very brave pilot even without people shooting at him.
Another interesting exhibit was a hang gliding simulator. It has, a glider, 3 large screens and a seated harness and control frame. The task was a spot landing. However a lot of the scenery did not give much impression of height. There did not seem to be much pitch effect but it certainly did feel a bit like flying. It made me feel sick and Neville felt really quite ill after flying it.
Competition Day 7 World Championships (24th May 2006).
The day started in a very similar was to the day before. Grey sky with a bit of texture but it looked pretty poor. There was a little bit of blue to the north but it rained on the drive to Quest.
At the task committee meeting Davis confided in us that the forecasters were upset with their computer models. They models were unable to forecast the high cloud at all. Thus we were encouraged to look out of the window today
There did seems to be a bit of blue to the north and it was coming our way. However conditions were very poor at Quest and a trip to Gator Land seemed most likely. At the briefing the pilots were told that we would get a special discount at Gator land.
In the task committee we felt that there was a chance of flying so decided to meet again at 11 then again at 12. Conditions were looking better so a task was called.
It was a straight goal to ‘Greyst’ an airfield 54 miles north. (It’s a large airfield with a large paved runway. John Travolta has a house next to the airfield and flies his 707 into the airport.)
We moved out to staging quite late and two start gates at 3 and 3.20 were set.
As we moved along the launch line the wind picked up and blew one of the Aeros Phantoms over. It landed on Robert Reisinger’s glider and broke the tail off. Robert hurriedly put his tail back on while the rest of us sympathetic pilots moved past him to take his place in the launch queue. Robert rushed to put everything back together. With such a short task it was pretty important to take the first start gate.
Unfortunately for Robert he found, once he had taken off, that he had accidentally moved his hang point forward 1.5cm so he had a difficult day pushing out all the time.
Neville moved to the windward side of the start cylinder to get away from a larger gaggle positioned to the north. He ended up with 4 gliders and got a perfect start.
With 10 minutes to go Steve was with the gaggle and saw the small gaggle to the west. He flew across but could not find a decent climb beneath them and was left at about 3000 feet as nearly everybody set off at 3pm. “I looked around and thought I was the only one left. Then I saw a couple of gliders really quite low.”
Ron Gleeson set off with the main gaggle. He was watching Alex Schreiner from the Austrian team leave the thermal and glider on,
“I was watching him glide his nose appeared to drop and accelerate and then the same thing happened again. The pilot then appeared to fall backwards and loose the control frame the nose pitched up violently and the glider stopped up side down and then stabilized with the pilot hanging behind the flaps below the glider. The glider then appeared to be stable and auto rotated down. I spiraled down fast and seemed to be able to catch him up so he wasn’t going down that fast. The glider looked in one piece until it landed on some power lines and an orange tree. By the time I landed and got to the pilot the fire brigade and the people from the power company were already there.
I wondered if the control frame had broken. However looking at the glider on the ground there appeared nothing wrong with it except one of the uprights was bent at the weak link. It was however pretty smashed up in the impact with the ground.”
Fortunately in the air most of us were unaware of what was going on. Neville had a good run to near goal with the lead gaggle. “There were about 12 of us about 12 miles from goal and I was at the bottom of the gaggle. It felt as if I could find some better lift so I flew on and got an average of a 13 up. By the time the rest arrived I was well above them and flew fast to goal getting about a 10:1 glide.
While this was going on Steve was miles further back flying by himself. “It was really quite rough and broken air and find the core was difficult. A gaggle would have been quite useful. Finally with about 20 miles to go I caught up with some stragglers.”
There was a very large dark cloud to the North East of Goal. Quite a lot of rain was falling from it. Steve then climbed up to find he was now flying with Christian. “I thought, that’s good I’ve caught Christian I’ll just fly with him to goal and should have beat him by 20 minutes.”
Christian and Steve then flew under the dark skirt of cloud around the Cu Nimbus getting good lift and then gliding for goal. “Christian left a bit before me and glided faster. I was quite concerned about the lighting and also the lack of landing before goal so I wanted to get the numbers to be pretty good before really going flat out. We had a cross wind and I felt a bit safer when we started to get numbers suggesting a 10:1. As the lightning continued to strike I edged away from the cloud. The lightning was a long way away, I couldn’t even hear it but they were really big bolts that appeared to go from cloud base to the ground.”
The glide in was very fast and quite rough. In the end Steve got very good air and was getting more concerned by the fact he wasn’t loosing height at top speed than making goal.
Flying away from the cloud Steve lost height and then landed right in the middle of the runway fearing the gust front from the storm.
“Landing I over flew Carlos near the end of the runway.” Carlos had had a 9.5: 1 glide and had been caught out by bad air and an unexpectedly stung head wind. He had to fly between trees and landed on the tarmac without having time to pull his flaps down. He cut his knee but was glad to be down and more pleased to find he had just crossed the goal line. (But he had not made it to the 400m radius.)
Neville had a very good time and was please with third on the day. The French team got all the other top places with David Chaumet taking first again.
Steve was disappointed to find that Christian had also had a poor start so neither did very well.
Robert had what sounds like some horrible scares flying very fast past the Cu Nimbus near goal in some rough air. Perhaps he had damaged his glider more than he thought. Apparently he did some weightless dives and recoveries.
Later we heard a first hand account of what had happened to Alex Schreiner:
“I was climbing in 12 to 14 up with the gaggle but decided to leave as it was so busy. I released the flaps to full speed and then left the thermal. The glider accelerated downwards in what felt like a steepening parabola. Then I lost the control frame. I am not sure what happened next but I ended up hanging under the glider. The glider seemed to be stable and all in one piece so I didn’t throw my parachute. I continued to descend and thought I was going to land in one of three lakes. As I neared the ground I threw the chute but too low. It did not open and I crashed into the trees. I was fine. The electricity guys lifted the glider down with their cherry picker. I don’t think I will be able to repair the glider in time to fly anymore in this comp.”
Competition Day 8 World Championships (25th May 2006).
The day started in a very similar was to the day before. There was a little bit more blue to the north but there was still a little rain on the drive to Quest.
The weather was forecast to get better but with quite a high risk of thunder storms.
The task was to go north to Dallas and back to Quest via another turnpoint Centre hopefully before the thunder storms.
As the task was about to begin the clouds started to tower a bit to the west so the last turnpoint was pulled out just before take off leaving a flight to Dallas and back.
With a task of just 66 miles it was pretty important to take the first start gate at 2.00. Steve had a weak link break at about 600’ so it was important to get up and not go back for a re-tow.
Nearly everybody set off and there seemed to be two routes. One group dived straight under the large clouds to the West and the other went for the more direct route under a sky with normal size Cumululs.
Steve started somewhere between the two groups and gradually glided towards the large clouds. Once under them the lift was pretty good and the gaggle raced along. Looking up there were a few who were really pushing the idea of cloudbase a bit. Neville took the more easterly route.
We charged on to Dallas as the clouds got larger and the shade started to spread over the course. With about 5km to the first turnpoint it started to rain. Steve pushed on to the turnpoint and then came back through the rain for a strong climb. Neville’s route put him in a similar part of sky but a little behind.
Heading back towards Quest there was a very large cloud and a wall of rain. Steve diverted East to try and fly around the cloud and could see gliders landing just short of a large wooded area.
Steve slowed up and then flew over the wooded area a bit before landing with the other gliders on top of an old land fill site. The wind had picked up a bit but it was probably about 15mph on landing. Primoz was already in the field. He said the task had been stopped. Steve asked if Primoz thought the lead gaggle had made it. Primoz replied, “We are the lead gaggle, Robert landed in the field just over there.”
There was a bit of rain and both Carlos and Neville had had a bit of wind on landing.
They were within 5 miles of Steve in nice large fields just to the North so that retrives were easy.
When we got back to Quest we were very surprised to find the Jim Lamb (USA) and staying in the same house as us had had a bad landing. At first it did not sound too bad but we knew that he had hit his head and was concussed. As the evening wore on we found that Jim had broken both wrists and had damaged his C1 vertebra. This horrible news was just what we didn’t want to hear.
Jim Yocum had apparently said to the US team on the radio just prior to landing to look out for the gust front and to land in a large field. Jim Lamb, for whatever reason, chose to land in a narrow airstrip and perhaps was rotared in. (We don’t have details.)
David Glove the meet director said, the next day, that there were large fields nearby which Jim might have been better advised to use. (Jim can not remember exactly what happened.)
The task was cancelled and GPS traces were not collected.
Competition Day 9 World Championships (26th May 2006).
Hell has no fury like a woman scorned.
I was advised by Michael, one of the Austrian pilots, that he has only one wife and that is more than enough. The gossip always seems to pass me by, but hearing this I was intrigued. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Hav you not heard about ze German pilot?” silly question, “He has three women and it does not verk well for him.” “Oh?”
“Before he left Germany his VR was stolen and his car tyres was slashed. Good luck Felix was able to get him another glider and send it in time for the comp.” That’s expensive bad luck.
“This morning his new VR was stolen from outside his tent.!” Losing one is bad luck but two…. “One of his team mates said that he see his Ex girlfriend in Florida.”
By contrast our arrival at Quest this morning was unaventful. The sky was almost totally blue with a few remenants of high cloud to the south.
In the task committee meeting the rist of thunder was discussed and predicted at 40%. Looking out of the window Steve thought thunder likely. The cumulus started to form well before 10am which was a bit early.
A task was set going to the North again to try and reduce the Cu Nimb risk. It was a race to Key Stone (91.4 miles.) The start was set a bit earlier at 1pm. It was however put back to 1.15pm before we took off. The start radius was increased slightly to 10km.
Given the risk of thunder and likely hood that the task would be stopped it was important to start at the first start. (The rules about stopped tasks are complicated but if the task has been going for a certain time and is then stopped pilots can be scored to where they were at the time of the task stopping. The rule is just two dimensional, that is, altitude is not taken into account. So it is an advantage to be out front and low rather than high and further back.)
The start area was a bit busy as usual but the vast majority of pilots got a start, probably within about 400’ of cloudbase. The pilots glided off down the route with quite a wide spread. Neville and Steve both glided on the right under a cumulus that had been there for a while. In the end a cloud formed in the blue and we had to divert back to it which immediately put us under those who had gone straight.
As we approached the same wooded area, that we landed beyond yesterday, the lead gaggle struggled to find a climb. Steve had just had a very good climb and glided straight past them into an area of sky over a built up area that looked good. Neville could see gaggles not doing well but said that neither was he.
Steve failed to find the great climb he was expecting and kept going to likely triggers like car parks just upwind of lakes. There was quite a lot of lift about but it was broken and not especially strong. Finally he saw a group of gliders climbing over a small lake to the east. Steve flew under them over a shaded area. If this didn’t work there weren’t many options from 1000 feet. Fortunately the climb was there but dissapointingly weak averaging between 2 and 3.
With a bit more height Steve pushed on again to Ocala National Forest. The clouds were now spreading and looking pretty dark with some areas of rain. The climbs were better and Steve flew in to a climb with a glider that looked like Neville before pressing on over the forest. After another fruitless divertion to climbing gliders Steve flew on to the centre of the forest and climbed with Jim Yocum. The climb was very strong and Steve was surprised to find Jim left 1000’ foot lower probably about half way to cloudbase. (Steve wondered if the task had been stopped as this seemed like a strange decision from Jim.) There were now several areas of rain with a significant patch right on course. Gliders were gliding high almost straight on track.
Jim Yocum seemed to spiral down and land in a very large open area. (It’s at times like these that it really pays to be on the radio. Neville’s radio did not work so Steve was just carrying his for use on the ground.)
Steve flew on and stopped in weak lift near the rain to assess what to do next. There were other gliders milling around in what was pretty weak lift. The rain ahead was subsiding and there was a little bit of sun to the west.
Back at Quest they were looking at the radar and watching some quite large storms. Dave Glover was taking to the US pilots more and more frequently. Jim Yocum said, “As the calls to Davis got more and more frequent I knew David Glover was building up to calling the day so I glided on course. A few minutes later the call came.”
Neville flew out to the west and landed. Steve flew west around the rain into the sunlight. A glider landed in a large open area below tending to confirm the task was cancelled. The sun was out and there was weak lift. Another glider flew back to the large open area and landed. The sky ahead towards goal looked quite good now. Steve decided that all the gliders landing meant the tast was stopped or cancelled and decided to fly back to the large clearing and land with the others. “When I landed I asked the two pilots it the task had been stopped. They said no. I felt a bit foolish and wished I had flown on. I got my phone out to call the others to check and found we had no phone coverage.
In fact we had landed quite a long way from the road in a gigantic clearing. The walk out took a long time and we were dissapointed to find the gate locked. (The prospect of a carry out with a rigid is not a good one.) We found that we could lift the lock over the post so were OK.
We then walked back along the main road to a large school in the middle of nowhere. The summer holidays have started so there was nobody there. Finally we managed to find a small house and managed to persuade them to lend us a phone. Once John Coyne got the call we were OK.
Back at Quest we found that the task had indeed been ‘stopped’ and would be scored. Alex Ploner won the day by a couple of points and Robert was 2nd. I think I could just see them flying past the rain when I was milling around. They had got a lot further in the time than us. Neville Carlos and Steve had just over 82km or so while the winners had covered 99km. We were a long way off the pace.
In the Class 2 most got back and Manfed one the day again to have quite a commanding lead over Robin in 2nd and then Brian Porter in third.
In the womens Carol won the day but she was not too happy about how long it took to cancel the task.
The task cancelling process was apparantly quite a heated one. Didier was very keen to stop the task before any pilots got into trouble. When he could not contact his pilots he was very cross. (In fact they had flown to goal and wondered why the task had been stopped.)
The next brefing Dave Glover pointed out that one of the team leaders had been very keen to get the task cancelled before one of his pilots we hurt. Dave wondered why these same pilots had flown on to goal. Were they just stupid or was there less need to cancel the task.
Needless to say this prompted some quite emotional responses. I think a lot depends upon where one was in relation to the large clouds. Davis Straub gave Carol a bit of a hard time.
My perspecitive on it all, and I admit that I may have not been in a bad area, was that everything worked pretty well. It took the safety committed 13 minuted and 11 minutes to stop both tasks from the first question of saftey. I think it was a pretty good call and was impressed with the speed of it. I don’t think anybody was encouraged to take undue risk and I do subscribe to the point of view that the pilot must take their responsibilitity in deciding what is safe or not.
As Jim Yocum says, “The forms signed at the start of the meet said that we took complete responsibility.”
Competition Day 10 World Championships (27th May 2006).
The final task.
On the drive to Quest the sky already had quite a few low cumulus. Cloud base looked like about 2000 foot and it was quite like the UK except for the temperature.
The task committee decided to bring the task start forward a bit so that we could get some flying in before the rain and Cu Nimbus started. The forecast gave the chance of rain at 30%. See breezes were also expected with imbedded Cu Nimbus. The early low cloud was apparently caused by the drying out of all the rain we had had the day before. A light west wind was also forecast.
In the end, the rigid task was south to T33DS then north to Turn 33 and back to Quest. At 63.8 miles it was not a long task but conditions did not look that good. The starts were 1pm and 1.20.
With the early launch things were a bit of a rush on the ground. At the launch everybody wanted to get up early. Steve was lucky enough to be let into the launch queue by Carlos so got a reasonable launch. Neville was also off fairly early.
It was quite difficult to stay up. We were released at 2000 ft and it was very difficult to get much higher. 3000ft was quite high with very weak climbs. We all edged our way to the edge of the start cylinder and it got quite crowded in rather poor lift.
At 1pm a lot of gliders left from not very high. A lot of pilots took an into wind route but Steve decided to glide straight down the course line towards a fairly new cloud. This was risky and proved to be a poor decision as there was very little lift under the cloud. Steve pressed on past the gliding club there were quite a lot of trees and sun on the ground. Very quickly things became a lot worse. There appeared to be nothing happening and none of the tree lines seemed to work at all. Steve was frantically looking round for any birds or signs of something that might be going up.
The ground was coming up fast and the landing options ahead were pretty poor so Steve turned back to a reasonable clearing. “I had to put the flaps up and the glide did not look that good at first. I had enough height to fly over the trees do a bit of an S and land into wind. Just as I started my left turn to land I felt a bit of lift under the right wing. It was a very close decision but I thought I had enough height for a 360 to the right and I could still get over the trees and land.” After a few more turns Steve slowly climbed to 800 ft and then lost the climb. He found it again, down wind surprisingly. It was now after the 2nd start and Steve spent some time thinking about the options of going back for another start. In the end with the poor conditions and likelihood of the task being stopped there seemed no point. Also the time taken to go back and forth would probably wipe out any possible advantage.
The lift weakened again and fortunately from about 2000ft it was possible for Steve to glide to some other climbing gliders. Very glad to be still in the air Steve decided to relax and enjoy the flight. Conditions had improved a lot and getting above 3000 foot felt very high.
The rest of the run to the first turn point was good. Neville had a good run to the first turn point but did get down to about 1000 foot there. Carlos had a very good run to the first turn point.
Beyond the turn point there was rain and looking up the cumulus was towering a bit. However it provided welcome good lift of about 5 up. Even in a strong climb it was noticeable that the wind was starting to strengthen from the west north west.
This made the next leg cross into wind. Gliding back towards the gliding club there was another rain cloud sitting almost right over it. There was also a glider doing aerobatics. Steve was pleased to think that by the time he got in that area the glider would be much lower as the aerobatics seemed to be shooting the glider up and down 1000 feet or so. Neville was looking back at the glider.
Steve decided to go west around the rain but did not get much lift. He then found himself gliding back east to be near the road and getting low again. Fortunately not alone this time and at 800 feet it still felt relatively high. There was what looked like a good climb ahead and we climbed in a very welcome but slightly disappointing 3 up.
A lot of glider glided in below and I think all got up.
Carlos had diverted a long way west to fly North over the edge of the swamp. Things had fallen to pieces and he had to scurry back east to get a climb near Quest.
There was a weak climb over Quest but we were entertained by an aerobatics display from Manfred the first swift back and almost a dead cert to by Class 2 world champion again. It was not until we had pushed north a bit further over Groveland that we got a good climb. Steve and Neville met up at this point. Strangely it was the first time that we had flown together for many years.
The drift was now up to about 17mph in places and the wind was quite clear on the lakes below. It made getting to the turn point quite a slow process. The 10 miles took a few climbs. Steve flew out to the turn point and then came back to a climbing glider, which turned out to be Christian. Neville took the turn point slightly later and then took a bolder glide back straight down the course line. He found the next climb and then set off on final glide with 4200ft at 10 miles. Steve took a few more turns not wanting another low episode on the way in and once again arrived a bit too high a minute behind Neville who was a minute behind Christian (who had taken the 2nd start gate.)
Carlos was already in and David Chaumet won the day again. Robert said that he had not had an easy flight but was there, at goal, and was safely the new rigid world Champion.
None of the women got back from their task. I guess the wind had made the into wind leg more difficult plus the area of rain, near the Class 5 1st turn point, had not helped. Carina is the Women’s world champion.
I spoke to David Chaumet. Over the past few tasks David had been catching the leaders and finished in 2nd place overall 150 points behind Robert. Alex Ploner was 3rd. David Chaumet told me that he had not flown for two years other than a couple of test flights. David is a real talent and perhaps one to watch for the future if he can be bothered to do a bit more flying.
I spoke to Robin who was beaten by Manfred by just over 1000 points. Robin beat Brian Porter in 3rd by another 800 points or so. Robin says that he was gliding as well as Manfred but Manfred could just get away from him in the climbs. Robin said in good lift there was little in it, but in difficult lift Manfred would get higher. Once higher Manfred would be gone and he would never catch him again. (I am sure Robin is not the only one to have said that.)
It was a very good well-organised and well-run meet. There was more than enough flying so that the best pilots won. In fact there were no upsets.
In our little retrieve group Carlos came a very good 10th, Steve 14th and Neville 17th.