Stop Press

Forgive me reader, for I have sinned. I have never made a blog entry. I am actually writing this from home after the event.

So how was the comp for me?

Well before I left home I made a list of objectives which included coming home a better pilot and enjoying the experience, (Thanks Peter Trotter for your guidance) Flying as well as I possibly could, (Thanks Allan Barnes) and being a good team member. Interestingly despite some effort at consciously defining those goals, I found some others cropped up from time to time out of the dark recesses at the back of my brain. For example when I was interviewed for Slovak radio during the practice period, they pushed me to estimate where I thought I might finish in the field and out of nowhere came "somewhere around the middle of the local Slovak pilots" So this poorly defined but apparently real objective was met. I wonder to what extent it may also have been a self fulfilling prophecy. I feel those other objectives have also all been met to the best of my ability under the available conditions. Maybe I need to be setting some higher objectives? OK it's not quite true. I did not fly as well as I possibly could. At least for me it has always been possible to see how I could have done better. What I am happy about though is that bye and large I flew better than I have before. As to whether I was a good team member, well I was certainly conscious of working on it every day, and there were times when I told myself to back off and think of the team, Ultimately though I will have to let my team mates be the judge of that success or failure.

I'll spare you the literal blow by blow account of my experience, but I will give you some highlights:

Day 1/ This is the day that never was. It was a good team day. In club class,we all flew together for much of the task, but we did get separated and back together again. Allan and Mike were concentrating on close pair flying and they simply didn't have any extra available to look out for me, so when I led off from a thermal in a different direction to them, they didn't have energy available for getting us back together again. I did manage to get back with them though which was a good feeling in itself. Soon after that it started to become obvious that it was going to be a distance day. there was a growing rain shower approaching from our left and we were going to have to fly through an enormous blacked out area in order to get home. The only areas of sky which were not busy falling on the earth had "airspace" written on them in large red letters. We stayed together after that and were joined by an ASW 15 (MS Mario Schupfer) and a Libelle (Y Christian Lang) We went deep into the last circle until it looked like it would be difficult to keep flying if we went further, and then turned on track for the almost inevitable glide to land out. Mario and Christian went just a little bit further than us but probably not enough to win them the day. What might have won Mario the day is getting the days last hint of a thermal at 300' over my paddock and making it to Nitra airfield (about 12 ks more than me and maybe 6 more than the other guys) I say might have won him the day because it was not a valid day as less than 25% of the starters made more than 100ks. We five had done our bit. I think I would have finished 5th or 6th that day for about 40 points if one more pilot had made it as far as we did.

For the next several days I started with Mike and Allan and managed to stay with them more or less to the first turn each day. I was just a touch lower at each thermal (I could try to blame that on the plane, but I wont) and sooner or later low enough that I just wasn't going to make it over the next hill and had to turn away. Flying the remainder of each task alone I was then fairly consistent finishing around 20 th place in general.

We had several bad weather days in a row in the middle of the comp. The first one is always a relief. You get to catch up on a few of those urgent things that you just didn't know how you were going to manage otherwise. Somehow strangely I never did get around to polishing the plane though :-) We visited nice castles and, to borrow a phrase from Mario Schupfer's Blog, we drank some sparkling water flavoured with hops.

The last two days were pretty much the last chance for Mike and Allan to achieve their stated aim of finishing first and second. I was determined to help with this as much as I could and to this end I started early and fed back information to them about what the others were up to where and when and general conditions along the course. They worked on picking an optimum start time with this info in mind, Whether the strategy worked or not is an open question. I think some of my information was probably of some use and none of it was actually bad to have, but they did apparently leave the start too late on the second last day with the result that Mike landed back and wasn't able to get away again. As it happened on this day Allan won the day. The average score for the team was not high. The stated objective was no longer achievable. However the chances of getting one pilot on the podium were looking good with Allan in second place shortly behind Mario.

The last day was pretty much a repeat of the previous one in terms of strategy. Allan has pretty much spelled out what happened already. I think my information probably was some help towards Allan doing well on the day and therefore winning the comp, but Mike and I both had quite a bad day with Mike landing out in the mountains and me getting home way slower than the rest of the field which brought me from 18th place overall down to 25th. Did the team effort cost me those places? Well I think it probably helped in practice, but it shouldn't have. I was in a relatively good position in a large gaggle with Allan having all the info I could usefully give him just before it all turned to worms. Getting separated from that gaggle was not smart. I spent about 45 minutes in a deep deep hole before completing the task. I was on the verge of giving the day away several times especially after all that extremely hard won height wasn't quite adequate to get me over the ridge after all on the first attempt and I had to go back to square one.

Overall I am quite happy and very glad I went. We have three very strong pilots (Mike, Allan and Tobi) for next year with some very good experience from this year. Next year I intend to fly in the World Class and Tobi will have a team mate in the standard class. It will be interesting to see who the other Standard class pilot is, and despite having stretched my holidays way beyond all reasonable limits already, I'm tempted to go to Waikerie to find out in person. It could be very exciting.

We had some great team moments (like the entire team carrying a glider out of a very muddy field one piece at a time) and I think we learned a lot about being a team and a little about team flying. The comp has been over for almost a week now and we are already working on next year. I think I have a glider lined up and I'm making plans for accommodation and different instruments etc already...Anyone else fancy flying in World Class?

And last but by absolutely no means least I want to mention the rest of the team, the crews. My crew, Keith Allen and Jana Nagyova were both excellent. They did a lot more than I was happy asking from them, stayed in good humour and allowed me to concentrate on flying my best despite some serious setbacks (like the retrieve Keith went on with the rest of the guys AFTER the one where we all carried the glider out of the mud. Yes that's right they got back to the airfield at 5:00 in the morning and went to bed with only a small nip of spirits) Graham Hennessy and Charlie Downes were also powerhouses, and not just on the aforementioned team building exercise. I am really looking forward to working with all of them again.

Prizegiving

Here are a couple of shots from the prizegiving and closing ceremony - in spite of losing 1000 points on one day, Tobi still managed to come 3rd in his class - what an effort!

What a result!

Well, what a final day! I went into the day 50 points behind Mario Schupfer (AUSTRIA) who has flown a brilliantly consistent competition. Mike, Brendan and I knew that with Mario's advantageous glider handicap (3 points) all he had to do was follow me round the sky to win. So we decided at any cost to become invisible prior to the start. Straight after climbing from aerotow, Mike and I snuck off to the west 25 km and hid behind some clounds. Meanwhile, Brendan stayed with Mario and called his movements to us. When Brendan said that Mario was starting for a second time, we made our move to the start line and began 20 minutes after him. Brendan let us know from in front where Mario was turning, and how strong, so we knew how hard to fly. Poor Mike missed a climb partway round and didn't make it home, but in the end, a brillian team effort got me over the line 13km/h faster than Mario, and it was enough! Thanks guys - you (and the crew) can take equal credit for the result.

Days Nine and Ten

Flying Again, Day 9

The WX had improved and a task set. Not great, but infinitely better then the previous few days when tasks were not possible (we are in Europe!!!). The task was an inverse quadrilateral of 243 Km point to point, 162 / 329km. It was not an easy day, and unfortunately Mike after being airborne for some time got low and had great difficulty in getting away. Allan went on to win the day and is now only 45 odd points from the lead and running second. Today will tell the final story for club class.

Tobie has flown exceptionally well, yet again, and won the day. Had he not had a “bad luck day”, he would have been in an almost unbeatable position. Despite giving up 1,000 points he is still in 3rd position. Best let the pilots tell the real story of the task flying.

Today’s task, Day 10 and final contest day, is an assigned area exercise with 3 areas. 209 to 397 Km (point to point 302). All aircraft are airborne; the gates are open and pilots waiting for their planned start time.

Brendan has been excellent in spotting and playing a positive roll in Allan and Mikes team flying.

When the pilots return we will have the endplay.

The whole team has now blended into a well oiled unit and working extremely well together. Each day’s routine follows a set pattern, which has now morphed, into a positive daily operation. It all augers well for the real thing next year.

At the end of today we will give you the end of competition details. Good luck to the boys.

See Dee

Almost a day

Yesterday ended up a cancelled task but not without a 2 ¾ hour wait on the grid. The weather forecast was for a small, early window and the A task 2 hours with the B task 1 ½. I was wondering how the day would be valid on the B task as the minimum AAT distance was 97 km and you need at least 25% of the class to fly 100km or more. As we waited even the storks were not all that interested in thermalling. Anyway, none of that mattered, pretty much as soon as they started delaying the launch the day was doomed as rain was predicted for 3:30pm. As it happened the rain didn't come until 6pm. The afternoon tasks were to clean out the trailer and check out the glider's cabling as it appeared set up for 2 batteries but didn't work. Graham did a great job on the trailer and I managed to just about rewire the whole panel as there was never a chance of dual batteries the way it was configured. I even ended up with bits of wire left over.

With JT tucked in to bed we retired to the restaurant for another pleasant evening meal.

Rain and Tours

today rain has stopped play and we have been on the tour of the castle and also a tour of the Dynamic factory. Both very interesting tours with lots of photos.

International Flying

Who would have thought you could fly a glider across country borders? Well Sunday's task included a turnpoint in Poland, which on any normal day would require even glider pilots to file a formal flight plan for international travel. Luckily the competition organisation sorted this aspect.

Allan and my team flying has been progressing very well, but fell apart a little during this flight. We dropped into elastic flying and I almost caught up the 7km I fell behind on the first turn getting right back to sharing the same thermal but vertically separated. Unfortunately I was unable to connect to the next climb and the gap widened again. No problem, I continued on the task and Allan assisted with info from ahead.

The country to the north is spectacular, the paddocks in Poland decidedly smaller than in Slovakia. There's beautiful dam/ lakes, villages in valleys and other distractions from the task at hand. It would be so good to have some relaxed flying in a 2 seater around here.

The last turnpoint is located on top of the small Tatra mountains at approximately 7000ft. Heading into the mountains gets your attention and looking up to a turnpoint is definately another first for me. The terrain/ wind and sun become the main factors in looking for a climb and a cu above your target reinforces your theory. I found success most of the time, perhaps not the best climbs around but enough to get me above the turnpoint and on my way home. Following the ridgetop seemed to work well the light winds not particularly favouring ony one side. I was close to final glide but the track home was impeded with terrain, again not normally an issue for me. It looked like I could dribble around but the possibility of having to turn away from track into the valley was also on the cards. A large cu at the end of the ridge was a distinct possibility but choosing the correct track underneath was stilla question. Looking at the ground I saw an area still in full sun and concluded the wind would funnel past this area. Moving over to this spot the vario eventually responded with a bout 2 knots and I was relieved to think this climb would get me home. As I continued the searching turn I hit the core and "woo hoo" 7 knots to the airspace ceiling! My run home wa a blast, overcooked by a great run out from under the cloud and more positive air on the way home.

The day ended for me on a high, not a great result but a huge learning experience and for a couple of factors still a good run.

Day Six Begins

Day six was canned due wx. The gliders were on the grid early as usual and briefing was delayed several times. Eventually a launch time was announced, which was progressively delayed until at 2:00 pm the days task cancellion was announced. Nothing new in sitting on the grid for a few hours waiting for the inevitable. It didn't actually look like rain athough we had a complete low altitude cloud cover. At about 4 o'clock the low level cloud cleared and some locals and visitors had some local soaring for an hour or two.

Tobias has been going gang busters and has been leading the standard class. He had won two days out of 4 and blitzed the field on day 5. Unfortunately he missed the start line by more than the distance which would only give him a penalty and consequently scored a zero for the day. It cost him 1,000 points. For those who know Tobie, you would know that he accepted the circumstances with good grace, although disappointed.

Today, day 6, it is totally overcast and steady drizzle. The day has been cancelled and after briefing we will be off to inspect Bojnice Castle.

Mike has been tasked today to come up with a pilot blog.

There are some great videos of each days flying on the competition web site including some airborne video by Seb Kawa (dispite the taking the videos he still has a hbit of winning). The Aussies star somewhere in most videos.

We'll try to keep the videos coming.

Some Photos

Jsut a quick post before briefing, if the day is canned I'll try to write a story, Mike.

“The Retrieve” a crew’s perspective
The weather was not great as Allan described, however, Keith and I decided we needed some retail therapy so of course went to the hardware store. Our shopping was rudely interrupt by a text “Mike Codling” has outlanded, followed by a call from Charlie, Allan has outlanded Quick trip back to Dingo Base to find Brendan and Tobias had also outlanded. Hook three trailers up ready to go, Keith and Charlie have TomTom I have no idea of where to go. Luckily the club class guys were close together, so I was to follow Keith. The problem was I have not driven on the right hand side of the road for 30 years, so it was deep end instruction. Everything was going well until we struck torrential rain on windy narrow roads. Keith led the way and we found Mike and Allan and he went further on to get Brenden. Mike found a good spot to land, however, it had been ploughed recently and had just been rained on and the soil was just like the Darling Downs. A local bloke turned up, who spoke no English and when we explained by hand signal what we wanted to do he just shook his head. Towed the trailer into the paddock along tractor tracks and dropped the trailer off about 50 metres from the glider. So dismantled the glider and carried the bits to the trailer with the help of a local, Allan and Mike. The Skoda with care was able to get the trailer out of the paddock. By now we had an urgent SOS from Charlie that they were bogged and needed help. Before we left checked Allan’s aircraft which was parked in the middle of a wet stubble paddock, we would come back for it later.
So in convoy with Keith we went to Charlie’s assistance. I thought Mike’s paddock was bad, Tobias’ had just been ploughed and was very wet. Again the solution was to dismantle the aircraft and carry the bits to the trailer through even stickier mud. With all trailers now packed it was off to the airfield 2 hours away. Arrived home at about 10:30pm and had a meal. Allan’s glider was still in the paddock 2 hours away. Crew 179 (total of crew ages) had a short meeting and decided the pilots should go to bed while we went on the retrieve. The course was plotted in TomTom for the shortest distance which took Keith up mountain in first gear worrying what was at the end of the road.All turned out well and arrived at the paddock at 2:30pm and decided to drive the trailer to the glider, luckily did not get bogged. Packed the trailer and left for home at 3:00pm. Had a steady drive home Charlie snoring in the back and Keith riding shotgun. Arrived back at the field at 5:00pm, what an epic, left for the retrieve in daylight and arrived back home in the daylight next day.
Just as well crew are on salary, pilots could not afford the overtime.
So it was home to bed and pilots showed great consideration and said we could have the morning off, but be sure we were back for the landings.

From Graham

Crewing in Slovakia

What could a crew ask for except good weather and fine dining. Prievidza has supplied all of these requirements.

It is summer in Slovakia and the pre worlds are also the Slovak Nationals and all of the local pilots and crew are making the most of the good weather and reducing their clothing in an effort to keep a tan for 2010, they sure have not any concerns regarding sun cancer :-)

Organisationally what more could you ask for in any large competition than a adequate number of identical tow planes... here they have 10 Dynamic Untralights made here in Priedvidza... see www.aerospool.sk for some info, great for club class and did launch Sebastian Kowa in his ASW22 full of water. These little planes come in a number of configurations, some with winglets, some retractable undercarriage, all very nice and new, turnaround time is good with watercooled cylinder heads and they descend really well.

Aero Priedvidza have a great range of foods and the Czech beer is very tasty, although you need to limit intake as it is served in large sizes :-)

Road navigation is a severe issue for us crew that cannot understand Slovak and we now have binned the maps in favour of modern Tom Tom GPS navigation systems... although these are not infallible and the quickest route did mean we did traverse a mountain in the middle of the night which did concern us when we could not turn around and were reduced to first gear near the top... was that snow we saw!! Certainly we saw reindeer.

Better go now, the guys are calling final glide.

Keith

Day Four Begins

Fantastic day yesterday. Allan and Mike, first and second for the day, and although Tobie had a not so good day yesterday he has won one day and is running third. Brendan is holding up his end and came in 12 yesterday. Allan and Mike first and second overall and Tobie third. Brendan a very credible 13 overall.

Keith and Graham displayed their engineering prowess and erected our super antenna. When you look around the camp area at all of the others our's is undoubtably the highest(there is one other).

Day four started some time ago. Truly an international competition with the A task planned to go up into Poland on a 434 km exercise. Task was changed due to late development of the weather and the B course is being flown. It is a 320 km inverse polygon and the troops have been out on task for some time and from the radio traffic they are having a blast. After a short period of silence both boys are coming in loud and clear and our Spot Share tracker is showing that they areon the way home and the chatter incicates one climb from final climb.

Day Three Starts

Day three has started trouble free.

The day starts by rigging if necessary, the normal washing, polishing etc, and then towing out to the grid, by now on the grid by 08:30 /09:00. On the way it is a requirement to pass over a weighing station where glider ID, and reference weight is checked against the records. The gridding position is noted and the glider positioned appropriately.

Todays task is a race around a 312km polygon with three points. The start/finnish being halfway along one of the legs. All four pilots got away without too much trouble and are now approaching the final leg home.

The weather is probably the best since being here. After losing them on the radio for about 20 mins we are now starting to hear their chatter again, they can't be too far away.

Crew Nightmares

Hi all, well Day 1 has come and gone - thankfully! The forecast had been for heavy rain throughout the task area later in the day, but in spite of this, a 1hr 45minute AAT task was set with 80km/hr required to achieve the minimum distance! We decided to aim for the minimum distance as 80kph looked optimistic for the sky. Our flight started well enough with Mike, Brendan and I a few seconds apart over the line, but one climb later we got separated by a cumulus which I went round and he went under. Flying separately felt strange after all this pair-flying, but fortunately all 3 of us linked up again after a few km. As we headed south it was clear that there was a massive rainstorm spreading from the east that could potentially cut off our return. We had to make a decision - to just touch the circle and head for home, or to keep flying downwind to a certain outlanding to maximise distance. We decided to go for distance, convinced that no-one could finish the task. A gaggle of 5 or 6 seemed to have the same idea and came with us. Finally, a few km from the far side of the circle, and with the rain pressing in from the east, we turned and headed back north. Unfortunately we were now being cramped by airspace to the west, and as the rain advanced we were finally forced to turn directly into the storm and go for a final glide into the rain. Mike chose a ploughed paddock; Brendan and I chose stubble - and we were down. Mike and I soon met up on foot in the rain and found a dilapidated railway station to shelter next to.

Unfortunately, Toby in Standard Class had also landed out, so we had 3 vehicles, 3 crew, and 4 outlanded pilots. By about 6pm Graham arrived for Mike's retrieve, but it wasn't possible to get the trailer to the glider because of the Darling Downs - style blacksoil. So with the help of a friendly local we carried the glider to the trailer, becoming absolutely filthy in the process. Then we got a call from Charlie who had gone for Toby - they were bogged in a paddock and could we help? So we all headed back towards Prievidza via Toby's paddock. In the end it took 7 of us - 3 crew and 4 pilots - at least an hour to get the glider out of the mud. We left exhausted at about 9pm, just as the last light was fading.

The plan for my glider was that as soon as we got back to Prievidza, we would go back for it. We were back at about 11pm, having hit a deer on the road (thanks Brendan for putting it out of its misery with the car jack). Everyone was ready for a meal by then, so after that Charlie very kindly offered to take the rest of the crew out to get my glider, and let me get a decent night's sleep. They headed off about midnight, and I headed gratefully to bed.

I think they finally arrived back about 5am after an uneventful if drowsy retrieve. The roads were relatively quiet. What a stupendous effort by the crew - who took a well-earned morning off to sleep.

We did quite well in the end scorewise, with me coming second, Mike 4th and Brendan 5th. The only problem is - the day was only worth 78 points!

In fact it now looks like the day will be invalidated since not enough people covered 100km.

Still there are plenty more days to fly, it's just a pity to try so hard and get no credit for it!

More news soon on Day 2...

Official Practise Day

We woke to a overcast day and proceeded to plan for the offical practise day. Today Graham and I rigged JT and proceeded to scrutineering prior to briefing. This was quite detailed compared to what I have been used to. Weighing in flying trim, wingspan measurement, pilot weight, photo of pilot, photo of instrument panel, weighing in tow-out trim and form to fill out.
Briefing was very short - day cancelled with probability of storms. The storm arrived prior to lunchtime, a lot of noise but not much else.
Post briefing was also time for the team "red roo" installations, a great team effort. Lunch was called and a trip to town to the baguette shop. In the afternoon TomTom maps weere installed and now we are PNA enabled. Brendan copped the short straw and an interview with the Slovakian national radio station.
Tonights official main briefing is delayed as the local Slovakian pilots are still arriving and have supposed to have been through technical inspections. They are not used to this and probably haven't read the requirements in the local rules, nothing strange here to an aussie pilot. (Tobi just nade the comment that the local rules are only published in English !)

Unofficial Practise Days

What a hectic and exhilirating couple of days. I have just about got the glider set up with just a failed cable to the team PDA to replace and we shall have JT ready to go.
The flying over the last 2 days has been something to remember, some big firsts for me, ridge running below ridge top is just awesome, spurs, trees, ski lifts just some of the things to watch out for. We punched into a lee-side thermal and just about got kicked out! The tight and rough thermal would produce better than 10 knots of lift if you could stay in for a turn and 10 knots of sink for the bit you missed. For all the excitement in real time, it came out as 5.1 knots on SeeYou.
In contrast the thermal conditions here are very different, the doesn't seem to be as large a pool of energy and so the thermals are more of a bubble, strong enough if you get the timing and position right but quite weak otherwise. Losing contact with the clouds is a big mistake and a very weak climb usually results so that you can stay airborne amongst the terrain.
Our pair flying is working well, Allan and I have stayed in contact and the gliders are reasonably matched. Allan's wing fillets are advantageous at low speed (thermalling). In what seems to be true form we had a pair outlanding 2 days ago in the same paddock of harvested wheat. I had a wheel door break off at the rivets with no damage to the door. Graham and Keith have done a great job in sourcing hinges and repairing the oops.
Yesterday was another challenge with the day forecast to end early (not 6pm as we are used to). Allan, Brendan and myself stayed together and made an out and return to the first circle of the set task. This used quite enough of the day as we launched a little later than planned and then I had trouble getting up to start height.
Around Team Dingo camp, things are settling in, we have been making lots of use of the restaurant and bar. The meals are very good and the portions large, as well the prices are good.

Looking forward to hearing how practice days go....thinking positive thoughts for you all :) Trust Keith and Graham are still on good terms after the train trip :) Go Team Dingo....

Where We Are

Now that Mike, Brendan and myself have settled in, a little about our location (the adventure boys arrive today, and Toby shortly). It seems to be a great location; the people are friendly and the city has modern facilities.

The airfield is an “all over” grass field, with excellent supporting facilities such as aircraft manufacture (Dynamic light aircraft), glider maintenance and club facilities (restaurant, bar and inside/outside dining). The airfield operates under professional administration and in accordance with CTAF-R procedures. Interestingly because the “runway” is so wide it is very common for aircraft/gliders to be taking off and landing in opposite directions at the same time.

Graham and Keith have just arrived having survived the great Siberian Safari (they have pictures) . Tobi has also arrived and is set up in the camping area next to Brendan and Allan. Everything is cosy with the Glider Park, trailer park and camp area set up along the runway edge. The same arrangement exists at Nitra about 80 km to the southwest. The whole operation is incredibly relaxed. You tow your glider out onto the runway and magically a tow plane will turn up in a minute or two and you,are on your way.

At the end of the day we all got to-gether and had a team dinner in the club restaurant. Enjoyed by all.

To-morrow is the first official practice day, and all are keen to get into the air, although Mike and Brendan have sampled the air a few times already