Team Dingo

Sunset on the road back

2012-01-14T20:17:00.001+01:00

In but not in...

2012-01-13T08:48:00.001+01:00

Allan passed finish line: but Outlanded rather suddenly!

Another hard day

2012-01-13T00:08:00.001+01:00

It all got too much after another hard days flying...

Ziggy's fin

2012-01-12T03:53:00.001+01:00

Done by an indiginous patient of his.

Today's task is now B task for all, club is 225 k I think , toke-corowa.

Mike Codling Preparing to Launch

2012-01-10T22:53:00.002+01:00

Day 6 - the team artist had time to get out the easel and oils and quickly make this painting of Mike...

Windsock Trickery

2012-01-10T05:43:00.003+01:00

All ready in the wind

2012-01-10T02:18:00.001+01:00

Sky looks good. What you can't see is the wind, which is increasing; already about 20-25 kph. :-(

And they came back

2012-01-09T23:15:00.003+01:00

Thunderbirds are GO . F A B

2012-01-09T02:10:00.001+01:00

Looks good, but a little windy, some poss high cloud by Deni...

Shiny Canopy

2012-01-06T04:26:00.002+01:00

On the line, with a shiny shiny canopy. Plenty of thermals ripping through the launch now, should be a good day 308 K racing task with 3 turn points.

More interesting sky earlier today

2012-01-04T07:08:00.002+01:00

In the aeropark campsite.

Ready to launch on 26

2012-01-04T02:29:00.001+01:00

We're at the back today, looks ok at moment...

Only a short while later

2012-01-04T01:21:00.001+01:00

A different weather day

2012-01-04T00:54:00.001+01:00

Interesting sky over benalla clubhouse, we should be ok for a task this pm though...

Final results Vic State Champs Ararat

2011-12-10T10:40:00.001+01:00

Good results for the team! Craig Collings winner club class Vic State Champs. (flying Allan's LS1 !)

Mike Durrant winner Standard.

(15m Andy Smith also mt Beauty as is Craig, 18m Tony Tabart)

Last day over: team all back

2011-12-10T06:29:00.001+01:00

The weather was hard- a 3 hr AAT with big circles (134 - 512) !? Several localized showers made it interesting I believe

1 hr later

2011-12-09T05:04:00.001+01:00

What a difference!

Nice sky

2011-12-09T04:20:00.001+01:00

Task underway, Allan already being rained on!

Weather

2011-12-09T02:32:00.001+01:00

Hmmm

Allan getting ready at Ararat with PNL,

2011-12-08T01:48:00.001+01:00

Allan readies Peter & Lisa's Ls8 , many thanks to them for lending it!

Ararat team practice at Vic State Champs

2011-12-08T01:36:00.001+01:00

Craig Collins with Mike Foxtrot online ready for another big day ( hopefully ) Er photo is blurred. Not your eyes !

A : See Details(Google Map)

Testing testing

2011-12-07T23:48:00.001+01:00

Hello world!🐧

In Retrospect...

2010-07-27T19:16:00.001+02:00

As usual there is a strange sense of hollowness after a big long comp finishes and the airfield becomes quiet and empty. Friends old and new have departed back home and it is time to do so yourself.

Despite neither Mike nor I getting quite the result we were hoping for, every comp at this level makes you realise what your own weak points are, and allows you to form a plan for addressing them. I know that next time I get an opportunity like this I will be able to apply everything I learned at Prievidza, hopefully to good affect. Mike and I both found that the things we couldn't simulate in practice were the things that caught us out in our pair flying - the poor visibility, crowded radio channel, pre-start gaggling stress, and terrain and wind.

It was probably the most stressful comp I've ever attended - there were no straightforward days - every day was demanding, and most were very technical. We seldom meet that sort of day in Australia. From the first day, where we headed out in a headwind from the start at cloudbase, but with only about 2000ft clearance over the heavily wooded and mostly unlandable valley systems, through windy days, overcast days, and violent stormy days, we had the whole lot thrown at us. Even the last day, which was much more like a typical Australian racing day but was only a 2hr AAT so every thermal had to be strong as it was a large part of your total flight.

More stress though came from pre-flight gaggling and outlandings. The gaggles were as bad as I have experienced anywhere except Norway 2004. Mike and I both damaged our gliders more than once, simply by landing in the best available option. This certainly starts to play on the mind on subsequent flights and it is easy to start doubting yourself. And of course the Russian fatality was very difficult to handle emotionally, especially for Peter who saw the whole thing happen.

Those who got the best results were generally flying a style known as 'getting on the bus' - where you simply wait until a strong gaggle flies through the start gate, and tag along the whole flight. Pilots were easily making a top-15 place on every day with this tactic. Over 12 competition days that will put you well within the top 10, with virtually no risk of a bad day. Consistency, yes - brilliance - no. I had a very interesting discussion with Howard on the British team, who is a firm believer that the easiest way to win a worlds is to use that approach but just to do it slightly better than the others. It is the antithesis of how most Aussies fly, and to me very much goes against the grain. But you can't argue with the statistics.

Anyhow, I'm now looking forward to getting back to DDSC and practicing for the Nationals! See you all after the middle of August!

Last days

2010-07-21T22:18:00.000+02:00

Well for me it's been an interesting couple of days with mixed emotions. I'm glad I gave myself a few days to recover.
We have returned Ian to Vienna along with a stopover in Bratislava to do the tourist thing. Coming home we took the back roads and managed an international boarder crossing by a barge powered by a Mercury outbaord.
Yesterday we returned JT to its owner in Czech , at Kunovice airfield. Again we got a great tour of facilities and all 4 of us had a flight in a Eurofox! The return trip was made exciting with the addition of a thunderstorm.
Today we drove to the Low Tatras and took a ski lift almost to the top of Chopok (on of the turnpoints) with a walk to the summit. I was extremely interested in the weather and winds from the ground and I'm sure the other were impressed by the scenery and the rugged mountains.
We ended up too late to tour the ice caves but the drive home again was scenic.

Tomorrow the bags get packed and the last of us Aussies leave Prievidza in the morning.
I've added some photos to the gallery of our travels.

with regards,

Mike

All over with the shouting

2010-07-18T16:32:00.001+02:00

Last night's party was great, free beer and food, a band and dance into the night.
Some dingos were seen to be making a lot of noise.
It was after midnight when I called it a day and the party was still rocking.
Keep an eye on the gallery for some incriminating photos....

Today the closing ceremony has just taken place, a more casual affair but with some entertainment from the batten twirling dancing girls.
The Germans and French figured highly on the podiums.

Goodbyes all round as we started going our separate ways, Team Temple, Team Tobi and Team UX all departed almost instantly having big distances to cover.
The rest of us along with Brendan and Yana enjoyed a casual lunch.

Dingo base is almost completely gutted and all the gliders have been washed and cleaned up.
Those of us Aussies remaining have a couple of R-R days before heading off.

From me a HUGE thank-you to everyone who has helped make this trip and event possible. There have been so many people offering advise, help, assistance and encouragement over the last 3 years it's hard to know where to start. I particularly want to thank Helen who has gone beyond the call in order to bring elements to gliding and team work that are normally not even considered and Ian for his work on fund raising. Our supporters TMS Consulting, PC-Sol, DDSC, GUSS and GFA have all helped make this trip a memorable experience.

with regards,

Mike

Last Day - fast day

2010-07-18T16:15:00.000+02:00

With the previous day's outcome, we were presented at briefing with a flogging of the task setter, complete with caped drummer, rack and caped executioner.
This really helped the mood and everyone took away a good spirit.

The weather for the last day was a bit more pessimistic than the day before but the models didn't quite reflect it. A 2 hour AAT was set with a high chance of storms and a change coming through. The cynical suggested that the weatherman had been primed so as to get only a short task on the last day.

This time the sky was great as start time approached, the change was well away and Allan and I had sampled the first leg and deduced conditions were good. Being a short task with good conditions we both new there would be no room for mistakes and a good speed was possible
We started with quite a few in front of us and had an excellent run into the first circle. 2 thermals at 4knots and 1st leg L/D of 67 meant we turned after 40km at a speed of 129kph. The next leg NE towards the mountains west of Martin was going well but we needed a strong climb to get back to base and keep momentum up. Unfortunately
this was not be and we had to settle for 2.7 knots to get connected again. 2nd leg speed 69kph, but a fair percentage of climbing and the sky ahead looked great along the ridges. The third leg to the south was where most of the distance was and the climbs were good and solid particularly early on. As we tracked along the barrier ridge I elected to top up while Allan pressed on for a big climb. This separated us somewhat but we still shared info regarding the sky ahead and what other gliders around us were doing.
As I approached the bottom turn my FLARM and PDA stopped and so I lost some important timing info. The guys at Dingo base got me the info I required and juggling the setting in the LX7007 gave me enough to work out when to turn for home. This would be crucial for the final speed as final glide becomes a significant part of the task on such a small race. I was really looking for a good core under a couple of target cus and all I got was just over 2 knots. I elected to turn for home nearly 1000ft below glide as the sky was good and I couldn't waste any more time. Allan had already turned and was having a good run. It was clear after the first couple of pull-ups under the cus that I'd get the height I needed. The next cloud had a nice core and I decided to turn and get myself up onto glide. The run in improved my glide further and the last task finished fast, fat and happy.
At 101 kph off the stick I was quite happy, of course as I have learned at this comp, there's no room for small mistakes and below average climbs. The winners were only a few kph faster and there I was in 29th.

with regards,

Mike

The Day No-One came home

2010-07-16T22:37:00.001+02:00

Wow! What a day.
The forecast was interesting, the models showed a good day ahead, the met man a little more pessimistic but with no chance of storms....

Our task was a 3 hour AAT that got reduced to 2 1/2 as the day was slow to get going. We knew local storm cells during the evening would have effected some of the areas and the plan was to try for around 95 kmh.

The start set the mood for the task, a big overdeveloped area came up right on track to the first circle, Allan went right, I went left of the rain.
Seems there was lightning in the rain ( no storms ?) and I tip-toed around to the back where some decent cus were still around. A climb here with a gaggle put me around the first turn and ahead of Allan who was a bit stuck on the right but gaining distance. I was able to use this to feed back info to Allan on the conditions ahead for him.

Cruising toward the second area was nothing special , except a deviation around more rain. Away for the rain clouds the sky was actually quite attractive (to glider pilots).

Into the second area and another overdeveloped area, I stayed with a gaggle but was determined to get high and turn North early to get along the Prievidza East side of the valley. The info from Dingo base wasn't good, standard class were having troubles just staying up and starting and further north it was raining. I climbed slowly to a comfortable level and turned north, most of the gaggle continued East and I couldn't work out why (more later), my theory was they were perhaps trying to go far east outside the circle to get north around the weather.
As I flew north I gained enough in some average climbs to get myself to base and cruise north to the "barrier" ridge. Here the view ahead was terrible , the whole Martin valley was showers and the only brighter sky was to the East but was blue and obviously dead. Some confirmation from Dingo base got me thinking outside the typical Aussie pilot box. "Maybe I should just get high here and park for a while". This small thought paid well, I waited and climbed slowly at first and was rewarded with eventually 4 knots to cloudbase. The sky was looking brighter ahead but still not great. I felt like waiting for another 15 minutes or so for the sky to improve but I could see sunlight in the valley ahead.
I eased out into the east side of the valley and into the hills hoping the wind on the ridges would trip something off. Nothing. Still nothing. Creeping towards the sun and the third circle. I dialed up Martin airfield and was 1100ft above glide. I decided to hit the third circle, keep working north and seeing for far I could get before having to break left and head for Martin. This worked well , I held glide for quite a while and was inching towards sunlight and salvation. at about +400ft on Martin I got to ridges in the sun, a couple of bubbles and searching turns proved fruitless, I was tempted to go just one more ridge across but that would have cut off my exit to Martin and forced me into a paddock.
Turning back to Martin I made some deviations over anything that looked slightly like a thermal source but in the end the arrival at Martin was inevitable.
The story could end there but for the next hour I witnessed over 30 other gliders land, helped push and line-up gliders, arrange aerotows and generally talk gliding to lots of excited and disappointed pilots; what a hoot! Not to mention some video footage from my micro-camera. We discussed tactics and the guys going east early in the second area were probably going for distance , D'oh.
In due course my trusty crew arrived and we hot-footed it back to Prievidza. When we left there were already 3 tugs doing aerotow retrieves and the queue of gliders was still growing!

There's a rumour the guns want to cancel the day, I can't see why, it was an interesting challenge and this is the worlds.

with regards,

Mike

Close but no cigar

2010-07-16T07:02:00.001+02:00

Yesterday again proved to be a tricky task.
After a good fast start and run to the first turn and part-way up the second, the cloud started to look not so good and the sky further ahead a little dim.
Picking the point to change gear worked well for me and I took a weaker than usual climb before moving on into the mountains. My track thendiffered slightly from Allan's and the gliders we were with and I found 4 knots to get me back to base. This proved valuable as I was able to move into the overdeveloped sky quite high. Allan eventually found a climb to get him back going again. After the second turn and another slow glide back to a climb we both came together again along with a lot of club class gliders. This climb got everyone goiong again, the sky started looking good and everyone got back into racing. The track into and out from the second turn was fast again and across the Martin valley and turning south the climbs just got better. There was a bit of airspace to be dodged and then it was becoming obvious the conditions ahead were changing. A large blue hole had developed on track with cus quite a bit West on the Prievidza ridges. Allan was a bit ahead by now and was tracking west of me toward the rigdes and cus. I was with a couple of other gliders tip-toeing across the start of the blue. The cu line looked good and I decided to divert. The cus were overdeveloped by the time we got there, and only 1 -2 knots was to be had with good energy joining the climbs though. At 7km from the turn and only 300ft below glide I decided I would do better making my glide up in the cruise so I ventured to the turn and came back under the cu. Now needing 800ft to get onto glide I found the cloud dead and the energy line gone... ooops.
I dribbled on searching for lift in the sun, top of gullies, all the right things. I actually has picked the change in wind direction too,finding the odd bubble and some reasonably good air improved the situation a bit. The situation wasn't good but ahead was a small cu above 2 wheat harvesters; yes!
Well, Slovakian harvesters just don't work the same as Australian ones and I ended up in the airfield not far from there. I could have just about limped home but one patch of sink would have had me beached-as.

with regards,

Mike

Hello from Oz...

2010-07-15T13:03:00.001+02:00

Team Dingo.... we are thinking of you and hope you are all doing well. 3 days to go – hope your are having fun and enjoying the flying. Thank you to everyone for your different emails and staying in touch. Make the most of the last few days and enjoy!! TMS team is thinking of you and wishing you all the best!! Helen, Adam, Ali, Samantha, Ben and Kristyna.#

Strategic Facilitation & Negotiation . Executive Leadership & Coaching. Service Delivery Redesign . Business Process Reengineering . Organisational Design & Development

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Rolling the dice...

2010-07-14T19:07:00.002+02:00

Well, we thought it was going to be a good old Darling Downs style racing day today - and it was - but only if you started early enough. Mike and I decided on a late start with the theory that we should be able to bounce all the stragglers and catch the better gaggles - but after a ripping start we got caught out by an early finish to the conditions, and struggled around the final turnpoint where all the others had still been racing. Pretty much our worst result for the comp - even though it was probably our best day's pair flying! Just one tactical misjudgment on start time had a massive affect on the result. Still, there are 3 days left for us to pull some dignity out of the bag!

Gallery photos

2010-07-13T22:33:00.001+02:00

Added some more photos tonight, will round up some more tomorrow.
www.teamdingo.com.au/gallery

with regards,

Mike

Tuesday update

2010-07-13T21:56:00.001+02:00

Today's task was an AAT after 4 (?) days of racing tasks. The weather was predicted to be tricky with cells of storms over the task area and a stormy change later in the afternoon. The change didn't really happen (yet?) but there was showers, some small cells and overdeveloped, gloomy skies at times. When you add the weather, airspace and the terrain and overlay the task it makes your route planning very tricky. I actually felt like we did a good job of it and managed to dodge major trouble but yet again ended up slow. I wasn't able to stay really high today and whenever I start having to find climbs with rocks and trees around me I end up losing and wasting time. Final glide was interesting today, Allan and I were about 400ft low and scratching around in 2 knots for a while, Allan decided to search upwind along a cloud street (somewhat overdeveloped) and called good air. I following and we both cruised along under a long line of lift to pick up over 1000ft of glide; nice! Coming in from the north is particularly fun as you need about +400ft to get over the final ridge 15km from home, once clear of the ridge you have plenty of glide and can bring the speed up, you'd have to try hard to get it wrong from there.

It's pretty hot here, been 34 degrees the last few days, the Pommy captain ended up in hospital with exhaustion yesterday.

Anyway, 4 more comp days and I'm really going to make the most of them. Team's getting along fine, last night was international party where all the teams set up a table with exotic booze and nibblies. I made sure Graham tasted most of the booze. Lots of fun, as well the Slovaks put on some entertainment including fire twirling and a performing dog. We had Australian wines, music, peanuts (of dubious Aussie origin) and bread and dipping oil. The 2 corked hats got a workout.

with regards,

Mike

Bravo Sierra watering the landing strip!

2010-07-12T17:37:00.001+02:00

Nice landing of Peter Temple, on day 6 for Standard, everyone home. Hot and
tired!

Dave

Peter Temple 'Bravo Sierra' dumping water

2010-07-12T17:31:00.000+02:00

Nice landing on day 6 for Standard, everyone home. Hot and tired!

Dave

Bar Talk

2010-07-11T09:21:00.000+02:00

Today I’ve got some notes on a few things that have been popular in bar talk, during the comp so far.

Flarms are not mandatory here and many people believe that they may have prevented the mid air on Day 1. The organisers and the German team have offered spares to all pilots.

On the day of the fatal accident Alan turned his phone on when he heard Pete relaying the accident, in case we needed to contact him. After an hour or so he received a text. He checked it and found a “Welcome to the Czech Republic” message, since he had crossed the border on task.

QNH as usual is a huge issue. For whatever reason the organisers are issuing a daily QNH to calculate altitude rather than letting the scoring program calculate the actual QNH based on take off altitude. On Saturday for the first time it was correct, but until then it has been incorrect by 3, 4 or even 5mb. This has caused much arm waving, calculating, and creating of spread sheets to calculate the scoring altitude error - which is different from the measured altitude.

The second aspect of this issue is that they have set, and are enforcing, a minimum 50m QNH finish height at the 3km finish ring. So each day we also have to calculate a finish altitude based on the issued QNH, compared to the actual QNH.

Thirdly it is possible to land 3km away and receive a valid finish, as Sebastian did on Day 3, but they still insist on a 50m finish height. So Sebastian received a warning.

If you had 50m at 3km you would come back to the airfield……..

The chief steward berated the pilots at the briefing listing, a mid air, a fatality, a gaggle touch, and numerous outlanding incidents. He says it is the worst competition for safety that he has ever been to.

The outlanding issue is made worse due to the late rains, causing a late harvest, leaving nowhere to land. Most paddocks have a mature crop or haystacks in them. Pete says the options here at the moment are far worse than in Italy or France. Consequently every day there are at least half a dozen gliders being worked on over night in the factory. Without the factory at least a dozen gliders would be out of the competition already.

Some cynics claim that the task setter has shares in the workshop.

As I was typing this Pete called in his outlanding so I now have a photo to demonstrate what a typical outlanding paddock looks like in Slovakia.

Pete’s closest midair incident so far was on day 3 when he encountered a gaggle on the start line as he was trying to start. Tobi had a close run with several gliders on day 3 when all classes had the same out and return task and he had gliders flying straight at him at cloud base, if not a little higher.

My daily updates are on

http://team-temple.blogspot.com/

Random Ramblings

2010-07-07T09:39:00.000+02:00

There are a few things which I have noted down to add to the blog but haven’t had a chance to include, so here are some random things.

At the first safety briefing one of the Standard Class pilots asked for more speed during the aerotow. A PW5 pilot called out, “If they go any faster I will redline. We need less speed not more”. The contest director agreed that they would tailor launch speeds to suit the gliders being launched.

During the opening ceremony in 30C heat, with endless speeches the Majorette Flag bearer for Finland collapsed with heat exhaustion and split her chin open on the Finland sign.

There are a lot of storks here and when they thermal, because of their colouring, they flash from black to white to black, it’s odd to watch.

At briefing they warned pilots not to stay up too late, or to drink too much. They will breathalyse pilots if they suspect that they are not completely sober.

During the opening ceremony we had a display of “Dancing Dynamics”. Basically Dynamics taxiing to music. We were pleased to see that they always thermalled to the left as per the local rules.

Each day winner is presented with a “Yellow jersey” (and a bottle of wine) with “Day 1 Club Class” for example on the front. It’s a nice touch.

Also the gang who help with the gridding (who are now trained to greet us everyday with “G’day mate”) all wear white cotton gloves so that they don’t put fingerprints on the gliders.

Peter Temple Returning Day 2

2010-07-05T17:41:00.001+02:00

Here is a nice pic of Peter landing BS on day 2.

Dave

Opening Ceremony

2010-07-03T19:28:00.000+02:00

We've just retired to the team hut to get out of the sun. The airshow is still underway.
The locals have turned out in force for the event.

The opening ceremony was a great experience, as usual the Slovak organisation has got it well rehearsed.
A quite formal procession was following up by the "dance of the Dynamics" and another dance by the golden winged dancers.
Everyone's in great spirits and later this evening we go to the castle for the banquet.

Meanwhile, back to the airshow. Watch the Gallery for plenty of photos.

with regards,

Mike

Practise day 2

2010-07-01T22:00:00.002+02:00

After a quieter day yesterday I was ready for a nice day's flying.

The glider's scratched wing was repaired yesterday and final polishing this morning followed by the contest numbers being stuck onto the wing gave us only a small window to get rigged and onto the grid before grid close at 11:15am.

The weather outlook was for some good conditions with high probability of storms at the 1st turnpoint; the task set at 3 1/2 hours AAT for club class.

The crew came together to get the glider rigged while I attended the pilot's meeting after briefing. Thanks Graham, Narelle, Dave and Alex; great job. I was sat in the glider with all the gear operating with at least 5 minutes to spare.

Today's flight was another mixed bag. I find one of the biggest challenges is the speed at which conditions change with the time of day, weather, terrain and as you move through the task area.

Yet again I got stuck by terrain and turned back into the valley to get a climb. Essentially this resulted in the differences in Allan's and my result. The storms were over the north area, we diverted west into the circle, avoiding lightning but not totally missing the rain. Later coming south past Prievidza the sky opened right out and the climbs weakened off to 2 knots. The poms took a more easterly line here and were rewarded with better climbs. A fairly uneventful 3rd leg followed to the point of turning for home. Some reasonably normal calculations on when to turn were all that was required; we entered the circle with a required last leg speed of 97kph and decided to turn just after the 180kph point. Post flight both Allan and I agreed that the top-up we took to clear the "barrier" terrain wasn't really needed. It did make for a hot final glide which is a great way to finish a long day. I spent just under 5 hours in the air today.

This arvo, Graham and I cleared up all of the remaining jobs to get the glider sorted including the lead weight to get myself closer to the reference weight. a quick trip back across the scales tomorrow and we should be fine.

Leschy's arrived tonight, pretty tired but in good spirits; everyone's here now.

I've posted quite a few photos in the Team Dingo gallery, we intend to keep adding to the collection. I won't be adding any more photos from the air as I've squashed my mobile phone/ camera.

The Team is complete!

2010-07-01T21:52:00.003+02:00

Ian Lesch arrived this evening after a very long trip from Australia. He definitely looked ready for a good night's sleep! Ian makes up the final member of Team Dingo to arrive.

Tomorrow is the final practice day - and the day after is the opening ceremony. Although the opening ceremony doesn't start until 4pm, we are not expecting to be able to fly that day, as they don't want to have anyone missing due to outlanding (or good conditions!). I've decided not to fly tomorrow either - so as to give myself an extra rest day before the comp begins. Mike is going to have a short fly and I'm not sure about the others.

Today was, like yesterday, stormy. The first turnpoint for Standard class was behind a wall of rain. The photo doesn't really do it justice. Peter spent several hours just waiting a few km from the turnpoint in the hope that the saturated area would regenerate and allow a glide in and out - but to no avail. Eventually he gave up and returned home. None of the class managed 100km so the task was invalid. Club class fared a little better with an AAT which let us slide past the worst of the storm. The route to the south after that was much drier and presented few problems (apart from weak climbs).

The final glide into Prievdiza from the northwest is quite interesting - as terrain can get in the way. You need to start your glide higher than normal, aiming to just clear the barrier range and then push the stick forward to get down to the airfield at a sensible height!

Routine?

2010-07-01T13:12:00.000+02:00

One of the reasons that we like to arrive at a competition site early is to establish a routine before the competition starts. This year we have had to change our routine several times.

When we first arrived we were the only ones flying and could pretty much please ourselves as to what we did. Due to the terms of our contract we have to rig and derig every day which is quite different from our usual Australian habit. Our routine back then was to rig and fly on the good days and to watch and wait on the bad days. We got it right most of the time.

A week ago the rest of the team arrived and we adjusted our routine to fit in with them. Next we had to move the trailers into the official positions. Last week we began to get daily briefings and tasks were set. Now we have Aussie base up and running for team meetings.

This week we had to rig early on Tuesday for Scrutineering and today we rigged a little earlier to avoid the rush at the taps. There are around 50 Standard Class gliders and 10 taps. Fortunately many of the Europeans have brought water containers with them and are ballasting in the tie down area.

Yesterday we gridded for the first time. Gridding was from the back by class.

Yesterday was also the first day that we had a gate opening time and the requirement to report start times. Since the radio was so busy it was quite a challenge. Usually there are 2 (or maximum 3) teams per frequency, but here they have had trouble getting enough frequencies and there are 15 pilots on all frequencies. This makes it difficult for the pilots to get together before the start and even to report their start times.

Today there was an extra Team Captain’s meeting before the main briefing on Friday. The busy radio frequencies were discussed at length.

The organisers also made two significant decisions, there is no airspace buffer, and they will issue a QNH each day and use it for scoring rather than using the take off altitiude.

Impressions of Slovakia and Prievidza

2010-06-28T09:52:00.002+02:00

We’ve been here in Slovakia for a little over 3 weeks now and I have formed some opinions and impressions over that time.

One striking difference between Slovakia and Australia is that there are people of all ages, everywhere, walking, at all hours of the day or night.

Compared to Australia,

Slovakia

is relatively inexpensive. For example if you visit the local Tesco (which is open 24 hours) and fill a trolley it is costs only 30 to 50 Euros (less than $100AUD). As an example bread rolls are 6c each, strawberries 60c for a punnet, (Australian) wine 2 Euros a bottle.

Fuel costs are similar at 1.12 Euros a litre.

Aerotows are also cheap at 2 Euros per minute. The tow planes are all Dynamics which are manufactured at Prievidza. They are not as powerful as the Pawnees that we are used to in

Australia

and a typical tow is around 8 minutes for a ballasted glider.

16 Euros per tow seems a lot more reasonable than the 60 Euros per tow that we were charged in Italy!!

There is also a Parachute Club at Prievidza Airfield. It is most active on weekends, and although it seems chaotic at times everyone seems to manage to find space to have fun without getting in anyone else’s way.

The weather is quite changeable. Two days ago we were all wearing thermals and jackets and had a maximum temperature of 15 degrees. Tomorrow is forecast to be 27degrees with temperatures gradually increasing as the week progresses.

For the last 9 days we have had Northerly winds. This is apparently unusual with southerly winds the norm.

The organising team here are the best I have seen anywhere (except maybe at Gawler J), and so far seem to be on top of all aspects of the organisation.

We have Porta Loos at both launch points, marked tie downs, watering points, internet that works over the whole airfield. If they can just organise the weather.

BTW Today on the official site there was mention of a comment by the tug pilot yesterday to the effect that he had noticed that the Australians had finally worked out that they weren’t in

Australia

and it wasn’t sensible to release at 500m.

Tobi's inevitable outlanding

2010-06-27T21:04:00.000+02:00

Following Peter's advice from the day before "I decided" (I wish...) to get my inevitable outlanding for this competition over and done with. The day started off very nicely with a 2.5m/s climb after the tow up to 1500m. Then I just hung around waiting for Peter, who had another problem with his LS8 and couldn't launch for a few more hours. So after close to an hour of hanging around I finally got going. The met man's advice was that it'll be good over the ridges and being a good boy I did what I was told and followed the ridges north towards our first turn point north of Zilina.

The air was very rough with patches of very strong sink and areas of rising air without any useful cores. As the trees started coming up to me I had to deviate east into the Martin valley. There I managed to find a good climb back to 1600m. Felt really good then and the task was on again. Back over the hills again on track the air became very rough and it was difficult to keep in any thermal. I hit one rotor in a narrow valley but couldn't climb in it. Eventually I found myself some 40km out from Prievidza in a picturesque valley with many outlanding options and very little lift. Enough lift though to have the time to select a few nice looking outlanding paddocks.

I found one better thermal to give me the chance to venture over the next row of hills but there was only sink there and the outlanding options didn't look as nice. So I decided to dump the water ballst and return to the freshly cut meadows that I had identified as being pretty safe. There was a bit of an uphill slope and two tractors to circumnavigate but otherwise everything went well. The very short ground run was rough as I rolled over a few heaps of hay up the hill.

Whilst it was all pretty straight forward for me the big challenge started for Andrew. He has never driven himself on a retrieve in a foreign country. Whilst he practised on parts of the way to Prievidza with me sitting next to him now he was on his own. Well, not quite. He had Jessica. I'll write more about Jessica in another blog but suffice to say that she directed him somehow to the bus stop where I was waiting for him. It took the pair a bit longer than I expected though and I wonder what they were up to.

While I was looking out for Andrew and Jessica I also had to keep an eye on a few on-lookers who's Sunday afternoon just got a bit more exciting with a glider having landed in a meadow near their village. And there was also a Storch looking for frogs and later showing me a nice thermal. Often do I wonder why those thermals seem to be always working after you have landed out.

Once Andrew and Jess had arrived I took over the wheel and drove us to the glider. The de-rig went smoothly without any hickups. Getting the car and the loaden trailer back up the hill was a bit more tricky. Anyway, we managed and arrived back at the airfield about an hour later. In time to hear that the Germans had just beaten the Poms 4:1 in soccer. The Dynamics were dancing on the apron and dinner with a nice cold Topvar beer tasted as great as ever.

Let's hope this was my compulsory outlanding for this comp and that from here on in Andrew doesn't need to drive Jessica around anymore.

Cheers

Tobi #

A one-way trip to Zilina

2010-06-26T22:08:00.002+02:00

Today we weren't really planning to go flying, but the weather started to look better than expected so we dragged the gliders out and rigged. Tobi launched first, just to check some changes to the glider. I launched next and found it a bit tricky to stay up; Mike chose an early release and nearly regretted it. We decided to head into the brisk northerly wind up the valley to Martin. Quite a turbulent trip, with the only thermals at first being strongly broken by the hills to windward. After getting low at Martin, we decided to try the Zilina valley. We got there OK, but found lift was in short supply. As alternate bands of sunshine and shade passed, the town would pulse weak thermals and then go back into a dormant state. We spent an hour or so over Zilina, just managing to stay in the air, before finally the sunny cycle failed to materialize. Fortunately there was a short concrete runway below. Mike landed first, having to avoid a car that was burning up and down the runway. When I went on to downwind Mike radioed that the runway was clear except for a lady with a pram. Sure enough there she was, right on the centreline. But with a bit of encouragement from Mike she soon vacated.

The retrieve was rapid and efficient:= thanks Charlie and Dave!

Outlanding options

2010-06-25T15:26:00.002+02:00

Hi all,

here's a photo I took of the road up to Pete's outlanding field from the day before yesterday. It was up near the Polish border. Pete landed on top of a hill because everything down in the valley was unlandable. Here you can see the track up to the top of the hill, with dozens of haystacks lining the fields. Each haystack has a substantial wooden pole in the middle of it and they would do a lot of damage if hit with a glider wing!

2 Days of Flying

2010-06-25T10:42:00.003+02:00

After 2 days of good flying, we are again faced with a gloomy sky.

Wednesday saw a nice fine day but with quite a strong northerly wind. We tasked to the north and then East with the plan of getting onto the northern face of the Tatras to sample the ridges. We had great glides into wind after started, aided by some good streeting, firstly along the Western edge of the valley and then crossing to the Eastern side to avoid turbulance from the wind. Unfortunately a good climb was not to be had and we ended up scratched at the top of the valley trying to beat the wind and climb high enough to progress. eventually we moved on and got across to some north facing ridges but there was little organised ridge lift. Further north we again climbed steadily and as we were in the first sector decided to turn. The vista to the East was not good, cloud low on the Tatras and gloomy, the whole sky having overdeveloped by this stage. Being our first flight we decided to cancel this leg of the task and return to the southern turnpoint for home. A reasonably uneventful trip home followed, the interesting statistic was the downwind glides were not as good as the upwind ones earlier.

Yesterday, another good day with less wind. The forecast for the Tatras area was for extreme wind so we elected a task that took us north again and then south past Prievidza and on to the east where we had not been before. a change was forecast for mid-afternoon. We launched about 11:30am and started well at just above 7000ft. The climbs were better but still some very tight and rough cores were about as well as some misleading bubbles that showed good promise for the first turn or 2 and then vanished. A little frustrating when pair flying as this resulted in a pilot calling a climb which lasted just enough for the other guy to join and find nothing. Both Allan and I fell victim to this mischievous bubbling.

The first leg was uneventful, after turning South we landed the climb of the day abeam Prievidsa. I had the mechanical vario pegged at >5ms for the first few turns and the climb settled to about 8 knots on the averager for the rest of the climb! Ye Ha! Again some good cus helped the cruise but after turning east the change was starting to be visible to the NE. The Eastern run was good after avoiding a blue hole. We has another great climb near the town of Zvolen before entering the sector. By this time we were discussing the route back West, the change was coming in and the sky to the North West looking particularly gloomy and hazy. After testing the clouds just inside the sector, the choice was to double back to avoid the gloom.

On the leg back I had got somewhat vertically separated from Allan and the next climb didn't help with me unable to match Allan's climb rate. The thermals here are not as evenly predictable and a few hundred feet separation can give a fair difference in climb rate. Allan moved on and relayed climb info back to me which helped in my decisions to stay/go. Coupled with Team codes on Winpilot, I was able to make up some of the losses and get back into contact. Good stuff! As we progressed East we were getting into decision time for climb to get us back across the ridges into the Prievidza valley. Some fiddling around in weaker stuff was eventually rewarded with a stronger climb to clear the terrain and give a 2 knot glide home. Allan set off just before me as he was still a bit higher and reported some very good air ahead. I followed, decides to stop at the good air and top up as allan had then reported strong sink. I took the climb to cloudbase as it was about 8 knots and it put me 600ft above a 4 knot glide. By this time Allan had been getting nailed with lee side sink and stopped to top up in 4 knots. We both ended up with quite a hot final glide and landed with big smiles into the gloomy changed weather.

Today (Friday) I'm in tidy-up mode, catching up on things and sorting equipment, chargers etc. We need to get the fuselage out and repair a broken wire and possibly change the TE tubing to isolate the 2 varios better.

Captain Charlie, Mike, Tobi and Andrew now all present

2010-06-22T22:34:00.002+02:00

Yesterday Charlie and Mike arrived, and today Tobi and Andrew bolstered the team numbers too. We are now only short of Graham and Narelle, Ian Lesche and Alex, who will be arriving soon.

Still no flying...

2010-06-22T22:16:00.002+02:00

Well, yet another day without getting airborne. The whole day was forecast to be unusable, so we decided to explore the local environs and checked out the town of Trencin, about 80km to the NW. One of the competition turnpoints is the city castle, so we paid it a visit. Here Dave gets up close with one of the locals.

Hopefully we will have some flying to report tomorrow - the forecast is looking good.

2010-06-20T10:19:00.001+02:00

A wet day in Prievidza

2010-06-19T22:18:00.003+02:00

Hi all,

well no flying today, although it did improve a little in the afternoon and was probably briefly soarable. We awoke to a drizzly morning and decided to make use of the time by rearranging the glider seating position, installing a 'relief' system, and setting up new cables for the PDA. Meanwhile at the airfield, a massive party was going on - we're not sure what the occasion was, but the huge sound system was belting out dance music all afternoon, the local travelling funfair had shown up with dodgems, bouncy castle etc, and a lot of the visitors were assuming that my partly-rigged glider was part of the occasion! I had to disappoint several people who were hoping that something worth watching was about to happen!

This evening over dinner, I was reminiscing with Peter and Mandy about my first sight of snow (don't ask how this came up) and flung my arms out to highlight a point, just as the waitress arrived with a tray of drinks. The drinks ended up all over Pete and Mandy, but fortunately Dave and I were undrenched. It was the highlight of an otherwise dull day. (Sorry Pete!)

Hopefully there will be some flying to report tomorrow.

Taipei

2010-06-19T11:20:00.001+02:00

Mike and are in Taipei at the Novotel Hotel resting up after our strenuous flight from BNE. We initially thought the flight would be entertainment free, however early in the flight a bump of turbulence, or similar, did the magic trick and fixed the system, so the flight became a 3 movie sector. This morning we went on a tour(!!!) of some of Taipei’s special sights, the usual ancient temple, the oldest street in Taiwan and a visit to ceramic heaven where it seemed that every shop produced its own pottery.

After we arrive in Vienna tomorrow morning we expect to bus to Nitra by lunchtime, where we will pick up our car and then drive to the Czech Republic to collect Mike’s glider, the same one he flew last year. With some luck we will be in Prievidza by nightfall where the serious stuff begins.

From Dingo Charlie

2010-06-19T00:46:00.000+02:00

A bit out of sequence but Captain Chaz and Mike left Brisbane yesterday.

Made it!

2010-06-18T21:27:00.003+02:00

Hi all; after a smooth flight, followed by a drive up to Wolfsburg in the rental car, Helge met us and we swapped some instruments around in UX (the LS1-f I'll be flying). Unfortunately the 3 loggers I was to be using were delayed in the mail, so Helge will be sending them on with the South African pilot who is flying VS. The weather looked fantastic - at least 5000ft cloudbase and beautiful cumulus all over the sky.

The glider looks great, and after a good night's sleep at Swaantje's house we set off in the Opel Omega that is to be our transport for the next month. We got almost to the Czech border before the first little problem hit - overheating! The temp was sitting above 100 degrees but we found we could nurse the car along by keeping below 90kph on the flat and about 60 on hills. After a very slow patch of heavy traffic near Prague we decided not to attempt the whole trip in one day, and pulled into a motorway motel for pizza and bed.

Next morning an early start saw us on the road by 7am, but the Czech motorways are real boneshakers in places and we found that in combination with the overheating we were only making about 70kph average. Then problem number 2 hit - after pulling over to investigate a strange scraping sound, we found that the jockey wheel must have hit the highway on a particularly rough patch, and the plastic wheel had been bashed off on the road surface!

The border with Slovakia eventually passed, and the weather was rapidly deteriorating. We hit the rain shortly after and it stayed with us for the remainder of the journey. In one place one half of the road was completely washed away.

We finally arrived in Prievidza in torrential rain, parked the glider, booked into the Oaza hotel (very pleasant) and found Peter and Mandy for dinner. Unfortunately the forecast is for more rain for the next several days, so there might not be a flying blog entry for a while!

Brisbane to Taipei - We're on our way

2010-06-18T16:04:00.000+02:00

Capt'n Charlie and myself left a dreary Brisbane day to start our Wgc2010 adventure. After a delayed departure due to the in-flight entertainment malfunctioning (what, no movies?) we commenced our 1st leg of the outbound journey. Before long the in-flight system came back to life and we all breathed a sigh of relief. 3 movies, an arcade space invader game and some music later we arrived at Tiapei.
Nicely summer here, 28degrees at 9pm and that lovely Asian diesel fume atmosphere. A short shuttle bus ride later and here we are sitting in the Novotel with free internet and a toilet with more buttons than Captain Kirk's seat.

Many thanks to all the well wishers today and especially Leschy for greeting us at the airport, possibly just making sure we left the country.
Tomorrow is our courtesy tour of Taipei and a late departure on the leg overnight to Vienna.

Yesterday I received an SMS from the intrepid Allan and Dave, they had only 400km left to drive and so are probably happy at Prievidza.

Mike

They're off!!

2010-06-15T13:34:00.003+02:00

Allan and Dave departed Brisbane this afternoon.

We've arrived

2010-06-06T11:35:00.000+02:00

I'm sending this from the airfield restaurant, with tugs launching gliders into a Cu filled sky.
Our glider is due to arrive at 2pm today, a little delayed due to the flooding, and Pete is hoping to fly tomorrow.

On our way

2010-05-31T16:42:00.002+02:00

Pete and I are currently in Hong Kong enroute to Frankfurt.

Tomorrow we will hopefully pick up our hire car before heading East to Slovakia.

In addition to updates on the team site Pete and I will put more personal updates on Team Temple at;

http://team-temple.blogspot.com/

Mandy

Testing

2010-05-27T13:07:00.001+02:00

Dingo Base, Floater 1 request radio check?

Floater 1 receiving you strength 5!

Slovakia 2010 - Here we come

2010-05-26T11:18:00.001+02:00

Well the training and preparation are just about over, bags are getting packed and we're about to embark on the 2010 WGC experience.
www.teamdingo.com.au is getting updated for 2010 and we are all getting excited. Watch this space ...

with regards,

Mike

Stop Press

2009-08-21T15:10:00.002+02:00

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

2009-08-21T01:44:00.000+02:00

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!

2009-08-21T01:42:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-15T12:56:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-13T08:31:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-11T16:39:00.001+02:00

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

2009-08-11T16:08:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-11T09:27:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-10T10:50:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-09T13:45:00.000+02:00

“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

2009-08-08T16:00:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-08T15:37:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-07T14:57:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-06T20:54:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-04T18:51:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-04T18:31:00.000+02:00

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.

2009-08-02T02:55:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-01T16:15:00.000+02:00

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

Day 2 - great Flying and a Long Wait

2009-07-31T15:47:00.000+02:00

Today we got another special briefing, Brendan is here and we both wanted to undertake a task. at briefing we enquired about a good task and ended up with a 320km task into the mountains. "How good is this" I was thinking after getting a nice start with Brendan and heading north on the first leg. a couple of nice climbs, cruise along a ridgeline (nice scenery, lots of bubbles) and then a long glide into a valley with limited options particularly with airspace blocking the exit to the west. We both climbed away slowly from quite a low save and then tiptoed towards the north again, only to be forced around by limited options. Man there's some impressive terrain in this area, big rocky outcrops that didn't quite get into the detail in Condor! I managed to get 2 knots from against a ridge but Brendan was unable to reach my point and was forced into a paddock. On my own now I climbed to base and set off crossing easterly into the better valley (should have worked that out earlier ;-). I managed to make the first turn at the edge of a large lake and set off on the next leg toward the higher mountains and only the odd raggy cu with a rather large blue hole. After a struggle to get a decent climb and some time trying to get any climb I was resigned to a grassy paddock on steep slope, about 1000ft above the narrow valley floor - now that was different for an Aussie flatlander. What followed was a long wait, very pleasant, as Charlie was already on the road to pick up Brendan. Eventually I negotiated a local retrieve crew, more waiting and at about 7:30pm I walked down to the main road (3km). More waiting at the bus stop until about 9:15pm when Eduard and Thomas arrived. We then managed to drive up to the glider not without us getting out and pushing at one stage. Quick de-rig in the dark and 2 hours of driving later we got back at about 12:15am. What a day!

Prievidza Flying Day 1

2009-07-30T08:45:00.000+02:00

We met Josef and the glider today. We had an enjoyable morning, coffee, a chat and then rigged JT (affectionately known as Jenny Tango). Everything went well. As well we got a special private briefing with met and airspace from the airfield manager admirably translated by Lucia. The airfield bar and restaurant is a great spot for meals and drinks and is very popular. Eventually after lunch with Josef and Jana we got organised enough to go flying. The weather was very promising with good cus and a light wind. I took off about 2:30pm for a 3 hour flight and had a ball. Off to morning briefing, more soon.......

Still on the way...

2009-07-28T16:13:00.000+02:00

Hi all,

well, I'm almost half-way there! Just taking advantage of the free internet access at Singapore airport and a few spare hours while waiting for my connection to Frankfurt. On target so far for an arrival at Prievidza late on the 30th - can't wait!

Nitra - we are here !

2009-07-28T08:46:00.000+02:00

Well, it's been a hectic few days but we have established ourselves at Nitra on our way to Prievidza. Brendan and Jana and not to mention the locals are going out of their way to accomodate us. Charlie is doing admirably at left hand driving with only one major incursion on the wrong side of the road. I have been to the hospital and obtained a Slovakian aviation medical as part of my quest for a license. Yesterday I got to fly in the DG1000 for my official flight test. This ended up being 1 1/2 hours cross country of 100km ! takeoff 4:30pm landing at 6pm. This was really exciting, the countryside is great, not too scary; mountains, castles, rivers, lush crops and forests.

See if you can spot the dingo flag on the caravan at http://www.pribinacup.sk/2009/webcam-2.html.

Tonight we move on to Prievidza and set up base. Hopefully, I'll get some time to expand on our adventure so far.

2009-07-27T08:29:00.001+02:00

Magic Weekend

2009-07-23T14:56:00.001+02:00

Here are a couple of shots of the eagle (sea-eagle?) that joined me in my first thermal off launch on Sunday. It stayed with me all the way up from 1400ft to 6000ft and just seemed to want to enjoy the winter weather as much as I did. Great company - it's what pair flying is all about!

2009-07-22T17:12:00.000+02:00

The Team is on the way.

The adventure boys, Keith and Graham, have departed taking the "long cut" via Shanghai, Bejing, the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow and then to Vienna.
Mike and Charlie depart sometime after midnight, Friday 24th and Allen leaves on the following Monday. Brendan is already in Europe preparing the way for us followers and I'm not sure of Toby's travel details. He will definately be there with us.

There has been much preparation, team flying practise and team building in progress over quite a few months now for the expedition. All of which has now come to an end with much anticipation for the coming team effort in Prievidza.

Monday night saw the end of an extensive series of get-togethers with our resident "Trick Cyclist", Helen Wood. Brendan came in on most sessions via video link, whilst the rest of us fronted in person. Team dynamics, team building, inter-personal relationships, and motivation etc have played a major roll in our effort to get the team pilots over the line. Helen's effort has been invaluable and introduced us all to a new (to us at least) dimension in team preparation. Thanks must go to her for this.

From here on in it is all go for the comps.

What a Weekend !

2009-07-21T04:51:00.000+02:00

Well, winter flying in Australia just couldn't get much better and as a final practise prior to our overseas trip Allan and I couldn't have asked for much more.
Both days provided great conditions, lovely cus at about 6000ft, good climbs and light winds. On saturday we tasked Kumbia - Cooyar in order to keep ourselves over some terrain. The day was that good we completed 2 laps ! In the afternoon a light easterly effected the area around Cooyar and we had a struggle to get to glide. I was a bit impatient and paid the price finding absolutely nothing on the way home and landed 24km short. Allan dribbled over the line to save the day.

Sunday was just as good, the task was an AAT centred on Maryvale and return, again to take us over terrain. The country down along the range is awesome, with the recent rains keeping things green and the clear skies making the scenery even better. Plenty of eagles around too. We achieved 105kmh and stayed together well; landing with big smiles and then spent the afternoon packing stuff for our trip abroad.

Scratching around in the treetops

2009-07-13T13:56:00.000+02:00

On Sunday, Mike and I set a task from DDSC across the Bunyas to Cooyar, then to Dalby. It turned out weak and blue, but we scraped around with several low saves - the pair flying is coming on really well. During the flight we saw some high eagles and some low ones - the low ones were eating road-kill and the high ones were sitting in the trees watching!

Weekend Training

2009-07-07T00:13:00.000+02:00

Winter weather is making for good practise at being low and taking weak climbs. On Saturday Allan and Mike took 2 1/2 hours to fly to Dalby and back, a strong South Wester adding to the challenge. Some good practise at thermal exits as well as some discussion around tactics and comms when low.
The Dingo flag was flown for the first time.
Sunday was going to be hopeless so the morning was spent tinkering with PDAs and comparing Team Code functions. In the end it looks like Winpilot has the best option.

Weekend Mini-comp - from Allan

2009-06-18T13:42:00.001+02:00

Hi all,

This is just a note to thank all those that took part in the mini-comp over the weekend.

About a dozen hardy souls launched on Saturday for the task DDSC-Pittsworth-Warra-DDSC, in relatively weak, low, blue and breezy conditions, with only Jo and Jenny making it all the way round. Mike Codling salvaged some honour for the boys by making it back to within 10km of the club, while to my knowledge no-one else managed to make the second turnpoint. No doubt Jo felt personally obliged to prove that the task was in fact possible, since she had formulated it in the first place! On handicap, Jo narrowly beat Jenny and scored the wine.

On Sunday, it was evident that Jo's efforts had exhausted her, and Jenny was considerate enough to not risk humiliating the boys for a second day. This reticence was reflected across most of the other competitors, with only brave Dave (Nash) venturing to challenge Mike and me. The task was an assigned area distance task (rarely flown in Australia) of DDSC - Bunya Towers - Brigalow - each with 20km circles. It was a better day than the Saturday, and both Mike and me managed to complete the task, albeit with a few low saves and a marginal final glide. So the second bottle of wine was retained for another day's challenge.

Thanks to Helen and Ralph for organising the comp, and to our crew - Captain Charlie Downes, Graham Hennessy, and Keith Allen, who put a great effort into making the weekend as realistic a competition as it could be.

Hopefully another mini-comp may be on the cards before we depart in mid-July for the wintry European summer.

Team Dingo

2009-06-06T06:54:00.000+02:00

This is the site where we will be adding all the pics, probs and stories as we continue on our adventure to Slovakia!!! - Make sure you leave a comment to cheer us on - and keep checking back to see all the latest pics, movies and stories!!

Mike.