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.