Impressions of Slovakia and Prievidza

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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.