Day 4

Good Morning Canada! It is contest day 4 again, since only actual contest days count and yesterday was canceled for all classes.

We woke up to blue skies and a southerly breeze. The forecast for today is good thermals in the blue, initially up to 3000 ft AGL. At 3p thermal tops are forecast to be at 4500 and later in the afternoon we should see 6kts to 6000. There is a possibility of cu with bases at 6500 later in the afternoon but there is also a risk that an advancing system will spread cirrus in the task area.

The forecast high for the day is 32 degrees. The combination of the dry airmass and the breeze make for comfortable conditions in the shade.

The tasks for all classes are going to the NW first, second leg to the south of Luesse, 3rd leg to the east and return.

The grid order is Open Class, 15m, 18m

The 18m task is a 412 km assigned speed task. 15m is flying a 406 km assigned speed task.

The impressive Wilgas are firing up in preparation for the launch begin. The Wilga is a Polish STOL design, powered by a big Russian radial engine turning at 1800 rpm max.

The launch for Open Class started at 12:15. I guess the conditions in the blue weren't all that great because it didn't take long for the entire class to form a low gaggle right over the airport between 1500 ft and 2500 ft. There were a number of re-lights in Open Class.

Open Class formed an impressive gaggle low over the airfield - how many gliders do you see?

They halted the launch for the other classes for 15 minutes to give conditions a chance to improve. 15m class is currently launching.

Team XG is relaxing at the grid.

Day cancelled for all classes

At 16:00 the day was cancelled for the remaining two classes. Everyone is tired from sitting around at the grid all day but relieved.

In the evening was the official opening of the OSTIV congress.
OSTIV stands for Organisation Scientifique et Technique Internationale du Vol a Voile or International Scientific and Technical Soaring Organisation. The OSTIV congress is always parallel to the World Gliding Championships. The organization studies areas such as glider design, soaring meteorology, flight training and safety including human factors. Met some old friends from my days in aerospace design.

Day 4?

Initially the weather looked good in the morning but by mid morning a thick layer of high cloud, associated with a warm front, was covering the sun, son only the disk was visible.

The organizers are hoping that the overcast will clear out in the afternoon. We went out to the grid for a 12:00 noon grid time and an expected first launch of 12:15. Well, conditions at 12:15 were not suitable to launch gliders, so it is turning into one of those dreaded days where you wait around forever at the grid. The grid order is Open, 15m, 18m. At 13:10 they canceled the 18m task and Jerzy (XG) went back to his trailer.

Dave in P8 is still out in the 15m section of the grid. The launch for 15m and Open was just delayed again and is now set for 14:30. On the good news side, the overcast seems to be getting a bit thinner and there are some cu showing under it. There is still a chance the 15m Class will fly. Just got notified by text message that there is a Team Captains' meet at the grid in 10 minutes - better run!

Scoring update Day 3

Jerzy's points got re-instated. Seems they gave us extra credit for rushing the file in last night. Jerzy is now tied for 6th place for the day yesterday with 976 points, 24 points behind the winner. Overall Jerzy has also slipped into 6th place with 2139 points (winner 2303).

In yesterday's 18m Class score, the first three places are only separated by 0.34 kph - talk about close!

Due to his 50 point penalty, Dave placed 38th for the day. Overall he is also in 38th place which still puts him ahead of Katrin Senne, the women's world champion and also the famous US pilot Karl Striedieck.

Human error - Day 3 wrap-up

Even though the weather wasn't all that great and the wind was still above 20 kts and strong enough to break up thermals, good speeds were achieved in all classes:

15m Class: Best speed: 118.47 kph
18m Class: Best speed: 119.51 kph
Open Class: Best speed: 121.17 kph

Jerzy (XG) came back a little earlier than expected. Initial calculations showed Jerzy's speed to be at 117 kph which put him in 7th place and also 7th place in the overall score. Unfortunately, after a long and excellent flight, Jerzy uploaded the previous day's flight to the scoring program. Even more unfortunately, after we were back at the hotel, I left my cell phone in the room while we were in the dining room, enjoying a special dinner our host had put on for us. We were just on our way to bed, when Chief Stewart Dick Bradley told me that he had been trying to reach me by phone all evening because there was a problem with Jerzy's log. Although the scorers had quit for the day, I decided we should rectify the situation as soon as possible and drove to the airport to upload the correct file. I also apologized for the mix-up. Hopefully they will not assess any penalty. For the moment Jerzy has dropped to the bottom of the score sheet. Hopefully tomorrow we will see Jerzy back in 7th place.

There was a bit of a tense wait for Dave and we were all relieved to hear "P8 on final glide".

Unfortunately, Dave had encountered a bit of trouble on the 420 km course which reduced his speed to 97 kph. Dave had set up the task in his on-board computer by modifying yesterday's AAT. In doing so, he missed resetting the radius of the last turn point from 1 km to the standard 500 m beer can. As a result he missed the observation zone by a little which resulted in 50 penalty points.

Both incidents show that we have to put procedures in place to eliminate slip-ups like these that have really nothing to do with flying but can still bite us badly.

Day 3

The high pressure behind yesterday's cold front is building. It is still very windy but the cloud base is higher than yesterday and was going up during the morning. The sky is filled with cloud streets running west to east. However, due to the instability in the airmass, there is still some cycling and large areas can be shaded.

15m Class was at the front of the grid and Dave (P8) in the front row, was one of the first to launch at around 11:20. Unfortunately he got caught in a down-cycle and had to land for a re-light while the launch of the 18m Class was in progress. Dave was launched again behind the 18m class.

The 130 gliders are being gridded in two blocks, one on the north side of the 1000 ft wide (yes, wide!) runway, the other on the south side. Within each block the gliders are lined up four abreast and 17 rows deep. The whole grid is being launched by now 11 Wilgas and one Robin Remorqueur in a little more than an hour. There are some complaints that the launch is still taking too long, so the organizers are trying to get two more tow planes.

Jerzy (XG) was one of the first to launch in 18m.

The 15m task is a 420 km speed task mainly to the south east. The 18m task is a 492 km speed task also in south easterly direction, crossing into Polish airspace. Open class was sent on a 3.5 hr area task in the same general area with a distance between 381 km and 582 km. That is pretty ambitious for the class at the back of the grid. According to Dr. Jack the conditions in the southern part of the task area should be the best. (Luesse is marked with the number 6 on the chart).

Jerzy started at 12:58 - we expect him back between 5:30 and 6p.

Dave started at 13:40 along with the majority of the 15m Class. It looks like a good start to me - I don't think the delay due to the relight was a disadvantage, except for the extra 50 Euros (80 dollars!) he had to spend on the tow. We expect Dave back around the same time as Jerzy.

Stay tuned for the next post!

Day 2 - results

It was a tough day with a 25 kt surface wind breaking up the thermals. The lift also quit early, around 5 pm, as forecast.

According to the preliminary score, the winner in 18m Class was Makoto Ichikawa from Japan with a speed of 113.97 kph. With this flight he is also taking to overall lead in this class. Six pilots landed out.

Jerzy made it around the task with a speed of 101.97 which landed him on 18th place. Read details about his flight on his blog. Branko (DG) came 30th with a speed of 97.55 kph.

Overall Jerzy moves up from 13th to 11th place, only two points behind Doug Jacobs and Petr Krejcirik who are tied for 9th. - Bravo Jerzy!

In the 15m Class the day was won by the Hungarian pilot György Gulyas with a speed of 106.95 kph.

Unfortunately Dave's luck ran out on the last leg. He was fooled by a few clouds that didn't work and had no choice but to land on a little airport, just 38 km short. The penalty for missing the last thermal was a harsh 41st place, right behind Gary Ittner from the US. I went out with Virginia to retrieve Dave.


There were even more unlucky pilots in 15m class: Georg Theisinger from Germany who dominated the Pre-worlds, team flying with his brother Martin, lawn-darted after the start into a field. The same happened to Katrin Senne, also from Germany, the current women's world champion. To make matters worse, Martin hit a deer during his landing. In total, seven pilots landed out in the 15m Class

The weather tomorrow should be better. We will meet at 7:30 am for breakfast.