31st WGC - Reflections

These were the largest World Gliding Championships ever, in terms of participants. We had one terrible accident early in the game when an Australian competitor hit a truck on final glide, just before crossing the airport fence. Luckily the pilot was unhurt but the truck driver sustained terrible injuries when the wing sliced through the cab of the truck. From what we have heard he will never be able to work in his profession again. He is in his early thirties with a young family for which his income was the only support. Through OSTIV we have started a collection with the goal to help the family over the rough stuff until the insurance money kicks in.

For Canadians this tragic accident brings back painful memories. In the seventies Wolf Mix was killed at the World Championships in Yugoslavia, not all that far from Szeged, when he collided with a truck.

With over 140 gliders milling around in hazy conditions, weak thermals and cloud bases under 3000 ft, we were lucky not to have any mid-air collisions. This is probably largely due to the fact that most planes were equipped the FLARM collision warning system.

How many gliders do you count in the gaggle?

Oops - a little close. The rule of thumb is, if you can read the other guy's instruments, you are too close.

Photos by Maria Szemplinska

See you all back in Canada!

Awards Ceremony

Today we had the awards ceremony which was nice but didn't compare to the one in Luesse. For one, the winners on the podium were backlit in the hangar which made it next to impossible to take photos of them.

In each class they called pilots from 15th place individually to the front to receive a prize. As the numbers counted down, the applause became stronger. Jerzy with his 4th place received a huge applause which filled us all with pride. I have been told that the last time a Canadian achieved 4th place in a worlds was Wolf Mix in Marfa, TX in 1970. We definitely made history here. I strongly believe, with a bigger team, intense training in team flying and and sufficient financial support, Canada could have a world champion. The German team was so large, they needed to schedule an evening specifically for introductions.
Italy wins 1st and 3rd place in 15m

Poland takes 1st and 3rd place in 18m, South Africa gets Silver. Poland also won the Team Cup and leads the international ranking list.

Michael Sommer of Germay becomes World Champion in Open Class for the third time. Britain takes Silver and a two seater team from Belgium take Bronze.

After the ceremony we said our good-byes which is always a sad moment. Over the last three weeks we have spent most of our waking hours together, have sweated it out in the heat together, have explored back country lanes in Hungary and Serbia together to find our pilots and braved the mosquitoes while de-rigging gliders in fields. In all of this we have develped deep bonds and have become a tighly knit group. Then the end of the contest arrives and the group splits up and heads off in different directions.

For me it was a very rewarding experience to work with this wonderful group of people. I am always being asked "don't you miss flying, when you are out there around gliders every day?" Well, it was so exciting, I didn't miss flying for a moment.

I want to take this opportuntity to thank George Eckschmiedt from VSA who came on his own accord and expense to help us. George is not the youngest anymore and the heat clearly took its toll on him. But he was always there when we needed him, helping with translations, going on retrieves, finding local radio experts when we needed them and chauffeuring me around - thanks George!

Thanks also to the Burnay family who showed up just when we needed help the most because all of our pilots were in fields.

Off to the Closing Party

With the day canceled due to thunderstorms, we had almost enough time this morning to work on putting the glider back into the condition in which we received it.  After the rain stopped we went back to the airport and finished the job.  Papa Sierra is now packed away in its trailer and ready to roll after the closing ceremony tomorrow.

Tonight we are off to the closing party where we will have one last opportunity to socialize with our new friends and commiserate over lost opportunities during the contest.

With an overall result of 34/49 in the contest, I am not at all happy about my performance. I had some good days, but more bad days then I care to have in any one contest.  The weather was challenging, the tasks were challenging and fortunately the fields were big and flat!


Jerzy flew exceptionally well in the contest and I am very proud of his accomplishment.  He flew as an individual pilot, without the assistance of a team mate or wingman and was very close to beating those who flew with the added assistance - that says something!

Day canceled - it's over! Congratulations Jerzy - XG!

At 11:00 the day was canceled for all classes. After 8 competition days for Open Class and 7 competition days for 18m and 15m Class, the 31st World Gliding Championships for 15m/18m/Open Classes are over!Assuming there are no adjustments due to protests, yesterdays' results will be the final results.
After landing 27km short yesterday, Jerzy places 4th overall,well ahead of the defending 18m champion, Olivier Darroze who came 13th and a mere 11 points behind third.11 points difference is the equivalent of 54 seconds or two circles over a 300 km task on one of the seven days.

Landing in the Puszta: After hanging on to weak thermals longer than most, Jerzy makes it far enough to secure 3rd place for the day, which moved him up to 4th place overall - his final place in the 31st Worlds

Although it is a bit disappointing that Jerzy missed the podium literally by a hair, for a Canadian to place 4th in the World Championships in a class with over 50 competitors, each of them being the best in his country, is an amazing success. Maybe the history experts and record keepers can tell us by way of comment if and when a Canadian ever placed better in World Championships - according to my recollection certainly not in the last 30 years.When I took on the job as Team Manager, I did this with the goal to see a Canadian placing in the first ten in any class. It feels good and I am ecstatic to see that one of our pilots did in fact much better.The winners in 18m Class are:1st Place: Zbigniew Niradka, Poland
2nd Place: Uys Jonkers, South Africa
3rd Place: Karol Staryszak, Poland
15m Class:1st Place: Stefano Ghiorzo, Italy2nd Place: Leigh Wells, UK
3rd Place: Thomas Gostner, Italy
After after an unlucky outlanding early on, Dave didn't have a good contest and places 34th. He is ahead of a former German Champion.
Open Class:1st Place: Michael Sommer, Germany - defending champion from Luesse
2nd Place: Steve Jones, UK3rd Place: Pierre de Broqueville, Belgium
Willem didn't feel well early in the contest and gave up on some tasks. He never recovered from the point loss.

After the cancellation was announced, gliders were prepared for travel and started to disappear into trailers. Everyone was relieved but it was bittersweet as we took down the Canadian Flag and the "Canada Base" antenna. The end of a contest, once the winners have been announced, is always very anticlimactic.


P.S. Just posted Maria's pix from the International Night a few days ago - have a look!

Friday, Day 13 - Open Class Day 9, 15m&18m Class Day 8

Good Morning Canada

The preliminary scoring for yesterday is now completed. As some of the late scores came in, Jerzy slipped from 3rd overall to 4th. However, he is only 11 points away from 3rd and the podium.

Today it is incredibly hot and humid. Bad weather with thunderstorm and hail warnings is on our doorstep to the west. Nevertheless they set tasks for all classes with a grid time of 11:15 and first take off at 11:30.

The Podium is within Reach!

Another day of heavy land-outs. Particularly the cloud cover north east of Szeged where 18m and 15m had their last turnpoints, proved to be very difficult.

In 15m Class only 12 of 49 contestants completed the task. 18m Class had only two finishers. All our pilots landed out. Olga Burany, Pim and I went with Diane to retrieve Willem who had landed just 10k short of Szeged. As we got close to his landing location, we could see the Serbian border crossing. Fortunately Willem had landed on the Hungarian side of the border. The extra woman- and manpower came very handy when we needed to maneuver the glider and trailer in a soft field so we could de-rig.

Jerzy is the hero of the day! He landed 27 km short of Szeged which puts him in third place for the day with a whopping 880 points. Since there were only two finishers, the scoring is basically like a distance day with a minimum amount of speed points. Right now, the overall score shows him in 3rd place, only 13 points behind 2nd place. Depending where Uys Jonkers from South Africa landed, Jerzy will either maintain third position or slip to 4th or 5th. In any case, I believe this is the best result of any Canadian in the Worlds in at least the last 30 years. We are all very excited and are keeping our fingers crossed!

It is questionable if tomorrow will be a flying day. Today's scores could very well be the final scores of these Worlds.

Task Delta

This morning at the meeting we were given tasks A and B of 435 km and 375 km.  The weather man then gave his briefing and said cloud base would probably be in the 1000 m range and maybe 1200.  He also pointed out a large area of high cloud to the east that would be tracking over the task area for both the A and B tasks.  I wondered if the task-setter had actually talked to the weatherman before he dreamed up these tasks.

Soon after the meeting a task C was devised that was 299 km, but still in the direction of the high cloud to the north east, and then once we were on the grid task D was announced that kept us closer in to the home field and was 294 km.  The final legs still went to the north east, and guess where most people landed out today! 

The first few legs went well, and I was able to keep with the gaggle.  On the fourth leg we came back towards Szeged and there was a large area of shade to the east and a large blue hole to cross to get to the a few cu just before Szeged.  After crossing the blue hole. the 15 meter gaggle worked some weak lift to get enough height to cross the shade and connect with cu to the east.  Some left low and went for it, and it seems that this worked for them.  From this point I was now at the tail end and could always see them one climb and a 1000 ft higher. Just before the fourth turnpoint I was down to 1300 AGL and was able to work my way back up to 1900 and attempted to reconnect with a gaggle ahead of me, but I got there too low and couldn't climb away.

The field was good and right beside the main highway, so the retrieve was quick.  Steve Burany joined Virginia on the retrieve and Olga went on the retrieve for Willem.

On Task

All Canadian competitors have started and are on task.
After several changes, the tasks are:

Open Class: Task A - 3:30 area task - 283.7 / 467.6 km, with the second turn area in Serbia.
18m Class: Task D - 289 km assigned speed task
15m Class: Task D - 294.6 km assigned speed task

The tasks for 15m and 18m posted on the contest website are incorrect.

Dave's SPOT shows him just around the second turnpoint.
Jerzy's SPOT data are too sensitive at this point to publicize.

Since it got pretty dark to the east, I went to the hangar to keep track of satellite data and radar. However, so far, there is nothing of significance.

Stay tuned...

Dave's Day 6

Yesterday we managed to get a task in, although it was low and weak.  Cloudbase peaked at 3000 AGL and while we had some good 3 kt climbs, the majority were less than 2 kts.  I averaged 1.5 kts for the day.

On course, I thought I was doing reasonably well and was flying with a group of gliders, but I was with a slow group and placed poorly on the day.  One of the problems I am having is deviating too much while on course.  Yesterday for example I flew an extra 30 kms beyond my scored distance, and for a two hour task this equates to 15 km/hr - just about the amount the winner was faster than me.

After the second turn area, we were able to run a street most of the way home with a tailwind, but then it abruptly ended with about 25 km left to go and I was at 1500 ft.  With little in the way of cloud options, I turned towards one cloud on the way to the home airport with the thought that if all else fails, I'll land there without making the steering point.  The final cloud offered 0.5 kts lift, that I worked for 500 feet and that gave me just enough to get around the checkpoint and home.

Thursday Day 12 - Contest Day 7 15m/18m, Contest Day 8 for Open Class

Good Morning Canada!

What was a clear sky this morning is now filling in with mid level cu / strato cu cloud. The forecast is calling for weak conditions. In light of this it seems strange that the organizers have set very large tasks with over 430 km for 15m on task A with task B not much smaller.

In the meantime they have issued tasks C for 15m and 18m but there still seems to be a disconnect between the forecast weather and the task expectations.

The grid will close at 11:15 with the first launch planned for 11:30.

It looks like this will be the last contest day of the 31st Worlds since we are expecting a system to move through tomorrow.

International Night

This evening was the International Night which was great fun as it gave everyone the opportunity to meet pilots and crews from other teams in a relaxed atmosphere while we were sampling the many foods and drinks some teams offered as as specialties of their home countries.Czechs had excellent beer and wonderful cold cuts, the French had the best cheese and select wines, the Swiss had the most healthy food, the Americans had the freest food and the Brits had the most amazing mint punch. We figured that not too many people would like seal meat so we didn't bring any.Maria captured the evening with her camera. We will add the photos later.
The Stewards Brian and Frauke


Talk to you all tomorrow

Day 11 Digest

The weather turned out to be better than expected and would probably have been good enough to set a task for 18m Class as well. Almost the entire 15m Class completed the task.

Dave's speed was a bit disappointing, causing him to slip one place to 35th. The good news is, he is only two points behind Mauricio Delfabro from Argentina and the next 4 places up are within 229 points. Daily score; Overall score.

These are the contest days each class has had up to now:

Open Class: 7 Contest Days
18 m Class: 6 Contest Days
15m Class: 6 Contest Days

Dave is back!

Dave just landed at the contest site - stand by for speed and points

Dave on Task

Dave started 80 minutes ago at 14:57. He was one of the early starters, let's hope this works out. The weather is actually quite nice with cu and a cool northwesterly breeze.

The SPOT shows him on the second leg, heading for the second turn area.

Update: Dave just radioed in that he is around the second turn and is heading home.

Wednesday - Day 11

Good Morning Canada!

A cold front went through overnight and we woke up to gray skies. They canceled the day for Open and 18m class but since 15m is one contest day short and there is a small window of possibly soarable weather behind the front, they just announced a 2 hr area task for the 15m class. First launch is planned for 14:00. Quite likely, this is just going to be a gridding exercise. Stay tuned...

Day 10 Results - Canadians slip by one position

Jerzy had a good run, achieving a speed of 113.3 kph. Unfortunately the winner of the day, Wolfgang Janowitsch from Austria was about 5 kph faster, so Jerzy lost 81 points against the winner which caused him to slide back into overall 6th place. This is still an excellent position, particularly since Jerzy remains within easy striking distance of 4th place, only 40 points ahead. But he also has Janowitsch breathing down his neck, 57 points behind him.

Dave unfortunately had a slow day. But in the overall standing he slipped only by one place from 33rd to 34th.

Too Slow!

Today was the best soaring day of the contest with thermals up to 5 kts and 5500 ft, but it also had its challenges and some of them got me.  Before the start we were able to get to about 4500, but the lift in our start area was weak as it was along the first leg and into the first turn area.  I decided to turn early, since the second turnpoint was still 150 km away and the leg home another 100 km.

On the second leg there was a large blue hole and I had some trouble getting across and was down to about 1500 AGL and dumped some of my water before I was able to climb away.  Once across the hole towards Romania, the cu re-appered and there was good lift and some streeting.


On the leg home, the cloudstreets were just about 90 degrees to our course line, so we had to jump from street to street and it was approaching 5 pm, so I wanted to stay high because it looked like the clouds were not really pulling lift from the ground anymore.

At some point on the leg home, I glanced at my computer and it was still showing 91 km from home, but the PDA was showing about 45 km.  I had to turn off the power to get the computer restarted and then it didn't show the correct final glide information.  I used the 1000 ft per 10 km rule of thumb to eyeball the final glide and was able to make it in from that point.  I took a couple of turns about 25 km out to make sure I was OK, but as it turns out, those turns cost me a couple of minutes and 1 km/hr or about 30 points.  My speed was way too slow for the day and my low score reflects it!

On Task

All Canadian competitors are on task. The start times are:
Willem OX: 12:57
Dave PS: 13:40
Jerzy XG: 14:01

The task for Open Class is a 427.8 km polygon, for 18m a 330 km polygon and a three and a half hour area task for 15m class with one turn area in Romania. Let's hope he doesn't land there.

Jerzy is again on the Yellow Brick live tracking, so you can follow his flight.

You can also follow Dave's SPOT track

Dave just did his second turn and is on his way back. We expect him here in one hour at 17:10.

Stay tuned...

Tuesday Day 10 - Contest Days 5 - 15m, 6 - 18m, 7 - Open

Good Morning Canada

We have blue skies but but the heat is back with a predicted high of 34 degrees. The forecast calls for isolated cu with bases of 4500 to 5500 ft for the peak hours of the day. We are fairly far east in the central European time zone which means that the sun day is ahead of the time. Based on previous experience, thermal activity dies quite quickly after 5:30 pm.

There is a weakening cold front approaching from the west which should not affect the contest area today but could shut us down tomorrow. The tactical question is how many days are going to be left.

Our gliders are on the grid - take off will be 11:45am

Day 9 Results - Jerzy in 5th Place!

The weather man was too optimistic again today but the task setting was conservative enough to compensate for it. There were no land-outs today in the Canadian Team. It felt great to just welcome our pilots back, pack up, go for dinner and then retire.

Jerzy was a bit down at the dinner table because he thought he had made a tactical mistake and lost precious time. The score showed him in 29th place for the day with 801 points. I am sure the problems with his Cambridge computer just before launch didn't help to put him into a good frame of mind.

We were overjoyed when we looked at the overall scores for the competition after dinner, to find Jerzy had actually moved up from 6th place to 5th place despite being a bit slow today.

Willem felt better today and completed the Open Class task.

Thanks for all your encouraging messages. Please keep them coming or post comments to the blog - I will relay them to the pilots. They help a lot to keep the spirits up as we go into the final stage of this race!

Slow flight but I moved to 5th

To my surprise I moved to 5th , I expected that my poor result will put me out of 10, but it looks that other competitors were slow as well and it helped me to survive in the first ten .
Four days to go, two pilots ahead of me blocking 3rd position, but spread points is very small behind me and those pilots are pushing hard.
Jerzy

61km/h in 18 meter glider

61km/h was average speed during yesterdays task until we landed in the field.
I don't know how we were able to fly in such conditions , very weak thermals spaced 20km apart 10-20 gliders working together to find thermals. We were not able to climb higher than 600-700mAGL. The last thermal was the thermal which decided about results. Long low final glide to the field. At 200m we were still cruising covering an extra 5km.  I arrived close to our third turnpoint found a nice field and landed close to the road. Just 5 minutes later a British pilot Phil Jones landed beside me. To my surprise my crew Maria and George showed up just one hour after my landing report , retrieve was without any problems.

Tail End Charlie

As we were sitting at the airport restaurant for dinner tonight the last 15 m trailer from yesterday's mass landout rolled onto the airport 25 hours after landing in Serbia.

Apparently the Serbian police were very helpful and provided an english translator and a dedicated phone for him to use from the police station to assist in the retrieve. 

There were two problems that caused the late arrival:

1.  He landed in a field that was a long way off the main roads and was basically impossible to drive into with the car.


2.  He was again held up at the Serbian border on the return trip for about 4 hours as they wanted to know why he didn't return last night with everyone else.

 I saw a lot of wet, muddy and inaccessible fields in the 20 km before I landed. Sure glad I picked a dry hay field beside a major road and between two relatively large towns that were "easy" to find.

Day 9 - Contest Day 5 for 18m / Contest Day 6 for Open Class

Good Morning Canada!

It is a nice summer day here in Szeged with a lovely northwesterly breeze. It is a mainly blue day with only a few isolated cu showing. The concern is that things may be fairly stable. Jerzy, our 18m pilot and Willem in Open Class are both on task. After the mass land-out with late (early?) returns, 15m has a rest day.

The organizers faced pretty stiff criticism for their task setting at the Team Captains' meeting this morning. They promised for the rest of the contest to set the tasks in such a way that landing out in Serbia or Romania is unlikely.

Both, Open and 18m classes have a 3 hr area task. We expect Willem back shortly before 5p and Jerzy at 5:30, local time (EDT +6)

Jerzy, being in 6th place was selected to carry one of the Yellow Brick trackers that enables live tracking with a 15 minute delay on the internet.
You can follow his flight through the live tracking section of the contest website.

There was a bit of a panic before the launch of the 18m class this morning because the Cambridge 304 in XG was not working. Fortunately, after having turned everything off for a while, it started working again. We think it was just an overheating issue.

Contest Day 4 (Open 5) Results

So far, the task setters have consistently overestimated the conditions and over-called the days. Well, now they hit the jackpot: On Sunday none of the contestants in any class completed the task. The 15m class had a mass landout in Serbia with more than 45 gliders.

I went out with Virginia to retrieve Dave from a field near a town called Kikinda. It took us two hours to cross the border into Serbia and one and a half hours to cross back into Hungary. The GPS has no database for Serbia and refuses to accept coordinates for areas that are not covered by its database - stupid. The only map we had was the contest aviation chart. The roads are terrible, sometimes just ending in a field, the road signs are mostly in Cyrillic and we couldn't find anybody who spoke English or German. Nevertheless, we found Dave around midnight and de-rigged the ASW-27 in record time while the mosquitoes tried to suck us dry. Fortunately, Dave had made a very retrieve friendly landing close to a "major" road. This morning at the Team Captains' meeting I heard horror stories of gliders still being stuck in muddy fields that are inaccessible by car.

By 3:30 this morning we were back in the hotel.

One of the more interesting experiences was with a police man, who flagged us down, talked to us in Serbian and got into the car with us. After about 50 km, he said "stop here - thanks" and jumped out. Later we learned that hitchhiking is the routine way of commuting for police officers in this part of Serbia.

Leaving the EU territory for the Republic of Serbia

About two hours after arriving at the border to Serbia we are all set to go again

Jerzy who had landed out in Hungary about 50 km from Szeged was retrieved by Maria and George.

From a scoring perspective the day was quite successful for the Canadian Team:

Jerzy placed 9th for the day with 933 points which puts him into 6th place out of 51 in the overall score, up one place from the day before.

Dave placed 19th for the day with 916 points which improves his overall score by 4 places to 31st out of 49.

Both results are still preliminary since particularly in 15m, ten contestants have not been scored yet.

Due to the mass land-out of 15m in Serbia and the late returns, they have declared a rest day for 15m on Monday.

Mass Landout!

Yesterday, they managed to do it - land out every single glider in the contest - and the icing on the cake was that about 45 out 49 in the 15 m class landed in Serbia.  There were previously problems getting crews across the border for retrieves and yesterday was no exception.

I landed in a field with 6 other gliders at 1820 and 6 hours later the crews arrived for the 60 km retrieve after spending over 2 hours at the border and navigating their way through the maze of poorly signed roads.  On the way home there was another 1.5 hour delay at the Serbian border as all the pilots had to wait in line and fill out paperwork to leave.

 The first three gliders in the field

The next three gliders behind me

To say that the tasks were over called again yesterday is a gross understatement.  The forecast weather was for 4-6 kts lift to about 5500 ft and cloud streets.  In reality it was 1-2 kt  to about 3000 ft and mostly blue.  My trace shows I averaged 1.3 kts for the flight for 41% of the time.  EDIT:  I just read on the Aussie blog that their open class pilot didn't fare any better yesterday, 1.1 kt average for 37% of the time!

The task was originally set at 360 km for the 15 m class going deep in to Serbia.  After the morning meeting, I asked the weatherman some questions about the mid-level cloud over Serbia and he said it should move out, but there was also 50 mm of rain in the area last night and the ground would be wet.  During the meeting, the Irish pilot, asked the CD why the 15 m class was being sent on a task to Serbia when the weather was obviously weaker in that sector.  The reply was that they thought it would be OK.  On the grid, a new task was issued to us I think, as a result of these two questions.  It was shortened to 330 km and moved a little further north from the wettest corner of Serbia.  This task changed probably shaved at least two hours off the retrieves!


We finally arrived home and were in bed just after 4 AM and fortunately, today is a rest day for the 15 m class.

As I was on tow and approaching release altitude, the clouds did not look much higher than 2000 ft,  After release I found that bases were 2200.  It took a long time for them to rise and by 2 pm they peaked at around 3300 AGL.  Shortly afterward, about 30 km into the task it went mostly blue with a few wisps marking what some might consider to be thermals!

When it took two hours to get to the first turnpoint 120 km away, I knew we now had a distance day on our hands and with the weak lift it was a gaggle day.

During the flight, I was able to keep with the gaggle which is both a blessing and problem all at the same time.  I am sure we had 25 gliders in the gaggle and typically they were working two thermals, usually with over-lapping circles.  Staying with the gaggle was the only way to go yesterday and netted me 915 points for the day.

Many thanks to Virginia and Joerg who endured the border, roads, and mosquitoes to get me back home on what has to be my most epic retrieve ever!

Canadian Team on Task

It is a nice day with lots of cu. They changed the task for 15m class in order not to go so far into Serbia. All our pilots started shortly before 2p. Willem (OX) returned because he wasn't feeling well.

We are expecting Jerzy and Dave back between 5 and 6p. Dave's SPOT of 4p shows him just having rounded the first turnpoint. Now he is on his second leg down into Serbia. I am a bit concerned because the cu seem to be drying up and the bases don't seem to be rising as one would expect in the peak hours of the day. At 2:30p there were nice cloud streets with solid bases. Now at 4p I see small, ragged cu hanging in the haze. Let's hope that all will work out and we don't have to go on a retrieve in Serbia.

Day 8 - Contest Day 4 (5 Open Class)

Good Morning Canada!

We woke up to blue skies this morning. For the first time since the start of the competition the weather seems to be uniformly good all across the Hungarian contest area without cirrus, mid level cloud or precipitation. However, there is still some mid level cloud hanging back over Serbia and that's where the 15m Class will be going today! Dave is certainly not happy about this. According to forecast northern Serbia should clear as well before the 15m competitors get there - hopefully it will work out.

All tasks are assigned tasks:

15m: 364 km (first on the grid)
18m: 360 km (last on the grid)
Open: 438 km (launch parallel with 15m)

First launch has been announced for 11:30 am