28 July - Dave's Practice Day 1

Today was the first official practice day for the contest and an assigned area task of 4 hrs with a minimum distance of 541 km was set. To fly just the minimum distance on the task required a speed of 135 km/hr.

I had a good flight and was averaging 146 km/hr, but... the last turnpoint was 172 km north of Uvalde, up in the hill country, it was 5 pm and I was 108 km from home on the way north and the sky was going blue.  A quick calculation said I had 180 km left to go on task, and I would probably average around 125 km/hr  for the remainder of the flight, so that would get me home at 1845.

Being a practice day, I decided I really didn't need to go to the last turnpoint and squeak home in the dying thermals, so I turned for home and three climbs later I was on final glide.  As I approached Uvalde, a great cloud street appeared in front of me going right over the airport, so I moved under it around 3500 ft and then ran it about 40 km south and then turned around and ran it home again. It sure was nice to see the clouds again after the blue to the north.

I was also able to get through the Technical inspection today, so all the administrative tasks are finished and the flarm is now talking to my LX9000, so it looks like everything is finished and I can concentrate on flying.

Dave

On the way to Uvalde

On the way to Uvalde

With 3300km of travel, we decided to take 4 days and headed off on Monday, 23 July, with a first stop at Columbus, Ohio. A 20 kt headwind most of the day caused a 20% increase in fuel usage. There were a few road works also that caused the speed average to drop. The second day started off with overcast skies soon turning to thunderstorms and heavy rain. By noon it cleared and the temperature started going up again. We stopped over on the outskirts of Memphis. By the third day, sitting in the car for hours started to be uncomfortable, but the road through Arkansas is much smoother now most of the concrete slabs have been replaced with asphalt.  Still a few stretches of rhythmic bumping, but a big improvement over previous years.  We were able to enjoy the sight of wall-to-wall CUs, hoping those conditions were a promise of things to come in Uvalde.  The ride was uneventful until 60 miles from Dallas when the GPS chimed "traffic ahead" and suggested an alternate route. Thinking it was going to be roadworks again, I ignored the change in route and right after the suggested exit, the traffic literally screeched to a halt. After 15 minutes  of barely moving and seeing cars cutting across the grass between the highway and the service road, I did the same, choosing a relatively flat area to cross with the trailer. Of course, it's not long before the service road is blocked too, but crossing over to the other side we progressed about 20 kms. We then got to an intersection where police were re-routing traffic. We ended up on hwy 66, crawling along for an hour before rejoining hwy 30. It turns out the highway had been completely closed, probaly due to an accident. We stayed in Mesquite, on the outskirts of Dallas. Only able to find unlicensed fast food places, we decide to head into Dallas downtown for a beer and a bite. We found a nice place called the Hofbrauhaus  with a terrace and though it was still a bit warm to sit outside, with the air conditioning inside, it was actually too cold to sit indoors!

Today a short trip to San Antonio, and a tourist round of the "river walk". Tomorrow a short drive to Uvalde to be there in time for a 10AM safety meeting, and registration. Saturday, a technical inspection of the glider and hopefully some flying.

Nick and Christine

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26 July

I flew another 500 km triangle today, but it was slower than Tuesday, averaging only 119 km/hr.

On the first leg, I had trouble finding good thermals and ran the leg lower than I would have liked.  I finally connected with a good 5 kt climb right at the first turn and was able to climb it from 3700 up to 6500 and gave me a speed of only 96 km/hr on the leg.  This put me in a good position to run upwind on the second leg, and I had a good run cover 133 km on the leg without having to stop and climb.  Unfortunately, at the end of the run, I was at 2600 and really needed a climb.  It took a bit of time, but I found a 4 kt climb that I took for about 1000 ft and then pushed on to a better looking cloud where I found a 6 kt climb that I took all the way up to 6700 and rounded the second turn with a respectable speed of 114 km/hr going into a moderate 12 kt headwind.

The third leg north started well and I was able to run another 109 km and once again found my self lower than I would have liked and I had to change gears again and look for a good climb.  I took a few weaker climbs and kept moving ahead and finally, 35 km later, found another 5 kt climb that I took to 6500.  Jumping across the streets on this leg made life a little more difficult, but I eventually reached the south edge of the hill country where I needed a couple of more climbs to get into the last turn with a leg speed of 133 km/hr.

Once around the last turnpoint, I needed one more climb to get home and then had a nice run back to Uvalde.

Tomorrow is a no fly day, we have a mandatory pilots' meeting at 10 am and then we'll get Canada Base set up.

Flarms

The flarm works when not connected to the LX 9000, so now I need to sort out if it is a problem with the cable, or if I missed a setting on the computer.  Erazem from LX will be here for the beginning of the contest, so I will talk to him to try and solve the problem.

In the meantime, I have installed the Butterfly display so at least I have a functioning system until I can resolve the communication issue.

I was also able to register today, so now all of the paper work is out of the way and only the technical inspection of the glider remains for Saturday.

 

Dave

24 July - 500 km Triangle

I flew a practice task today - a 500 km triangle as shown by the red lines on the satellite shot below.  The satellite also shows the cloudstreets that were running SE-NW through the flying area.  The yellow line shows the sea breeze convergence zone off to the SE coming from the Gulf of Mexico.  Today it was a long way away and of no consequence to the flight.  Some days, it rolls all the way in to the task area and can either create a great run along it, or it can also bring a line of thunderstorms that cause problems.

To help orient the task area, the green dot represents Uvalde and the large red dot, San Antonio, 80 miles to the east.  To the south, the blue dot is Laredo and to the west, the pink dot is Del Rio.  The line from Del Rio to Laredo is the Rio Grande and the Mexican Border.

The flight today went reasonably well, at an average of 130 km/hr, but I did have some trouble along the leg south towards the second turnpoint and then it started to blue out about 15 km north from the turnpoint.  I rounded the 2nd turn at 4000 after working some less than optimal lift on the way in and then hit a good 5 kt climb in the blue after the turnpoint.

The leg to the NE was downwind and lined up nicely with the cloudstreets.  Conditions also improved as I hit a 10 kt climb up to 8900 ft.  I was able to run the 163 km distance in 59 minutes.  This was a great improvement after the slow second leg!

Tomorrow, I plan to go through the registration process and work on my flarm.  I installed it at home, but for some reason it is not talking to the LX.  First step in trouble-shooting is to connect the remote display instead of the LX and see if that fixes it.  If that works, then it is either a setting on the LX that I missed, or a bad cable between the flarm and LX.

Arrived in Uvalde

We rolled into Uvalde last night after an almost uneventful trip.

As we were driving along interstate 44 through Springfield Missouri, we heard a swish swish swish noise coming from the engine compartment and immediately pulled over on the shoulder.  I crawled under the RV engine compartment and saw parts of fan belt wrapped around the fan.  Fortunately, only half the width of the belt had frayed and the rest was still around the pulleys.  I cut away what I could of the loose bits of fan belt so we could make it to the next exit a mile away and fortunately there was a repair shop that was able to get the old belt off and new belt on and we were on our way an hour later!

Many thanks to Terry and his crew at Terry's Towing and Service 2 miles south of I-44 on US 160 for their help getting us back on the road.  As it turns out, Terry grew up in Georgetown, ON, back in the 70's when his father was moved there by his company.

Dave