11 August 2012

All back safe; tomorrow's the rest day

While of course we don't need it, some countries are likely a bit tired, and we hope this gives them a chance to re-charge for the second half of the contest!

Hats off to Nick, who got back this morning at 7:00 am after an all-night retrieve, had a brief nap, rigged, watered-up, and was staged just after noon, launched at 1:30 pm, started at 2:24, and flew 130 kph for 446 km!  Man of Steel! And crew Christine - Woman of Steel!  And Sonia!  You get the idea!

Off to our sponsor's party.  More, sometime during the rest days; likely, not early.  Panel shots of ST (Nick), and XG (Jerzy), and one other competitor...  Who will it be???


F1 panel

Here's the panel of Dave's ASG-29.  Very clean; standard instruments, Dittel radio, LX-9000 with PowerFLARM Brick feed (associated vario upper left), and a Nano logger as back-up; back up vario is ILEC.  Compass on glareshield.

Post-briefing - all on course - some pics

Conditions were better after launch than forecast; F1 got above 10,000' in what I assume was wave over the Cu.  Nick started early in 15m and the trackers are showing ST through the second turnpoint, F1 in 18m halfway to the second turnpoint (their gate opened about a half hr after 15m).  XG started later than F1 and is through the first TP.

Looks like a nice day for a race.

 Another strong dust devil - before launch.  Note the excitement of the fellow in yellow...
 A motorglider ran off the end of the taxiway on launch yesterday and was damaged enough that it couldn't fly today.  The wings are waiting to go into the container to go back to Europe (if the fuselage is repaired, he may fly again in the contest...).  Fuselages go in the bottom in a frame, the wings on top...
 Rubber from the main tire also melts and sticks to the sand... That's a chock in front of it.

Our kind sponsors here, Annette and Tony Arce Jr, are hosting a party for us tonight after flying.  It will be the start of tomorrow's rest day.  While we're still going strong, other teams and crews look like they can use a break.  Good for them!

Dan

Comp Day 7 - 11 Aug - postbriefing, tasks, wx





10 August 2012

Dave's Day 6

Today was  a long day 5:52 on task and landed at 20:09 for 117 km/hr over 692 km.  I made it home, but was very slow as I had to take some 1 kt and less climbs at the end to get on final glide.  It is better to get home slowly than not at all, but I would have been happier with fast.


The one low spot that shows at 18:20 on the barograph was the result of going left when I should have gone right.  I was with a gaggle, and one glider and I went left and the rest went right.  Those who went right found a thermal that we missed and that got them home 17 minutes sooner.  That was a costly decision!


XG Day 6

We had 692km task today.
Start gate was open 13:56.
Weather didn't cooperate at first part of the task area .
After one hour in to flight we knew that those who will be able to fly
fast have chance to finish. For others it will be very hard with high
risk of land out just short of finish.
Last 160km was just fight to survive on last weak thermals in addition
thunderstorms North of Uvalde cut thermals.
We have large spread of speeds today, but it looks that all pilots from
our class finished and some of them finished well after 8PM
Jerzy XG

Two of three home - one landout

F1 and XG make it home; a lot of 15m gliders, including Nick, land out.  Looks like a 3 hr each way retrieve.  Still about 500 km flight - plus distance before the start, and he had to penetrate a line of thunderstorms to get south.  He landed at an airport near the southern turnpoint.

Today was the first day with landing to the north, with a 90 deg crosswind, favouring runway 33.  Very interesting watching pilots trying to keep on the taxiway and runway, and brake rapidly without going on to the nose.

Time for a shower, and bed.  Tomorrow's the last day before the mandatory rest day...  It seemed very cool as I left the airport - down to 33.5C.

Dan

Friday 10 Aug - post briefing

Tasks are longer today, risk of thunderstorms, so the 15km/3000'msl finish gate again today.  The Team is really motivated today - 9,500' cloudbase, forecast climbs to 9 kts - best so far!  I see other pilots looking tired, and snapping at their crews - wouldn't like to be them!!

Task sheets:




Grid, as you see, is 1200; it's 1137, time for me to beat feet!

Today's afternoon update will be start times, and a review of what is in the panels of the team members (might not get to them all today); got a few comments asking for that.  I will also try to see what others have (I'll ask, anyway!).

The raffled P-51 rides went last night and this morning <envy>.  Nice engine sound...

Dan

09 August 2012

XG -dusty competition

Since beginning of contest I had problem with instruments.
To find the problem I had to be at airport before 7AM as it was only
time when it was possible to do any work .
After flight it was to hot, in addition a lot of dust is blowing to our
parking area in the evening so any work is just waste of time with poor
results.
One day it was so hot that before take off my Cambridge Vario/Logger
was cooked and refused to start. After 20 minutes in flight when I
stayed under cloud base and all cooled down I was able to start
Cambridge ,I had electrical vario, but as secondary logger it was
useless due to in flight activation , any break down of primary logger
would invalidate my flight.
For four days I had very limited possibility to use my computer display
as Flarm blocked my controller ,after four days of tries and errors I
was able to fix my problem.
Every day speeds are higher and higher and every minute is very
expensive, one extra turn cost fortune one mistake and large number of
pilots are way ahead .
We will fly next two days then rest day and second half of the contest
will begin. We are getting used to the heat, but dust is big problem as
it is everywhere .Before take off all gliders are treated continuously
with blasts of dust lifted by driving cars ,tow planes and dust devils.
Jerzy XG

Dave's Day 5

Another jewel of a day in Uvalde today.  There was a possibility of thunderstorms hitting the airport around 5 pm, so the tasks were set shorter today to give us a chance to l make it home before they hit.  As it turned out, the storms were not a factor as they stayed north until about 7 pm, and then skirted just west of Uvalde.


Today's area task had most of the legs aligning well with the winds and we were able to run some streets to help boost the speed.   Looking at my route below, it appears that I made too big of a deviation on the eastbound leg.  I had originally planned to hit the north end of the final area, but it started to look better in the southern part of the area, so I turned right and pushed into the southern part.  This caused me to fly at least an extra 10 km and on a 2:45 task was a costly 4 km/hr deviation


The lift was better today, my best climb 7.5 kts and overall average of 6.2 kts for 12% of the task time. I didn't have any long runs like yesterday, but I did have 6 runs over 50 km.  Today's speed was 148.3 km/hr over 444.6 km for 8th on the day.  Jerzy was a hair faster for 7th on the day, for what I think is the first ever Canadian 2 in the top 10 on a day!

Nick, Day 5.

Nick, ST - Day 5, 9 Aug

Due to the potential for severe thunderstorms to the north, we had a short 3 hr Area task with a 15 km finish radius in case Uvalde was under a T-Storm by the time we got back.


I started early because of the T-Storm threat estimated to be at Uvalde at about 5 PM. The lift on the first leg was a little weak at first. It improved as I got closer to the first turn area. I turned early since I was at the end of a cloud street. The next leg was quite good. I got a radio call from F1, indicating that the T-Storm threat was lower than expected, so the way home was going to be OK. The third leg was aligned with a cloud street for 2/3 of the leg, and there were 8 of us on this leg, running at 100 kts. At the end of the cloud street I had lost an extra 1000' on them, and  we stopped for a 6 kt thermal. I stayed behind to climb an extra 1000' after they left to keep going into less certain weather, and turned right for better CUs, wasting some precious distance. The last leg was fast, stopping a couple of times to top up, and pulling up under CUs along the way. 412 Km @ 128 Km/H.

Some stats for today: (Better glide ratio than yesterday, average 64:1 at 94 Kts average glide speed, and 21% circling also better than yesterday, but only a marginal increase in overall speed).

Circling Number:  24
Circling Time:   00:41:44
Circling Speed:   69 Kts
Circling Radius:  570 Ft
Circling Rate:     27 sec/circle
Circling Count:    92 circles
Circling Gain:    18048 Ft
Circling Avg:      4.3 Kts
Circling Best:     7.0 Kts
Circling Percent: 21.0%.

Glide Number:    24
Glide Time:     02:37:02
Glide Speed:     94 Kts
Glide Distance: 455 Km
Glide Avg:       19 Km
Glide Longest:   73 Km
Glide L/D:       64:1
Glide Loss:     23448 Ft
Glide Avg:       -1.5 Kts

Towing - rope drops (pictures)

There are 98 gliders, and one rope per glider.  The towplanes do either east entry - for the main runway - or west, for the taxiway operation (Open Class).  They drop the ropes parallel to the runway, but opposite direction.  East drops on the airfield, west, in a field west of the field.

Here are some pictures from The Big White Tent.

 The Cessna has just dropped, and is about to pull up to do a tear-drop pattern.  There is a big pile of ropes there.  Note the Pawnee under the wing of the tied-down aircraft following.  Great radio work by the tuggies.
Here, he's pulled up and starting a right turn, then 3 lefts to line up just east of the main runway.  Taxi to the front of the line, hook up, and go!

As I was having lunch, a young fella was running out each time a towplane pulled up and yelled, "Bang - got you!"  US Army take note - in a few years, your Ground-Based Air Defence Artillery should be getting a recruit!

The Team are out on course... as you know by following Soaring Spot, I'm sure!  They should be back around 4 pm.

Dan

Dan

Thursday 9 Aug - post briefing




Here are the task sheets.  There is one major change; finish ring diameter has increased from 3 km to 15 km, finish alitude increased to 3,000'msl (914.4m).  This will give the pilots options, should thunderstorms develop as expected at 4 pm; they can finish then 'hang around' or land elsewhere safely rather than be forced into a landing in less than idea circumstances.  Good, safe tasking.

Shorter tasks, since we are being compressed by the sea breeze front from the south, and north texas divergence to the north...  A nice break for all concerned.  We may land to the north, for the first time in this contest and practice (or any in memory for those who have been here before).  A procedure has been sent, so crews and pilots are ready.

Cloudbase at launch will be 5.5k' to 6k', rising to 8,500' by 4pm.  At 2pm lift of 5-6 kts, 4pm, 7-8 kts.

There is potential for winds at Uvalde at 4pm gusting to 35 kts.  We will drop "Canada Base" tent after start times are sent, so that it will exist tomorrow.  This promises to be a "dust-fest"!

Grid, 1200.  Should be a VERY interesting day.

Dan Daly


08 August 2012

Dave's Day 4

Today was the first area task for the contest after three days of racing task. The weather again was very good and only a few small blue areas to deal with.  The task took us north into the hills, then SW to Carrizo Springs, SE to Callaghan, NE and then E towards home.

  Jerzy and I were 6th and 7th to launch today into a developing sky, but fortunately, the CD held the launch until 1 pm and were were able to climb immediately to 6000 to get into the cool air. Our start gate was in a blue area at the time of the start, and most people hung back around the airport where there were cu and only ventured into the gate area to test the lift.

We had a good start with lots of gliders out in front of us (I was surprised looking at the start times that we were amongst the later starts today).  The run to the first turnpoint was only 20 km and then we turned the corner into the hills.  I had some trouble connecting and ran along low until I finally connected with a good 6.5 kt climb to get up into the good air.  The clouds didn't really align with the leg and once into the second area there was a blue hole, so I turned a little early and headed south.  On this leg I was able to line up a few runs down streets.  The next leg SW had some great streets that I was able to follow almost to the back of the southern most cylinder.  I tried to line up some streets  going NE, but it required a few jumps.  The central and eastern part of the last turn area was going blue, so I worked a few clouds on the west side and ran as far as I could along that line.  I thought that I needed to get more distance to avoid being under time but I could only do this by turning more easterly and the conditions just didn't make it worthwhile.  I maxed out the line that I was flying and then headed home arriving only 21 seconds early.

Best climb of the day was 6.9 kts and overall average for the task was 5.2 kts.  My longest run was 116 km and I was able to keep the thermaling down to 13% of the flight for a speed just short of 144 km/hr over 647 km, good for 13th on the day and leaving me in 13th overall.


Nick, Day 4

Nick, ST - Day 4, 8 Aug

Very similar weather to yesterday's, with a 4 hour area task today.

There were areas again today with no or few Cus, that you had to navigate around or through. This can cause significant detours and wasted distance, such as 12 km wasted on the 4th leg, skirting the edge of a blue hole. No difficulties overall, except on the final leg. Tried to bump to get on to final glide but didn't get quite enough as I encountered strong sink. Had to detour for a small climb. 543 Km at 126 km/h was much better than yesterday, but only 85% of the winner's speed.

Some stats for today:

Circling Number:  36
Circling Time:   01:02:23
Circling Speed:   69 Kts
Circling Radius:  591 Ft
Circling Rate:     29 sec/circle
Circling Count:   128 circles
Circling Gain:    29291 Ft
Circling Avg:      4.6 Kts
Circling Best:     7.4 Kts
Circling Percent: 24.7%

Glide Number:    36
Glide Time:     03:09:52
Glide Speed:     97 Kts
Glide Distance: 571 Km
Glide Avg:       16 Km
Glide Longest:   42 Km
Glide L/D:       56:1
Glide Loss:     33645 Ft
Glide Avg:       -1.7 Kts

8 August pictures

First, a picture from downtown.  You have to love a town that cares enough about a tree that they split the road around it.  This is on the way to the cleaners (buck a pound, wash and fold).


Second, here're the staged gliders by the main runway, just a minute before grid.  Note the pilot assessing Cu to the south (15/33).  We were on spot 67 of about 75 - near the end of the grid.  Nick was right in front.


8 Aug - Area Tasks

Here's link to today's tasks - both text and a picture.  4 hr AAT for 15m, 4.5 for 18m and Open.  The max distance for open is over 800 km!  This would break Tom Knauff's record of 766 km if it happens.

http://wgc2012uvalde.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=110&Itemid=7

I'm taking most of the day off - 2 weeks with no time off, and I was starting to get "helmet fires" - making stupid errors.  One day to recharge, and I'm at it tomorrow.

I'm very impressed by the capacity of the pilots and primary crews; they did get a day or two off during practice, but for example Nick was in the cockpit for about 7 1/2 hours yesterday.  The physical side of flying in Uvalde (pronounced, You-Valde, not OOO-valde, by the way) is one big take-away for me.  There is a scheduled rest day on the 13th - and the weather looks like we'll be flying every day until then.

I would also be remiss in not praising our Team Captain, Ed Hollestelle.  He hasn't had a day off, and remains steadfastly positive, guiding us through the intricacies of IGC Sporting Code, unwritten etiquette, and calming everyone.

The US party was last night - wow.  Lots of free beer, pinatas, a riding bull you could get your picture taken on... and two P-51 rides were raffled off; it was held in the Big White Tent, and was very well received.  Thanks, Team US!

07 August 2012

Dave's Day 3

 laterThe task to day was a 612.5 km racing task. We went south about 45 km and then headed well north into the hill country, in fact, as far north as I have ever been in Uvalde! Our most northerly turnpoint was about 205 km north of Uvalde, and even further north than Austin.


Over the hills, we were able to climb to 9000, giving about 7000 AGL. Overall average climb rate for the day was 4.9 kts and the best climb was 6.4 kts



On the trace, the city circled in Red is Austin and the Blue circle shows San Antonio. Once again we had fairly light winds and limited streeting. I had a bad first 10-15 minutes out of the gate and found myself down to 3500 a couple of times and then everyone who had started 10 minutes later passed me. I ran along low, taking weaker than optimal climbs until I could find a good one and get back up to 6500. Once I had re-established in a good working band, I had a great run and was able to pass some of the group that had previously passed me and finish about 5 minutes before them. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done. For tomorrow - I'll plan not to get low!

Nick, Day 3

Nick, ST - Day 3, 7 Aug

A tough day for me. It seemed the boyancy/shear ratio was 3 not 9 as Dr Jack showed. You'd pull up in 6 kts and ended up in -4 half a turn into the thermal. Very broken and rough thermals all day. After a while I'd just keep going straight, but you can only do that for so long. I just couldn't get good climbs today. After a bad start, I knew it was going to be a long day.

Things smoothed out down south and I started to make some better time, but was down to 2500' at the second last turn. It recycled and I was able to keep going, but it wasn't fun anymore, it was survival. I flew with ZL to the last turn and back. He also had a bad day. A slow day at 111 Km/H for 644 Km, but I'm glad I made it back, it didn't look so good for quite a while. Tomorrow is another day...

American Team Party

We are off to the American Team party for dinner and will post the day's flights when we  get back.  Briefly, I was 143 km/hr and Jerzy was 4 minutes faster.  The last we heard Nick was 80 km south and headed for home.  The sky still looked good.

Dust devils in Texas

As they say, "Everything is bigger in Texas".  This is a pic from my crappy point and shoot camera of a dust devil about 1000 metres north of our tie-down - just south of the grid.  Note the self-launch on the taxiway that the dust devil just cleared!  A tornado-like inner core shot up from the ground in the centre of the dust devil - you couldn't see through the centre. You can just see the aftermath - I wasn't quick enough to get the start, it lasted about a second.
This was around 1250 - just as 15 m and Open launches were almost complete.

I lived in Colorado - but this one was one of the biggest and probably the most powerful I've seen.

Big 'un!

We figure the fleet will be back around 7 CDT (8 Eastern).  Tonight's the US Team-hosted party, and we reckon that post-flight blogging will follow that - perhaps, with luck, a bit incoherent!  We're told there will be pinatas and two-stepping... hopefully, not simultaneously!

We think the late starters are going to be at a disadvantage today.  Time will tell...

DD


Tasks 7 Aug - longer than yesterday.

 TP's one and two for 15m are under 10,000 airspace restriction due to Military Flying Area (MOA) active during the week, not on weekends.

Sorry about the quality - iPhone in a dark room...

There may be a "B" task announced on the grid, since thunderstorms are in the forecast. Depends on how things develop (yuk yuk).

Dan

06 August 2012

Nick, Day 2

Nick, ST - Day 2, 6 Aug

What a day! The best, a 10.1 knot average thermal to 10,000'. The worst, needing a 1000' extra on final glide to maintain speed and not finding it.

There wasn't enough wind to create the usual Uvalde cloud streets, so you had to navigate around and through blue holes today.

Dave's Day 2

The 18 m task today covered a lot of our flying area, first we went north about 115 km into the hills, then 235 km south to put us 125 km from home at the final turn.  The conditions were good, but not as good as Uvalde has to offer.  My high point for the day was 8500 and best climb was 8.3 kts, but average for the day was 5.5


The wind was generally light and easterly, so there was not much in the way of streeting on course today.  The easterly leg up north aligned reasonably well with the wind and gave us a pretty good run.  The southerly leg, as you can see required some zig-zags to align with little streets and to get around some blue holes.  In all, there were 3 blue holes of 20-30 km each that we had to cross.  Fortunately, we were able to climb to 6-7000 ft before gliding across the holes
.

Early in the flight, I was able to catch up with some that started 5 minutes earlier and was able to get ahead of some of them, then I had a bit of a slow spot coming south out of the hills and fell behind and ended up on my own until south of the turn at Dilley where I met a couple of other gliders on the way in to the last turn.  I saw them a few more times on the final leg.  I was probably too conservative on the final leg home, but the sky was going blue and I didn't push hard enough.

Whata sky!

All the Canadians are on task; should be back around 6 pm CDT (18m).  15 M a little later.  Time to run for the air conditioning.

Beautiful sky, all quadrants.  Reported 8 kts lift to 6500'. 

My gut says 150 kph speeds today...

Dan

Morning 6 Aug - Contest Day 2

Outside the hotel, the sky is blue; after the 10:15 am pilot's meeting, the sky to the north is dotted with low Cu.

Sergei Morozov leaves today for Canada...  Sergei's ASG-29 is leased to the Russian team, and MSI (there was already an MS on the list), with Dmitry Timoshenko came third yesterday in 18m.  OX, Willem's Antares, is also flying, as is A1, Ed's LS-10.  Lots of Canadian content.

Yesterday, 70% of 15m finished the task (got speed points), 90% of 18m, and 35% of Open.  The sea breeze front was enhanced by a wave, and it arrived into the southern task area 3 hours ahead of expectation.  Just over 25% of the gliders landed out.

On arrival at Uvalde, the winds were just off the runway heading, 18 knots gusting to 23 knots.  This exceeded the structural limitations of Canada Base Tent, sadly, and it will require a healthy dose of "the universal adapter" - duct tape - in order to function today.  Another gust front should arrive about 5:30 pm, just before the pilots return.

In anticipation, the fleets are being sent more northerly, where the effect of sea breeze will be less.

15m (Nick, ST), 549 km racing task.  This one's going to be tricky, far into the hills, but the lift there is very good, and far from the sea breeze.
18m (Dave, F1, and Jerzy, XG), 579 km racing task (biased north as well)
Open (no Canadians) 626 km racing task.

Pictures of the tasks are on the Way Aero website at:  http://tracking.way.aero/wgc2012/; this is also where the trackers are displayed.  You can also see them pictorially on the results tab on the http://wgc2012uvalde.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=110&Itemid=7 page; results show up above the map after the scorers work their magic.

They expect 8,500' cloudbases today, with thermals at trigger of 89F/31.5C at 1230, initial climbs to cloudbase (minus 500) at 4300'

High today, 4-6 pm, a mild 99F.  Forecast high tomorrow - mid hundreds.

The OSTIV congress begins today.  OSTIV is the Technical and Scientific side of our sport.  The motto "Safety First - then Performance" says it all.  OSTIV has three panels; sailplane development (primarily having to do with safety - for example, the development of safety cockpits on modern gliders to protect the pilot if there is a crash), and making things stronger and lighter; Training and Flight Safety (pretty well what it sounds like), and Meterology (self-evident).  Organisation Scientifique et Technique du Vol à Voile (OSTIV) is a body associated with the FAI Gliding Commission (IGC). The FAI IGC oversees the sport of gliding worldwide and is a department of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).

There is an opening ceremony on Wednesday, three days of papers, then an excursion for the scientists worldwide who gather during WGCs to advance our sport.

Grid is 1215, and 1st launch, about an hour from now.

Tomorrow, I am baking on the grid with Jerzy, as Maria is taking airborne pictures of the grid, so morning reporting will be somewhat late.  Soaring Cafe has a number of blogs from teams of the world, which make interesting reading; not as interesting as this, but really close in some cases!

Dan

05 August 2012

Nick - Day 1

Nick, ST - Day 1, 5 Aug

A text message from the weatherman to the team captains, relayed by radio, indicated that the sea breeze front would be moving in an hour ahead of time. I decided not to delay and start early.

I hit rain on the last third of the first leg and it was quite overdeveloped to the east. The second leg and third legs were straight forward, but I got passed by the French team. There was a blue hole on the fourth leg and that required a significant detour and the lift was limited to 4 knot average. On the fifth leg, I stayed behind a gaggle to get a good climb and caught up to some gliders that were quite low.  The sixth leg, wasn't working for me. I couldn't connect with lift and clouds were dying in front. I detoured to the right for a climb, and got left behind. I could see the sea breeze in front, with high cloud on one side and low cloud beyond it. You had to climb as high as possible to penetrate the front as it looked bleak beyound it. I climbed to 9000' and headed through the frontal zone. I flew above and through a gap in the low clouds and it was a long glide at basically best L/D 30 km to the turn, and then 66 km at best L/D to the finish in smooth air, hoping I wouldn't hit a patch of sink and have to land short. A challenging day with many land-outs.

Dave's Day 1

For the first day we were given a racing (or assigned) task.  The 18 m task was 553 km and went east, then south, then up to the NW.  I averaged 131.6 km/hr and that has me tied for 15th place with about 5 other pilots.

The blue and red lines on the route below show where the Sea Breeze impacted the task.


At the morning briefing we were told the sky would be juicer today and that some debris from yesterday's storms that was hanging around the Gulf would blow our way.  The expectation was that this would have limited impact on our task as it would likely come in to Cotulla (about 25 km NW of our second turnpoint) around 5 pm.  A couple of the models that I looked at suggested it could be a bit earlier and at launch time, I could alredy see some storm tops off to the east.

The blue line shows where the sea breeze front was located as we were traveling towards the second turnpoint.  We had isolated showers for the run along the second leg and the last climb was 39 km from the turnpoint and occured where the blue line crosses my trace.  I climbed with a gaggle up to 7000 ft and then we set off at best L/D to cover the distance to the turn through completely smooth air on the wrong side of the rain.  In the 10 minutes that it took gliding across the hole, a couple of cu started to develop just west of the tunrpoint.  I headed towards them and there WAS lift - saved!  A group of us climbed up and then backtracked 5 km into the sector and then came back to the same clouds again and climbed to 6000 before heading across the rest of the hole westbound to another line of cu on the good side of the line.  This required a deviation from the course line of about 50 degrees, but when we arrived, the clouds worked and we were back in racing mode.


The red line on the trace shows where the sea breeze affected the task at the end of the day.  For the 18 m class the effect was minimal as I was able to climb to 8200 ft about 5 km short of the turnpoint and then glide into the turnpoint and home.  The trip home did require another large deviation to stay on the good side of the sea breeze, but once I knew I could make it, it was time to point the nose for home and glide into the dead air once again.

The open and 15 m guys had more trouble with their last turnpoints as they were 40 and 30 km behind the line.  This caused most of the open guys to miss the last turn, but the 15m guys were able to glide in and then reconnect with the clouds in the hills and limp home.

All ours back home; off to dinner

Some aerotow retrieves underway and a number of trailers are outbound.

We're off to eat Mexican.

Dan

Competition Day 1 - 5 August - "A typical Uvalde Day"

Weather - 2 OKTAS Cu all over the sky. 

At 1600, 6-7 kts to 8-9000' over the task area with a risk of overdevelopment to the north - probably only a problem for the open class task - not our pilots.

15m racing task:  576.1 km.  6 points, starting SE (126), then W (52), then NW (88), then N (88 again), then NE (74 - into the hills), then SE (84), the SSW (63) into Uvalde.

18m racing task.  553.6 km.  5 points, due E (51 km), then due S (105), then NW (157), then just E of N (84) then ESE (92) then SW (64).

Ed figures speeds will be in the high 140 kph at least...

Note, all legs on the tasks are enough to get the pilots Silver Distance - but I expect they all have completed their Silver (Gold Badge required for entry).

Grid - 1200, earliest launch 1230; launching the fleet takes just over an hour, so around 1300 the first gate should open.

Temperature a mild 98F high today. 

Picture of the day:
Here's something you don't see in Canada.  Look at the tire track from when we put the tail dolly on F1 after watering-up.  It was hot enough over the last two days for the sand to melt rubber off the tailwheel, and have it stick to the sand! 


There is a nervous energy crackling around the Big White Tent today.  Let's go racing!!!!!

Dan