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.
02 August 2010
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.
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 againJerzy 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.
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!
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
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!
01 August 2010
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.
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
