2010 Forbes Flatlands - 1st day
A great start to the 2010 Forbes Flatlands with a beautiful cool day in the tow
paddock at the airport (30 degrees). No cu's, a top of the lift about 4,700'
(4,000' AGL) a nice stiff breeze at 14 mph and higher out of the south
southwest.
We have an innovation that we are trying out here at the Forbes Flatlands. A ten
person rotating task committee, with three task members (in addition to me as
the weather person) each day. The first day, we had Attila, Len Paton, and Jon
Senior. Len Paton was very up on the latest RASP forecast so he provided
most of the weather forecasting, which I really appreciated, as it made my job
easier.
They picked a task to the northeast, essentially cross tail wind for 167 km to
Goolma between Wellington and Gulgong. The idea was to get up into the high
country away from the flooded areas so that we wouldn't have stranded pilots, or
have to fly over huge shallow lakes.
When we got to the airfield Jonny Junior freaked out a bit that we had a task
heading toward some towering cu's that were a hundred miles to the east. Lenny
had checked the chances of over development and saw that as far as the RASP was
concerned it was not a concern. This didn't assuage Jonny's concerns so he got
the task committee to call a different task with a turnpoint 50 kilometers to
the north northeast (cross wind) and then downwind 90 kilometers to a 5 KM goal
cylinder around the sailplane port at Narromine. 5 KM in order to stay out of
their way. (The towering cu's never amounted to anything.)
We are trying out another innovation here penalizing pilots if they leave too
early. If you leave before the start clock opens we just rotate your start time
around the first start time, and leave your elapse interval time unchanged. Easy
to do and very effective in providing a small "penalty." Lukas Bader felt that
it was possible for some pilots to start way early (a bit difficult to do in a
tow comp) and if conditions changed rapidly during the day, the early
starters may have an unfair advantage, even with their time rotated (say no one
made goal).
So I added an additional penalty of ten percent if pilots left more than (or
equal to) one start interval before the first start time. The point of allowing
pilots to leave early is to make the towing situation less crowded and easier to
handle, to not excessively penalize pilots for leaving a few minutes early.
In Category 1 competition often there is a large penalty for leaving early. I
believe that the main reason for this is that if GAP 2002 is used for scoring it
is very difficult to move a pilot's track log (and not just their start and
finish time) so that they can be properly scored. Since we are using OzGAP 2005,
this is not an issue.
With three launch lines and seven tugs for seventy pilots (six in sport class)
the launches went quickly, even with the first pilots in the launch line holding back (no cu's).
There was plenty of lift to 4,100' and those of us who got off early had no
problem staying up and staying within the 10 kilometer start radius.
We did our best to work our way to the upwind side of the course line (west) but
we didn't get too far past it by the time we were ready to start out on course.
Most of us took the second clock at 2:40 PM. Zippy and about ten pilots took the
third one. I wasn't too high when we started, but then neither was anyone else.
I hooked up with Conrad Loten right after the start and we got low quickly
(1,300' AGL), but we found 400 fpm and were able to get going. We caught up
quickly with pilots who took the first start time and others who started west of
us and took the second start time. There is a nice rocky ridge line to the north
northeast and it provided the necessary lift.
It required a bit of team work getting to the first turnpoint at Trundle. Conrad
and I hooked up with Lukas Bader and other pilot so that we could all search for
lift. I found a little rocket just before the turnpoint while the others missed
out pushing ahead. All the lift was very narrow on this first day, and you
really had to make tight turns to stay it it. I had no problem doing that with
the new Airborne Rev 13.5.
I was also able to glide with all the other gliders. The VG was easy to pull on,
and the bar pressure was reasonable. It felt like a stable steady ship that is
easy to fly, flies straight and goes fast.
Since I got high before the turnpoint I was able to get to it easily and find
the lift at the turnpoint to get up and out of there while I watched the other I
was with low and slowly climbing. Now I was chasing the few guys in front of
me having left my gaggle behind.
I couldquite catch them, and as I circled up in 160 fpm lift about twenty
kilometers past the turnpoint, Carl, Jonny and Zippy came in under me. I
decided, that this looks like a good crew and that I'd stick with them.
This worked out well until we went on a long glide and I was down to 1,100'.
Jonny had gone further to the west, more on the course line, and got stuck by
himself low also. There were half a dozen of us digging our way out of our self
imposed hole with Zippy even lower and scratching.
We took a little over 200 fpm to a bit over 4,000' and headed downwind toward
goal which was now only 30 kilometers away. I was getting glides of 18:1 with
the 14 mph tail wind, and every time I was turning I was drifting directly
toward the goal.
I didn't get very high any more, but I didn't need to. With the wind it was easy
to make it into goal, at the five kilometer radius (my 6030 had me making it to
the center of the goal cylinder at Narromine with a few hundred feet).
Jonny, Carl, Lukas, Attila, later Noma, and much later Larry Bunner made goal
and landed near us. Larry had the wrong task activated and it took him a while
to figure it out. He almost went down a few times. Zippy crossed the goal line
just before me and started twenty minutes after the rest of us. So we think he
won the day.
Jeff Shapiro went down early at the first turnpoint.
Results.
The task and flight.
http://OzReport.com/1262523691
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