Madpup

The run down

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:54:00 GMT

Good morning race fans.

Well as you will read later there was alot if um and arr going on from all parties. The breifing kept getting pushed back as the weather was looking like improving. All credit myst go to the organisers as they did everything they could to try and get a comp day out of it. In the end i launched at 2:20 and struggled to get a decent climb to start with. As i slowly got away Johno landed back for a relight. I got to cloud base with about 15min to the start gate opening. I headed over to the start line and noticed that the high crap had made its way to just north of the line (the line ran north-south with the first leg slightly north of west) so I topped up 6km north of the end of the line (which was 5 km radius) to cloud base. I originaly had a plan to wait and let the good weather arrive properly before I started. When I was topping up I noticed that the good weather was dieing again. So the decision was made to start as soon as possible.(Johno and I had decided at the breifing that we were not going to team fly today. We would share info but do our seperate things) I got to cloud base and headed off at best L/D to the start (6km glide) with not a bump, turned and headed due north for 23km till i got my first thermal.( the first leg ran to the west) There was again airspace to look out for to the north so i had to keep moving so the crap didn't push my into the airspace. I slowly worked my way to the first turn with some very unorthadox flying, having some diversions of over 120 degrees. The trace looks amazing. Cloud base was about 5000' most of the day with 1-2 kt. There was the occasional 6 knoter but it was all over before it began with those ones.

I didn't really get too low today. When I finally got to the sunshine I was 40 km to run to the turn and it felt like I had been gliding for a week. The winds were 3000-4000 20kt from the west and 4000+ 10kt from the west. As you could imagin the first leg was into wind and under all the dark crap, so I was down in the 20kt winds the majority of the first leg. I had a fairly long glide to get to the sunshine as I had flown south east 10km to find some lift on my first attempt to get to the sunshine. when i got to the sun the cloud street that was running straight into the turn had disappeared.( Just my damn luck) so I took a weak climb under the cu to base and headed off, at best L/D like I had done all day, out into the blue. This was another 15km out to the turn and I turned at the point and headed north east to get to some developing cu for my next climb. My average speed for the first leg turned out to be a wopping 34.3km/h. I was at 1500 ft when I got to the cu and worked 1.5 kt for 1000ft. I then did a little search and found 7kt. Again it was all over before I could blink, and I was only 2000ft under glide back to Raskala. By this stage it felt like I was in a ghost town as the radio chat had compleatly stopped. Given this I realised that everyone else was on the ground so I headed for home. The high cloud had shut down most of the sky again by this stage so i was cruising at 60kt(120km/h for the Austrians) and had a ground speed of almost 90kt. On the run home i took every climb there was, a grand total of 3. These other than the first were 2 kt. I was happy that I flew past the airfeild I landed at on day 3 when I was on final glide. Today the wind was blowing the wrong way for a landing over the lake So I beat up the clubhouse instead. Which was the finish line for the task. So you can say that I actually flew through the start line and the finish line, even if it was the wrong way to finish. The whole flight took 3hours 55, WOW. 67km/h for the run home.

I will see how we go tomorrow. Hopefully we have some good weather and AUS can win another day.

Stay tuned

what a struggle

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:57:00 GMT

Well today was crapp. It was 1 of those days we wouldnt have launched in australia. The first turn point was 80 km to the west. I was the only one who started in the junoir class and got away from the airfeild and didnt land back. In all it took me 3 days( 2hours 22) at 34.3km/h to get to the first turn and the run home took 1hour 4 at 67km/h. There are some photos and more discription above. WE are off to the sauna.

later

Finish Photos

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:53:00 GMT

Johno pops his cherry

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:20:00 GMT

Well done johno. First of all he had to go to an international competition to get his first day win, secondly it was his first thermal flight in this country and in the LS4. Johno was converted into the LS4 yesterday and he did 2 circuits with no lift at all. So it was a very good acheivement overall. I was 0.8 km/h slower due to handicap, comming 4th behind the 2 Swedish pilots.

The flight.

The task was a 2 hour AAT with 2 areas and a control point. It was a very interesting day today with storms to the East and the North-East of Raskala A/F as we started. We decided to start at the western end of the line and head almost due north up the first leg. We ended up turning in line with the turnpoint because of a blue hole. The 2nd leg was different to what I am used to. There was decent scattered cu on track with the rain slightly to the right. I initialy wanted to try the fluffy cu where there was sun shining on the ground( I mean trees) Johno deviated to the right under the darker clouds which looked like they would dump anytime. This move paid off for him as he joined up with me 10km later 1000ft higher. This is where we turned slightly north-east ( we were tracking east) up a cu street. This was the best run of the day with 4-6 kt with a couple of 7-8kt to 4-5000ft. We turned 90 km to run and 45min. I got a bit distracted with airspace and not having a working ASI or audio vario. This is where it got tricky. There was a wall of water half way home. Great.

Chapter 2

So due to lack of communication on my part Johno kept heading north and I turned. We quickly realised and made a decision to head to the south of the weather and go round the bottom. The main trouble we had was airspace. It looked like if we went far enough north or south to go round the rain we would run into airspace. As we got colser to the rain we saw a lightning flash. Seeing this we instantly went to plan B and headed to the north. I had been watching a gap between the rain get a little bigger the whole leg and we headed for it. The trouble was that it looked like there wasn't much behind it. We took a climb on the northern edge of the weather to above cloud base in the end, up the side probably 2-300 ft. We then had a long glide at best L/D to get to a lone cu. There was 4kt under this to cloud base at 4000. This is where I left Johno and headed off on another best L/D glide, still to the right of track as it looked like the only bit of sky that was working. Here I climbed to base and was 780ft above a 3kt mac with a 1000ft goal height. I headed for the last turn which had a nice cu over the top and was 10km from home at 2600ft. Yay. I made it. Johno was about 10 min behind. Johno 1st, Madpup 4th( 50 points behind) and overall AUS leading.

I hope this wasnt to much info in 1 shot. Please comment

madpup

Finaly

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:57:00 GMT

Another day sitting around

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:27:00 GMT