What a day! A monster task that started @ 3700ASL & 14km from Llana, back to la Pila across town to some tp near Monarca then back to la Pila again before finishing ESS 7km radius across the lake with the normal safety tp at Torres and goal.
Such is the intensity and competitiveness of this field that after 114km with several gaggle splits, lead changes, complicated transitions and desperate scratching only 5 minutes separated the first 44 pilots. Only 5 minutes!!!
There were 62 in goal which is somewhat less than previous days giving some indication of the difficulty. Several big guns went down today. Only one reserve deployment as far as I know.
Juan Carlos is leading the comp and Petra the women with Porcher leading the team event from Team Niviuk.
Safety notes: Some are starting to wonder about the recoverability of these new machines on blow out. There have been several war stories about cascades and failed restart attempts with huge loss of altitude. Yesterday one of the test pilots apparently failed to restart his wing opting to throw his rag after multiple tries. Some observers noted that one glider was tail sliding under stall which would explain some issues. Advice given included application of the speed bar.
Performance notes: the Ozone and Niviuk continue to dominate with Gin and Swing a little further down the leader board.
The grapevine: got the account of Luca Donini's reserve deployment a little wrong... He was doing wing overs and got in a mess with lines over his helmet/visor (and not the result of induced stalls).
7 comments:
Me as a german I say Thanks for your excellent blog!!
For all the other guys that want to read your blog in different languages I can recomment google chrome.
Just right-click translate and there you go.
Not super perfect but at least you can read and understand :-)
cheers
olaf
Hi sweet, soos jy weet is ek in boendoes sonder opvangs. Het pas 1km geloop vir 'n sein. Ongelooflik hoeveel pilots in 5min in goal was. Well done, jy vlieg fantasties!
En die wing debat duur voort sien ek. Sal interesant wees om n manufacturer se opinie te hoor of sien?
Baie dinge begin klein, sien uit na jou eerste boek wat in Duits en Frans vertaal word! Liefde, f
Thanks for the reports Andre, keep it up, good work!
Emile
Great blog, thanks.Keep it coming :-).Good honest report is refreshing
Yeah great blog Orbi....cant wait to log on to read it. The flying sounds intense> Keep on truckin buddy...the podium beckons.
"Safety notes: Some are starting to wonder about the recoverability of these new machines on blow out. There have been several war stories about cascades and failed restart attempts with huge loss of altitude. Yesterday one of the test pilots apparently failed to restart his wing opting to throw his rag after multiple tries. Some observers noted that one glider was tail sliding under stall which would explain some issues. Advice given included application of the speed bar."
Means that, that it's difficult to reopen the glider after a stall? what means tail sliding?
Hi Reiner
Yes, it is starting to look like the gliders are difficult to open after stall. I am reluctant to jump to conclusions because even though half a dozen reserve rides in four days sounds like a lot you need to remember how hard all these pilots are pushing these wings, so the probability of daily incidents is quite high. Tail slide means flying backwards.
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