After a nice start of the competition mother nature decided to blow and rain for three days in a row.
Time was spent hanging out, attending talks and playing tourists.
Thursday was finally flyable, but the forecast wasn't too exciting. Low top of lift (TOL) and 10-15 mph NW winds all the way up. Add to that gusts and launching/landing might not look so appealing. However, expert pilots say that day is almost always better than it looks. The task was declared (the same as the last one, with the goal at Wallaby), the safety was going to be reevaluated just before launch window opened.
If you don't setup and get ready to fly - you are not going to fly for sure, so I assembled the glider and got my gear in order. Winds on the ground were rather strong in the morning, but by 2PM everything looked reasonably safe. It certainly wasn't anything I haven't launched in before.
Ilya was a bit anxious about the weather as well, but decided to give it a try. Crystal decided not to fly. Mike and Dana have been put on another team to reduce number of people that mentor had to worry about. So our team was now only Crystal, Ilya and me.
Our mentor for the day was Mick Howard. He is very good at staying up and helping people in the air. I wasn't sure if I could get to the goal, but at least I'd get more practice in decision making process, and get different perspective of an expert pilot. And of course, I still wanted to go with my original plan - fly together as a group.... a reduced group this time.
Our team was first to launch. Everyone got towed up pretty quick. I was in the air in less than 90 seconds behind Ilya. All was going relatively well with our first thermal, too. I was constantly falling out of it, but was making it up for the loss on a strong side of that thermal. A lot of work, but does the trick.
We topped out around 3200' MSL, and Mick suggested we push west to counter drift. We started on a glide right behind him. And that's when I discovered that my PTT didn't seem to work. I could hear Mick and Ilya but no one responded to my requests. Oh well, this seemed to be the theme of this meet - radio problems.
I figured that Ilya was set on flying the route. Mick was pushing west, Ilya was flying in the same direction. I was 200' below Ilya but pushed west as well then very quickly decided against that move. Sinking fast and making 8mph over ground - not the best combination. I turned south figuring that going crosswind should work better. Very soon I stumbled into a weak thermal and started drifting with it. I was more or less on the course line.
I was expecting Ilya to join me in the thermal, but he turned around and flew back to the airfield. I wasn't sure if he didn't see me circling, or just didn't feel like flying out with TOL so low, or maybe he was just searching and would set on course later. Earlier Mick radioed that we were going... so... In any case, I was already at the point of no return... I was going alone. Again.
Patience is not my strong suit. I drifted with the thermal for a bit, but pushed again when I couldn't make upward progress. Pushing like that is always a risk. With low TOL the risk is even higher as I don't have much altitude to work with. It was working out for me though... until it didn't. I left weak lift or zero sink a few times getting slightly higher then losing altitude even more on a glide. After a few miles and getting as low as 1200' MSL, I finally found another strong(er) thermal. It took me back up to 3000' MSL. I should have stayed with it longer to see if it would drift me farther. But I didn't. I left as soon as it got to zero-sink.
And that was almost it. I got as low as 900' MSL, found a few slow, weak bubbles that took me to 1200'. Lost them and, again, didn't try to stay in zero-sink area. I landed not too far from Seminole-Lake Gliderport. I picked a large field and more or less right wind direction, but my brain farted loudly when I was rounding out. I let the glider pop and drop. Downtube went BOOM, but the rest of me and glider were ok. $110 landing. Oh well... some birds constantly forget how to land.
Here is a video from that day:
....
My distance for the day was 15.71 km. Since only a few pilots flew, I got 4th result of the day, and moved up into 3rd position overall. Very small points difference between all competitors in the top 10 though. Everything can change in the last 2 remaining days.
Day results:
https://airtribune.com/2018-green-swamp-sport-klassic/results/task3110/day/sport-class
Comp results:
https://airtribune.com/2018-green-swamp-sport-klassic/results/task3110/comp/sport-class
Visualization of Ilya's and mine tracks:
Crystal wrote about this day here:
http://flyingwolfe.blogspot.com/2018/03/green-swamp-final.html
Time was spent hanging out, attending talks and playing tourists.
 |
| back massage (photo by Crystal) |
 |
| Absorbing information (photo by Crystal) |
Thursday was finally flyable, but the forecast wasn't too exciting. Low top of lift (TOL) and 10-15 mph NW winds all the way up. Add to that gusts and launching/landing might not look so appealing. However, expert pilots say that day is almost always better than it looks. The task was declared (the same as the last one, with the goal at Wallaby), the safety was going to be reevaluated just before launch window opened.
If you don't setup and get ready to fly - you are not going to fly for sure, so I assembled the glider and got my gear in order. Winds on the ground were rather strong in the morning, but by 2PM everything looked reasonably safe. It certainly wasn't anything I haven't launched in before.
 |
| Getting ready (photo by Crystal) |
Ilya was a bit anxious about the weather as well, but decided to give it a try. Crystal decided not to fly. Mike and Dana have been put on another team to reduce number of people that mentor had to worry about. So our team was now only Crystal, Ilya and me.
 |
| Ilya's rolling to the launch line (photo by Crystal) |
 |
| Green Machine is ready (photo by Crystal) |
 |
| Go, go, go! (photo by Crystal) |
Our team was first to launch. Everyone got towed up pretty quick. I was in the air in less than 90 seconds behind Ilya. All was going relatively well with our first thermal, too. I was constantly falling out of it, but was making it up for the loss on a strong side of that thermal. A lot of work, but does the trick.
We topped out around 3200' MSL, and Mick suggested we push west to counter drift. We started on a glide right behind him. And that's when I discovered that my PTT didn't seem to work. I could hear Mick and Ilya but no one responded to my requests. Oh well, this seemed to be the theme of this meet - radio problems.
I figured that Ilya was set on flying the route. Mick was pushing west, Ilya was flying in the same direction. I was 200' below Ilya but pushed west as well then very quickly decided against that move. Sinking fast and making 8mph over ground - not the best combination. I turned south figuring that going crosswind should work better. Very soon I stumbled into a weak thermal and started drifting with it. I was more or less on the course line.
I was expecting Ilya to join me in the thermal, but he turned around and flew back to the airfield. I wasn't sure if he didn't see me circling, or just didn't feel like flying out with TOL so low, or maybe he was just searching and would set on course later. Earlier Mick radioed that we were going... so... In any case, I was already at the point of no return... I was going alone. Again.
Patience is not my strong suit. I drifted with the thermal for a bit, but pushed again when I couldn't make upward progress. Pushing like that is always a risk. With low TOL the risk is even higher as I don't have much altitude to work with. It was working out for me though... until it didn't. I left weak lift or zero sink a few times getting slightly higher then losing altitude even more on a glide. After a few miles and getting as low as 1200' MSL, I finally found another strong(er) thermal. It took me back up to 3000' MSL. I should have stayed with it longer to see if it would drift me farther. But I didn't. I left as soon as it got to zero-sink.
And that was almost it. I got as low as 900' MSL, found a few slow, weak bubbles that took me to 1200'. Lost them and, again, didn't try to stay in zero-sink area. I landed not too far from Seminole-Lake Gliderport. I picked a large field and more or less right wind direction, but my brain farted loudly when I was rounding out. I let the glider pop and drop. Downtube went BOOM, but the rest of me and glider were ok. $110 landing. Oh well... some birds constantly forget how to land.
Here is a video from that day:
....
My distance for the day was 15.71 km. Since only a few pilots flew, I got 4th result of the day, and moved up into 3rd position overall. Very small points difference between all competitors in the top 10 though. Everything can change in the last 2 remaining days.
Day results:
https://airtribune.com/2018-green-swamp-sport-klassic/results/task3110/day/sport-class
Comp results:
https://airtribune.com/2018-green-swamp-sport-klassic/results/task3110/comp/sport-class
Visualization of Ilya's and mine tracks:
 |
| http://doarama.com/view/1969434 |
Crystal wrote about this day here:
http://flyingwolfe.blogspot.com/2018/03/green-swamp-final.html
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