December 28;
Overcast so great weather for practice!!!! 28 dgr.C at 10 and it feels as 26!!Humidity is 42 %. Visibility 16 km. No rain expected. Tomorrow thunderstorms. Reason for some Narromine friends to NOT fly here, but come by car.
By the way at 4 it was 36 dgr. C and it felt so, luckily the humidity dropped to 23 !!!
As you can see Dexter our grandson has downloaded some video’s from their landing [ I did n’t even know this was possible in my blog.] Long live the young ones!!!AND….Landing,….all by their selves!!!!!
After 4 lessons, not bad it seems they both have the Schuit-flying-hand.
It’s lovely to see their enthusiasm and their discipline at this young age!! Not something to take for granted at this adolocent age. At 10 AM the whole family left again to 27 ,for a new load of fun.Inge and Rodger as enthusiastic and George doing the tows today,..yes a family affair!! And,…yes we know many gliding families!!!!
ready to go.
——Looking at yesterday’ s weather for soaring the OLC showed for Australia the best flight from Benalla by Tobias in the LS 4; 755 k. and Jenny , yes the 1000 km. lady, flew from Narromine a 750 triangle extended to 850 km in total in the ASH 26E.
Good, better ,best by 2 TOP-Kiwi’s , young Dane [Dickinson] and a tad older John [Coutts] , flying from Bitterwasser and the combined power of the 2 resulted in a 1.326,48 km. flight, a declared 1.250 in it as FAI triangle in the ARCUS M.[148 km./h.]
Their OLC comment;” 1250 FAI declared. The big mac with extra cheese.”
Keith [Essex] , still there [ but in Kiripotib] flew the Antares 23 , over 1.262 km.with a speed of 142 km./h.
3 More flights from Bitterwasser over 1.200 km. One of them by German female top pilot ,Susanne [Schoedel] 1.235 km. with a speed of 143 km.h.in the Nimbus 4M. She is now more or less involved in paperwork, as since March 2014 she is the Secretary General of the GFA , but she shows she still belongs to the German TOP as a pilot as well.
Interesting to see ….. most flights from Namibia nowadays are flown in 2-seaters and the ARCUS M is a real “gem” to fly in, also for records and very long distances as it shows!!!
—–Leeton is the host of the very first FORMULA 1 here in Australia. Leeton is also the place where George became Australian Champion years ago. Of course he was called WINNER, as he was not an Aussie citizen. Weird weather that year with rain, hail and at height even snow.
They start TODAY with 27 pilots in club class and a 160 km. task.
In the end the day was scrubbed.
F1GP Scoring Explained
Grand Prixs are fun right? Yeah! Everyone starts together, the first pilot over the line wins. But, when you have a large number of gliders in a small amount of airspace, the risk of collision increases. So, the list of F1GP competitors is randomly split into 2 groups (Group A and Group B) on Day 1, and both groups go around the same course, but approximately 30-60 minutes apart. Each group is scored independently (like a normal GP), and then the points of both groups are tallied to form an overall leaderboard
However, the next day (Day 2), the top half of the pilots from Day 1 go into Group A, and the bottom half of the pilots go into Group B. Both groups are scored independently again, but the winner of Group A scores 10 points, and the winner of Group B scores 7 points.
On Day 3, the cumulative scores (from Day 1 & 2) are added up, and the top half goes into Group A again, and the bottom half goes into Group B. Winner of Group A earns 10 points, winner of Group B earns 7 points.
Second, third, fourth, etc place getters earn progressively less points than the winner, down to the 10th place getter (and below) in each group, who will score zero for the day. Outlanders also score zero points.
A good performance in Group B will likely lift you up into Group A for the following day. A poor performance in Group A will likely see you lowered into Group B the following day.
On top of that, the organisers can award bonus point(s) on any day, to a competitor for:
- Being the fastest pilot in their group
- Being the first competitor to a given turnpoint
Due to potential variances in weather, at least one competitor from each group must complete the task (get home) in order for the day to be valid. If no one gets home in one or both groups, the day will be invalid and not scored.
At the top of our score sheets on SoaringSpot, you’ll see information about each group, like the number of finishers, whether the day is valid, the maximum points that can be awarded in the group (10 points in Group A, 7 points in Group B from Day 2 onwards) and bonus points awarded. We also list the competitors in each group. With this type of scoring, there will be many equal scores each day, but over the duration of the competition, the scores will spread out to rank the pilots accurately.
To accommodate for the small differences in glider performance, the lower performance gliders have a larger circle around their turn points – this means they can turn earlier than the higher performance gliders, and effectively their task is shorter.
——-At 5, one could see lightning to the SE. For a short while some more wind as well.No worries kid’s on the ground, they fly in the early morning and evening when the air is more quiet and only Rodger flew, with an instructor. He had not flown since his last visit here, years ago.
Before we all had lunch in the Big Strawberry with pancakes filled with warm strawberries, cream and strawberry ice cream. MMMmmm….
——-And to finish……Our grand children start at age 12 and 14. You see in Argentina they even start younger.
Great picture!
As shared by Damian [Goldenzweig].
Another day in Tocumwal paradise.
CU tomorrow last flying day of the “kid’s” ,so other exciting things/visits are waiting now.
Cheers Ritz