Wednesday September 21 2022,in the evening, after a lovely 2-day-shopping-event with my daughter Inge and grand daughter Indya…….blog 1383…..
E4GLIDE
Château-Arnoux-Saint-Auban, France
11 September 2022 – 17 September 2022
After 4 practice days in St Auban, the 12 pilots were ready to give their gliders with electric batteries a go over several races, to define a winner with ZERO points!!!
Note that the scoring is time based, with the leader on 0, and everyone else some number of minutes behind them.”
Here is what the organizers write about it and more below, a great informative article from Matthew who flies this competition.;
“The Eglide format is for electric gliders that are permitted to use up to 2kWh of power in an otherwise unpowered Grand Prix gliding race. The engine power produced by an electric battery of 2kWh is approximately 3,500ft of climb over the distance of the racing task. This is the fourth championship to apply these rules.
Pilots are now becoming used to the opportunities provided by this use of engine power during a glider race. At the last Eglide event, the competitors began to develop new strategies. It will be fascinating to see how racing tactics and the glider technology has developed since the last event.”
So pilots from 6 European countries , even from Australia , were ready for this GP-style competition.
Day 1 on September 11; 160 km....Regatta start at 15.10 and former junior World champion Matthew Scutter was the first daily winner. His power consumption was 2326Wh ,his speed 104 km,/h , his glider and LS 8 e Neo/18m.[handicap 113]
Runner up was Giorgio Galetto from Italy with a consumption of 1956Kh, speed of 107 km in his Ventus 3F /18m.[handicap 122]
September 12; 259 km...Regatta start, rather late at 14.30. Tilo Holighaus [Germany] flew in his Discus 2c FES around with a speed of 99.80 km./h and ” used “1810 Wh.[handicap 113]
On September 13,they had a task and it was flown but everybody outlanded…..no valid day! Giorgio still managed to fly 150 km. 2 Other pilots , Luka and Matthew, flew over 100 km. as well.
On September 14…no flying….showers and storms.
On September 15 ,task 4, a 249 km. task was set AND flown by all except one. So a good day, specially for daily winner Jernej Lokovsek from Slovenia in his Duo Discus XL FES!!!!! They used 2926 Wh and flew with a speed of 96.10 km./h [handicap 113]
The start was at 2 PM.
Runner up was Giorgio again and Matthew was 3d.
Not winning, but being very consistent makes Giorgio at this stage the overall best!
On September 16 the penultimate day , task 6 was set with 219 km…..AND Matthew won the day with a speed of 88.21 km./h.in his LS 8. Tilo . in his Discus 2c FES , was a tad slower; 88.03 km./h. Both have the same handicap.
Matthew “used” 2068 Wh and Tilo 1670 Wh.
Benjamin Neglais was 3d and Giorgio 4th. Overall Giorgio still leads.
The start was at 15.20, so a late one again to have at least a window to fly in and 2 were out.
Matthew wrote a long story about the day and started with “Very interesting day today, the beginnings of the Mistral coming through with much stronger winds 20-30kts through most of the task.“
More on Matthew Scutter’s Gliding
On September 17 , on the very last day the pilots got a 185 km task, but there was serious doubt if it could be flown because of the mistral.
NO WORRIES, they flew and Luka was the daily winner using 1144 Wh. his speed in the 18m Ventus 3 F was 120.88 km./h the fastest of the day!
3 Km/h faster than Giorgio in the same glider. One did not start, one was out.
The overall winner was and remained Giorgio [Galetto] followed by Matthew and Benjamin.
An interesting competition, I am going to learn more about it.
“And… that’s a wrap on E4Glide. Unfortunately miracles were not forthcoming and I was unable to recover from a major error earlier in the week, so second place it is.
Congratulations to Giorgio, who I am not upset to come second to as his map of St. Auban is ten years older than me!
Flying these mountains was much more technical than Varese last year and even though I arrived very early to practice I underestimated how hard it would be.” by Matthew and more from him on Matthew Scutter’s Gliding
As shared by CNVV Saint-Auban
I liked Matthew ‘s explanation of this type of soaring, specially because I don not know much about it , so I share it with all of you who have the same “problem” as I have.
Matthew;
“This week I’m racing at E4Glide at St. Auban, the only electric glider race. For those not familiar with the concept, every competitor gets an allocation of energy proportional to their weight which they can use during the task, typically enough to climb perhaps 1000m/3000ft in total.
The naïve use of the energy is usually to save it for when you make a mistake, while better pilots tend to use it to avoid getting into trouble in the first place.
In the mountainous sites it can really make the experience a lot more comfortable because some of the dodgiest parts of mountain soaring, like turning in broken lift below the tops or ridge soaring too slow in light wind can be entirely avoided with strategic usage.
Even if you really mess up you usually have energy leftover to get to an airfield rather than a tiny field in the valley.
Note that the scoring is time based, with the leader on 0, and everyone else some number of minutes behind them.”
More on Matthew Scutter’s Gliding
As shared by FFVP – Fédération Française de Vol en Planeur
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The Brazilian Nationals
Luis Eduardo Magalhaes, Brazil
10 September 2022 – 17 September 2022
Last Saturday morning I noticed a message from Henrique Navarro who was really enthusiastic about his flight during the Brazilian National and I thought…”Ouch I nearly forgot to write about this competition”.
His message; “Brazilian Nationals, Task 5. Today I did the fastest speed ever recorded in Brazil by a glider: 180 KPH, in a 500 km task.”
Wow and indeed I was enthusiastic straight away too.
Picture shared by him.
They started on the 11th in 2 classes open an racing and they had 7 good days!
Task 1 was on September 11 with a 4.59 AAT for the 4 participating pilots . Well known pilots as Claudio Schmidt in ARCUS M who won the day with 801 km.
Runner up Henrique another well known name flew 806 km with s speed of 161 km./h but his handicap is 123 for 118.
Another well known name Egon Rehn was 3d with 793 km and a speed of 149.82 km./h
What distances and what speed during a National Competition.
The other 6 days had between 400 and 500 km tasks and speed from 156 km./h, 162 km./h, 171 km./h, 152 km./h ,180 km./h, 126 km.h and 163 km./h!!!!!WOW!!!!
Henrique won 4 days .Claudio 2 and Egon 1 day.
Best speed; 180 km./h
Overall scores for OPEN CLASS:
1. Henrique Navarro in Nimbus 4T with 6.324 points.
2. Claudio Schmidt in ARCUS M with 6.191 p.
3. Gustavo Shigueno in Ventus 2cxa/18 m with 5.969 p
4. Egon Rehn in ARCUS M with 3.849 p. He did not fly on the last 2 days.
“We can be heroes, just for one day…
Brazilian champion for the 9th time, flying with great pilots and friends.
Sooooooooooo happy!“Henrique.
In racing class 7 pilots were flying to try to become the National Champion in gliders as Jantar, St Libelle Discus and DG 1000 and tasks around 300 km.
Luis Carlos Affonso in a Jantar 3 won day 1, 3,5 and 6 and the NATIONAL title.[6.428 points]
Runner up was André Goldenstein in Jantar 2 with 6.289 p and on 3 was Luis Valenca in Discus-2cT 15m with 6.601 p.
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Some short news;
News from Jonker Sailplanes
“Our main service partner M&D Flugzeugbau proudly presents the first test flight of the LS4 D-KENO with their TJ 42 JET engine installed. Keno Markwald was delighted with the first impressions. Have a look.”
https://md-flugzeugbau.de/neuigkeiten/
News from the USA by Tony;
“Happy Day! 1938 Minimoa is the star of the meet this year and I got a chance to fly it this afternoon. Took off at 4:30 and stayed up 1:34, made a climb to 7400 MSL.
Glider flies pretty good for it’s age. Not much happens when you make control movements. Takes a lot of deflection to get a soft response. Mostly use rudder then however much aileron it takes to coordinate. Thermals at 35 mph. No issues banking up to 60 degrees but it seems to climb best about 40.
Cruise at 40 mph, approach at 45. Taking off and landing into the 20 mph wind was fun.
Thanks Jerry Wenger and Tom Evolo for the opportunity!!!!”
https://www.onlinecontest.org/…/gliding/flightinfo.html…
Picture by Tony Condon
I checked with him how many types of gliders he has flown by now , his answer; “36 now by my count“. Not bad!!!
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And to finish a great picture of the new king to wish him all the best in these difficult times, as we in Europe also depend on him .Hope he will be serving as well as his mum or maybe better[climate] for the UK and the Common Wealth.
As shared by Times Caribbean
CU next week
cheers Ritz