Post 1.533 on August 24 2024

UVALDE TEXAS
Garner Field, United States
18 August 2024 – 31 August 2024

Saturday August 24 day 6 task 6;
After a tense briefing in which was said over the open class task ; “This is not racing, this is roulette!” , they all went on track for long flights and some got caught by last light!!!!!!!
Some landed with the lights of the runway ON, it was complete dark. Look at the video from the French as shared by Philippe de Péchy
Then I wonder, but who am I, why not a shorter B task so everybody gets back in time?
Arne; “As beautiful as the approx 80km final glide was, as disturbing was the task setting and stated thinking behind it. Getting out of hand are ridiculous long tasks given very late launch time, consequently intense gaggling endues, turnpoints in storm, very few outlanding options and pilots landing in total darkness.” Arne J. Boye-Møller

Here is what happened ;
18m; 575.46 km….a HUGE NEW SURPRISE for me;  Lumpy Paterson, from “my” little town Tocumwal on the Murray River, the border between NSW and Victoria, running the “school'” at the Tocumwal drome,, won the day and 1000 points. Don’t get me wrong!!! Lumpy is a good and fast pilot , BUT this is is first ever WGC and he is not old, but not the youngest anymore either. So sometimes we can throw, age and experience in the bin.
Lumpy flew just a tad faster than USA pilot Sean Fidler;125.30 for 124.63km./h and not far behind LITHUANIAN Linas, good on him. Never heard from him till now but I keep his name in my mind!!122,64 km./h. and great job again from Manu, for sure I know him; 122.58 and very close behind “our” Jeroen with 122.25 km./h.
All pilots finished after 7PM, 3 after 8 PM and 7 were “out”. Among them Radek, after 529 km., a pity a last light issue too; meaning “landing after legal daylight”; meaning all in all, from 3 overall to 17 as there were only 400 daily points for him!!!!!
Radek got in the morning at briefing, the daily prize and applause for the win the day before.

Lumpy; and as he won he deserves the full story in my blog;
“Today was a 575km racing task with us heading south east first, towards the ocean and towering thunderstorms which had started very early today. Fortunately the storm had died down by the time we got there, however the high cloud which was generated by this, put the task area into shadow. This cut off convection and made things very very soft.
It was interesting to see what pilots strategy was heading out from the first turn. I noted a large gaggle had done a 180* after the turn heading back to the sunlight. I decided to head out on track towards the turn point No 2, I figured I might as well glide on track as go backwards. I dumped some water to get down to a 56kg wing loading and headed off towards the lighter shadowed area. There was a big lake on track and decided I didn’t wanna pass down wind of that and be low so I chose a path upwind. As the sun warmed the ground, a few little Cu’s started to pop on track and I could see the sea breeze starting to influence the sky with some good energy lines towards the last turn. I hooked up with a few other gliders at this point and ran with them to the last turn. We worked well together and made the most of the air….each taking turns to lead out.

We all turned the last TP pretty much together and then it was about stringing some good lines home. I was very mindful of how quickly the day closed down yesterday and still being 200 kms from home, I was going to get high and stay as high. This time we had a 15 kt tailwind instead of on the nose, now that’s a nice feeling.
The run home was good, even though we passed through large areas of blue, the few clouds remaining provided 3 to 4 kts. I set off needing to find 1000 feet on the way home with Mc Creedy on 3 …. And unlike yesterday, I enjoyed this one !“
To win a day at an event like this with the quality of pilots flying ….. it’s a dream come true.”

Congratulations Lumpy! After his bad day he thought of playing more golf but …..No more golf for him yet ,” The Mistress [JS3] and I are back on talking terms again.”

Matthew; The promised task B never eventuated, but we tried to make the most of the day. I had a perfect start, higher and behind the key players, with Lumpy just behind. We ran down the lead gaggle and caught them just before the shadow from the thunderstorm at the first turn. There was two final cu to choose from for the glide in to the shadow, and Lumpy followed the wrong glider to the right cloud, and I went to the wrong cloud and got much of nothing.
About half the fleet made the same mistake, and those that didn’t make that mistake made another one by making a huge deviation back towards Uvalde to escape the shadow that seemingly just was too far off track.
I knew I was in deep trouble but battled and battled for hours to just squeak in before sunset, using some massive floaters for the last couple hundred feet on glider.” Matthew Scutter’s Gliding

20 m multi class; 623.25 km…..Bouderlique & de Péchy won the day, speed 112.56 km./h. Not much more than team UK with Jones & Coppin I was already waiting for them for a place in the top !
Wolfgang and Andy [Austria] were 3d; 111.29 km./h.
Between spot 1 for the day and 11, is not even a 100 points difference.
All 16 teams started and 1 was “out” , Pilots landed between 19.21 and 19.58.
Sarah and Karl still proudly lead the overall scores.
Here is “Aussie’ Keith who flies with Adam; “despite spending a lot of time close to the ground over the hills we managed to find enough lift to keep moving along.
We placed 13th today with only 857 points. If we had to use the engine this would have been another 500 points lower. I am sure we got the last thermal of the day to get home.
We have slipped from 2nd to 4th overall. Another 6 days of flying to go. Bring it on.“

Rich with his daily report [part of it;
“The 20 Meter Class spent more time up in the hill country early, but they still had issues with the day.  There were clouds up in the hills, but many did not work.  Today was a weaker day than any of the contest or training days these pilots have experienced.  I will try and get better information before the pilots meeting tomorrow and include that in my morning report.
The 20 Meter teams were sent out on a racing task of 623.3km (387mi) east to Diversion Dam, north to Fredericksburg, west to Four Square, southeast to Charlotte and then finish. .  Great flying in these conditions with 20-meter ships.”

Open class; 4.30 AAT…. The French team did really well. Laurent Aboulin and Sylvain Gerbaud flew 661 km with a speed of 142 km./h The combination JS1 C/21 m and EB 29R did well together and fished with ONE point difference!!!! Great effort, but, yes both very good pilots.
Peter and Oscar both in JS 5 landed at 20.21 and 27 , indeed too late , most probably hold somewhere along the road by the weather, as they normally are fast.
Yesterday Oscar still won the day and as Radek it was a totally different day to day.
Felipe and Michael still lead overall and as points are rather close, Francois is back on 4.[also 4 for the day]

Back to 1991 for the last time then to 2012, which will be more difficult as those pictures are not in one of my many albums , but digital. I hear you say, much easier , but not for me , but I will find them.

Before we could practice at the Uvalde Airport it had to be empty , so we moved to the most wonderful spot WITH pool ; Fort Clark Springs. Can’t remember how I organised that but we went there and had a ball.
“The original cavalry post is a membership resort community.
It ‘s the historic home of US 5th Cavalry Regiment and the Seminole -Negro Indian Scouts.” 1985
The town was called Brackettville.

My daughter Inge and Grand daughter Indya are planning to visit Uvalde this year for a 2 or 3 day stay. Inge became friends with the Pommies. Lizzy Wells [ in the middle] at the picture still belongs to her friends.
The young man’s name was Paul. They all crewed for the UK team. They are all now in their 50thies!!!!

Ingo Renner was one of the Aussie pilots. At that stage I had no idea he would work with and for us at the Sportavia Soaring Centre for 10 years , as we bought the business from Don only in 1995 and Ingo belonged from the beginning to the sportavia team already with founder Bill Riley.

No news tomorrow, busy at the Keiheuvel in Belgium.
AND the F1 is at Zandvoort, the orange army is busy this weekend.

Cheers Ritz