Austrian Arena

UPDATE: Aidenis kicking ASS!! Hofer has slipped to fourth and the Romanian guy ahs pretty much run the whole thing. Exciting stuff… check out www.redbullxalps.com for the full SP. Check the video section out, i gives me goose bumps….

We’re into the 2nd night of THE most exciting race this year. So far Martin Muller is in the lead and resting in a good position. I’m stoked to be able to help the UK lads with weather info on the first leg of the race. After that it’s over to someone else who knows that area.

Yesterday the contestants found very strong winds on the top of the Dachstein and had a trecherous walk down to a lower launch. After fighting it out in the foehn for a while the field were scattered. It rained pretty much all day today.

Aiden is still walking towards Lienz in Ost Tirol very close to Ameseder. Tomorrows forecast looks good on both sides of the Alps. Ulric is just under the Gross Glockner pass and wants to conserve energy after walking all day in the snow and rain. Looks like he’ll have to pick a different route tomorrow to the other guys but it looks like it’ll work out.

Depending on height of base tomorrow should determine where these boys hike up to as an exit point ot try and make it past Bruneck, in the Pustertal. I think some big distances will be flown tomorrow but the climbs might be rough or ome guys as there’ll be a light north foehn. My money’s on Hofer for tomorrow as he LOVES it in the lee after last times performance.

Expect the positions to spread out and change tomorrow as I think the strong Alpine conditions will seperate the men from the boys.

Good luck Aiden and Ulric… I’ll be rooting for you both.

Some pilots have fancy instruments to work this out but some have more simple means. I always do this in comps so I know when to leave if the last turnpoints are close together. It works most of the time and you can even break it down into complicated legs so that each wind direction is accounted for. The following is just for a average long ish glide in.
Working this end glide to goal is simple enough so you don´t arrive at cloudbase having to spiral down, not good to spiral off 2000m+ when you are tired and busting for a piss.

Measure the distance from a good source that you expect to get one of the last thermals needed to make it. Say 10-15km out on a good day. Next you need to estimate your average glide, say 7:1.
So 1/glide x distance x 1000 = height needed over ground. Then add this to the height of the LZ.
This figure is the height needed to comfortably glide in from 10-15km at a 7:1 glide scope.
This also works if you want to add more kilometers to your flight by on the last leg pushing out to somewhere that might not be working anymore, like the launch site you started from so you can get a close to closing the route as possible.

This works great in comps when the task setter may set a very long final glide from the mountains, then to a shady side across the valley, then to a turnpoint in the valley then finally into goal. Seeing as the shady side would be slow it would be worth calculating the height needed around the whole thing and take that height before working the whole way around. If you´ve been lucky with avoiding nasty sink you should arrive fast and only a couple of hunded metres over the goal line. There is a saftey margin built in due to the 400m radius´ around each turnpoint. This means that you fly 800m less per turnpoint. This can even be worked out in the calculation but you may find yourself landing short, very frustrating but depends how much risk you want to take.

Have fun and try it out yourself even on you local hills on a good day. From the hill to the pub then back to LZ.

KF

1      BRAUNER, Tomas,  (MAC Magus) CZE
2     VYHLAS, Radomir,  (Axis Mercury) CZE
3     CASSETTA, Davide,  (AIRCROSS U3) ITA

63   FARINA, Mickele, (Airwave FR3) GBR

see all results here 

Yet another bad result, still it was fun to fly.

As less than 4 tasks have been flown today was used as the reserve day. the forecast was good and the task committee set a relatively short 72km route. Off to B3, 2km north of launch then B19 yet again. Then further along in the flats, then back to Pieve to the back of the amphithetre then off to a turnpoint just outside the valley to the west then into goal.

I had a good start and pushed hard after a little cascade close to the rocks nearly ruined my day. There was a lot of cloud flying at the start and some very turbulent conditions. At the second turnpoint I was a little behind the lead gaggle. They choose to go to the mountains while myself and Danish crack Marcus pushed hard and got low in the flats. Working together with pinged out at 3m/s. Looking to the mountain I could see that someone, Christiano from Brazil had thrown his reserve and landed unhurt in trees. Lucky but tha’s why I’d chosen the flats to give myself more room and an easier if a little slower time.

After that I finally went to the mountain myself and quickly found myself at base again & able to catch up the 2nd group. We took a good line back into the Pieve valley and along the ridge over launch and round the cliffs and forests at the back. I was a little lower than the group and had to stop for a climb and they got away from me.

After B02 at the back of the valley I found a 6m/s climb and then cruised at base until it was time to push out into the flats. I was in about 30 position at this time. The glide calculator was giving positive values so I pushed hard into the flats hoping for a lifty line. After the last turnpoint I hit a patch of sink and things started looking not so great. At this time the leaders were racing in low ahead of me.

Then I noticed about 15 pilots(the 2nd group)having to climb to make it in. As I was not in a good position in the comp and had nothing to lose I decided to gun it in and try to beat the group. With still positive values on the XC trainer I pushed hard into another head wind but had yet another load of sink in my way to goal and had to pick the last LZ before the forested ravines started, criss crossed with power cables. I landed safely just 700m from the goal line on the 10km final glide. Risky but had it paid off I would have climbed 20 places. Instead I watched 45-50 pilots fly over my head and make goal so I ended up overall 63rd. LOL!!!

20 minutes after landing I saw a blue Tycoon fly over head at the same altitude I had. He pushed on. I thought I’d been too cautious and was thinking that maybe I should have gone for it. However on my walk out I saw he’s wing in the power cables and the pilot no where to be seen. Is it worth pushing so hard for a free T-shirt and a glass trophy? errrrr, no, I don’t think he’ll be doing that again.

Photos to follow some tieme soon, when I grab ‘em off my camera.

The base was pretty low with all the rain from the last days. We went up the hill and it was raining a little. It looked like it was going to dry out so they set a task, 102km.

After making a good start We pushed on towards the next turnpoint but as we crossed the next obstacle near B19 a wall of water was waiting for us.

The task was stopped and there was some confusion as to whether it would be score, it wasn’t. As no one made goal. Tomorrow is looking better. Still hanging on to 58th position, terrible!!

After briefing at 9.00am we went up the hill to wait in the rain and cloud. Then after base rose enough a 52km task was set when it was obvious that the dummies could stay up. Before the times were decided a huge Cb formed on course and the day was cancelled.

So after another day of hanging out in the refugee camp/woodstrock concert(amount of mud) the sun went down and the forecast is looking better tomorrow.  Well we’ll see.

KF

After a very stormy night the day dawned with blue sky, we went up the hill as usual. It was pretty evident that the north wind/foehn was definitely there. Not the best for a task.

The commitee set a proviaional task of 52km out across to the Feltre valley again. I had my reservations and expressed them to the Safety Commitee. After realising that the North wind blowing out of the Cortina valley was not dropping and Cbs were approaching from the West the task was cancelled.

Some deaperate pilots flew down and narrowly missed a massive gust front. One pilot wasn’t so lucky but landed safely in fields behind the camp site. Silly Boy!

Day 3 was cancelled at 9am and set to rebrief tomorrow after a huge thunderstorm woke the entire camp site up and 5.30am. Next disaster was that my van got bogged in and needed a tractor to pull it out!!

I’m close to leaving as the forecast is not set to improve until thursday. I may come up but probably not.

So yet anoth er disappointing result this season, 58th. Not sure what is happening this year. I’ll write an epilogue to the last few comps when I get home. Even if only I understand the rambling to try and make sense of my decision making and performance. Also the camp site is starting to smell after dog food, not much showering going on here amongst the pilots. That means retrieves and rides up are pretty stinky…. Just another excuse to get home and contemplate my results… 

The forecast was slightly better than y’day with 2500m bases promised. Around launch it was still only at 17-1800m. the 67km task was similar to the day before but not out as far. Out to B19 with an 8km radius around the start point. Then along the ridge to B25 the factory in the lflats then to a turnpoiint to the north-east of launch then a 6km final glide into goal.

The nightmare begins! After getting my glider out it looked like gremlins had got to my lines, I’ve never seen such a mess, it took 2 of us 40mins to sort out. Thanks Debu I owe you one, BIG TIME! This meant I launched very late and had to play catch up. After getting to base at launch I could see the leaders already climbing at the start. Leaving at base I gave half bar on the crossing burning off  more altitude than I wanted but…. When I arrived on the otherside I flew through a 2m/s climb hoping for something better nearer the start gate(had 5.5m/s previously). However after leaving that climb and heading out to where I climbed out the day before all I found was 3m/s sink until I landed. UNBELIEVABLE, landed at 9km and before the race had even start.

My mistake? Pushing on with my race head way too hard, however the morel of the story is don’t tie your glider in knots if you want to make the start on time. I was ranked 117th on the day and now slipped from 9th to 58th in one foul swoop. Gutted…

Around 29 pilots made goal. Some in good time, some not so good. A lot of shade on route put pilots down all over the course. Weather not looking good the next days, I may now head home!

1 19 VRBENSKY, Karel (www.macpara.com Magus) CZE
2 221 CASSETTA, Davide (AIRCROSS U3) ITA
3 1 BRAUNER, Tomáš (MAC Magus) CZE

Good conditions but a lowish bsae around 17-1800m, the wind was forecast a light westerly backing sw in the late afternoon with low chance of over development. The task commitee set a 92km race to goal. The window opened at 1310 and race started with a 9km radius around turnpoint B19 around 15km to the west. The start was orderly, even if the launch allowed just 3 pilots at a time to take off.

I found myself pretty low in turbulent conditions at the start gate but had around 40minutes to climba nd timed it just right.Pushing into the cylinder then drifting to base at the strart time just outside the radius. Then the race was on.

Many pilots took the climb on the next ridge but I and a few others pushed on and got low in the lee and had a struggle to climb out.The higher pilots pushed on into shadow on the long soarable cliff but most went down. I waited my time on the westerly facing cliff until I gained enough height to push on. I took forever, around 40mins. But with so many of the leaders decked it was just a matter of staying in the air and getting round as far as possible.

On the long cliff I closed the trimmers and soared for about 10km along until the sun came out. It became quite bumpy again with the wind and thermals mixing. I felt kind of slow to the turnpoint over Feltre but saw very few gliders coming back. Many pilots who connected lower on the cliff, slide off and got decked.

Once I was high about 8km back from Feltre I pushed out with a few gliders towards a factory in the flats. From there we took some 3ms climbs and then flew thru the shade to the west side of Belluno. With 4 of as searching we found a very weak climb that drifted us around 15km past Belluno, then the day died. No one made goal.

Results to follow, although I landed at 71km and believe that I’m in the top
10. We’ll see what happens the next days.

Update: results, after the first task I came 9th.

1. David Ohlídal, CZE
2. Thomas Brauner, CZE
3. Lud?k Procházka,  CZE