19th HG Worlds - Day 3 - Task 2

Lots of wind today. Pilots struggled not to drift out of the start cylinder due to the 35 km/h winds at 1500 m. I launched late, because I didn't look forward to another long fight in a turbulent start gaggle. My position for the first start gate wasn't too bad, but I was still 3 km from the cylinder, so I decided to wait for the next, conditions were probably improving anyway.

However, we had to fly quite far against the wind for the next thermal and after another 20 minutes, I was again in a bad position to take the start. That sucked. The same out-of-sync scenario for the 3rd start gate. By that time I should have decided to go anyway, but instead I headed for Zippy a few km away. From there on, it was a slow descent to the ground. Some strong, short-lived cores in between, but it didn't work out. A really bad result for the day. I can only hope I will fly some decent tasks now and get at least somewhere again in the standings.

2013 Belgian HG Open and Catalunian Cup

The Belgian championship will this year be organized in cooperation with the Catalan Cup. The championship will be held in Ager, from July 28th until Aug 3rd. For those of you interested in combining a few comps, this could be very interesting, because the Dutch Nationals are held the week before in Laragne (there is a day in between for travelling, no problem there) and the British Nationals are held the week after our championship, also in Ager.

So, we're expecting quite a mix of participants in our comp: Belgians, Catalunians, Spanish, British pilots training for the week after and Dutch guys having an extra comp after their own nationals.

The entry fee will be 80 euro when pre-registered, so that shouldn't stop you from coming! CU this summer!

19th HG Worlds - Day 2

Day 2 was canceled due to high winds. The predictions for today, day 3, are for moderate to strong winds, low ceiling (4500 ft) and strong lift (3,5 m/s on average). Looks like we'll get another start gaggle from hell.

19th HG Worlds - Day 1 - Task 1

I had a rather difficult day yesterday. Some of the flying days, I am sure that you must be able to go a lot faster, but I simply cannot find the strong cores which must be there. It all seems out of sync, always flying in turbulent thermals, but not being able to find the sweet spot, although I'm searching for it. I felt the same last year during the first task of the Belgian nationals.

So, my day yesterday was pretty low and turbulent, while the top guys flew from one strong thermal to another. I lost half an hour on them, that's quite a lot. But, nothing's lost, I made goal and the score is still decent. I will have to fly faster though to move up in the rankings...

Last training day - 2013 Worlds start tomorrow

Today was the last training day, practice day in fact, where everything should unfold like a normal comp day. A 140 km task was set, but I was never going to fly that today, saving energy for the real comp days to come. The task committee consists of Jonny, Attila and Zippy, so, knowing the first two, we'll get loads of hours under the belt. They obviously have a lot of experience here, but as a side remark, it is my opinion that the task committee should be balanced. Anyway, I should have opened my mouth about that yesterday, as I did during the first meeting in Sigillo, when 2 Italian Icaro pilots were nominated for the task committee. Lots of people agreed back then that that was not desirable. We've all seen in the past how politics can get involved when the stakes are high...

Don't get me wrong, I have confidence that the task committee will do a good job. And I just know for sure it's going to be an endurance battle, looking at the weather forecasts.

So, I just flew for 1,5 hours today, enjoying the air, being surprised by the large sink area's and having some GoPro fun in between. I'm also very happy with my pair of Adidas Evil Eyes. It's nice to be able to recognize the competition from far away!

Tomorrow's the big day. Another 43 degree forecast, first comp day, everybody hoping that the towing operation will be smooth and efficient. Start order will be random on the first task, so I hope I have some luck with that.

From now on, it's for real. Good night.

Adapting the Combat to the heat

The first few days in Australia, I was surprised how tough hang gliding was. The glider was really hard to steer and I originally thought that was caused by the turbulent air and the lack of flying in the past 3 months.

It took me a while to realize the heat was causing it. Our sails shrink with increasing temperatures, so you have to decrease the batten length (it took about 3 turns on my inner battens and 1 or 2 on the outer to cover the 20 degree difference between last setup in Belgium and here). As important is what happens along the wing span. The Combat has rings (shims) which can be used to extend the leading edge. Mine was delivered with 4,5 mm rings. That's quite a lot, but when my glider was test-flown in January, temperatures were -30 in the Ukraine. That's 70 degrees difference to the 40 degrees we've got here. The result is that my glider became very slow in roll control because of the high lateral tension in the hot temperatures we experience here.

I made a drastic change and removed the 4,5 mm rings. The glider now has a surprisingly light handling, but bar pressure on fast glider has also increased significantly. Too much of a change. Luckily Paris went from 3 to 2 mm on his Combat and I'll be able to use his 3 mm rings on mine. I think that will provide a nice compromise.

So, anybody who's having a different glider between summer and winter: think about adding/removing rings to the leading edge. It does make a difference.

More free flying

Although yesterday was very windy for pretty much the whole day, a few of us did get to fly late in the day. I launched around 16:45 and had great climbs flying into the headwind. 5 m/s to 3000 m, cloud after cloud, easy :-) Until I got overconfident and made a 3 stupid decisions in a row and landed out 30 km N of Forbes. Probably the best looking sky I've ever landed in. Damn!

And without cell phone signal, it made me miss most of New Year's eve. Couldn't find any food anymore, so it was just drinks from there ;-)