January 16 and 17, 2013 - Poor Weather

Yesterday, January 16, we went to the grid under overcast skies, waited there for a while and then went back to our tie down spots. Around 2 PM the meteo office issued a warning of thunderstorms with possible hail approaching from the South, so Luis and I de-rigged the Kilo-Yankee and put it in its trailer.

Today promises to be a repeat of yesterday. We woke up to another overcast day, this time with a slight drizzle. 10 minutes ago we got a message that "the grid today will be runway 18..... yada yada yada". I guess the organizers are trying to will another flying day into existence before this championship ends, but the odds of that happening don't seem to be very good.

The forecast in the morning of January 17

January 16, 2013 - Day 6

Today (Jan 16) we fly again and soon I have to go to the grid, so only a short report about Day 6.

Our prayers finally worked and the weather god(s) presented us with a very nice and interesting day with the sky full of Cu's, with a few CB's thrown in just to make things more interesting.

I had a very enjoyable flight, finished 3rd for the day. The flight itself was uneventful with no low spots and a lot of good thermals. I tried to utilize the areas of reduced sink and that tactic worked. Also, there were a lot of other gliders around, so most of the thermals were marked.

Remarkably, I also managed to land out after crossing the finish line. Yes, I'm not kidding, I landed out for the 5th time in this competition. Finishing from the South presents a challenge because of the #3 road (between Cheves and Tres Arroyos) runs just before the threshold of the runway 36. After crossing the finish line at around 85 meters AGL (the minimum for the day was 70 m), and with relatively low speed, I encountered sink and decided to land in a stubble field south of the #3 road, rather than try to cross the road low and slow. Safety 1st!

Luis came to retrieve with his friend and we were back at the airfield before you can say "por favor" 3 times. We have become so proficient in de-rigging and rigging the Kilo-Yankee, thanks to a lot of recent practice, that we could probably do it blindfolded.

My flight trace and a few photos from Day 6 are below:

Day 6 flight and altitude traces

Luis (Marty) posing with the "De Lorean"

This is what a sky should look like!

Team Serbia (and Monte Negro)

Beofore the start

Flying towards the 1st turn point - luckily the CB is safely behind

On final glide, looking good!

Que pasa? Another outlanding, this time after crossing the finish line.

Tim Kuijpers from the Netherlands (AA) finishing the task

Simon Ruopp from Germany (6G) finishing the task

A nice shot of Kilo-Yankee and the gliders coming in from the murky sky

A well rehearsed retrieve went without a hitch (pardon the pun)

Argentinean party in the evening, after the tango show - awesome! 

Cartoon art by Luis

January 14, 2013 - Another Canceled Day

Today was an almost total repeat of yesterday. The weather forecast presented at the pilot's briefing was marginal, calling for a very strong inversion at 600 to 800 meters, which would need 30 °C to be broken, while the forecasted maximum daily temperature was only 26 °C. But, since we were all eager to fly and there was nothing better to do, we took the gliders to the grid and waited.

Once there, the things started to look a bit more promising with low Cu's coming in from the sea. A couple of sniffers reported soarable conditions and the World class, which was the first on the grid, got launched. However, they reported marginal conditions with lift of 0.5 m/s to 800 meters. Soon after  the organizers canceled the task for the Standard class, then  about 20 minutes later canceled the task for the Club class and finally another 20 minutes later canceled the task for the World class as well.

So we were back at the camp again around 3 PM. I did a bit of work and then went with the Brazilians to Chaves for ice cream and some shopping. There we bought a large cast iron pan, which I later used to make crapes (palačinke) for supper.

Everyone's hoping for better weather tomorrow. We will see.

A few pictures from today, as usual:

The grid under promising looking sky

Luis' rope art for today

Gliders being towed back to the tie-down area

January 12 & 13, 2011 - Rest Days

Saturday, January 12 was declared as the rest day (due to poor weather) at 8 AM, so we left the Kilo-Yankee in the trailer and relaxed. I made a few more Blog entries to make up for the days I landed out and had no time for Blogging. I also added a few photos to a few of the older posts, so now the blog should be all up-to-date.

In the evening I joined the Brazilian and Argentinian teams for a  very nice "assado" (Argentinian barbecue) supper at a local farm, being used as a base of operations for the Argentinian National Team.

lamb and pig being roasted, assado style

Getting ready for supper...

Sunday, January 13 we were awaken around 8 AM by the camp loudspeaker blaring out something in garbled English. It was the announcement of the team captain's briefing at 11 AM, followed by the pilot's briefing at Noon and the grid opening at 9 AM. I woke up Luis and after having my usual early breakfast we went to our tie-down spot to rig the Kilo-Yankee and prepare it for flying. Thanks to a lot of recent practice in de-rigging and rigging, this has become an easy job and the two of us had it all done and ready to go to the grid in a little over half an hour, including giving Sorin (my Romanian neighbour) a hand rigging his LS 4.

At the pilot's briefing, Lucas the weatherman gave us a not-too-encouraging forecast, with a stationary front right over our heads, but the hope was there that the things may improve, so we were given three different task alternatives and a (provisional) take-off time of 13:15.

Eventually, the weather refused to improve. With the low strato-cumulus clouds moving in from the South, the temperature never got close to the required 27 °C, so after a couple of delays the tasks for all three classes were cancelled. Luis and I brought the Kilo-Yankee back to the tie-down. In the afternoon I did a little work, catching up on some work related emails.

The latest weather forecast for tomorrow looks not too bad, so everyone is hopeful that we will be back flying.

The grid under not very promising skies

A good opportunity for taking photos

Driving the Kilo-Yankee back to the tie-down spot

January 11, 2013 - Day 5

Day 5 started with hope that the things would keep getting better, after mist pilots finished the task on Day 4. However, that was not to be, as the weather again conspired against us and forced most to land out, including yours truly. Luckily for me, all four of my landouts went fine with no problems during the retrieve.

The weather forecast was (below) again quite decent, but everyone, including Lucas, the chief meteorologist, has become skeptical about the forecast models.

This time the weather man got some things right, like the top of the thermals and to some extent the strength, but he again low balled the wind speed, forecasting only 40 km/h in the afternoon (the wind speed was 55 km/h!), and not forecasting the thick mid level overcast cover that cut the thermals around the 2nd turn point in the afternoon.

The task was another short AAT with 2 turn points:

Once up, the problems started even before crossing the start line because upwind of the start line the terrain was very wet and the thermals weak. SO the choice was to climb in a good thermal downwind of the start line and then do a long glide upwind in order to start, or go far upwind and try to find a thermal there, which would put you at risk of landing out even before crossing the start line. Most chose the former option, so gaggle flying again.

I started relatively late at 15:04, not because I wanted to, but because I couldn't get myself into a good enough position to start. Even then, my start altitude was low (800 meters), but there was no point delaying it any further.

I flew the first leg (downwind) mostly alone, but in visual contact with a few other gliders for the most part. The first leg went by quickly and after turning back into the wind, towards the second TP, I joined up with a medium size group with the Duch, Italians and Henrique Navarro (YY). As we slowly progressed towards the 2nd TP, the mid level overcast drew closer and the wind became stronger, as my flight trace demonstrates.

Once near the 2nd TP, we entered the area shaded by the overcast and the thermal strength reduced to 0.5 to 1 m/s, while the wind was now exceeding 50 km/h. Although the group managed to find thermals, the combination of slow climb and high wind meant that after each climb we were getting blown further South, away from Chaves.

Eventually, we split up and all of us landed in the vicinity of Tres Arroyos, myself near a farm behind a local Luna Azul motel. Only five pilots made it back.

I was 21st for the day, in the middle of the pack.

A few photos:

The grid with Kilo-Yankee's tail in the back behind G4

Luis posing behind his daily tow rope artwork

Arndt Hovestadt, the defending Club Class World Champion, in his Libelle, being photographed

Gugui in his Jantar Standard 2 (JB) before take-off, with Marcel running the wing

Towards the 1st turn point - easy going down wind

Towards the 2nd turn point - slow going up wind with the high clouds moving in

Kilo-Yankee in a stubble field yet again, barely missing a bunch of rabbit holes (a big one can be seen in the foreground)

The farmer, his wife and sister-in-law (if I understood correctly) posing in front of Kilo-Yankee

January 10, 2013 - Day 4

The night before I slept very well and woke up refreshed and ready to fly. The weather forecast for the day (shown below) was quite good, calling for 1/8 of Cu's and lift up to 2300 meters  in the best areas, with the average lift of 2 to 3 m/s in the afternoon.

However, the actual weather was blue thermals of 1 to 1.5 m/s to 1400 meters in the best areas and much worse than that in the wet zones. Luckily, the wind was more or less as forecast, unlike most other days when it turned out to be much stronger.

Luckily, the task setter Eduardo Toselli chose a cautious approach and set an assigned area task (AAT) that you can see below.

Day 4 task for the Club Class

I was the first on takeoff and managed to get a good thermal right after the release. I climbed to 1100 m and then headed into the wind and towards the 1st TP to check the conditions. There was some lift along the way and my glide ratio was quite good, considering the 25 km/h headwind. However, after turning back I encountered heavy sink and, with no other glider circling in the vicinity, I barely made it back to land on the runway 36. When Luis asked what happened, I told him that I made it back as I had promised I would do that day, just a bit early. Since by that time the last of the Club class gliders were being launched, I soon got back after only 10 minutes on the ground.

As usual for this competition, the day brought a lot of gaggle flying in weak bumpy thermals, but this day I felt good and up to the challenge. The other trick was not getting caught low in the wet areas. Other than that, the whole flight for me was  quite uneventful, except right after the start when I got relatively low at 650 m (450 m above ground), but since several others, including the current Club class world champion Arndt Hovestadt, were much lower, it didn't seem that bad.

The lift was between 0.9 m/s when climbing in a gaggle and 1.5 m/s when alone or in a small group. Therefore the key was to join the big gaggle only when necessary. The other trick was to go a little deeper into the cylinders and then rejoin the gaggle from below where it's less crowded. My flight trace is below.

My flight track from Day 4

What also made a difference was the improved cockpit (and pilot) cooling system that I installed into Kilo-Yankee, with water cooling for cruise (a water spray bottle) and air cooling during climb (a flexible tube to redirect the air from the scoop).

At the end, my effort earned me the second daily win, which this time didn't come as a surprise because I knew that I had done quite well given the conditions.

The one scary  moment came when I realized that my Nano primary logger hadn't recorded the whole flight because the memory card popped out (an old problem that I thought I had fixed). Luckily, my secondary logger had the whole flight recorded.

In the evening the organizers threw an international party with most of the teams preparing some food or beverage offerings. The Brazilians prepared large amounts of kyperinia (the spelling is probably wrong), which is a mix of vodka (or kashasa for the real kyperinia), lime, sugar and crushed ice. It goes down easy, but you have to be careful with it, so I had just one serving. The well financed and well organized Polish team prepared a poster presentation and showed a very interesting documentary film from the 1963 World Gliding Championship held in Junin, Argentina.

Next day at the briefing I got another yellow jersey and a bottle of wine and this time a kilo of local cheese, which of course, I donated to the Brazilian team.

Below are a few photos from Day 4:

Waiting on the grid for take-off

Circling in another gaggle. My newly installed air cooling snorkel is reflected off the canopy.

Back at the airfield after completing the task

Kilo-Yankee cockpit with the air cooling snorkel

International party night

January 9, 2013 - Day 3

First I must apologize for the lack of news until now. Landing out 3 times in the past 4 days didn't leave me much time for doing much else other than what's required for the competition. However, yesterday (Jan 11) I completed the task and I will try to give you the updates.

Day 3 began with very nicely. At the pilot's briefing I was declared as the winner of Day 2 and given a kilo of locally made caramel, which I donated to the Brazilians (since I'm allergic to all dairy), a  bottle of very nice Cabernet Sauvignon (which will wait till my wife Karyn arrives to Buenos Aires) and a yellow jersey, kind of those they give out in the Tour-de-France. A very nice touch by the organizers.

The task winner loot 

The weather forecast was good with mostly blue but strong thermals and even a few Cu's at the sea breeze boundary. We were given a 2:45 assigned area task, with the first TP to the Southwest, the second one to the North and then back East before turning home to Chaves (http://www.soaringspot.com/wgc2012/results/club/task/day3.html).

After we got launched into the blue sky, it was back to gaggle flying in worse-than-forecast conditions (which has become standard so far in this competition). This was going to be the 4th day in a row of more or less constant gaggle flying in bumpy and broken up thermals.

A "gaggle" on Day 3

After a relatively close encounter in one of the gaggles, I decided that I should take a break from gaggle flying for today, as I was starting to feel quite a bit stressed by it. So, I waited till everyone had gone on task, then climbed up and started the task alone, with no other gliders in sight. On a blue day this is risky because you never know where the next thermal will be and if you will manage to find it alone. However, in spite of that, I felt much better and had a very relaxed and enjoyable flight. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, while the lift was weaker than forecast, the wind was stronger (up to 50 km/h at one point) and the day died early, probably because of the strong wind. I almost made it back, but was about 12 km short of the finish.

I landed out in another stubble field next to the road from Chaves to Tres Arroyos. Luis and Leo (part of the Brazilian team) found me without problems and we were back at the airfield at the sunset.

Sunset through the trees at the farm I landed at on Day 3

Points-wise I didn't do very well as most of the Club class pilots finished the task and I dropped from 2nd to 21st in the overall standings. However, I am quite happy with my decision to place safety and my piece of mind above the sporting result. I do this because I love to flying and I want to keep doing it for many years to come.

January 8, 2013 - Day 2

Just a brief note for now since I've got to rig the glider this morning. We had a 248 km racing task yesterday in difficult condition with broken up blue thermals and moderate wind. Nobody made it home, although most of us landed within the 20 km of the finish line. I was some 3.5 km short and it appears that the effort was good enough for the 1st place for the day.

Crowded bumpy thermals all day long...

Kilo-Yankee in the stubble field.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that there is on-line real time tracking for a few gliders in each class. I carried the tracking gear on Day 2 and will probably be carrying it on Day 3.

You can use the following links, at least one of them should work.
http://www.wgc2012.com.ar/novedades.php?uno=54

http://bit.ly/115UuxV

Here's an update on Day 2 task and how it unfolded. You can see the flight trace in the picture below.

My flight trace on Day 2

I started the task at 14:55 with a number of other pilots. My progress towards the first turn point was very slow. It took me an hour and 45 minutes to cover 94 km, flying against a 30 km/h head wind with the average climb rate of 1.3 m/s. Constant gaggle flying made things worse, having to be extremely alert in order to avoid any close encounters in the bumpy thermals.

While in cruise the Sun was beating down into my face and the temperature in the cockpit must have been in the 40's. Unfortunately, the ventilation in Kilo-Yankee is very poor due to the tow hook being installed in the nose (normally on a Std. Cirrus it's below the cockpit just ahead of the main wheel), blocking about 80% of the ventilation air flow into the cockpit. The only way to get some air in was to open the little scoop on the canopy window, which do in the thermal, but I usually keep it closed in cruise to minimize the drag.

Probably because of the heat and constant gaggle flying, I noticed that my flying wasn't as smooth and my decision making wasn't as good I usual. Also, for some reason my group managed find only broken up thermals and lost about 15 to 20 minutes compared to the group ahead of us.

About 20 km before the first TP we finally found a relatively good thermal and I managed to climb up to 1750 meters, which was the highest point of the flight. I was the first one to leave the thermal and went straight for the TP. Just before the TP I encountered some sink and after rounding the TP, I saw the rest of my group coming in about 150 meters higher, as they must have avoided the sink. In a way this was helpful because I then took a slight detour south of the course line into the area from which the rest of the group came to the TP. This turned out to be a good decision and I found another 1.7 m/s thermal that took me back up to 1650 meters. To make things better, the rest of the group continued straight on the course to the 2nd TP, so I finally had a luxury of having a good thermal jut to myself!

The second leg of the task proved to be the easiest, thanks to the tail wind, the Sun at my tail and not-too-bad lift. This only lasted for about half an hour, but was a welcome break.

After rounding the 2nd TP, the things got worse, much worse, due to the very wet terrain in that area. All of a sudden, I found myself low and in a big gaggle endlessly moving from one weak bumpy thermal to the next on which would usually be the same or worse. Luckily, we were drifting downwind.

Just before the 3rd TP, as I was circling in a week thermal, I noticed that the wind has suddenly changed direction and became mainly Southerly, meaning that we would have a head wind on the last leg. Some days you just don't get many breaks. Having made a couple of tries outside of the gaggle, I was now among the gliders at the bottom of the gaggle, and this was probably the low point of the task in every regard. Since the wind started pushing us North, away from the TP, the gliders above me started leaving. I decided to stay for a couple of more circles because being alone in the thermal enabled me to improve my rate of climb. After two or three more circles I noticed a group of 4 Ximangos (a small bird of prey) circling at my altitude a few hundred meters North. Of course, I joined them and to my delight found a solid 1 m/s that took me to 900 m. As the Ximangos went South, I followed them and they soon located another 1 m/s thermal that I rode to 1100 m.

From there I passed through the TP sector and set off into the quartering headwind towards Chaves. I decided to veer a little bit to the West (the upwind side). Along the way I managed to find a few more 0.5 to 1 m/s thermals and, to my surprise, I found a lot of lift and reduced sink in cruise. At one point, I made a 10 km glide into the 20 km/h headwind at a 103 glide ratio! I guessed (correctly) that I managed to stumble upon a convergence line that just may be enough to carry me back across the finish line. However, as I turned towards the airfield, the convergence line disappeared and the lift turned into sink. As I called in the "Operaciones" on 123.0 (the official frequency) announcing the 10 km distance to the finish line, I added that I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. Two minutes later, I called again and told them that I was going to lend out, to which Enrique, the director of operations, replied "OK, good luck Branko." I could choose between several stubble fields and I decided to land in the one where I saw that someone had already landed. Being competitive, I landed on the other side of the field, the one a little closer to the finish line. It turned out that the other guy in the same field was Sean Franke from the US team, who's ASW-20 has a 8% handicap compared to my Std. Cirrus.

The retrieve went smoothly, all the way to the entrance to the airfield, at which point we were told to back up and go to a different gate. In the confusion about which gate and which way to turn, Luis ended up backing up the trailer onto a busy highway, which was unsafe and unnecessary. When I complained the next day, I got an apology from the organizers. It turns out that they decided not to allow the trailers through the main gate because the tail on some of the trailers was hitting the Welcome sign.

I was quite surprised to learn that no one from the Club class made it back, given that a lot of them were about half an hour ahead of me at the first TP. I was also surprised when it turned out that I got the 1st place for the day, given that things didn't go very well for the most part of the difficult flight, but it looks like the others had an equally difficult time.

One downside to my first daily win in the World's was that I found it quite difficult to fall asleep that night, even after downing half a big bottle of the local dark beer.

A few more photos from this day are below:

Kilo-Yankee on the grid with a temporary lake in the background

Flying over those who had already landed out

At 200 meters above the terrain, but too far to make the finish line

A group of Ximangos in the soy field next to my outlanding field

Walking to the main road to meet Luis