Flying in the USA 18m

The JS1 placed second on the first day of the USA 18m contest being held at Mifflin.
Herewith a posting from Rand Baldwin

Flying in moderate conditions over a 232 mile assigned speed task, Al Tyler of Perry, SC (ASG-29), and Huntsville's Bill Elliott managed a 1-2 placing, finishing only seconds apart with 6 points separating the two pilots.
Bill said that he was able to outclimb everyone in the South African JS1 Revelation, including the open class ships, and was beating the opens in the run!

Twenty-five registered contestants and four guests are competing.

The scores are posted at
http://www.ssa.org/members/contestreports/contestresults.asp
, as are the flight logs of the top three pilots.

Rand Baldwin LS-8a "NN"

A great start to an international career

EY

A super fast magnificent flight

This is a belated post (it was stuck in the blogg editor)

The beauty of soaring is also to be found outside of the contest arena - on the 2nd of February I was privileged to fly with Martin Gruenert on a training flight in a DG500M - we joined up with Alan O'Regan in hsi LS 8, X32 and had one of the most amazing runs I have ever experienced, straight from Worcester to Klawer 220km at 145kph, without turning once - Alan's trace is at http://www3.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-520879654

We were only able to download the flarm trace later and i will post it separately
Play the two flights together and see how we rushed down the Klawer gutter at 200kph plus, 1000ft amsl (the surface is a little higher than sealevel ;-) and spot the mistake coming back (KS is right - "all ridge runners will face low energy / weak lift situations at some point in almost every flight ... never put yourself in a situation where your plan has to work." - see http://miffling.soaringweb.net/ridge.htm ).

We then had another amazing run down the Porterville ridge and spot how Martin races neck and neck with Alan. As Alan said, it was the best he has experienced on the front ridge. Speaking for myself: it was my first ridge flight to Klawer and it rates as one of the most memorable flights I ever had - we ended it off with some convergence flying on the way back from Ashton and (suspected) wave almost to 8000ft - advising X32 that the valley was working when the Witzenberg failed him (see his trace for his low energy point ;-)

EY

NEW ASW 27 TIPS

Hi all

Reporting from the 18 USA Nationals being held at Miflin, 711 posted this picture of UH (Hank Nixon - if i recall correctly, fondly also known as Admiral Nixon)'s 27:

With the comment: UH has added something new to his ASW 27.........look at the tip section.........is it a bug collector or will it really work? Is this a 27 with 2cx enveeeeeee???
the blog is at https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIug-U0GMhQMPzBUR4nGYYmYzb6GJeexd87HmrL_4zOgVsbdUuAJbnAFly7Gtl6J-rSN4RL_EMiiDVn8U3v5uuEyu5M_GipVfApXCFjpiBAk9Nc2sfTNowuLBKztOujq0lfZkcdVg0oCdq/s1600-h/Image010.jpg
(and it is a really nice blog).

The score sheet reflects the 27 as 27 17
http://www.ssa.org/members/contestreports/ContestResultsFullDetail.asp?contestId=&ContestDetailId=3493&ContestName=18+Meter+Nationals

is the link to the contest results (so far only practice day 1, so this news from 711 is really fresh)

It would be interesting to know: what the performance difference is? If it is an approved mod? (and how much it costs).

AND what i wouldn't give to be able to fly in that contest!!!

regards

Sven

Segelflyg April 2008

This arrived in the post, unannounced, but very welcome, the JS1 on the front page of Segelflyg and a very nice article on the Dust Devil ;-)
(if only i could understand it all)


Thank you to all the Swedish supporters.

EY

Day 7

Day 7 was compressed into day 6 and, at short notice, the prize giving was advanced 24hours. We sat down for dinner on Friday night, with a decidedly cold air and rain outside, with more predicted for Saturday. Oscar took home the winners cup in the 15m - and hats of to him again. I finished third behind Laurens. It was as always a delight to fly the contest and I look forward to be back next year.

On Saturday it was the long road back to Cape Town - mostly (and unusually) in rain.

In the meanwhile the preparation for Rieti is going into overdrive ;-) and this contest really helped (at least i hope so).

Tomorrow, once i am back behind a desktop, i hope to post some pics from Welkom - not that i took that many photo's.

EY

Day 6

Well, the bad weather has moved in, and briefing has been postponed to 16h00 this afternoon. It is cold and windy with intermittent rain. The outlook for tomorrow is also not the best.

EY

Day 5

Despite an optimistic outlook from the NOAA forecast with 12000ft cloud bases and 3ms it quickly became clear that it was going to be blueish, cool and difficult. I snuck of early, as part of a game plan to get ahead, but I did not connect to the strong climbs under the enticing climbs at Alanridge, and down to 700m I took some weakish climbs before i connected to some good lift 40km short of the Bothaville, the first turnpoint. Oscar started behind me, but turned back for a strong climb and a restart some 10 minutes later. I rounded Bothaville with the blue sky waiting towards Hoopstad and the gaggle gathering around. Just as the clouds ended OG was with me - and after Hoopstad the two of us were a little bit too conservative and Laurens grabbed the opportunity to finish ahead of us and take the day. Well, my little plan did not work, and if only i could have glid to the massive dusty i saw on the first leg - but that was out of reach and hats of to Laurens.

EY