Results Armidale Sailplane expo Combined Electric and Winch Open Thermal 2019

The hot, sunny and light conditions continued after the f5j, for this event.

Most of the f5j fliers stayed on, but for some, the heat after 2 days was enough and went home early.

Out of the 25 that flew, there were only about 8 flyers that decided to winch,

a far cry from the previous years 28 when it was winch only.

First day and there was a prevailing light breeze from the west, with basically big lift and occasionally big sink.

Setup into wind, I decided to winch for the open, and flew my 1850g Perfection so I could get good launch height.

The motor gliders had motor cut outs at 200m, but could fly quite a bit lighter than me. I was out launching most of the electrics,

but some were making the most of the fact you could zoom past 200m (I was told of one motor glider log of 236m)

so I was probably matching them with the winch. I don’t think a lot of the other winch launchers

were launching as well as me or the motor gliders, so they suffered somewhat.

We managed 6 rounds in quite hot conditions making for an exhausting first day.

Day 2 and conditions started even lighter, and with hesitation on which way to point the winches, took a while to get started.

Looking at the forecast and at the request of the CD, we turned the flight line around which seemed correct initially,

with a light breeze into wind at the time. Of course once we set up the wind swung around, and was downwind for the rest of the day.

I heard a comment that I was being handicapped, since I was leading from the previous day. I took this as a challenge.

The rest of the guys winching weren’t happy launching downwind against motor gliders which would easily do 200 metres plus.

Two competitors switched to motor gliders, and the rest had had enough, packed up, and went home.

This left me as the sole pilot winching, and launching downwind, in a sea of motor gliders, at least I wouldn't have any line crosses.

I flew my super light Perfection at 1700g, but even trying to swing around, somewhat into wind on launch,

it was a struggle to get anywhere near the motor gliders on launch height.

However the conditions were so light and thermally, finding lift wasn’t very hard,

I would’ve struggled, I think, if it was hang time conditions.

Some said I had an advantage with being able to nose into the landing spot, (ie no motor to damage) which was maybe true,

however I was the only pilot to achieve all my flight times, so at the end of the day, it was still a thermal competition.

Anyway we managed to get through 3 rounds, before lunch, presentations, and a long trip home.

I heard from the motor glider flyers, a lot of whom hadn’t flown open thermal rules before,

that they found it much less stressful rule-wise, especially since the launches and landings we staggered with the 12 minute working time,

and you could go over your flight time without penalty as opposed to f5j,

and of course, launching to 200 metres, which is normally a last resort in f5j.

A big thanks to Hutton Oddy, for cd-ing, and Kevin Smeaton for score keeping and every one else who helped organise, feed and generally help out

at another great Armidale Sailplane Expo.

The place getters:

1st Jim Houdalakis

2nd Alan Mayhew

3rd David Pratley

This was also round 2 in the National Open Thermal AusTour list of events.

regards

Jim

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