15th August
Lesley
0900h: A great day yesterday
for David and Graham with first and second places in class for the day.
John also did well with placing in the “teens” of the field. The first 20
or so places in 18m for the day were extremely close in speeds; again not
really reflective of the individual performance.
Today we have light rain and
total clag in the sky. I would say there is no window for a task, and the
rest of the pilots seem to concur. Most sailplanes are still in the
trailers and that’s probably where they will stay. In effect, the
competition is over and we’re all pleased that Australia finished strong.
The farewell party takes place this evening and the closing ceremony
tomorrow morning.
A huge thank you to everyone
who was following the competition and for the wonderful emails of support
and encouragement that came our way throughout the competition. It meant
a great deal to the pilots being so far away from home.
14th August
Lesley
Yesterday saw John get a
well-deserved 3rd place and David managed 10th in
15m. It was so disappointing for Graham and so unexpected an outcome.
Again, it was one of those weird days.
Today we have everyone on a
racing task. 15m are doing 422 km. The weather predicts up to 5/8 cirrus
in the task area in the late afternoon. From the transmissions we’ve
heard, sounds like David and Graham are finding lots of good lift. Mark
and I had a few shopping and chores to do in Belzig today, so I was able
to stop being a worry-wort for a while!
1704h David has just called
10k. Looks like a good run for today, looking at the start times. I’m off!
An omnibus from Mark
Lots of wind generators dot the countryside round
Germany
Some are pretty tall. The pylons stand about 90mts.
The blades would each have to be at least 30mts long.
When you look at Leslie standing beside the base of
the generator pylon you can appreciate the size of the thing.
Here is an old blimp hangar that has been converted
into a resort called “The Islands” The climate is controlled and resembles
a Mediterranean island resort.
Inside The Islands
Floor plan of The Islands
Ingo Renner kindly assisted the team during the
initial part of the comp with weather and location information.
Beer comes in all shapes and sizes here. This 5 ltr
keg hit the spot!
Beer can also come in bottles like this!! Our host
accommodation Rolfe thought we should try this one!
The brewer reconed it was beer you could bath in!!
There were just a few ships at the comp. We
estimated there was over AU$31 million worth of composite on the grid.
Must be funny hat day!!
Graham’s winning day. TF. Parker 1,000 points!
A Happy Finish to that day!
Some of them really hang long and low.
Antares the electric self launch glider was pretty
impressive.
V7 had a very unfortunate start to the day which
didn’t seem to get any better for him. During the initial part of his
launch ground roll V7 blew a mainwheel. The marshals and others pushed the
water dumping glider to the side of the grid. When they reached the paved
road they just lifted the glider up, carried it over the road and plonked
it down on the grass. His team then worked as fast as possible to repair
the problem, reballast it and then run it over the scales again. This was
all good. Unfortunately then while moving back to the grid, you guessed
it, another flatty!!
Back to the drawing board and do it again. They got
it fix, watered, weighed and threw him into the air. What a challenge.
Graham’s mate who stood quietly in the corner all
evening.
Cockpit and panel of the Antinov 2.
Lucky Gabby got to fly Helmut’s AN2 at Reinsdorf
during our practice period there.
Lithuanian team dong a flyby on the Sunday of no
flying in a simulated competition day for the public. You cannot quite see
the third ship in the pic but it was a worm burner. Graham & David made a
formation flyby which was pretty good.
Lesley 13th August
Well, finally, a day of Australian-like weather for comp day 6 made for
the
best day yet for David and Graham. Unfortunately on the last leg, they
parted ways somewhat and David headed into bad air and never found lift
until he was scratching around at 1000'. Although he was tempted to land
at
the airfield rather than keep going and round the last turnpoint, he
struggled on and actually got a good result (considering he came home 35
mins over time!) What a shame. Aussie 1 & 2 would have been an even
greater
morale boost.
13/8 Today is now comp day 7 and the task for 15m is 293.5 km racing. 18m
also have a racing task and 312.5 km. David and Graham have started and
although surface winds are strong, the prediction is also for 20 gusting
25kts at 1500m. A tricky-looking day but from the early transmissions,
seems
there's pretty strong lift out there.
Watch this space........................
AT the Right Place the Right
Time.
At the right place at the right
time, well, as crew members, that is where you have to be.
You need to look after the pilot,
DI and prepare the glider, fill it with H20, cut his lunch, get him to
program his computers, polish the glider, hold his hand and I could go on.
However, we do this with the greatest of enthusiasm; otherwise we would
not be here.
Well every now and again,
through a rest or cancelled day, we get the chance to do something else.
On this day, at our practice
aerodrome at Reinsdorf, I was, at the right place at the right time and
“Murphy” was on my side, on this day off.
Our host and owner of the
aerodrome, Helmut, is the proud owner of a Antonov 2.
As we wondered down to the hanger
this day, we saw activity that suggested that the beast was to fly.
We watched as the helpers pulled
the Antonov out of the hanger with a tractor and then started to put lots
of oil into the engine.
At this point we asked Helmut was
he intending to fly. Yes was the answer .Our excitement grew
Where are you going we asked, to a
maintenance aerodrome was the answer. Any chance of a flight was our
reply. A shake of the head gave us hope.
OK ready to go and Helmut beckoned
to us to come over. Brett, John and I made a bee line for the open door,
at which Helmut was standing. I can only take two he said (he had to fly
back to Reinsdorf in a small plane with only room for two on the return)
face’s dropped. John said ok you two go (Brett and myself) so we jumped
in. Helmut could see the disappointment on Johns face and he said “hop in
John and we will do a circuit”. John’s face lite up like a light globe.
Circuit completed and I climbed
into the right hand seat.
Power on and the lady lifted off
like a baby and gently climbed into the sky. At about 2/300 feet Helmut
said, “ok its yours,” well what an experience, it was great. Very stable,
not a lot of control movement required and the radials thumping out a
great sound.
After about 30 mins we approach
the airfield and with lots of hand movement and pointing at the ASI ( keep
it at 150kph on approach ) I was able with not a lot of trouble to get it
lined up on the runway.
I must say at this point, Helmut
did have control of the throttle and at about 200 feet took over the
controls.
The lady gently touched down like
a graceful swan and we taxied to the hanger.
What an experience and what a line
in the log book, hey.!
Some stats,….. takes two ton pay
load….uses 130 L per hour…takes 1000 + L of fuel… (Work that out at 1.50
per L (Euros), )uses lots of oil… cruses at 100kts has 1000 hp and get
this, can aero tow seven gliders at a time
Gabby…..enjoying it all.
From Tango Fox Crew - Mark
When the workload in the cockpit increases and things are not going right,
there is no substitute
for a good prelanding check.
One of the Greek pilots had the unfortunate occurrence of out landing on a
sealed strip, downwind with
the engine half extended and then forgetting to drop the black doughnut!
The German fit it crew got stuck into the newly ground back surface next
morning and with the
assistance of a quick hardener in the resin had the thing ready to rig in
about 4 hours. I gotta
get me some of that!!!
When you need an extension cord why muck about? Comes complete with plugs
and 4 guys to lift it!!
When your class has been called off for the day, what else is there to do?
These guys had an idea!!
Team OZ at the Barbie on Ozzie Night
When you need to mow a bit of grass. There is absolutely no reason to muck
about. Get a decent
mower!!!
An ASW20CL with a jet turbo gave a bit of a demo then landed to give us all
a bit of a look.
One way to get your crop off quick. Unfortunately the harvester set alight
to the wheat crop. Three
days later the same thing happened in the next paddock along.
The things you see when you go to a fire!
But I still cannot work out what this one is about.
Team Oz relaxing at the opening ceremony
When the pilot wants to help there’s nothing to do but hand him a spanner.
Engine out time!
9th August
Lesley
Racing task set for all classes today: 372 for 15m, 368 for 18m and 407km
for Open class. 15m first off the grid today. 1310h David and Graham are
just about to start and meantime the team captains have been called to the
airfield for a briefing. Our guess is that open class task may be amended
as
they're last off the grid.
Integrated with the launching today, we have some joy flights in gliders
and
an old Lufthansa Junkers 52! What an amazing sight.
8th August
Lesley
Got up early, rigged and prepared the glider. Day cancelled at 1000h
briefing.
August 7th
Lesley
Today started blue and warm and I think we will task
early and fly far!
1100h 8/8 Yep! Turned out to be the day they all went SPLAT! They set a
405km racing task for 15m, opened the start gate at 1349h and off they
went
into the weak blue day. At 1830h got a phone call from David to say he'd
landed safely and here are my co-ordinates!
Turned out there were convoys of trailers on the roads from early evening.
20 out of 36 Open class got home, 2 out of 18m and none in 15m.
David had managed to recruit a local family to help with de-rigging. The
field he landed in belonged to them and they were very kind to offer him
some refreshment and some geographical help to the retrieve crew (me) on
the
best way to get to their tiny town. They took lots of photos and were very
amused when I pulled out David's rigging apron (yellow with a chook
print).
Met up with Graham and Mark in Jűterbog on the way back to Lűsse for
something to eat, then headed "home
August 6th
Lesley
Both David and Graham got home
at speeds of 105.5 and 103.1 kph respectively for the day. That ranked
them in the 20’s for the day. Preliminary overall results have them at 14th
and 17th this morning.
Yesterday the weatherman
quoted his oft-quoted phrase that we may have a “schmall vindow of
opportunity” (sic)
to fly for a couple of hours’
task today.
1355h: the Open and 15m ships
are still waiting on the grid for that schmall vindow, whilst 18m has
already been cancelled for the day. 15m have a speed AAT of min time 2hrs
and Open 2 ½ hr. We are now waiting with baited breath for the next launch
announcement in 15 mins. Doesn’t look too promising.
1600h: after sitting on the
grid for a couple of hours, the schmall window never appeared, so the day
was cancelled.
Wed 6th August
What value a good
DI?
At Club level we do the usual
morning DI to prepare our gliders for the day’s flight. In most cases all
is well and we enjoy the day soaring or flying cross country.
I am crewing, along with Brett,
for John Buchanan at the WGC here at Luesse.
John is flying the factory
demonstrator, an ASG 29e, on loan from our friends at Schleicher
We collected the glider from the
factory and drove (well John and Brett did) to a small town called
Juttabog. Because of a 6 hour delay out of Sydney by Qantas I missed John
and Brett at Frankfurt and had to take a 6 hour train trip to this small
country town, which was near our practice airfield, Reinsdorf.
Beyond all belief we all arrived
at Juttibog within minutes of one another, glider in tow.
Anyway back to my story of DIs
First practice day at Reinsdorf we
were doing the DI with a gentle puff into the Pitot tube without success.
After further discussion and a bit more puffing, we discovered that the
factory had connected the static to the Pitot intake and the Pitot intake
to the static? Glade we found that one.
During the flights at Reinsdorf,
John commented that the compensation from the TE tube was not very good.
On arrival at Luesse we contacted the factory
reps on the field who agreed that in fact it was faulty, and said that
they would replace it that night.
On our arrival next morning, yes
in fact there was a new TE probe in the tail.
Great.
Depending on griding time,
sometimes DI is done in the tie down area and sometimes on the grid. Today
it was on the grid.
Once again a gentle puff, this
time into the TE probe and yes you guessed it, not a sign of any movement.
A hurried removal of the canopy and a rummage around the many tubes,
discovered that the TE tube had not been connected to the Zander, which of
course, if not located before take off, would have been a pain to say the
least, and most likely would have caused john to have a relite.
Our third scenario was with the
turbo engine.
If the gliders have an engine,
they must, if being launched by aerotow, (John has a sustainer) run their
motor for more than 30sec and no more than two mins, within 3 mins after
release.
This is a comp day.
As part of the DI we cycle the
engine (by bringing it up and then retracting it).
This we did but no engine up. If
this had happened in the air John would have had to land have stewards
seal the engine bay, go to the end of the class being launched and be
greatly disadvantaged. The faulty part in the engine has now been replaced
by the factory and all is working well.
As it was, we contacted a steward
by phone, (always have the stewards phone number keyed into yours) and he
came and sealed the engine bay just before take off which meant for that
day, John was a pure glider.
Bit long winded I know……..but
hey, never discount the value of a good DI
Gabby
Crew Report - 5th August
Mark Morgan
By the time crew get to make a report all the good
news has already been reported by somebody else.
So what have we been doing! Well between modifying
electrical systems, calibrating TE probes and pulling out engines, noting
out of the ordinary work profile for crew.
Crew Buchannan had a different outlook on it all from
the engine not wanting to come out on command to (and don’t mention them
around Gabby) “BUGG WIPERS”.
This subject as well as “THE STOCK MARKET” seem to
send Gabby into a tail spin!!!
Bug wipers were a very dirty word around the place
for some time until things got sorted and they actually started working
the way they were designed.
John had a major malfunction as it seems someone
forgot to tie the knot at the end of the string and a very expensive wiper
flew off the winglet and into oblivion.
We have derigged a few nights when it looks ominous
weather. Most of the other teams derigg every night.
I cannot get over how terrible the weather can look
in the morning, even bucketing down rain, then it clears to sort of
soarable by midday to mid afternoon. The weather patterns move quite fast
and are very complex.
Mechanically things have been going pretty well,
Tango Fox is running sweet apart from a bit of Flarm trouble earlier in
the piece.
A bit of extra excitement about the place a few days
ago when the farmer’s harvester set fire to his wheat paddock while trying
to harvest. Had about 12 fire units hear by the end of proceedings.
Yesterday I heard an angle glinder working over in
the German maintenance hangar and looked out to see Peter Kramer creating
a void of carbon close to the wingroot of an ASW27 wing panel so I just
had to put my nose in for a look!
Looked a bit sad. The carbon laminates behind the
rear lift pin were all a tatter below the outerskin.
Seems Georg Theisinger outlanded before crossing the
line and during the ground roll startled a deer that jumped up and got
clocked by the wing. Didn’t do it any good either.
Peter commented the damage was too severe for him to
repair on sight. So I think it disappeared of to the Schleicher factory.
August 5th
Lesley
3rd competition day.
David woke early and decided to go to the airfield and fill the glider.
Not a bad idea since it had been a bit of a rush to do it yesterday and at
the same time frustrating because of the reduced water pressure due to
demand at “peak hour”.
Briefing revealed a racing task of
420.1km for 15m class. Briefing also informed us following consultation
with team captains etc that the local rules would be amended to allow LT,
Georg Theisinger to change ships during the comp in order to continue!
Also noted was the dropping of the “wooden spoon” daily prize giving this
morning, as it would probably have not been taken in good spirit by either
of the German “favourites” who would have been on stage to receive it.
It’s a pity they had actually done this on the previous days anyway, as we
all felt it had no place in a competition of this level.
Gridding finished at 1100h and
first launch 1115h. 4D and TF were in 4th row of the grid. They
had a bit of a struggle to get altitude and to get upwind of the start
line after launch. We listened in anticipation to their transmission
dialogue. It sounded none too confident and I was waiting for a re-light
call any moment. JB seems to be doing OK so far.
1540h: radio has been silent for a
while. Hopefully, they are out of range as they head for and round the 3rd
turnpoint in Poland. To be continued………………….
4th August
Lesley
Although yesterday’s placings
for David and Graham were not brilliant, due to the short task time and
the devalued day, the point drop from the top score was only approx 150.
Second competition day saw
another speed assigned area task with 2hr minimum time again. Weather was
very windy and gusty and 15m were at the back of the launch grid.
Conditions were very “average-looking” and the looks on the faces of the
15m team rather grim as they sat in their respective cockpits.
Nevertheless, the day cycled
and they both managed to get decent climbs on release from tow. Overall,
we at Aussie base were heartened by their positive transmissions and
relaxed a little from the trailer-hitching thoughts.
Unfortunately, JB outlanded and
returned to the field. Rather disappointing for him after such a great day
the day before. Long way to go in the comp yet though.
15m competitor LT otherwise
known as “hot” favourite Georg Theisinger of the Theisinger 15m team trio,
also out landed and hit an animal in the paddock. We heard it was a sheep,
but later told it was a deer which is immaterial as there was a jolly
great hole in his wing as a result! We saw the repair assessment in real
time as the workshop is directly across from the Aussie base container (aka
Nerve centre).
Preliminary results for the day
put David and Graham 5th and &7th respectively.
Tonight was the re-scheduled
night for the Aussie Team promo for Narromine 2012 bid and the sausage
sizzle duly commenced at 2000h.
David called curfew at 2130h.
Another big day tomorrow as we were told by a Brit team member they
planned to grid and launch early and 15m would rotate to the front of the
launch grid.
Yesterday was the official opening ceremony in Belzig,
the local town of notable size. It was held in the cobble-stoned town
square, complete with sound stage, celebrities, beer and food tents and a
variety of local citizens interested in the fanfare.
Today’s mood is now more serious. First comp day and
the majority of the gliders had already passed the scales and were lined up
in their respective positions on the grid before briefing.
The strip is quiet wide, almost 400m, and four rows of
gleaming sailplanes were lined up in two main grids, one grid on the north
and one on the south side. Tugs will land between both grids.
The weather remained under the influence of a cold
front to the west and the ominous presence of a low pressure somewhere near
the UK. The morning sky was a predominance of thick low cloud although our
weatherman was relying on a window of higher pressure due around lunch.
After briefing the sky did seem to improve. Typical of
European weather, the sky recycled with a large blue hole between the tug
drop zone and the upwind start line. Open class was the first to launch and
subsequently a procession of low open class gliders started their engines in
the circuit area, as they ‘re-launched’. 18m class suffered a similar fate.
At one stage there were three low gaggles full of 18m ships struggling to
stay aloft. Approximately ten poor 18m class pilots were not as fortunate
and landed for a re-light.
Six rows prior to launch, with Dad in the cockpit we
noted that the varios didn’t work! The problem was soon rectified and a
normal launch ensued behind a Wilga.
David and Graham’s launch was more straight forward as
the sky started to teem with CU’s.
2008
AUSTRALIAN GLIDING TEAM
