Sportflight

Phew! That ‘false marker’ caused a big stink! Wolfgang and the jury decided it looked like a ‘V’ which is not one of the allowed markers, so therefore should be ignored. Lots of pilots found it, so lots scored nil. It does seem pretty fishy to me, and I disagreed with the jury’s decision (for once) since it opens the way for more ‘false markers’ in the future… who knows?

Spanish Hawk. It survived quite a few hard landings, but not the last one.

There’s been every range of emotion in the tent. People’s zero scores have been reinstated, then scores were changed, then complaints were upheld or denied, it looks like Owain has missed out on a medal by 4 points - and he totally missed one timing gate in yesterday’s task, if he hadn’t then he would have got a medal. Even though, it’s been a fantastic effort on his part in a pretty uncompetitive machine. He’s beaten Richard on the nav tasks, then fallen behind on the limited fuel ones (his is a two stroke against the others’ 4 strokes).

Dodgy or what???

It’s eerily not busy right now. The organisers have really been on top of the scores, getting them out quickly, then dealing with the complaints quickly too. Not everyone is happy, but generally there is an acceptance from most that it’s been run as well as any other comp. It’s still not over, there’s still a few hours left before the close.

Very nice Eagle, BMW engine, freewheel clutch on the prop.

I heard that Jeremy/Matt had yet another engine out - the Ebay motor didn’t last very long. They’re fine, the Chuckle Brothers have now been renamed “International Rescue”. I’ve not been in the team tent much, so can’t report on the goings on. Many went to the Irish bar in town last night after (so I hear) a great bbq from the girls. I went to bed, exhausted!

Chocolate biscuits for breccy.

Robbie Keene’s friend Manfred turned up with crates of beer, so the atmosphere last night was pretty good. There’s a ‘final’ scoresheet floating around, but even my limited experience says you should not pay too much attention to it until all protests are dealt with.

The scoresheet is not the only thing floating - we’ve had a huge amount of rain and storms, the poor old Polish team leader went back to her tent to find it like a swimming pool - and she didn’t like camping even before she came here!

Hadders sells toys, so he got some ’samples’ sent over by DHL.

The sun is out right now, it looks as though we’ll be OK today, so we’re drying out the towels we’d left on our tents when the storm came through yesterday.

This one’s for Dawn! Good man Antonio Marchesi, FAI delegate for Spain. I’ll post the scores as soon as they are most likely not going to change again!

Here’s that pic

Having sat through over an hour of competitors showing videos of their spot landings, I wonder how anyone can ever score them absolutely correctly. The quality of the camcorders used (and some are top of the range and very expensive) is simply not good enough to tell exactly. We’ve had TV cameras here making news items, maybe Section 10 should be changed to say only cameras capable of BBC broadcasting standard may be accepted….?

So, some complaints were upheld, and pilots had their scores changed, but others were not, with one pilot storming out of the room in disgust. Sigh…

Anyway, another task flown, and it was the last, so the beer is flowing to some extent. We’ve had a couple of HUGE storms go through, the canteen/hangar’s roof let go and there was a mini waterfall inside. It’s stopped for the time being, but I’m glad I bought a new tent for this trip - my last one would not have made it!

The flying: pilots were given three waypoints, each had a line attached to it. You flew to the first waypoint, then along the line until you found a marker. Then you flew to the next waypoint and along the next line, and so on until you found a number on the ground. This number corresponded to a list given out at the briefing, so it told you to fly to a particular airfield for a 6m touch and go landing before home. Most of the task was on a predicted groundspeed, and there were also photos to be found. Jees!

One current problem is that probably a good half of the pilots reported seeing (and turning on) a marker in the shape of an L. This was wrong, the correct one was an I. Again I immediately got a plane going - Jan (Jury Member) got his TL out and he and I flew off on the hunt. I took pictures of it, it wasn’t a perfect L, nor a perfect V, it was slightly in the wrong place, but it sure did look like the same material used by the organisers. What’s even more intruguing is that the Czech team also sent a plane over later on - at least half of their team turned on the L/V (whatever!) - but the thing was gone. Hmmm… I think there is something mighty suspicious going on, I’m going to check the scores carefully.

Many Brits turned on the L/V, we’ll have to see what happens. The rain has stopped, I’m getting out of here. I’ll see if I can get a photo of the waterfall, I think Martin has one.

Now 4pm Friday, all have just landed from the last task, so beer drinking has started. I’m in the internet room waiting for Wolfgang to see all the videos from spot landings which are contentious…

He’s just arrived. Blog entry cut short. More later.

Quick note again… you can tell it’s getting towards the end of the comp, since the complaints are coming in thick and fast… it turns out that the circle task had been prepared wrongly, and when pilots landed and downloaded their tracks from the GPS loggers, it was clear that most of the field had gone left of track around much of the circle. I went to see Ernst, the guy responsible for setting the waypoints and asked to check a few. Ernst is a good guy, he produced a perfect plot of a circle using a very accurate land survey map. The trouble is, competitors were given an official map to fly from, not an exact computer programme, and a map is, after all, only some graphic designer’s idea of what the world looks like.

We had to re-do the waypoints, it took me (looking through an eyeglass at the chart) and Ernst (on the computer) over 2 hours to put the waypoints on the line which competitors had been given. So, while pilots were given a perfect circle on a map to follow, in reality they flew an egg instead. The scores are being re-done for every competitor, hopefully they’ll pop up soon.

I spent practically the entire day in offices, the scoring container or in the jury room, so I have little idea of what went on. We did precision landings in the evening (I missed the whole thing) but Paul D messed up, landing short. It sounds as though most others did OK. I’m glad to say there have been no disasters, outlandings, diseases or mental breakdowns among the camp, but the tension is slowly ratcheting up. The last days of a comp are always the most hectic - pilots are tired, organisers are tired, the serious business of winning medals edges closer and tempers are frayed.

On the lighter side, Naomi and Emma are complete stars, getting up early to make bacon rolls and producing very welcome meals and snacks throughout the day. They’re doing a bbq tonight - well, I say tonight, I should say early evening since they have been planning a night on the town for days now - time to get the pulling skirts out of the suitcase, ladies!

Must go and make a start on the complaints. 5 pilots were scored zero for yesterday’s task - apparently they flew through the no-fly zone of Nördlingen on their way back from the task yesterday. Two of them are Brit team members Paul Welsh and Chris Wills. I took a look at their tracks on the computer and it seemed to me at first sight that they flew around the town, so now I will have to go see where the official no-fly zone actually is!

Ho hum…

Paul & Ollie are top in the two seat fixed with 3598 and a small margin to second place. Chris and Claire are 4th with 2984.

Sqn Ldr Rawes is top, 3927. Owain is second (in a TWO STROKE!!!!) 3486. Come on, Owain, spend some of that teacher’s pay on a 4 stroke. Hadders messed up the speed task, he’s 6th with 2496.

Grimwood/Saysell are top 3690, Baker/Holmes 2nd 3606, Keene*2 are 3rd 3592, Welsh/Lipinskinator 6th (again in a 2 stroke) 3247, Madhvani/Wagenhauser 17th 1758 (remember the logger problem?) and Botten/Bolton are, ahem, 21st with 212. If only there were 22 in their class…

Took a couple of quick photos.

Nobody sneeze!

There’s been lots of newspaper coverage, and this is the second TV station!

Paul was on form at the oompah band night!

Oh, the grief I’m going to get for posting this one of Anja!

Quick note to catch up, since we are in the middle of weighing fuel for a limited fuel waypoint hunt. It rained really heavily in the night, fortunately most of us were in the canteen/hangar since there was a traditional Bavarian brass band night. Hadders was the star, stading on the chair and getting all the nations to sing their anthems. A good night was had by all, fortunately take-offs start late this morning, allowing the odd headache to subside.

We did go flying yesterday, the wind dropped to 12kt or so of crosswind, so pilots took off from 3pm and most reported that the conditions weren’t too bad. One problem was that some returned saying they had found the marker and it was an ‘I’ whereas the real marker was an equals sign… I quickly organised a Cessna to overfly the supposed ‘I’ and the resulting pictures (along with descriptions from several others) showed it was a neat stack of white construction pipes, about 8 metres long, and clearly not the white pvc material normally used. I sense the odd complaint coming.

I’ll get up to date with the scores and come back later. Those who are expected to do well are doing so, but I’ll find out for sure.

Quick entry while I’m checking my mail. What a fuss there has been in the last 12 hours. Pilots were given a photocopy of a map with the circular track on - but the map was not the official one, which is a total no-no. Everyone started to complain like fury, and indeed the task would not have been valid had it gone ahead. This meant I spent several hours last night and up until now this morning trying to sort the mess out. Fortunately a couple of the jury members were having a beer in our team tent so I could ask their opinions before liaising with Wolfgang as to what to do.

The mess is now sorted, we have issued a new map and competitors are happier… except the wind is pretty strong now and forecast to get stronger so all that running around may have been in vain.

Rob Grimwood has pointed out that there is a good photo of the team in the local newspaper, taken at the opening ceremony. Rob made a remark about it which was so typical of a pilot - you could see Rob clearly in it since he had the biggest head - ha ha!

Currently waiting for a decision on the wind.

Phew - a long day. It’s now nearly 8pm and all are planning intensively for tomorrow’s task. Naomi and Emma are cooking chilli, there’s activity all around the team tent with competitors trying to draw circles on their charts. Tomorrow’s task is a deck take-off, then fly along one circle until you find a marker, then fly along another circle until a marker, then home for a deck landing - and all at a predicted groundspeed. The weather is possibly going to be blowy which will sort the men from the boys.

Richard Rawes busy planning a task.

Today’s task was limited fuel. Pilots were given 10kg of fuel (some got more, depending on class) which was increased to 12kg when competitors moaned the first amount wasn’t enough. They had to take off out of a deck, then fly a speed triangle leg as fast as possible, then fly towards a fixed point, turning back when they think they’ll have just enough fuel to land back. Due to German air law, they had to land with a minimum of 3.75kg (about 5 litres) so the 12kg of fuel wasn’t much after all.
The weather was not good for soaring, so most of the day was taken up with giving out fuel in sealed containers, then maybe as much as 90 minutes flying. The real story of the day was Owain Johns - he emptied his fuel into a can for check weighing, including his carb bowl, only to find he had 3.74kg left - not enough and zero points for the task. He was allowed to go back to his plane to see if he could squeeze any more out… taking the fuel line apart, emptying the filter and wringing out the rubber tubing… he just made it, weighing in at 3.76kg, he had about a sip of fuel too much, or 19 peanuts as we weighed later. Nice one!

A very happy Owain indeed, with about .01kg of fluid in the glass - he even bought a round!

Some scores are surfacing, we have the top 4 places in WL2(2 seat weightshift), Paul Dewhurst is doing OK, as are Richard Rawes, Grimwood/Saysell, David Hadley and many others, including Paul Welsh in a 582 Kiss.

This evening has also been fun, but for other reasons - halfway through writing this blog it appeared that there were a couple of problems regarding the task tomorrow. Wolfgang has set a circular track task but there are a number of discrepancies with it, and I fear tomorrow could be a bit awkward. That said, Rees Keene says the wind could well be blowing 20kt so all the angst and frantic discussions I’ve been having with the Jury and comp director this evening may come to nothing.

Ollie Neece getting in touch with his feminine side.

Ho-hum. Team Leader David Daniel has just found me to present me with the first official protest of the competition, on behalf of Rob and Chris, so that will have to go to the jury for an official decision. Meanwhile I’ve got the €50 in my pocket so I might pop to the bar before heading for bed.

Today’s task (an 8am start due to poor weather expected) was to fly a spiral curved track at a predicted groundspeed, followed by a slow leg (fly as slowly as possible), again with deck take-offs and landings. Co-pilots were complaining that they’d have nothing to do, I’m sure I saw Ollie take a jigsaw puzzle with him, or was it a copy of the latest ‘Heat’? I’m again in the team tent, and the weather forecast has come good - it’s just started chucking it down - and Ollie is letting off his ire by not just swatting flies, more like pounding them into a blood-soaked lump. Most pilots have returned saying it wasn’t too difficult a task, except for poor Jay and Brad, who forgot to turn their logger on, so they are going to score zero. They’re both being philosophical about it, but you can tell they are pretty annoyed with themselves.

Now that the first scores are up (even though they are wrong!) the complaints are pouring in - if a pilot thinks he has been scored wrongly, then he has to write to the competition director with his complaint. If the answer is still not acceptable, then the pilot gets an appeal to the Jury (paying €50 for the privilege to weed out the downright silly ones, the cash being refunded if the protest is accepted).

Rob Grimwood’s girlfriend Louise has just arrived - I thought the sun had popped out from behind the thunder clouds, but no, it’s the smile on Rob’s face when he thinks about the lack of sleep he’ll be getting tonight. In fact, the team tent is being battered quite heavily by the rain right now, so we’ve had just about every sort of weather there is so far. It makes things pretty boring being stuck in the tent. Paul’s just picked up Anja’s teen magazine, I think he’s getting into training for being a father.

Rob G’s disappeared… anyone know where he is?

Another shameless plug for Zdenka’s site - she’s taken literally thousands of photos since being here. Here’s one of her for a change.