Brian Case - Region 8 Contest

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tonycondon

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Tony
Brian (brcase) is flying his HP-16T in the Region 8 Sports Class Contest. Yesterday was the first contest day and he placed 5th out of 10, scoring 844 points. 1000 points go to the winner.

Often there is a SPOT tracker page set up for contests so you can follow the competitors around the course but I don't see one for this contest. I'll try to post daily updates here.
 
Yesterday Brian placed 2nd for 991 points, 3rd overall. nice!
 
each days winner is typically awarded 1000 points and the rest of the pilots points are based on how fast they went compared to the winner. So to get 991 points I'm suspecting Brian flew at 99.1% of the winners speed. The regional contests last a week and they have to fly 4 days to declare a champion. So far the sports class is really close with the top 5 separated by only a few hundred points.
 
Day Four, final day: Brian Wins the day and moves into first overall! All right! I can't wait for him to get back here and fill in the details as the contest reports were pretty thin from this one. Definitely a close fought battle as second place was only 35 or so points back. Trace here: http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=1375899

Congrats Brian!
 
Thanks Tony for the recognition.

I get busy during the contest and don't browse the group as much as normal.

My main competition the last couple days was Noel Wade, He posted his Blog here...
http://www.ssa.org/myhome.asp?mbr=1864823698&show=blog

I haven't done the Blogging thing yet, but I have written up my account of each day. I will proof read them tomorrow and see If I can post them to the SSA web site.

In short I had a blast flying the contest. I never really got stuck down low and had good runs most of the time, averaging about 175 miles per day. Any contest where I don't land out is a good contest, scoring well is just icing on the cake.

Looking forward to see how you do at your contest, as I recall you are flying at least one this year, hope you have as much fun as I did.

Brian
 
unfortunately no plans for contests this summer. my vacation schedule will not support it. however i did do a camp in Marfa in April and am planning to do at least one regional next summer along with the VSA Vintage Contest at Lawrenceville, IL in June 2011. So far I'm thinking about going to Logan for Region 9 North/Sports Class Nationals next summer.
 
brcase said:
Thanks Tony for the recognition.

I get busy during the contest and don't browse the group as much as normal.

My main competition the last couple days was Noel Wade, He posted his Blog here...
http://www.ssa.org/myhome.asp?mbr=1864823698&show=blog

I haven't done the Blogging thing yet, but I have written up my account of each day. I will proof read them tomorrow and see If I can post them to the SSA web site.

In short I had a blast flying the contest. I never really got stuck down low and had good runs most of the time, averaging about 175 miles per day. Any contest where I don't land out is a good contest, scoring well is just icing on the cake.

Looking forward to see how you do at your contest, as I recall you are flying at least one this year, hope you have as much fun as I did.

Brian
Click to expand...

Congrats, Brian! Hope the blog entries will be readable to the public if on the SSA site; if not, can you cross-post here, as well!?
 
winning a gliding contest is an amazing achievement. It's not a regular sort of race like people think. Just getting everything READY for a gliding contest is more than most people could ever handle. Placing high enough every day to actually win one is really something. Nice work man!
 
wby0nder said:
winning a gliding contest is an amazing achievement. It's not a regular sort of race like people think. Just getting everything READY for a gliding contest is more than most people could ever handle. Placing high enough every day to actually win one is really something. Nice work man!
Click to expand...

I really hadn't thought about the preparation part. While I haven't flown a contest in about 5 years I did regularly fly them for about 7 years prior to that. Everything was pretty much contest ready from my previous contests.

It is interesting that once everthing is set up for the contest the preparation after that is relatively easy. The side benefit is that it makes the normal flying a lot easier as well. But the 1st few contests can be a lot of work getting everything working the way it should.

Brian

Edit: note my only mechanical glitch was my Gear Warning Switch Failed on the 2nd day causing it to go off continuously. fortunatly I have an over ride switch and was able to turn it off. But I was extra careful about making sure the gear was down for landing.
 
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Here is my text from the blog.

Day 1
The task was a 2 hr TAT around Waterville and Mansfield. It was forecast to be a blue day, but cu’s started forming over the western part of the course. I got high on the start but then tried to move to a cu near the edge of the start cylinder and climb again. The cu didn’t work and I ended up starting about 1500 feet lower than I would have liked. I worked my way out the cu’s and flew a rather short task at a rather slow speed, coming in 6th for the day. I had a good time, but felt I had done a rather poor job of navigating the task.

Day3.
After a rest day due to weather we back to racing. With the forecast of high cirrus and light to moderate thermals, I took a competitive but conservative approach. Essentially get high, Stay high and try not to do anything stupid. Starting toward the front of the class I had a good climb to about 6500 feet. I then slowly worked my way up to 8000ft to the top of the start cylinder. My strategy was to try to exit out the top and get a bit more distance. I didn’t quite make it out the top and started out the side anyway. As I went through the start gate I noted 3 gliders in front of my on course line, I decided to follow the middle one and keep an eye on the other two, that way if any of the 3 appeared to find a good thermal I could divert and join them. Turned out the center glider found the 1st thermal and while it wasn’t great it did get us up a bit and we continued on course, after about the second thermal I lost the center glider and the others as well.
I am not to familiar with the XCSoar software I am using but it had picked a turn point in the 1st cylinder near the northwest edge of the Plateau, this seemed like a good location to turn for me going west of the turn point and giving me more options on the remaining 2 turn points. I soon picked up another glider XZ and thermaled with him. At the time I thought he was one of the sniffers and not a contestant, turned it was one of the contest pilots. He seemed to be following the same coarse line that XCSoar had plotted and he marked several thermals for me. He turned at about the same location and I followed him on course for a few miles.
We headed toward a field that was on course line to the next turn point and it appeared to have some dust devils working in it. As we got closer XZ turned south away from the course line and field. Trying to figure out what he was doing I realized the field seem to not have any really good dust devils and only a couple tractors working the field stirring up the dust. To the south there were some obvious dust devils so I followed XZ to the 1st set of dust devils were we hit an 8+ knot thermal at about 4500MSL.
I don’t know if it wasn’t as strong for XZ or if he was just trying to get rid of me but he seemed to leave early and I wasn’t going leave until the thermal dropped below 5 kts and I climbed to 8500 and head on course. Looking across Banks lake I could see a line of dust devils that continued on the southerly course we had started, so I continued on course.
As I approached the 1st dust devils there was one huge dust devil just parked in the middle of a field. There must have been almost no wind as the dust devil was not moving at all, however as is often the case in Ephrata I could see 7 or 8 smaller dust devils going around inside the large dust devil. As I flew over the dust devil I found only 1 or 2 kts and continued on. I could find several 3 kt thermals but really wanted more so I would take turn or two and continue on. I finally turned and nicked the south east edge of the 20 mile turn point of the Turn Area Task. I then headed back up the line of dust devils and finally picked up a few 5-6 kt thermals taking me up to about 9500MSL. From there I had enough altitude to nick the final 15 mile turn point and return home. I figured I would be about 5 minute over on the 3 hr task but picked up some lift along the way and ended up coming in about 2 minutes early.
I was very happy with the flight I didn’t really get stuck anywhere I had a good start and made good time, Plus it was just a lot of fun. The final scoring put me 2nd for the day.
Day5
After another rest day do to weather we are back to racing. Lots of cu starting early, we started launching at 11:50. The Super Cub was slightly damaged at the end of the launch on Day 3 due to a gust of wind causing a ground loop. So we were down to 2 tow planes for 20 glider and still the launched all the glider in about 1hr and 16 minutes. I got off tow at about 2000 feet because I was in lift and it would help speed the launching. Normal tows are 2500 feet due to the distance of the hills from the airport.
I climbed in 3-5 knots to just under 8000 feet and then hung out just below the top of the 8000 foot start gate waiting for it to open. By the time the start gate opened I was down to 7000 and had to find another thermal to get up to 8000 to start out the top of the 8000 foot start cylinder. I then headed west toward Waterville following the clouds. I didn’t hit much lift under the clouds but had a couple dust devils spotted just across the Moses Coulee. I saw SN coming out of the turn point and another glider very low out there. When I got to the dust devils they were working well and I climbed back up to 7500 ft and continued toward Waterville, I turned when I got to the end of the good looking clouds. I then followed my course line and clouds back out of the turn point toward Kramer. I found a good thermal that took me to 8300 and then bumped along under the clouds. I found one good climb past US2 and them headed for some dust devils on the other side of Coulee City.
As I got there, just as I flew into some lift of the dust devils I spotted a glider circling so flew thru the lift and joined XZ (Martin) It didn’t seem to be much of a thermal so despite my better judgment I went back to the lift I had just flown thru but couldn’t seem to find a thermal so I continued on to the next dust devils. I climbed a bit in some weaker thermals and would move one until I found a good one to take me to 7400ft. I went into the turn point until it was entirely shaded, only a few miles in and then turned for electric city. It was really shaded from there to across the lake and I really tip toe back across Banks lake where I picked up a thermal that would get me home but I was a bit under time so I pressed further into the turn point and then couldn’t get up to altitude to get final glide home.
I finally found a thermal that go me to about 300 feet below glide and turned home. I flew a few miles and spotted a glider one course for Ephrata and another circling up ahead. The Glider on course turned out to be ZD (Bob Wallach) he turned to join the other glider, I flew thru the thermal but it seemed to be less the 2 kts and I had gained enough altitude to be flying at a Macready of about 3. So I just bumped the thermal and kept on going.
After a couple miles I hit a good bump showing about 7 on the Vario and turned but I didn’t pan out and I continued on course and this allowed ZD and the other glider both higher than me to catch and pass me. I continued on course for Ephrata. The Last 10 miles I had lots of lift and even though I was fly 95 kts I still came in almost 1000 feet high.
I ended up placing 2nd for the day moving me up to 2nd place for the contest.

Day 6.
At the end of Day 5 Noel Wade has the lead on me by 6 points. Day 6 is forecast to be a typical Ephrata Soaring day meaning for the 1st time this week we are expecting great soaring conditions. It is decided to have another Turn Area Task going to Creston, Mansfield and Kramer. The Turn cylinders are 15, 15 and 20 miles respectively.
Being that it is forecast to be a great day and cu’s were popping at 10:00 am it is decided to grid at 11:30 and start launching as soon as possible after that, since we still only have two tow planes available.
I spent most of the morning packing up my tent and getting ready to head home back to Boise and as a result had not spent any time programming my PDA with the task. Sports Class was launching 1st today and I was #3 in the launch order.
I pushed out at exactly 11:30 and sat down the cockpit and started programming the task into my PDA. I also wanted to set a feature that would show my achieved speed around the course as I was flying. I had not tried this feature before. While still sitting in the cockpit I ate my sandwich as they were starting the launch, I didn’t quite finish it before my tow plane arrived.
As I towed to the towers I went through a bunch of lift showing over 8kts on my Averager as I went through 2000AGL. Like I did yesterday I decided to release and try and help the tow planes get everyone launched in as short as time as possible. As I turned back into the lift I couldn’t find it and promptly did a flat glide back the airport.
This put me at the back of the Sports Class Launching order. When I launched again I took the full 2500 foot tow but still struggled to find useable lift. When I finally found it, it was in the exact location and altitude I had released at on the previous tow. It was then a long slow climb to the top of the 8000 ft MSL start cylinder. When I finally got close to 8000 feet I headed out of the start cylinder when the CD called the start of the 15 meter class in about 5 minutes. It occurred to me that if I waited a few minutes I could start with the 15 meter class which was doing the same task as sports class.
I was hoping that my very late start might hit the better part of the day than the rest of the Sport class pilots and that I could use the 15 meter ships as markers to help locate thermals.
When the 15 meter class start gate opened I was down to 6500 feet but had joined a thermal with SN and 1I. We climbed as high as we could but could not get back up to 8000 feet. I decided to see what SN would do and followed him for a bit. He actually started low about 6500 feet and I expected him to return back to the start cylinder. I followed him about 3 miles out past the start where we hit a nice 6 kt thermal that took us to about 8000 feet. SN then called his start and continued on course.
I have found that I learn often learn a lot by following other pilots, especially the good ones like SN. So I decided to continue following him and see what he did. As he left the thermal and head out on course I attempted to follow. Of course following only works for so long as my 36 year old HP16 just can’t keep up with the modern LS8. In this case it didn’t’ work at all as we flew for probably 10 miles without turning and the LS8 just disappeared off in the distance. I finally had to stop when I found 6 kt thermal.
My PDA showed a very slow start for the 1st few miles, showing only a 32mph average. But as I continued on course it slowly ticked up in speed.
From here it was pretty easy glide to Wilber which put me into the 1st turn cylinder I was just about to turn and head for Mansfield when I saw another glider on course going deeper into the turn cylinder at my altitude. I thought it might be SN thinking that if he had not found as good of thermal as I had and I might have caught up with him. So I decided to follow him a few more miles. It didn’t do any good, all I did was glide down to about 4500 feet MSL and got further away from Wilber. I finally had to stop and searching for thermal, I soon found a 3kt thermal to get me back up high enough to get back to Wilber with some altitude to spare.
Just after I passed Wilber I picked up another 5kt thermal taking to about 7000 feet again and I was headed back on course to Mansfield. It was pretty blue with not many dust devils until crossing Banks lake so I carefully headed toward the lake looking for any lift I could use. Just before crossing the lake I picked up a 4-5 kt thermal that got me up to 8200 or so and then I crossed the lake.
My plan was to press further into the Mansfield turn point as it often has some of the best thermals around Mansfield. As I crossed the lake I spotted a few dust devils, but had to try a couple of them before I found one that was working reasonably well. As I got close to Mansfield the thermals got better but will still a bit hard to locate and didn’t go has high as I would like.
Near Mansfield I spotted a hang glider at about 7000 feet and just past Mansfield I finally found a good thermal to take me to about 8000 feet. I then headed on course toward Odessa, following the Dust Devils and clouds as best as I could.
Just past Coulee City I climbed back up to 7000 feet and continued on toward Odessa. I did note another hang glider thermalling in a Dust devil at about 500 feet MSL. Typically I have found good thermals near the towns and was counting on Odessa having a good Thermal. Just past Odessa I climbed from 5000 feet to 8500 feet in about 6 kts and headed back to Ephrata I really needed about a another 1000 feet for a comfortable glide back to Ephrata.
There were only a couple of cu’s left on course toward Ephrata so I bumped under each of them hoping for a bit more altitude The last cu took me to 7500 feet at about 4.5 kts and I had an easy glide back to Ephrata.
I decided to try and come in the side of the finish cylinder since I had plenty of altitude and I could add up to two miles of distance by doing so. However I misjudged the side and had to turn and fly back to the cylinder losing some time.
My PDA had ticked up to a 55mph average. When it was finally scored my actual speed was 59 mph for a handicap speed of 61mph, this placed me 1st for the day and was enough to bump me to 1st for the contest by 45pts.
Congratulations to Noel Wade while he had a tough day, he still came in 3rd for the day and 2nd overall. He is really flying well for the short time he has been competing and I am looking forward to competing with him again next year. It was a very close race.
 
Can you give us a non-glider pilots an idea what comprises this extensive prep work required prior to a competition?

Brian, thanks for posting your blog entries!!
 
Well I can't speak for Brian, but since contests are usually away from your home gliderport you need to anticipate just about every eventuality. In addition to prepping your plane you need to make sure you bring all your electronics (logger, PDA, GPS), Batteries, Chargers for all of these devices, and the list just goes on. It's kinda like packing for an expedition to a remote destination.
 
Thanks for posting that.

I assume there is a penalty for not arriving at the finish at the right time? Which is worse, early or late?
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Thanks for posting that.

I assume there is a penalty for not arriving at the finish at the right time? Which is worse, early or late?
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there is a penalty for coming in under the minimum time. I've never flown a contest but it seems that an average task length is 3 hours. The turnpoints are really turn cylinders where as long as you get within X miles of the point you can continue to the next cylinder. the strategy comes in on how deep to go into each cylinder. In a handicapped contest the strategy becomes even more complicated as the low handicap gliders will usually just brush the edges of each cylinder and use the handicap to boost their mileage (and speed) while low handicap glider will have to fly to the back of each cylinder in order to get a bunch of mileage since their handicap mileage will be shorter.

Either way it seems the typical strategy is to fly a distance that allows you to arrive right at minimum time. Unless you can find a way to add a bunch of miles and boost your average speed at the same time.
 
I just competed in a mini contest in IL earlier this year, and we had a bit of a rules mentoring session. In the sports class most tasks ate TAT tasks (Turnpoint Area Tasks). These tasks specify several turnpoints with a radius around them and a minimum time. from the start you fly into the first turnpoint cylinder as far as you chose, and then continue on to the next cylinder. Once you are back on the ground your distance is scored based on how far you went into each cylinder. The trick with this task is to finish as close as possible to the minimum time. This has the effect of maximizing your percentage of the task spent in final glide (usually the fastest flying of the day), and increasing your average speed.

The TAT is preferred in a handicapped competition since it allows the pilot to choose how far he wants to go based on the performance of their ships.

For more info you can read the guide to competitions.
 

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vontresc said:
Well I can't speak for Brian, but since contests are usually away from your home gliderport you need to anticipate just about every eventuality. In addition to prepping your plane you need to make sure you bring all your electronics (logger, PDA, GPS), Batteries, Chargers for all of these devices, and the list just goes on. It's kinda like packing for an expedition to a remote destination.
Click to expand...

Yes pretty much what Pete said, Plus learning how to use the glide computers and equipment that you have. There is nothing like flying 5 or 6 days in a row and trying to accomplist a task to help you learn how to do this stuff. I am always surprised how much better my landings get after a few days of flying.

Also since you are going on the road you tend to find places to keep the chargers, computers, tie downs, and rigging equipment so they are easy to get to and you know where they are. This kind of stuff really helps with the local flying as well, but if all you do is local flying many pilots never take the time to take care of these kinds of details.

Brian
 
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