SGP USA Day 6: Spaceport day

We awoke to grey skies and the threat of rain in the air. The director sensibly scrubbed early and we held a bit of a forum, discussing start rules and the dangers of landing low over a public road. Of course, by 1400 the sky looked amazing and in the UK we'd have been on a 500kms task at least!


Paula and I left site and headed East to Cape Canaveral, or the Kennedy Space Center as it is now known. What a great place! The visitors centres are really well done with the consoles from the original moon landing launch, the stunningly massive Saturn V rocket, the rocket assembly building, transporter, and Atlantis shuttle. I have to admit I must have had something in my eye when the final IMAX style movie ended and the screen became transparent to reveal the Shuttle - very well done indeed.


"Mos Isley spaceport: You will not find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy"



Typical. All that work I did to get a US glider pilot licence and the ship is out of airworthiness.

Up Slack...

 

...All Out



Saturn V. The scale of the thing is incredible.





SGP USA Day 5

Yet another glorious morning followed by cumulus popping at midday. But first a task briefing supported by Dunkin' Donuts, coffee, Bagels and mini doughnuts found by the crew.

Big Excitement, Small Doughnuts

Off tow into a 5 knot climb to 5000', hang around for the start gate to open at 1340 and then charge off North with the pack of 12. Cloudbase built to over 6500' and I was feeling so much more awake and really enjoyed the flight. As per usual I disconnected with the leaders in the last 50kms and came home 7th. It was a really enjoyable 300 kms though.

Today's task

After landing we met for prizegiving and a lasagne meal in the hangar. Although it was 50 miles away we could all see the SpaceX reusable rocket launch from Cape Canaveral to our East. Finally, against a glorious sunset the luckiest man in Florida rolled his beautiful Super Cub out of his private hangar behind his house (which also contains an ASH25, Nimbus 3, Stearman and Texan T-6, oh, and a garage with Willys Jeep, '64 Corvette and various other toys) to take his wife for a sunset flight.

Is this the best man cave on the planet?

I need a man cave like this

Time for a sunset flight in the Cub

Poor thing, he's only just back from requalifying for the B-17 Flying Fortress. It must be awful being Shaun.

SGP USA Day 4

Oh pooh.

Contest Director John Godfrey: doing a superb job

Today was great weather - 7000' cloudbase, strong therms, but I was very tired after a few nights poor sleep and I have form flying when tired. So, I throttled it all right back and was very, very careful and desperately slow. There is no way I'm taking risks with someone else's glider

Victor Whisky back safe and sound

 We're sleeping in a room at SLGP clubhouse and sadly there are some extremely inconsiderate Japanese students here who stay up past midnight and keep waking us up. Despite several trys they can't be persuaded to leave at a reasonable hour and short of resorting to violence I've run out of ideas, so tonight and tomorrow night we're decamping to an offsite hotel to get some proper sleep.

On the plus side, I've got to grips with all the instrumentation and had a penalty free day ;-)

SGP USA Day 3

A longer still task today: 418kms South then North West. The weather is really very nice - balmy evenings and clear blue skies to start each day.

Getting ready to go with the glamourous Brolly Dolly

I got the start fractionally wrong and got a 30 second penalty for being a few metres above the 4000' max height, but had a good run South stopping in 7 knots for the first climb to over 5000'. Round the first three turns things were looking very good indeed with me higher than a couple of gliders 500M in front - all very good. But then, a poor routing decision by me took me into a lake effect and I suffered badly, getting 15kms behind the leaders. Rather angry I chased after the gaggle and succeeded in catching them up at the Northernmost turn which was in the blue/sea air from the Gulf of Mexico. Nipping round the turn meant retracing steps back into the convection and then South to a sea breeze front looking feature. Again my routing was sub-optimal and I came home 7th, 180 seconds behind the winner: close margins for a 4 hour flight!

Say what? The ClearNav does what???

Big thanks to Bo Michalowski and Maria Szemplinski for some great photos!

SGP USA Day 2

another day dawns in paradise...

Another spectacular day dawned crisp and clear with a  gorgeous blue sky. A spot of running around and watering up, weighing and towing out and by 1230 it was time to launch. The startline opened at 1345 with a 5000' cloudbase and we all pushed off North on the 388kms task. There were some soft spots on the way round but cloudbase to over 6000' amsl and therms were generally 5-7 knots. There don't seem to be many energy lines available - it's more individual bubbles and quite a bit of influence from the numerous lakes and swamps. The winner, Jerzy, came in at 120.4kph and 8 minutes later I rolled in. The last 20kms were particularly good fun as Robin Clark in RF was sat 100-200 feet higher than me just behind and it was akin to be hunted by a great white shark: just beat him home though.

Tomorrow promises to be more great weather.

SGP USA Day 1

What a hoot!

Fill it to the brim and dump 70 seconds to get 1096lbs all up weight

We launched at 1250 into a 4800' cloudbase and 5 kt therms. Start opened at 1340 and all 13 of us charged off together to the South on a short first leg, then West 30 kms to Green Swamp and North 100kms to Woods and Lakes. All the TP's do what they say on the tin.

A good soaring sky

We had a gaggle of 6-7 running round together - all very respectful thermaling with some rather good pilots. These guys fly very well. I got slightly behind the game on the penultimate turn and lost 3 minutes on the leader, Tom Kelly, who came in at 125kph for the 336 kms task. BUT - the goddamn Clearnav got me: the start line I thought I'd entered as 5kms length was actually 5 kms radius, so I missed the line by 76 metres and got a 5 minute penalty. The blasted thing even labels the start line as "length/radius" in the edit page - so that's clear then. I'll probably have the hang of it by the end of the week, and no doubt going from LX to Clearnav is hard for a Clearnav diehard.

No matter - it only cost me one place.

See me. Must try harder.
 

Practice Day

A tough day at the office

Today's conditions were pretty good. 5500' amsl cloudbase, some 6 kt therms around. We tasked to the North West into much friendlier terrain. Everyone had a good romp round with Sean Fidler fastest at 114kph for the 170kms task. I will have been crucified on penalties as I mixed up the required turn direction pre-start (local rules require left only behind the start line at any time rather than just the last couple of minutes). It was still great fun and that's the point of practice days.



Remind me again which country this is?



Cruising out pre-start

Florida Shakedown

Home for the week: Seminole Lake Gliderport

A bit of a busy day yesterday. Rig the glider, load the airspace/waypoints, try to learn the Clearnav. Turn the power off to go back to the clubhouse. Turn the Clearnav on - reload the airspace and waypoints (where'd they go?!). Moving from LX to Clearnav is proving trickier than I'd hoped.

Slowly learning the Dark Art of Clearnav

A spot of scrutineering to get the wing loading at 52kg/m2 at 1096lbs all up. Moving from metric to Imperial and back again is also a pain. There was an unofficial practice yesterday and I promised myself I wouldn't fly it but would get used to the glider and instruments first. 20 minutes after launch I went through the start line with 4 other guys still pressing buttons and amongst other things trying to find how to get audio vario. Why can't Clearnav have a volume knob like LX?!!!

"Swamps to the West of me...

...Theme Parks to the East, here I am, stuck in the middle with you"

There were 5 kt climbs around (I think - couldn't find the average to start with) to over 5000' amsl but the terrain. My goodness the terrain. I would rather fly Rieti or the Alps! There's few landing options although most of those are on airfields. I managed to get down to 1200' so got a good look at options but climbed away and wandered back slowly getting more to grips with the avionics. By the end of the flight I think I had most of them working OK.

Franklin Burbank said there was a Butterfly Lake pointing at the site: he wasn't wrong.

Pre-Comp Respite Care for the crew

Never let it be said I can be selfish and obsessed with flying.

We've driven South West from the contest site for a couple of days near Sarasota. A day at Myakka National Park for biking, nature trails and canopy walks...

It's a Trek bike Jim, but not as we know it.



Up in the Floridian canopy

Bradenton Beach

...and then a day at the Honeymoon Island National Park and Canadesi Island with gorgeous beaches.....





 

Pasty white Brits on tour

 

 

...and time for an oil change on the trusty steed. Andrew's van is a V8 5.4 litre Ford that needs an oil change every 3000 miles. I love the Jiffylube drive through oil change centres - no appointment, just drive in off the street for fresh oil and a new oil filter in just 15 minutes. We need these in the UK. The 5.4 litres explains why we're only getting 12 miles per gallon: good job it's only 36p/litre for fuel



Jiffylube time

I love it when a plan comes together

We made it to Florida.

This morning we drove the last few miles to Pierson to meet the very helpful Franklin Burbank at Citrus Soaring. Citrus is a small but cool commercial operation with a laid back vibe and a beautiful location. The small clubhouse has a big decking area and several hammocks - perfect for a soaring partner whose patience is being stretched thin!

Wrestling with Administration

The mighty Schweizer 2-33

An hour of wading through FAA website forms, a ground briefing/check and then 3 flights to complete the Flight Review. Et voila - at last I have a valid FAA Glider Pilot licence, I can legally fly Andrew's ASG29, and enter the SGP at Seminole Lake Glider Port (SLGP). The check rides were good fun too - a new type for the logbook: a Schweizer 2-33. Aluminium wings, rag and tube fuselage and the performance of a K13/T21. One tow to 2000', a simulated rope break and a circuit met the criteria and by midday we were done. Apparently the towplane is well known in the SE States as Sylvester - thanks to the Perspex shielded soft toy.

Sylvester

Sylvester's mount

Thank you Citrus! Well worth a visit for anyone with the opportunity.

Another hour and a half of driving, interrupted by lunch in a diner, and we rolled up at SLGP with time to wrestle with the Clearnav to load TP's and airspace, load new firmware for the Power Flarm and check the glider out - it all looks beautiful and ready to go.

Now we're off for a couple of days crew respite in Sarasota and planning to be back for scrutineering/practice on Friday....

Getting to Orlando

It's all going really rather well so far.

A civilized start on Saturday morning for a 1000 Delta flight from Heathrow to Rochester and we arrived at 1800 local time. The outstanding star of the entire entreprise is Andrew Ainslie who is lending us his ASG29 and his van to drive from Webster, New York State, to Orlando Florida for the Sailplane Grand Prix. What a testament to the kindness of strangers - a post for help on the r.a.s. website put me in touch with Andrew who could not have been more kind and helpful. Andrew was even generous enough to collect us from the airport and put us up for the night in his beautiful house on the shore of Lake Ontario. He and his wife, Teri, and 3 legged dog Ginny were model hosts and tolerated a pair of jetlagged Brits for dinner, even raiding the basement wine cellar for some rather splendid Rioja.

What a view from a house!

Check out that numberplate - very apt

Sunday morning we followed Andrew down to Harris Hill and the National Soaring museum where his trailer is wintered. A check of all the kit, a briefing on how it all works and we were ready to go - almost taking a stowaway Ginny who had hidden herself in the back of the van. Midday and we were off on the 1250 mile drive to Orlando. The rig tows really well: nice and stable and the Interstate cruising is good. We're overnighting just North of Richmond and planning to get to Pierson Monday evening, ready for a checkflight and the necessary formalities needed to finish off getting a U.S. glider pilot licence.

Ginny the apprentice stowaway

Checking out the 29

Victor Whisky: Ready to rock and roll and swap snow for sunshine

2017 tour

It will shortly be time to pack the car, hitch on the trailer and set sail for the sunshine.

The last couple of years have yielded some fabulous flying in Spain, France and Italy so it's back for more of that:-

Southerly wave in Cerdanya, and 197 kph for Moustique

another little O/R from Serres to Cervin

Hooning down the ridges in Bella Rieti for the CIM

 

But first, it's off to Orlando for a little SGP action

 

QSGP U.S.A. 2017

 

Bring it all on!