13 March 2010

Here are the RESULTS for the Bright Open 2010

OVERALL

1 Felipe Rezende
2 Geoff Wong
3 Shane Hill

LADIES

1 Antje Daehler
2 Meredyth Malocsay
3 Gaynor Schoeman

Despite my poor performance, I must thank the Organisers for a truly awesome competition.

From Organisers to Competitors to the People of Bright and the generous Sponsors and Caterers - everyone was incredibly friendly and relaxed and it was a wonderful environment to be a part of.

The tasks were brilliant, the views - well I wish I had taken them in more because Bright is stunningly beautiful and the flying conditions a pleasure and no stress at all this whole week.

Should I return one day, I hope that I would have learned a lot more in order to offer a competitive edge.

Third place Ladies is an embarrassment to  me considering I was almost last Overall and my expectations for myself do not match that result .

I did not deserve to stand on the podium with Antje and maybe Meredyth felt the same way, because she left before the presentation.

I never want to stand on a podium again unless I felt I earned it.

UPDATE IN HINDSIGHT

Upon my leaving Australia I met up with Lucy Legett and Dave Snowden.  Dave is an old UL Competition War horse and he had this to say : He told me that I had the ability to be a good competition pilot, but in my efforts to learn things which I felt were lacking my  competition flying, I over analysed and lost what makes me  good pilot - my intuition. 

5 March 2010 

Sitting undercover at the Outdoor Inn 'chewing the fat',  rain falling steadily on the already swimming camp ground.  T-Shirt warm temperature, but no flying.  Pity, I was all set to test fly Ivan Anissimov's Gin Boomerang 5.  No, not thinking of upgrading already, just nice to fly other gliders from time to time.

Ivan has been really helpful with Mystic flight information.  I have not flown here before, so he has been sharing his flight experiences over the past 12 occasions that he has visited.  Now I know why he is sometimes nicknamed 'Crazy Ivan'!!! Hopefully I will be able to put the thermal trigger and route information to good use when the rain stops.

Meredyth Malocsay of Seattle, USA has been imparting some preparation advice re navigation equipment readiness to lessen stress levels on launch, so on the rainy days ahead I will have time to get myself up to speed in this regard.

Momentarily looking back at the New Zealand competiiton in Rotorua - they had 6 tasks  (Results for NZ Pg Open) I missed out.

I had a dream

06 March 2010

BRIGHT OPEN 2010 Official Website

The scoring system seems to be very user and organiser friendly.  Everyone uploads their own tracklogs and the computer programming developed by Geoff  Wong  sorts it all out.

Task 1 - Results uploaded live - Provisional

TASK 1 In Detail

27 Pilots in Goal

OVERALL

1. Ivan Anissimov
2. Shane Hill
3. Brian Webb
4. Jason Turner

LADIES

1. Antje  Daehler AUS (18th Overall and only lady in Goal) Congratulations!
2. Meredyth Malocsay USA (45th Overall)
3. Gaynor Schoeman ZAF (49th Overall)  Keeping third place warm :-)
4. Sonja Fardell AUS (53th Overall)

Ion could not come down for the start of the competition and so kindly made a plan and gave my glider and equipment to another pilot who was competing.  That pilot decided it did not look flyable for the first day of the competition and there was no rush to arrive in time for the first day of the competition.

There was a task today of course -  and it was an excellent flying day -  with bus loads of people in Goal.  A telephone call to locate my flying equipment - still on the road, arriving after the task tonight.  Breathe Flygirl, breathe.

I broke the first Rule of Paragliding - Do not get separated from your glider!!!  And certainly not at competition time.

My own fault. These competitions are important to me in my quest to be a member of the Springbok Team.  This is only important to me and irrelevant to anyone else. I should not have put responsibility for my equipment on anothers shoulders.

But I did not just give up, I am glad to say. The thought of watching others fly was too depressing. So this morning I was running around the campsite begging for bits and pieces of equipment in order to fly:

- Mark Kropp gave me his spare Swing Astral 5 glider and a pair of running shoes
- Fred Gungl loaned me an Independence Fusion harness, reserve, vario and radio
- Ashley McMillan loaned me his bicycle helmet
- Benn Kovco a Geko GPS
- Another pilot loaned me tripple 'A' batteries for the GPS
- Lewis Nott a bunch bag (no backpack available)
- The Advance jacket I won in Manilla was my flight suit

And that was that.  I was ready to go.

Well of course it was not as simple as that....

My Task 1 Tracklog

I have flown a Swing Astral 5 before so that was nothing too new.  The harness felt very Acro'ish but the conditions were gentle so I settled in fairly quickly.  The problem was navigation.

START - MYS

I had no place for the vario so put it in the harness pocket where I thought I would be able to hear it.  In my first thermal I realised that it had switched itself off and had to dig it out.  There was a bottle of juice in the same pocket so I had to dig that out first and find a secure place between my legs for it.  I dreaded hitting a bit of bouncy air with my hands off the brakes and dropping the bottle a kilometre to the ground, on a person or onto another glider. Managed to pull the vario out and tie it securely,  resting it on my lap.  Switched it back on. Replaced the bottle securely back into the pocket, with relief.

STARTGATE - 7P-100

Waiting for the start gate to open was a problem for me in that I did not have a clock/watch to see the time.  I kept an eye on the other gliders but the Geko was difficult for me to work out successfully. It is a Garmin and I realised that it had that nasty Garmin glitch of switching to the nearest waypoint instead of holding to the route order. (Many pilots noted this with their own Garmins on this Task) The task was a cats cradle of back and forth waypoints and the compass jumped to the wrong waypoint.  Not knowing the area I suspected I was early to the start gate as many pilots were still in a holding pattern.  I also suspected I was in the start gate over the ridge, scratching up to a safer height, but it was taking so long.  I wanted to join the others positioned high, further in the valley, as staying with the group was safer, but felt I did not have enough height to risk crossing to their thermal.  When they made their move I was still low. The start was on.  At this point the Geko was in my pocket on a string - I had no place to secure it solidly.  I could not tell where the start waypoint was any longer as the compass arrow had jumped to another waypoint that could not possible be the start.  Holding it in my left hand, together with the brake, pushing buttons, I desperately tried to make sense of the little instrument.  I could not tell how far I needed to leave the start waypoint to re-enter and so flitted around on the sides, hoping for the best and trying not to sink out.

FIRST WAYPOINT - GQ-061

Eventually I decided to stop worrying about the start.  I felt I had done the best I could. I needed to go for the next waypoint, but the Geko was pointing to what felt like the wrong waypoint - Goal (6S-034).  I don't know the area, I had had the route set up checked by Benn so it should be right.  What to do? Do I trust the instrument? My tracklog shows the indecision.  I decided to follow the GPS.  The other pilots had sped off by now.  They looked to be right of where the Geko was sending me.  What to do?  Time to take the map out of the harness.  before launching, I had traced the route in pen, fortunately, and had the waypoints written down on masking tape and stuck to my leg.  With the Geko in my left hand and map in the right, still holding the respective brakes, I tried to work out where I was supposed to go.  What a dithering tracklog.

SECOND WAYPOINT - 7S-100

Decided to be safe and take the way point the Geko was sending me to, but even as I went directly over it, it was stuck on that waypoint and would not jump to the next, so resorted to going from one waypoint to the next manually, using the map and written waypoints for guidance.  At the first waypoint I was alone, the last in the field, well not quite alone.  The leader, Ivan Anissimov, was already on his way back and below me looking for lift.  I drifted down Goldfields Ridge to the second waypoint and found plenty of light lift.  Drifted aimlessly over forests of trees so busy with trying to figure out where I was supposed to be going to be worried about what was below me.  

THIRD WAYPOINT LPY-073

Picked up the second turn point and headed back down the ridge for the third.  Should have stayed on the ridge longer instead of cutting diagonally across the valley.  I knew this at the time as Ivan had stressed that staying on the ridge was the way to fly Bright tasks, but I found so much sink I panicked and cut across. I landed in the valley shortly afterwards.

There is a lot of lift on the ridge and high up, but below the ridge it is tough going with massive sink.  I should have worked at staying high on the ridge.

Lessons learned:

- STAY HIGH!

- Hold to the ridges as much as possible and make the valley crossings as short a distance as possible.

- DO NOT SEPARATE from my glider during competition season.

- Make sure I am comfortable with my equipment before flight.  Did I do the best I could under the circumstances?  No, I could have looked for equipment sooner.

- I was happy just to fly.

- And flying stopped me from having murderous thoughts :-)

Impressions after Task 1 and my first flight at Bright. 

By all accounts yesterday was a good day for this area with buoyant air and light to variable wind.  It was a pleasure to be in the sky :-)
People are friendly - from the pilots and organisers to the Bright towns people who have given us lots of prizes from their businesses and tired smiles.  Bright has a busy weekend - there is an 18 000 person bicycle race, an Indian motorbike rally and us, the paraglider pilots.

07 March 2010

Rain, rain and more rain.  All was not lost.  A number of pilots took it upon themselves to give various classes which were well attended. 

Benn Kovco gave us a lesson in saving IGC files and uploading them to Geoff Wong's competition scoring website.

Ivan Anissimov held a well attended SIV Safety Discussion Group.  Ivan won Task 1 and for those who know his reputation, you will not be surprised to hear that the Russian Safety Clinic was called - 'How to Kill the Bastard.'  This was a different perspective on safety which encouraged a different way of thinking about this topic.

James Thompson kindly fulfilled a request and gave us a deeper understanding on how to read weather information like RASPS etc.

I also had the day to sort my newly arrived equipment and prepare for the next flying day.

.........And recover from an evening chatting and partaking with the Springfield and Gilroy Indian Motorcycle boys! 

So no flying today, but it was filled with things to do.

08 March 2010

More rain, punctuated by loud rumblings.

Many of us went down to the Mystic Flight Park Landing Zone to plant trees in memory of Michele Baptist who took her life last year and shocked the paragliding community and all who knew her.

It felt good to plant and create little garden features.  Some were quite artistic.

Then it was back to the Russian Seminar on Safety.  Those attending are very appreciative of his efforts.  Thanks Ivan!

Tonight we go to Rod Harris's home where there is a barbecue for all pilots.

09 March 2010

Day 4 Cancelled.  Rain clouds and wind.

Tomorrow looks good for flying.

Thank you always to those in South Africa who send me words of encouragement.  I have not performed as I would like to and if I share my feelings - well, I feel I have strayed from my path, lost contact with the Universe and this is unsettling for me.  I feel...lost  .. at least for the moment.

I have chosen to fly traditional competitions this year to see what I am capable of, to give me focus at a time when my life was turned upside down.  There is a feeling of familiar emptiness.  I thought having a goal would give me something to hang onto, but I doubt my choice.  This is not freedom ... this is warding off fear, of boxing emotions.

Travelling is good for me, it is in my blood and Soul, but I find I want to sit awhile, far away from people, and from the demands I put on myself.  I want to run to the deserts, burying myself in its 'endless' horisons, its honesty, and its solitude, but I committed to these competitions and feel I must see them through and give them my best shot.  I am not one to give up when the going gets tough.  As one pilot said: You just need a good day to set you right. Probably right.  Flying connects me to my Source like few experiences do.

And I would like to see what I am capable of.  I remind myself : Take one day at a time - you can be amazed at what  you are capable of if you know it will last only one day.

My kit is sorted, I just have to go over my route entries in my Flytec 5020, read through my planning notes and have a good night sleep.

Tomorrow is a new day, with new experiences and adventure and I am open to embracing it.

I have a care parcel arriving from South Africa soon :-)

Have packed some sun & perfect flying conditions - sent speed post. Hope it gets there by tomorrow.

Thank you Dessie :-)

10 March 2010

The air is buzzing with excitement.  Blue skies, no rain, only concern is strength of wind.  Looks like we may have to relocate to another take off site other than Mystic because of wind direction as well.  Looks like it will be The Pines because of the expected South West wind.Mystic works in a North.

Evan Lamberton from New Zealand gave me a refresher on the Flytec 5020 GPS which was very helpful.

The day begins....

UPDATE

Aw shucks....

So we took off from Rays, near The Pines.  Start was a late start at 2pm. I launched too late, high anxiety levels over navigation and loading routes. It is still all so new.  I was amazed at how extremely stressed I felt.  Was I doing this for fun? Why was I stressing?  It was a beautiful day and the view from launch was awesome!

After entering the routes into both instruments I had to take a few minutes to breathe and try bring my stress levels down.  I missed the getaway thermal. Bravely tried not to sink out and there were times when I thought I might get back up over ridge height, but it was not to be.

I bombed out thinking that was it.  I was under the impression that the window closed at 3pm.  I would never make it back up the hill in time to refly.  But I was here to fly and decided to hike up the hill anyway and try do the task for myself.  Turns out that 3pm was for some racing thingy part of the competition and I could fly and score still.  I very seldom drink Red Bull as it makes me vibrate/shake, but I downed a Red Bull on launch as I caught my breath and then relaunched.  This time the Red Bull helped to steady me and I was grateful for the boost.

My relaunch flight was a bit better, but only by a few kilometers.  Such is life.  I find I am having to reprogram my mind now, or risk being dispirited which might lead to thoughts of quitting this traditional competition saga of mine. 

This is my training year.  Everything I am experienceing is good.  It is all learning.

UPDATE:

11March 2010

Task 3 Results - Provisional

My score is dismal, but I feel I did well and very happy and that is mostly what I want to feel from my flying :-)

The gaggle above launch was seriously impressive and required our full attention and even then there were plenty of close moments.  Steve Cawte found his head bump against Magdy Malik's glider coming up from behind him. Magdy captured the moment in High Definition on his Contour helmet camera (www.balmainmotorcycles.co.za is sponsoring one as a prize at this competition.  They separated without further incident as Magdy applied brake.  An apparently perfectly gentlemanly conversation was had - and I kid you not.  Steve Cawte is married to ex South African lady pilot Alison and has a lovely upper crust English accent - 'Oie - watch were you are going!'

12 March 2010

Rock Bottom.

My worst day score, my worst competition results. A perfectly beautiful flying day ruined.

I think I am now last female and pretty much last pilot.

How do I get my mind round this?  I cannot blame my poor results on the fact that this is a traditional race competition - something which is new to me.  I flew badly in the Manilla XC Open - my usual happy hunting grounds.  I am just plain flying badly.

Now I got to figure out how to turn it around.

Todays snippets :

Anjte Daehler landed just short of goal.  She has had a good competition and will win the Ladies category. 

Merydyth Malocsay had a magic day making Goal.  Very happy for her.  The competition has been difficult for Merydyth, but she had a happy ending. This will put her in Second Ladies place.

Sonja Fardell and I both relaunched.  Sonja flew a little further than me which probably puts her on the Ladies Podium there will be only a few points between us.

Sonja deserves to stand on the podium.  This is her first competition since her accident 3 months ago where she broke her back and it has been a tough time psychologically - but she has grown stronger every day and that deserves acknowledgement.

Task 4 Results being uploaded.