World Championships

BRITS WIN THE WORLDS!!!

TEAM2.jpg

Back row left to right: Gary Wirdnam; Richard Lovelace; Dave Matthews; Robin Hamilton
Front row left to right: Carl Wallbank; Bruce Kavanagh

Well done Lads!!


The French Team came in second.
Followed by the Austrians in third.

Thu 09/08/2007

Two days of practice, the first caught a few people out with how tricky the conditions are here at the moment. They have had a lot of rain recently and there are fields with standing water in, lots of green and not a lot of the baked desert stuff we were expecting. It looks more like Gloucestershire than Texas in places. Yesterday we had planned to do the same task as the first day but with a "land by" time to get back in time for the opening ceremony. As the first (Brit) to tow I got a smooth ride up and a smooth ride straight back down again. The others faired better just after I landed and were soon drifting downwind in light lift. I chose to stay over the airfield after the rest decided to try to get back from a few Km downwind. A chance to practice trying to make headway into the 20 - 25Km/h headwind. Despite the heat the thermals are weak generally, working 1's and 2's I managed to get about 6Km upwind of the field before calling it a day and gliding back to land outside the hangar. No de-rigging/re-rigging for me!
From Gary Wirdnam

Day one.

Day 1 was a142.9 Km downwind bimble. 16Km start cylinder and 30 min start time intervals.
Today was Robin's turn for a straight up, straight back down again on his first tow……… it didn't seem to matter as the second start time was the one to take. Conditions being weak early on. Brue and Richard both got low in the start cylinder and ended updrifting off at the first start. I spent a long time in the launch queue that materialised in about 60 seconds and everyone infront is automatically allowed to push in……… a long wait in hot conditions, than god for the 15-20Km/h breeze.
On course Robin, Carl, Dave and I were soon together and making good time staying with the lead gaggle. We often found ourselves leapfroging a gaggle only to find they did the same to us moments later. Conditions on the first 1/2 of the course were a reasonable UK day (3 up was good, 2+ about normal) climbing to 6000' with the ground between 2500' and 3000'. Not a racing day. In the middle section it all got a bit sticky. Circling in 1 down I decided to go a Km into wind to a small climbing group which turned out to be a very bad decision. The rest of the gaggle (including Carl) glided on course to a 3 up and I lost a lot of ground. The last section was reasonable, Carl + Dave pushed on and were rewarded with the best climb of the day. I needed to get some height reserve having only got the remnants of the previous climb that they had left. The glide in was rubbish initially (you don't expect 11:1 in a 25Km/h tailwind) but of course it was nearer 30:1 in the last few Km. I needed to take a low zero for a few turns to get a decent glide angle in to make sure. The promised goal line was not in evidence and so we all hoped we hadn't just missed it….. the scoring being a lin rather than a cylinder. Everyone on the team made it in so that made for a good feeling and an easy retrieve.
From Gary Wirdnam

Day two

Task 2 was 185Km via a turnpoint. 55Km entry around Lamesa, the turnpoint, which was pretty much downwind and then 114Km of crosswind flying to goal at a crop dusting airstrip. 3 starts at 20 min intervals so options for a bit of start gate sculdugory.
Being a long flight (we'd used most of the available flying time the day before) the first start was popular. Carl, Dave, Rich and I headed off and lead the pack to the first turnpoint. It was slow going but consistent with the occasional good climb but mostly 2-3 up. Robin and Bruce took the second start and found better conditions toward the first turnpoint, starting to catch us up well. At the turnpoint things took a turn in more than one way. The lift was patchy and weaker with long glides. Carl and I were around the turnpoint in front of the gaggle but found only very weak lift and soon got swamped by the pack. With weak lift and lots of gliders it was a bit of a mess and I got dropped off the top part as the gaggle split into 2. Carl was 500' above and glided off, Rich and I were together in the lower gaggle. The weak conditions continued and the next glide put people on the deck and split up the gaggle. Carl had radio problems but was able to call us to say he'd got a low save a few Km ahead. Rich and I worked together to eek out the lift and keep going…….. this wasn't a race for a while. After a 15km glide we found ourselves low but Rich picked up a good core and we had our first decent climb for ages back up to about 4000' above ground. The remains of the gaggle (Attila,Raymond,Fabien and a couple more) formed around him and we were back in the game. The last 50Km was done at a decent altitude and we worked well to call the best lift between us to keep near the top of the gaggle. Bruce was down at this stage, Robin had gone quiet (he doesn't say a lot anyway) and Dave was behind us calling 6 up climbs…… lucky b***ard. Rich and I got ourselves to the top of the stack with a German pilot and just Attila sat on top of us all. We decided on going at a safe 15:1 glide after Attila. We set off three abreast and gradually upped the pace as the numbers got better. We left the hun behind and Rich and I crossed the line 2nd and 3rd for a photo finish. A great day for the Aeros boys in the team! As we'd started the glide Carl had plugged his radio back in for an update, I thought I'd heard wrong when he called a postion 12Km behind us. As Ianded he was about to go on final glide so a quick update on the glide in and he was off, coming in with the next gaggle, about 10th in. Robin landed 18Km short, basically running out of sunshine although the last guy in goal was in a 7:50pm. 3 Brits in, good placings and better than the French! We should be in the lead today.
From Gary Wirdnam

Day Three

Looks like they increased their lead on day 3 with Carl coming in 3rd, Dave 11th and Robin 26th The great thing is that now almost all of them have had a day finishing inside the top 10. To win the team you need pilots in the top 10 because of the rapid points drop off in the top places.
This gets the team going on a roll, like we had in Monte Cucco.
Carl shaved a few point off the gap to Reisinger in 3rd.
Attilla has won all 3 days and maybe now starts to get the Ruhmer effect where the other pilots stop trying to beat him! Day3 he seemingly flew the whole course on his own and came in first.

from Gordon Rigg

Day 3 starts with a smile, Brits lead the Worlds!!
169Km via a turn point. 56Km entry start, 3 x 20 min starts. The turn point was a 10Km radius which allowed people to spread out which they did.
The first start was hesitant, nobody in the big gaggle bouncing off the inversion at 6500' was keen to go. A smaller gaggle of to the west did however leave but made poor initial progress. The second start had all the team in it and we made good progress in reasonable lift for a while. At about 50km Carl and Dave got low having gone out in front of the gaggle. Gary and Rich got good climbs approaching the turn point and Robin was of to the left getting similarly good air. The turn point was the same as the day before which had been where the difficult conditions kicked in.

I had intended to go to the left of the turn point, avoiding the same area as the day before but got sucked along by the gaggle to find just 1-2 up in the same place as the day before. Robin was cruising to the left of track, over the town in a big area of 2-3 up that covered the town. Carl and Dave separated near the town but both got good climbs to 7000+'. Bruce came into the bottom of Carls climb getting high also.
It was looking good at this stage. From the turn point there were 3 gaggles, Robin west, Carl in the middle and Rich and Gary to the right. About 30km or so after the turn point the Gary's and carl's gaggle merged and became one again and robins small gaggle was not too far away to the left. The left hand gaggle started to turn and Gary straight lined to them, Carl and Rich stayed on the course line where another climb appeared, unfortunately Gary missed the radio call and continued to the left hand (slower) gaggle. With 50 odd km to go Carl pushed hard and ended up on top of the lead gaggle and found Dave who had always been a little in front.

Gary got low and struggled hard low down for the rest of the coarse, rich pushed on the lead gaggle and ended his flight 17km to goal. At 15km out and one climb needed, the lead gaggle found themselves in zeros, the few who pushed on didn't find anything and maybe landed, after circling in 1 down most of the pack glided off, and as they went the thermal popped to a good 3up, At 14-1 Carl was first to leave closely followed by the others including Dave and made goal, Robin wasn't too far behind after flying all the course to the left of track with a couple of pilots to keep him company. Gary eventually got himself up and into goal and Bruce was not too far behind, It appeared in the goal field that we may have been the top team again, and later find out "WE ARE"
From Gary Wirdnam

Day Four

Richard's day today!
Richard 3rd (+4 min off 1st), Gary 15th, Dave 16th(together at +8 min) Carl 22nd.
Attilla "only" came in 4th!
The goal was a bad one at an airfield and they had to all land on hot tarmac, the field was all fences, stakes and oil pumping equipment. Lots of gliders were damaged. Lets hope our guys were OK.
from Gordon Rigg

Day Five

what a day!

285Km (the task board was wrong) set and all the Brits in goal, only Robin didn't do a personal best. We're still leading with 4 tasks to go.
We split into 3 pairs fairly early on and as discussed we worked most of the flight like this helping each other out. It worked well. Carl and I lead the way from fairly early on but the others were catching us quite well for a while. I'll spare you the blow by blow account but it was a fantastic day and we're all thinking about changing our emails to ku.oc.halb|582sggolbj#ku.oc.halb|582sggolbj!
Conditions are still improving so we will have to keep stepping up the pace
From Gary Wirdnam

Day 6

Was a difficult day with lots of med /hi level "blow off" cloud from hurricane Flossie. he shaded areas moved around and we ended up 13Km off course at the first turn point. The second TP was also in shade when we got there and hanging around waiting for the sun to come out only made us lower and more desperate. At 6pm when the sun did finally make an appearance it was too late except for a lucky few and ots landed around the TP. Particularly gauling when you had height to make the TP and then some but wasted it hanging around! No-one made goal.
From Gary Wirdnam

Day 7

Was an absolute boomer. High cloud arriving over Big Spring made the start very difficult with weak climbs and a brisk easterly drift. Once we got going conditions got stronger and stronger. At one stage I lead a gaggle into 5 up lift which I turned into, only to find the entire gaggle flew straight through it…… it was a real racing day. The last climb was barely necessary but at 11 up you couldn't ignore it really! The final glide for me was mental, I couldn't go any faster sensibly but there were still guys coming past me who must have been doing 100km/h! We still had plenty of height to spare. This final section wasn't so kind to Carl and Bruce who had a much more finely judged glide in (you could tell because Bruce kept asking about the wind the whole way in, he had enough to make it and land but only just)
From Gary Wirdnam

Day 8

Is cancelled due to bad weather. Tomorrows forecast is poor. We are just waiting a little nervously to see what happens.

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