That's Hang Gliding For You

A discussion restricted to the topic of hang gliding.
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The Oz Report
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That's Hang Gliding For You

Post by The Oz Report »

<div id="1569511429"><i>Zac is aggressive, and sometimes it doesn't work for him</i><br><p>These are the main elements of the story on the last day of the 2019 Santa Cruz Flats Race. Zac Majors has been leading the competition going into the last day. He will fly aggressively on the last day as he has all week and not just try to keep over the guys closest to him in the competition.</p><p>Here is the start of the task for most pilots at the second start clock (actually at 14:20:05). Zac is the blue arrow at 8,800', I'm the red arrow at 5,400', and standing in for Jonny, Oleg, Kraig and others, is Tyler, the green arrow, at 9,300'. The top finishing pilots all flew together for the most part so Tyler is a good stand in for all of them.</p><p><img border="0" src="../pub/images/92119start.JPG" width="440" height="443" style="width:auto;height:auto;max-width:100%"></p><p>At 14:31 Tyler and Zac make the first turnpoint, a 5 km cylinder around Signal Peak.</p><p>Tyler (and friends) is at 8,300', Zac at 7,000'. I'm 5 km behind climbing at 4,600'.</p><p><img border="0" src="../pub/images/92119first.JPG" width="463" height="511" style="width:auto;height:auto;max-width:100%"></p><p>At 14:45:37, 25 minutes after the start at 14:20, Zac finds a strong thermal averaging 590 fpm, just north of Casa Grande Mountain and just south of the I8 freeway. He is three kilometers ahead of Tyler (and friends) at 5,900'. Tyler is at 6,800' and I'm 9 kilometers behind Zac at 5,100'.</p><p><img border="0" src="../pub/images/92119mtn.JPG" width="291" height="693" style="width:auto;height:auto;max-width:100%"></p><p>Tyler (and friends) misses the lift as he passes right under Zac at 5,800' while Zac is 7,700' and climbing. Zac climbs to 8,300' before heading south for the mountain. Meanwhile Tyler has reached the north end of the mountain at 5,300'</p><p>At 14:53:33 Tyler finds 225 fpm at 4,200' over the mountain as Zac passes over him without stopping at 7,200'.</p><p><img border="0" src="../pub/images/72119mtn2.JPG" width="433" height="797" style="width:auto;height:auto;max-width:100%"></p><p>At 15:05:57 Zac continues south until he finds 285 fpm at 2,400' (1,000' AGL). He is 8 kilometers ahead of Tyler who is thermaling at 140 fpm at the south end of the mountain at 5,200'. I'm just getting to the north end of the mountain at 5,400', 5 kilometers north of Tyler, after thermaling up at 300 fpm near where Zac got up north of the mountain. I will soon find strong lift half way down the ridge line.</p><p><img border="0" src="../pub/images/72119second.JPG" width="278" height="793" style="width:auto;height:auto;max-width:100%"></p><p>At 15:17:40 Zac finds 485 fpm at 3,300'. I've climbed to 9,300' and am heading south toward the Sunland turnpoint. Tyler is heading south just north of Arizona City at 4,900'.</p><p><img border="0" src="../pub/images/92119secondsecond.JPG" width="331" height="740" style="width:auto;height:auto;max-width:100%"></p><p>At 15:23:45 as Zac climbs up just 2.4 kilometers north of the Sunland turnpoint, Tyler and about four others get stuck at a little over 4,000' over Arizona City as I fly over them at 6,700'.</p><p><img border="0" src="../pub/images/92119ariz.JPG" width="339" height="750" style="width:auto;height:auto;max-width:100%"></p><p>At 15:29 Zac climbs to 6,800' and then takes the Sunland turnpoint along with Greg Kendall who started 20 minutes earlier. I'm a little less than 3 kilometers behind but down to 4,300'. Tyler is still over Arizona City at 5,900'.</p><p><img border="0" src="../pub/images/92119sunland.JPG" width="273" height="690" style="width:auto;height:auto;max-width:100%"></p><p>At 15:41:26 Tyler and a little later Jonny finds 400 fpm from 6,600'. Jonny finds 600 fpm just to Tyler's (and friends) west. I'm stuck north of the turnpoint searching for better lift which I'll find in a few minutes. Zac is turning in 180 fpm at 4,200' and is 15 kilometers ahead of Tyler 11 kilometers up the last leg.</p><p><img border="0" src="../pub/images/92119northsunladn.JPG" width="296" height="726" style="width:auto;height:auto;max-width:100%"></p><p>Tyler climbs to 10,200' by 15:50:50. At 3,500' I find 360 fpm one kilometer south of Tyler. Zac is 20 kilometers ahead of Tyler but at 3,100' climbing at 70 fpm.</p><p>Given their extraordinary altitude Tyler and friends go on final glide from 30 kilometers out. Only Kraig has to take a few more turns up the final leg. Zac doesn't get up and lands 7 kilometers short of goal. I thermal up to 8,200' but that is not enough to make it to goal as I headed north (not north northwest toward goal) to get up over the mountain again but don't climb to an adequate height to make it in as the lift is much weaker than when I got to the mountain heading south.</p></div>
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Pat Halfhill
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Post by Pat Halfhill »

A very nice play by play.
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CloudHopper
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Post by CloudHopper »

The aggressive lone wolf is to be admired in these events.

In general, at this year's SCFR, were the Moyes pilots more unified than the Wills pilots? Was there a defacto Moyes team without opposition from another cooperative group?

A Moyes Wolfpack is hard to beat.
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Chippy
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Post by Chippy »

There's a lot to be said about staying with the pack until the last few climbs. Most of the time that I've made goal it's almost always using group think (stop using my brain as Phill Bloom says). Being on your own is difficult and is what most people love about the way those pilots fly (Zippy). They risk it all and are rewarded for it when the conditions stay consistent.

At the Worlds this year I was unlucky enough to be in this situation with Eduardo from Brazil who won the previous day on the 200km task into Austria. However on the next day, we're out with the leaders, but low, we'd been down this road a few days ago, but today was more wind and we had pushed it still too low, thinking all we had to do was get around the SW end of the range. That didn't work and we both landed in restricted airspace no less (insult to injury).

All this to say that sometimes even with help, you can end up struggling with poor decisions made 30 minutes ago. And as they say, that's Hang Gliding …

Davis has written extensively about the difficulty of tempering his brain and the decisions he and quite frankly all competition pilots are faced with. Racing psychology is a temperamental beast.
Jeff Chipman
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Scott MacLeod
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Post by Scott MacLeod »

A very fun read
Fly with a sense of vulnerability. You'll live longer.
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Davis
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Post by Davis »

There was a Moyes team. There wasn't a Wills Wing team. There could have been. See the Oz Report on Monday about the team aspects for Moyes.
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Chippy
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Post by Chippy »

Regarding teams and communication .....

Very apparent in the World Championships in Italy, was how various countries had their own separate briefing after the pilots meeting to discuss strategy and who knows what else. This seems like a very wise thing to do and I haven't seen this routinely in most of the competitions that I've attended. Granted most of those (if not all) have been in America, so maybe this is primarily an American I can do it myself mentality.

I know I have a very hard time staying with any pack for any length of time. From some of the replays of the tasks, I think there are some pretty good examples of team flying. A lot can be learned by doing so, if you are disciplined.
Jeff Chipman
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CloudHopper
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Post by CloudHopper »

We can typically observe any highly populated buzzard gaggle and find evidence of successful team flying. Last I checked, none of those guys use radios.

One of the top birds will radiate out on a hopeful search vector.
After a certain glide distance, he or she will either find lift and circle there or quickly return to the bottom of the stack.
Another top bird will then try a slightly different vector.
The process repeats until the next downstream thermal is discovered, and that's when the entire gaggle will shift over.
The gaggle is like an efficient octopus with "feelers" reaching out and grasping for lift.

We can learn from them there buzzards if we want to optimize our flights, but some of the best pilots might need to hold back slightly (loiter at top) if they are dragging along a large number of slower climbers.
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Davis
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Post by Davis »

Buzzards aren't racing.
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CloudHopper
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Post by CloudHopper »

"Buzzards aren't racing."

True, and sometimes a low performer can be seen flapping some to keep from decking it.

The agressive "lone wolf" approach during a comp race is one extreme, while a "team before self - no pilot left behind" mentality might be the opposite extreme.

A fast-moving gaggle of top notch experienced pilots (e.g., the Moyes Team) is probably the best compromise, where pilots with less than superb skills get wiped off and left behind in the dust.
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