Part 3 - Practice Week

In our last episode ...
- our heroes survived the 2100k trip from Aalborg via Schempp to Szeged - complete with Trannie & Nimbus but without the calibrated 302 & display
- the Tom Tom had no European maps ...

Thu 15 july - unbelievably hot & humid (high 30's, 90% humidity) - you'd think Aussies'd be used to that - but altho we have humid on the coast & hot inland, we rarely have both at once - at the airfield found Dave & Graham (18m class), Mark (Mr Fixit) and Herr Schmidt (Team Captn) - listened in on the Flatland Cup briefing - hard to understand much in barb wire accent (uno, that language with little bits hanging off it!) - assembled a team (the WHOLE team) under instruction from Lars & Mark to rig the Nimbus - eventually got the 6 bits of wing on & 10 hoteliers connected (all a bit stiff after 2 years in the trailer) - on my last wing tape, left inboard, I noticed the water dump wasn't down (even tho dumps closed) - plug twisted in wing - aarrgghh - waaaaay too hot to derig/rerig so decided to fly w/o water for today ... continued fitting instruments - suction capped the Altair to the canopy, clip-locked the flarm to the dash, put the PDA in an existing mount, sat the EW behind the headrest, connected to an existing aerial with the adapter made by Schempp, & filled 'er up (avgas @ 4E/litre!) ... but pre-takeoff, despite much huffing & puffing Tom couldn't lock the airbrakes - a showstopper ... back to parking area, shopping, pool - soooo good to cool down - team dinner conversation revolved around various girlie efforts, notably Tom's on the airbrakes!

Fri 16 july - assembled the team again (fortunately Graham's glider still flying the last day of the Flatland Cup so Mark available for techo expertise) - degrigged - Mark looking at offending water dump connection at a jaunty angle on the wing root & scratching head - everyone offering uninvited & unqualified advice - Graham querying "what's this do?" pulled the connection out, turned it & popped it back in the correct position ... it's possible Mark may forgive Graham some time before the end of the comp - maybe! Mark then repaired the tail fitting (the whole of which came out with the maroon knob), the wingtip spoiler connecting rod (which pulled thru when wingtip removed), cleaned the hoteliers to allow connection without blood & moved the PDA mount forward where Tom could see it! Rebuilt the little baby, filled 'er up (water this time), & with the aid of landing flap & a forward seating position, locked the brakes - finally sent Tom off - first & last launch off the grass - the Nimbus bumped & flapped its way down the length of the rough longish grass before bouncing into the air in the distance - tho not as bad as the EB28 beforehand - wings in a sine wave reminiscent of Michael Jackson!

So what about the flying? Up to the boss to comment - but from what I can gather it's 2-3 kts (with occasional 5-6 kts) up to 5000' in poor vis with undefined cloud bases - & water lying all over from the month of rain a few weeks back. All I can say is it's HOOOOT on the ground! And the landing is interesting - direct finishes land to the south in the centre of the airfield & speed finishes do contra circuits & land to the north on the 2 sides - regardless of wind direction - hmmmm ...

What about the eating? Meals are BIIIIG ...












Fashion? Are you wearing my shirt???

















Sat 17 july - no briefing due Flatland Cup presentations - Graham & Mark took delivery of Ventus MP (aka Mr Parker, Meat Pies or Mary Poppins) - inspection revealed a broken engine pylon - so Mr Fixit whipped the engine out so Graham could go flying


Sun 18 july - max 33C, trigger 33C & storms - all 4 flew - Lars & Graham (without engines) stayed local in 2kt climbs, David & Tom (with engines) flew about 80k NE under stormy overcast with indistinct bases - most glider & instrument issues fixed - lots of familiar faces arriving from NZ, SA, US & Finland.

Mon 19 july - bit more percussion maintenance on the towing gear ... open class had to move to the far (west) side of the airfield - so while Tom flying I moved the trailer - seems simple - but due 2 years unused, the jockey wheel is very stiff - managed to line it up & hook it on but then couldn't get it off - almost had to go shopping with it till someone rescued me by jumping on the back! We also started setting up the Aussie donga - Mark did a bit of tightrope walking! After landing when we towed to the "Australia" sign, the Americans to the right were parked to the left of their sign while the Argentinians to the left were centred on their sign - leaving not quite enough room for a PW5 in b/w!


Tue 20 july - pushed 3 open class trailers into the long grass to extract the Nimbus from behind the Americans & Argentinians - towed it back to the east side to fill up (no water on west side yet) - then scrutineering - back the Nimbus up to the briefing hangar b/w another hangar and the coffee shop with cars parked outside - with the transit van with no windows in the rear sides & no view of the wingtip in the mirrors ... yeah right! They started to weigh the Nimbus as 850kg - tempting ... but we confessed to being only 800 - so can only carry 120L water. After flying, as the organisers were too flat-out to decide whether the Americans or Argentinians were right, we picked up our sign & moved to a new park in the NW corner outside the airfield markers - not parked in by anyone, within 25M of power outlet on the fence to charge engine & avionics batteries in situ, only 200M from the water truck - only downside is it's too rough to back in (I dread the towing gear breaking & backing into the rudder!) - so we've procured a rope to tow in forward.

Wed 21 july - first official training day - ORANGE HEAT WARNING - hats, sunglasses, sunblock & water - like we haven't been so far?? They announced at briefing no flying without being "registrated" - raced to the queue - waited 1h15m for the 4 pilots ahead to register - took 5 mins for us as we'd already completed the preliminary entry & just had to verify paperwork - why didn't they send the others away till they completed their PE?? THEN they announce we can fly today & register tomorrow - aarrgghh!
Challenges ...
- launching - no grid for self launching open class - they all refuse to t/o on the grass & they're not allowed to grid on the bitumen - so it's one at a time onto the bitumen to launch - slow process
- getting logger file in on time - long tow from direct landing at southern end to open class parking at NW corner - download 302 - drive to the east side - either hand a stick in (first day) or fire up 'puter within internet range (limited) & upload (subsequent days) - all within an hour - at least if I leave Tom with a bucket & chamoix while I'm gone he can soak the bugs (prolific!)
3 hr AAT - Tom 7th - 356k @ 117kph - 927pts

Thu 22 july - another heat warning - 35 max
History in the making ... first time in 20 years they've tasked from Hungary to Serbia!
Due heat, pre-takeoff the canopy was extremely difficult to lock - trying too hard bent the lock
On landing the left wing didn't dump - seems when we fixed the dump previously we hadn't tightened the spring enough
3.5 hr AAT - Tom 15th - 268k - 706 pts
German & Austrian night - sausage, potato, beer, wine & schnapps - can't complain!

Fri 23 july - due the "no gridding on the bitumen" policy, open class launch was a disaster - Tom was the last glider "on time" but later arrivals squeezed around him - complete traffic jam - didn't help that a white Megane was left parked behind the bitumen threshold with no keys - I've never heard Michael Sommer use the kind of language with which he referred to the anonymous driver of said Megane! The delay was a blessing tho as the Altair refused to accept an AAT - could add the start line & 1 waypoint but when adding a 2nd waypoint it just said "close" & the start reverted to a cylinder - after 8 attempts (& MUCH swearing) Tom gave up & went w/o it - closing the canopy another challenge in the heat with the bent lock - used a wet canopy cover to close it, then had to keep it there over Tom's head till glider in front launched - by the time Tom launched, the gate had been open for 15 mins! Apparently the flying wasn't too flash either as he had to fire up the engine at Szatymaz (control pt 10k north) ... I'd worried the whole time that the broken lock would allow the canopy to open in flight - silly me - after landing Tom couldn't get it open at all & had to be rescued by a kind Dane pending my arrival from the "direct" end (the engine allowed him to land at the circuit end) ... reloading the Altair (or probably clearing the memory) seemed to fix the problem
Light relief when the French (forbidden from filling their pool from the airfield supply) called the fire brigade!
3.5 hr AAT - scored as 26th - 372k @ 94kph - 701 pts - clearly they hadn't taken engine noise into a/c
PS the white Megane was later seen driven by Brian Spreckley!

Sat 24 july - rain & cooler - HUUUGE relief! No flying planned due opening ceremony - Lars & Heinz helped us derig to get a few things fixed ... Bernd fixed the bent canopy latch, adjusted the flap to stop the glider turning left, tightened the left water dump spring so it'd open, & connected the wheel brake to the airbrake so there's an outside chance of missing some of the other 150 gliders on landing - more thank you's to Schempp!


Threat of storms passed & rain eased so rerigged - more thanks to Lars & Heinz!









6pm opening ceremony - march thru town - lots of speeches at the town hall in light rain - air force flypast - Schmiddy disappointed as it didn't involve free food like at the Women's last year!





Just before the march, one of the Danish team handed us the missing 302 display - so now it seems we're in order for the first day - glider fixed & all instruments arrived!

Oh and after some fiddling, all Tom Tom Europe maps downloaded & working - yaaay!








In our next episode ...
- after a week of heatwave conditions, how long will it rain before the first comp day?