I wanted to give an update from Uvalde’s World Gliding Championship (WGC) where I’m towing this week with our club’s Pawnee.
The weather continues to be hot and fast and winners of all three classes (Open, 18m- and 15m FAI) are turning in speeds of 155-160km/h (almost 100mph) over task lengths of up to 700km.
The heat and the amount of flying is taking a toll on the pilots and crews – you can see the exhaustion in many faces.
So far the contest had no major accidents that involved injuries. We had one ASW-22BLE self launching, not getting off the runway and ending up in the fence with some fuselage damage. The unlucky pilot was unable to continue the contest.
But the flying has been great with clouds every day so far and cloud base up to 11,000ft in the Hill Country, but more commonly 8-9000ft.
The launch operations last usually a little more than an hour and take place from 12:30 until 14:00 weather dependent. We tow from two parallel runways with eleven towplanes, mostly pawnees, two Cessnas and Two AgWagons. Our Pawnee is one of the best climbers in the 235hp bunch (the Cessna is stronger).
The FAA from the San Antonio FSDO was there yesterday and today and I got ramp checked – exciting, but we had our paperwork in order. They are also watching operations and ensure that no “aerobatic flight by the FAA definition” takes places during the towing process.
Finishers usually start coming back between 5 and 7p depending on the task length. On one day, the contest finish time was set at 20:12 and some pilots had to land off field – there are hefty penalties for flying after sunset.
Last night there was the international party at the tent at the airfield. Every nation’s team offered a dish and/or bevarage – the Belgian beer and Italian pasta both were very popular.
The dry conditions make the launch operation very challenging due to the dust produced by the landing and taxiing tow planes in the dirt adjacent to the runway. In the interest of turnaround time we land next to the grid, not on the runway. Yesterday I was stuck in a dust cloud unable to taxi in position – it was literally IMC for a minute. The dust leaves a very funny taste in your mouth. Eveybody is suffering a bit on the ground. Today I landed into a developing dust devil and completely lost visibility half way into the flare. I finally found the ground safely. 🙂
The weather prognosis has all remaining days as flying days, so we expect to have three more days of hot races with blistering speeds.
As always, you can follow the track on the WGC Uvalde 2012 website (under tracking, Spot) The start gate times of the competitors are published during the race day on the scoring page.
Saturday will be the last contest day, with a big party in the evening. The worlds will close on Sunday morning with the winners ceremony starting at 9:30a.
That’s it for now.