09 Mai 2009

German Open Task 2

Today started late, as the wind was over the back for a long time. Good for me, because I was 6th off and I knew that with all the rain from the night it would be better to wait. Not possible in an ordered launch.
We set the task fairly small, 89 km around 5 turnpoints, all not further than 30 km away from the goal field, because the forecast was for overdevelopment. But the high cirrus stopped od and we could enjoy a slow and difficult day. The strangest thing is that you thermal up right in front of the castles... and they usually work pretty well too! I had a close look at the yard of Neuschwanstein and decided it is impossible to land in there as they did in the movie "chitti chitti bang bang" with a flying car.
Only 3 pilots made goal, and I was the third after Alex Ploner and Bob Baier! Bob is the new German Champion, and Alex wins the German Open overall. Natalia did well again and was 8th for the day, but I was able to overtake her, even though the day was only worth about 380 points. Took me 3 hours, because I got low regularly and you had to be very patient to get back up again and away. The overall results are not out yet, but I guess I might be 4th or 5th of the German Open. In a field with so many top class pilots my best result ever.
Tomorrow at 11 am we have the award ceremony, then registering for the womens pre worlds. I will have more pictures tomorrow. On this one you see our young stars Tim Grabowski and Christian Zehetmaier with their new glider, the purple people eater!

1 Kommentar:

gordon rigg hat gesagt…

Hello Corrina
With the sprog settings these DHV guys just begin to see the can of worms they are opening.

The angle of your sprogs is determined by the lengths of the wires and the length of the sprogs. In different temperatures the aluminium (or carbon) and the wire is a little different. The difference between the Hay flats at 40C and home in Feb at zero degree is enough to make the glider feel dangerous (with ali sprogs). The humidity also changes the tension in the sail which pulls on the sprogs and that changes the sprog angles.

When you bang the glider on the nose then there is more than likely some damage and increased clearance in the bolt holes through the leading edge at the nose. Just a few fractions of a mm here is enough to change the sprog angle 0.5 degree or more. you might make some difference in the side wires too and change the angle from the string method.

Kathleen says that they did not make the keel horizontal with a prop, like the CIVL guys did at Laragne last year. If they measure with the inclinometer then the difference measure is more wrong the more the keel moves from horizontal as the sprogs are not parallel with the keel but splay outwards (or perhaps inwards on WW?). 15 degrees nose up changes the outer sprog angle almost 1 degree I reckon from a rough 3D model in my CAD system. Flip had an adjustable prop and made the keep horizontal for his measures. Without the base bar also horizontal they will get wierd differences left to right.

My glider was measured in Laragne by Flip, then kathleen took it to cucco but with a slight adjustment up on one side as she is more fussy about it flying straight. CIVL measured it in cucco and said it was a lot lower. Kathleen did not change it. I measured it again back at Laragne 2 weeks later and it was the same as Flip's measures more or less.

So many things can effect the sprog measures, one of the biggest factors being who measures them.
Perhaps the least likely cause of the measured change is the pilot!

Yet experience does not suggest that gliders are dangerous one day and safe the next.

For sure the mood of the pilots is correct - there is a significant chance of an accident from a big change in the glider's handling after it was adjusted to keep the officials happy.

1 day x the average wage of the pilots x the total number of pilots + the costs of the scrutineering guys. The extra day at the start of the comp for the measuring costs a lot of money!