Local Knowledge

Well it might not have been the ball tearer of a day that was expected but it was still pretty nice. Probably the highest I have been since arriving and it was nice to be able to look down at most of the mountains for a change. The task setters are starting to play tricks, and set a couple of really high passes for us to negotiate. But the height was available, so all was good. Going north I had height at all the right times and eventually found myself working up to final glide (at 4400 metres if you don’t mind) with Carlos Rocca, the local Chilean ace. He then proceeded to beat me

home by 15 minutes. On final glide. He came 2nd, I was 12th. I haven’t looked at his trace yet to find out how he did it but I suspect he must know something that I don’t. Oh well. I guess if I had another hundred flights here I could figure it out too. It is likely that this will be the last blog entry before I get home; we are flying out tomorrow night (matters maternal are looming!!) and time may be pressing. This trip has been great fun, it has been educational, exhilarating and occasionally downright terrifying. Thanks to the Chileans for putting on a superb event; they are the most gracious and charming hosts imaginable. Thanks to Mark for looking after me and the glider, and thanks to those at home for all your kind thoughts.

Adios from Vitacura!!!

Getting High

As promised, they invented a new turnpoint today which meant that a direct route was over some pretty high rocky stuff. And so it seems there were two classes today; those that managed to get high and fly straight(ish) lines, and those that didn’t crack a climb at the right time and were obliged to take the scenic route. Unfortunately I was one of the latter and finished just out of the points. But it was still a lot more fun than the last couple of days. Occasionally we even had altitude above the terrain. This airfield may be small and there certainly are issues with operating in a city but it certainly is well set up. And we are really well looked after…

Chilling before the launch

Other ways of chilling in Chile

Tonight we went downtown for dinner. Through the peak hour traffic and across the freeway interchange of death without even having to part with any more pesos. I don't think anyone here stays home to eat. There were quite literally hundreds of restaurants, most of them full to bursting. Quite a busy place. Tomorrow is promised to be a cracker of a day. Bring it on.

Stuck

The flight today was so far removed from my store of experience that it is hard to know what to say about it. The forecast was for possible storms to the north so we just went a long way south along the ridges. As it turned out it looked good to the north with cu all over the place but blue and stable to the south. When it gets stable here it is rock solid. The only way to stay up is to hug the terrain, using anabatic lift and the odd thermal bubble when you get lucky. The difficulty today was two fairly high passes that needed crossing. Well, high for today’s conditions anyway. I ended up being stuck in the bottom valley, along with one or two others. After 40 minutes or so going backwards and forwards I had to take the long way round but it was horribly difficult just to keep the glider in the air. Once zero points was inevitable I gave it away; it was extremely stressful flying, valley crossings being the only respite from being within a couple of wingspans from the terrain all day. On a lighter note, this was from the opening ceremony last night when we decided to “launch” Uli Schwenk’s glider….

Tomorrow they are talking about sending us "inside" for a task. That means into the really tall mountains in the guts of the Andes. Boy am I on a learning curve here!!

Who's a naughty boy then?

I know I promised to fix my finish line indiscretions but I guess the penalty is punishment enough. Slightly more reliable weather today with a few cu around to mark the lift. The pack split into two very shortly after the start; those of us who stayed back in a modest climb to enable safe passage to the next valley got to watch from above as several gliders groveled about in the area that got me into trouble yesterday. Safely into the aptly named “valley of death” I had a nice climb all to myself, then had a trouble free run in and out of the first turn. A high point just past the second turn had me in front and in a great position to take the high passes back to the Santiago valley. I didn’t know it at the time but I probably had final glide at that point but I was a little conservative, took another climb, then watched Mario Kiessling sneak in front. He then gave me a lesson in how to run the ridges down to the south and home. Carlos Rocca also joined in the fun; we were 10 metres apart, wing tip to wing tip for the last 5 km. At the 3km mark I glanced at the final glide indicator, it said +150 metres. Ok, good, but I forgot that it takes into account total energy and I was so busy trying not to bump into Carlos that I didn’t look at absolute altitude until it was a bit late. So, second across the line but finishing low is almost a hanging offense in this comp so I dropped a few places. Tonight we had the official opening ceremony. At the end of day four. Oh well. It was OK really; lots of locals turned out, it was mercifully free of long speeches and there was a fantastic video presentation on the big screen featuring all the pilots. Weather is said to be OK for the next few days, so the fun continues. Opening ceremony

Glider line up at opening ceremony

A very short affair

Same scenario as yesterday; same area, same decision. Only difference was that it was early in the task. I am just not interested in being where my glider was pointed at the time I gave it away. Here is a short clip of the decision to turn around…

And here is a video of the launch at Vitacura. All in all an interesting place to fly.

Day 2: Too hard

I didn’t really enjoy the flying today. We were low all day, typically only 700 metres or so above the valley floor. The only safe outlanding options here are on airfields and at times the glide to the nearest one was a bit marginal. After about 200 quite stressful km of the task I found myself in a place where at my current level of experience here I wasn’t happy to proceed further. Mind you, not everyone seemed that worried. This is Sebastian Kawa about half an hour before launch:

Just a bit about Viticura Airfield. It is located on the north eastern edge of Santiago. Actually within the city itself. It is only about 400m wide and not terribly long. On one side is a river and a freeway (sorry, tollway) and a main road is on the other side. There are about 10 terrible second during each launch where the only place to go in case of launch failure is the river. Or its rocky bed. A broken glider would be the minimum result. After that a polo field comes into view. Not huge but better than the river. Then the tug flies over an escarpment, the ground drops a couple of hundred metres and you are over the central metropolitan area but there are lots of golf courses and such so all is good. Tomorrow I might post a bit of video of the launch and you will see what I mean...

Day one - a rude awakening

Well, what can you say about a day like today? You do 142kph and come last. Doesn’t happen that often back home. I had a slight problem in that I had no oxygen today. I saw a lot of guys up high, must have been close to 5000 metres. No way could I go that high. In fact I had to leave a couple of really good climbs because it wouldn’t have been too smart to go much higher. But the main problem is that these guys are really really good. Oh well, I will have to improve. But first, second or last it was a heck of a lot of fun today belting around in the mountains in those sort of conditions. Start over tomorrow.

Getting ready on day one

Well, the Chileans certainly know how to turn on a show. Pictures probably tell the story best....

Taking it easy on the lawn

Nice BBQ

Olli Teronen

Sebastian Kawa

Uli Schwenk with unidentified masked man

Yay! Party!

Today the airfield (and the city for that matter) are more or less deserted. A few people have gone flying. Mark and I spent an hour or two doing wax on, wax off with the glider. It is now nice and shiny for first contest day tomorrow. A nice relaxing afternoon coming up.

New year's Eve

Another solid practice day. Had all sorts of trouble getting up to start height; the only ones who did were those who contacted wave early. I ended up starting 200 metres low; not great but not a disaster. There were plenty of gliders lower. The first 40km or so to the north were tricky with choppy wave affected thermals but then the day got itself organized and it was a blast from then. Had a little rocket ride along a ridge at 3500 metres trying to stay out of the cloud that was below the top. Got final glide from about 120km out. There was a little sting in the tail; received a 40 second penalty for finishing 8 metres too low. I thought I was OK but it is hard to argue with data loggers. I will just have to set a slightly bigger safety margin as 5 seconds per metre is a huge penalty. But I was happy with the speed for the day, about 129kph. Tonight is new year eve party; I guess as I write this people are waking up in Oz with sore heads. Tomorrow there is no official practice. I am contemplating having a rest day. I reckon I have seen 90% of the task area and it doesn’t seem that they get many bad weather days here. Mark is trying to get his backside into a Nimbus 4DM so he can see what is so scary about this place. We'll go out tonight and have a good time and we will see how it all pans out. The Chileans we have met so far are just top blokes; they are looking after us extraordinarily well. Happy new year to all!!

Official Practice

First official practice day. Much clearer sky today; it was possible to see stuff, like mountains and other gliders. Grand Prix tasks are usually fairly short two to three hour affairs and this was no exception. 280km running the ridges, first to the south and then north. The first part was low and dirty, up against the rocks at not a great altitude. The ridges weren't working all that great. It is amazing how far some of the guys will push on before stopping for a climb. Up to the north it bcame a bit more routine for me; the ridges still weren't that great but the thermals improved. I was able to overhaul nearly everyone and was actually one of the first over the line at 121kph . But, you know, big deal. It was only a practice day; not everyone did the task and probably not everyone who did the task was going flat out. The TV/Internet people have arrived and tracking is installed in our gliders and is obviously working. As I rolled to a stop Mark told me about the ripper thermal I had on the last leg. (It was 9.5kts av) The big screen is up and Mark reckons the graphics are sensational. Pity it will all happen in the wee small hours for folks back home. Here is our tie down. All very civilisedTomorrow we get to do it all again. It is a tough life

Bit of an off day

Not much to say about today. Woke up with cough, sore throat and blocked ears. Went flying anyway. Conditions weren't all that flash and visibility was appalling. The photo below was taken from overhead Viticura, looking east towards the mountains.

They are out there somewhere! Slowly picked my way north but after two and a half hours I had had enough. Quiet night for me I think. And happy birthday to Danielle!!

Working out how to do it

Ventured a bit further afield today, about 100km to the north and a bit less then that to the south. Did a fair bit of back-tracking, seeing what works, what doesn't, and trying to identify the energy lines. The Andes are a very significant mountain range; about 100km from here is a peak of 7000 metres. We are really only fooling around in the foothills, little things of only 3000 metres or so high. But therein lies one of the difficulties of this place. A lot of the bits we are flying over look like hills; they are quite shallow and almost flat on top. The photo below taken at 8500 feet sort of demonstrates this:

It is quite tricky working over this sort of stuff. Mostly it is just anabatic lift so we are quite close to the terrain most of the time. It would be easy to become unstuck if you aren't paying attention. The whole task area is an eerie moonscape. It all looks utterly forbidding. I am treating it with great respect.

My oxygen bottle is still lost. I suspect I may never see it again. One of the locals has kindly lent me a bottle so we will get that fitted this evening. Otherwise, all good.

Flying at last

Both of us woke up this morning at about 0500 with our bodies trying to tell is it was late in the afternoon and only lazy people are still in bed. There were a few jobs to do on the glider; installing loggers etc. Eventually we deemed it fit to fly, about the same time the airfield shuts down for an hour every Sunday because there is a church off the end of the runway and we mustn't disturb them. Eventually we got in the air. The day was a bit overdeveloped and visibility was pretty awful. Mostly it looked like this:

Never really got into the high parts as they were cloud covered, but still had a nice 3hrs learning the area. My oxygen bottle is still somewhere in the Qantas/Lan Chile luggage system but everything else is going OK.

Getting there.

Well it has been a somewhat surreal 24 hours. I am not sure if I am paranoid or just have a heightened sense that they really are out to get me........................................ 0500 at Adelaide: "Are you sure you spoke to someone at Qantas about that oxygen bottle?" Of course we had, and requested a confirming email, to be told "No worries mate, it's in the system." Ha ha, heard that one before........................................... "Can't issue boarding passes through to Santiago as it is a Lan Chile flight." OK................................. 0930 at Sydney: "Sorry, you can sit at one end of the plane and he can sit at the other cos we gave your seats away cos we didn't think you were coming." "But our baggage is booked through to Chile" "Well how are we meant to know that?" ............................................. Hmmm! ......................................... Crying and rowdy children for the next umpteen hours............................................. 1130 Santiago: USD61 entry visa fee. Oh well, they must hate the Americans more; they pay USD130..................................................... 1200 Santiago: "Where is the oxygen cylinder" Missing baggage form filled out. It may arrive one day............................................. Car rental: "Excess for damage is USD6000....! Unless you pay extortionate insurance premium" Jeez.............................................................. Freeways: Actually tollways. 100 m out of airport, demands for pesos. We have no pesos as no ATMs in airport. Eventually settle for Euros that Mark luckily has in pocket. Then get lost in most complex flyovers and intersections I have ever seen. Even with talking GPS. Get stuck on road that talking lady says is 8km to next U-turn. Come off tollway, demand for pesos. Do U-turn, approach tollway, demand for pesos. Get lost again in very same set of flyovers as before........................................................... Eventually find hotel, shower, change, head to airfield. Get lost in very same flyover as before, find ourselves heading up road 8km to next U-turn. Do very illegal U-turn through barricades before demands for pesos can be made................................................ Eventually find airfield and glider. They managed to push my glider into a wall last week and trashed a flap; a new one was flown out and has just been fitted. Mark will have a good look at that tomorrow........................................................ We are completely knackered. Mark has crashed and I am on my way............................. Flying tomorrow!

Two weeks to go. Mark and I are more or less organised. I've been lucky enough to score an ASG29 that the Schleicher factory has in Chile as a demonstrator for the summer.

Here is the official Grand Prix website for results etc:

http://www.grandprixchile.org/

I will be carrying a Spot tracker, so you will be able to get a vague idea of where I've been here:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0VrX8yVGJo4H0E0YQhIg9h5cq879qKjqV

We will keep this blog updated daily.