I got up early this morning to write some more for the blog, but I realized that I had left my computer in the car...
Anyway, the skies were crystal clear, with a few cu like clouds forming before 9am. They were very quickly moving from the northeast to the southwest. This was a clear indication that the NE winds from the day before which made the end of yesterday's task so difficult were still blowing. Also it was noticeably cooler, almost cold cooler -- in stark contrast to the overwhelming heat that we had for the first week or week and a half that we were here.
When we arrived, our spectacular crew had our gliders on the grid. I quickly loaded up, and taped the wings from the derig/rig from the outlanding, and headed to the pilots meeting.
Giorgio informed us that his house had been very badly damaged and ransacked. However, it seems that they didn't take many things of value -- they were looking mostly for gold and cash, little of which was to be found. His alarm system didn't work, as they had cut the telephone line, and the satellite phone requires a card which is to be replaced yearly. It had been 14 months since it had been replaced... It seems that Edoardo and Marieangela have been handling it ok, but its obvious that Giorgio wants to be there with them. We truly appreciate his steadfastness and dedication.
The pilots meeting was uneventful, except that the weather was supposed to be very bad. Cloud base was forcasted at 1800m (the lowest yet) and at 2000m, the wind was forecasted to be over 30kts from the NE. We've been running the west side of the ridges since we arrived, and this meant that all of our known tracks would be in the lee side of the mountain (this means no lift, only sink -- normally). Amusingly, the soaring index was listed as none. I started to freak a little bit thinking that this would be my day to die here (I'm only slightly dramatic), and joked with Alessandro, the task setter, asking him if he'd attend my funeral. He assured me that it would be ok at there were places to land in the "death dive" as Mike and I have coined it, to the south. (it's a long stretch where the only landable place is the beach on the Salto Lake and you better hope that there aren't any sunbathers)
We headed back to the campsite and waited for our pending doom. The wind picked up, and I really started to get nervous. We disussed the task with Giorgio, and he said that this it was really difficult on such a day. My stomach started to churn, and I thought I'd hurl. I seriously considered not flying even if the organizers called a task because with such a wind, simple mistakes (which I make a lot of) can be catastrophic. Before yesterday, we'd estimated the number of landouts and the number of damaged gliders (including landings at airstrips) and the ratio of damaged gliders to land outs has been 1 in 4. The Italians say that 1 in 5 gliders is damaged in landouts here, so it's pretty serious business.
Anyway, a few minutes later there was an announcement that the launch was postponed until futher notice, and a captains meeting would take place. The wind was strong now, with even stronger gusts. Fortunately, they cancelled the day, saying that this was a day with strong winds and it would be impossible to plan a safe landout (to the 7 appropriate fields in the whole contest area, (read sarcasm)), as there would be intense downdrafts and headwinds. Also, the cu that we were seeing weren't from ground based thermals, rather from some mid level turbulence creating condensation. Phew!! Sigh of relief. I'm so glad that I didn't have to decide if I'd bail on a world contest day. But, I was really concerned with my saftey, given that I have so little mountain experience, and strong winds make mountain flying doubly difficult.
We put the gliders away, and were invited to visit Gran Sasso with the Swiss and Italian teams. We drove to the national park in a caravan of 3 cars. It's kind of cool to go see places from the ground that you've only seen from the air. It's pretty spectacular from the air, but somehow it's almost more dramatic from the ground. We went to Assergi and saw the place were we got low in weak conditions the day that so many people landed out (including Mike, Doug and I). It was really good to hang out with some of the other teams, and I had good chances to practice my German, although Swiss German is almost impossible to understand.
We came back and were invited to a lovely dinner with Jane and Orlando, the propreitors of Richard's bed and breakfast. Apparently, there's little logic to anything in Italy -- it's best to just drink wine and wait. Also, from what Jane said, there's more litigation in Italy than probably anywhere else in the world -- as evidenced by the organizers reluctance to provide landing points, or give a landout presentation until half of the field had already landed out. However, worse than the US, these proceedings take 5 to 10 years. Good luck... We had a really nice time with them, and I'd recommend their place to anyone headed to Rieti.
It's very late now, and I really should sleep. We have mixed forecasts for tomorrow -- some say more wind and colder weather (26C as the high temp), and others say about the same as today... The frustrating thing is that the weather had been spectacular for almost a month before we arrived...
Kathy
Monday, August 6, 2007
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Contest day 5 08-04
Oh how the Northeast wind blows (figuratively and literally)
The forecast for today wasn't all that great but it seemed soarable. Giorgio's son Edoward had driven up from near Rome to spend the weekend at the contest, and he and Giorgio had the gliders at the grid by the time we arrived. We finished preparing and headed to the pilots meeting.
As we were driving over, Richard informed us that Edoardo had hold him that their house in Torino had been broken into and that the damage was pretty bad. This was heartbreaking news for us, as Giorgio and Mariangela have been such a blessing to our team. Giorgio has been a huge help to us, that despite all of the stress, pure terror and challenges that this trip have provided, it's still been fun. I'm pretty sure if he weren't here to help us, it would have completely sucked, especially on the days that Mike and I have both landed out.
At the pilots meeting, we were informed that there would be good cu (we were already seeing quite a bit) with decent lift, and a strong NE flow developing, but low clouds, especially in the afternoon. They called the typical run to the south, then to the north and then out to the east. A similar task to what we had on the day before. I've already had some scary experiences with wind and I'd rather not have them again, so I was a bit weary of the wind.
As we left the pilots meeting, Giorgio came to inform us that Edoardo and Mariangela would be leaving immediately to go back to Torino to take care of the house. We were all very sad for them, and sad to lose friends whom we had just met. The drive to Torino from Rieti is 7hrs. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the restaurant here at the airfield, and got ready to fly. The start was Contigliano, on the west side of the valley, so Mike, Doug and I decided to stay on the west and climb there. My first climb was quite strong, I saw averages over 3.7m/s (don't be alarmed, I never saw that again) and headed towards the start. I was flying quite a bit with Andy May and Tom Smith of Great Britian, and as I rolled into a thermal with them, I almost got hit by Tom's pee bag. Oh the joys of soaring...
Anyway, I lead out the start gate followed by Doug and then Mike, about 1 minute apart. There as a nice cloud street headed out about 40 degrees off course. I ran it for a while and then jumped to the next street, closer to course line, but in the process got hammered by sink. Climbing in about 1.5 m/s, I watched as Mike and Doug flew effortlessly overhead, never stopping to turn. I managed to get back up and was flying with the Brits again, pushing towards the south. The cloud street curved around to the east, and we were able to nick the 20km cylinder around Villa Vallelonga and turn towards the north.
We decided to run north just on the west side of the highest ridge, Velino mountain. I was thinking about the wind and was concerned that we were running the lee side of the mountain, but it wasn't too bad. I missed a good climb with Mike and Doug, and was kind of low again, struggling while they took off. Finally climbing with a huge bird who circled just off of my right wing tip, turning right with me almost like he was watching me. I continued north in respectable conditions. As I crossed the pass between the Nuria mountain, and Terminillo, I started to get hammered by some pretty serious sink. I called ahead to Mike and Doug, who were also having a hard time of it. Mike was down to 1100m on the north side of the valley. We figured that the wind had finally picked up and we were indeed running in the lee of Terminillo. I diverted out into the Rieti valley, got good climb up to about 2100m, and pushed north. I knew that at somepoint, I had to either try and cross over to the windward side of the ridge, or stay deep in the valley away from the mountains. I got up over the ridge, and pushed northeast without any climbs. I finally was near Polino and I wasn't going to make it to the other side, and was already in fairly strong sink. I turned into the valley and got absolutly hammered, and was quickly at about 900m MSL and headed for the Foligno airport. I soon saw several other gliders in about the same situation. Misery loves company!
I was able to climb a little bit, but was drifting away from the airport almost as fast as I was climbing. I ran into Foligno for the turn, and came back to a gaggle of about 15 gliders all in the same situation. We climbed again, and headed for Spoleto, where I got a good look at my field from contest day 3. We made the turn without any lift, and headed out across the next ridge into the Terni Valley. There wasn't any lift, and we were getting rapidly blow down wind. As we crossed the ridge, I saw a lot of gliders turning north and I decided that they were crazy as Doug said he was turning for Terni airport. In the previous days, I hadn't been able to spot the Terni airport, so I immediately turned for it and asked Doug to clarify where it was. After a rather cross wind landing, I watched as a total of 5 other gliders ended up there.
Terni airport is just on the Lee side of the ridge, so it's possible that if we had gotten out of the lee of the ridge that we could have climbed and made it home -- I'm guessing that's what the other gliders did.
The retrive was uneventful, and when we got home, Richard told me that I had missed the last turn by 300 or so meters, and would be given the turn for the distance, but get a penalty for missing the turn. That kind of left the day on a sour note - I'm grasping for every point, trying to get out of last place...
We're having a weather day today because of the wind. Mike and I are headed up to Gran Sasso with the Swiss and the Italian teams.
Kathy
The forecast for today wasn't all that great but it seemed soarable. Giorgio's son Edoward had driven up from near Rome to spend the weekend at the contest, and he and Giorgio had the gliders at the grid by the time we arrived. We finished preparing and headed to the pilots meeting.
As we were driving over, Richard informed us that Edoardo had hold him that their house in Torino had been broken into and that the damage was pretty bad. This was heartbreaking news for us, as Giorgio and Mariangela have been such a blessing to our team. Giorgio has been a huge help to us, that despite all of the stress, pure terror and challenges that this trip have provided, it's still been fun. I'm pretty sure if he weren't here to help us, it would have completely sucked, especially on the days that Mike and I have both landed out.
At the pilots meeting, we were informed that there would be good cu (we were already seeing quite a bit) with decent lift, and a strong NE flow developing, but low clouds, especially in the afternoon. They called the typical run to the south, then to the north and then out to the east. A similar task to what we had on the day before. I've already had some scary experiences with wind and I'd rather not have them again, so I was a bit weary of the wind.
As we left the pilots meeting, Giorgio came to inform us that Edoardo and Mariangela would be leaving immediately to go back to Torino to take care of the house. We were all very sad for them, and sad to lose friends whom we had just met. The drive to Torino from Rieti is 7hrs. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the restaurant here at the airfield, and got ready to fly. The start was Contigliano, on the west side of the valley, so Mike, Doug and I decided to stay on the west and climb there. My first climb was quite strong, I saw averages over 3.7m/s (don't be alarmed, I never saw that again) and headed towards the start. I was flying quite a bit with Andy May and Tom Smith of Great Britian, and as I rolled into a thermal with them, I almost got hit by Tom's pee bag. Oh the joys of soaring...
Anyway, I lead out the start gate followed by Doug and then Mike, about 1 minute apart. There as a nice cloud street headed out about 40 degrees off course. I ran it for a while and then jumped to the next street, closer to course line, but in the process got hammered by sink. Climbing in about 1.5 m/s, I watched as Mike and Doug flew effortlessly overhead, never stopping to turn. I managed to get back up and was flying with the Brits again, pushing towards the south. The cloud street curved around to the east, and we were able to nick the 20km cylinder around Villa Vallelonga and turn towards the north.
We decided to run north just on the west side of the highest ridge, Velino mountain. I was thinking about the wind and was concerned that we were running the lee side of the mountain, but it wasn't too bad. I missed a good climb with Mike and Doug, and was kind of low again, struggling while they took off. Finally climbing with a huge bird who circled just off of my right wing tip, turning right with me almost like he was watching me. I continued north in respectable conditions. As I crossed the pass between the Nuria mountain, and Terminillo, I started to get hammered by some pretty serious sink. I called ahead to Mike and Doug, who were also having a hard time of it. Mike was down to 1100m on the north side of the valley. We figured that the wind had finally picked up and we were indeed running in the lee of Terminillo. I diverted out into the Rieti valley, got good climb up to about 2100m, and pushed north. I knew that at somepoint, I had to either try and cross over to the windward side of the ridge, or stay deep in the valley away from the mountains. I got up over the ridge, and pushed northeast without any climbs. I finally was near Polino and I wasn't going to make it to the other side, and was already in fairly strong sink. I turned into the valley and got absolutly hammered, and was quickly at about 900m MSL and headed for the Foligno airport. I soon saw several other gliders in about the same situation. Misery loves company!
I was able to climb a little bit, but was drifting away from the airport almost as fast as I was climbing. I ran into Foligno for the turn, and came back to a gaggle of about 15 gliders all in the same situation. We climbed again, and headed for Spoleto, where I got a good look at my field from contest day 3. We made the turn without any lift, and headed out across the next ridge into the Terni Valley. There wasn't any lift, and we were getting rapidly blow down wind. As we crossed the ridge, I saw a lot of gliders turning north and I decided that they were crazy as Doug said he was turning for Terni airport. In the previous days, I hadn't been able to spot the Terni airport, so I immediately turned for it and asked Doug to clarify where it was. After a rather cross wind landing, I watched as a total of 5 other gliders ended up there.
Terni airport is just on the Lee side of the ridge, so it's possible that if we had gotten out of the lee of the ridge that we could have climbed and made it home -- I'm guessing that's what the other gliders did.
The retrive was uneventful, and when we got home, Richard told me that I had missed the last turn by 300 or so meters, and would be given the turn for the distance, but get a penalty for missing the turn. That kind of left the day on a sour note - I'm grasping for every point, trying to get out of last place...
We're having a weather day today because of the wind. Mike and I are headed up to Gran Sasso with the Swiss and the Italian teams.
Kathy
Friday, August 3, 2007
View Flights in Google Earth
Hi All,
There's a very cool way to look at our flights here in Italy if you have a few moments and a computer.
Mike and I post our flights to the Online Contest, a site where soaring pilots from around the world post flights, and compete based upon cross country distance flown. There are several other types of competition, based upon countries, or leagues or the fastest flights flown over a given weekend.
When the flights are posted, you can download them in either an .igc format which can be read by SeeYou, a flight analysis software (down load for a free trial here) or can be opened with Google Earth.
To download the files for Google Earth, go to the online contest site (Italian flight files shown here) and click on the blue circle with an i in it. This will take you to each flight and you can download and import into Google Earth. We did it the other night, and it is really quite impressive, and is a great way to see the terrain that we have been flying over.
Looks like today will be a rain day, so I'll have time to write about contest days 4 and 5. We had a hairy retrieve on day 4, and we didnt' get back until 2am, with flying the next day.
Also, I've update the links both here on my blog, and on the http://www.juniorworldsoaring.blogspot.com/ so that it goes directly to my public photo albums on my Picasa site.
Finally, lots of you have commented on the various posts that I've put up. I do read all of those, as I get copies in my inbox. However, I don't get you're email address with it it shows up as anonymous. If there's a chance that I might not have your email address, please leave it in your comment, or email me directly at kathy.fosha@gmail.com
I'm very happy that so many of you have been reading about our adventures here in Italy. I've received a lot of support from you all, and this is just a way for me to say thanks for helping to get me here.
More soon...
Kathy
There's a very cool way to look at our flights here in Italy if you have a few moments and a computer.
Mike and I post our flights to the Online Contest, a site where soaring pilots from around the world post flights, and compete based upon cross country distance flown. There are several other types of competition, based upon countries, or leagues or the fastest flights flown over a given weekend.
When the flights are posted, you can download them in either an .igc format which can be read by SeeYou, a flight analysis software (down load for a free trial here) or can be opened with Google Earth.
To download the files for Google Earth, go to the online contest site (Italian flight files shown here) and click on the blue circle with an i in it. This will take you to each flight and you can download and import into Google Earth. We did it the other night, and it is really quite impressive, and is a great way to see the terrain that we have been flying over.
Looks like today will be a rain day, so I'll have time to write about contest days 4 and 5. We had a hairy retrieve on day 4, and we didnt' get back until 2am, with flying the next day.
Also, I've update the links both here on my blog, and on the http://www.juniorworldsoaring.blogspot.com/ so that it goes directly to my public photo albums on my Picasa site.
Finally, lots of you have commented on the various posts that I've put up. I do read all of those, as I get copies in my inbox. However, I don't get you're email address with it it shows up as anonymous. If there's a chance that I might not have your email address, please leave it in your comment, or email me directly at kathy.fosha@gmail.com
I'm very happy that so many of you have been reading about our adventures here in Italy. I've received a lot of support from you all, and this is just a way for me to say thanks for helping to get me here.
More soon...
Kathy
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Day 3 Weather Day
Well we awoke to a rather thick sky. Remnants from the previous night's thuderstorms were till floating around in the middle atmostphere, and as the morning went on it only seemed to thicken.
Sidenote here: one of the things that I struggle with in my bag of skills as a pilot is emotional management. Flying gliders isn't so much about physical skill, it's about observation and strategy. I am, especially in a place as intimidating as Rieti (I've been spelling that wrong for months now -- who knew!), often nervous or intimidated, or in general distracted from what I should be doing -- looking ahead, planning my track and making sure that what I'm doing at that moment is as efficient as it possibly can be. Fear is something that I should listen to -- it's what keeps me safe, but I also have to make sure that it's not wasted energy.
I brought up the stuff about emotions because on a day like this it can be very stressful. The weather is difficult which causes nervousness, and there's the tension of wondering if the director will cancel the day. You have to remain in the mindset that you are flying, because it's too easy to think that you aren't, and relax into a rest day and then have to switch back into flying mode.
We gridded and then went to the pilots meeting. The forecast was supposedly for good soaring, but lots of overcast developing into thunderstorms later in the day. Alessandro and Leonardo said that it would be very difficult, and it would be a game of finding the places that were still sunny.
As we left the meeting, one of the organizers grabbed me and informed me that the regional newspaper wanted to interview me. They took some pictures and asked me several questions about what it's like flying as a woman in a man's world. I understand what they are getting at, but sometimes the really obnoxious part of me wants to say -- well I've never been a man, so I can't compare. I was pretty nervous, so my patience was a little low. I'm going to be interested to see what it looks like in the newspaper - I think I'm glad that I can't read Italian.
We came back to camp USA and the waiting game began. The clouds just kept streaming in from the north, and the cumulus over the high ground kept getting bigger and bigger. The started postponing the launch, until finally it was 10 minutes to 1330, and they hadn't called anything. We decided to head down on the off chance that they would actually make us fly. We got down there, there were some spotty annoucements about if there is a task, then there's a captains meeting, and if not, then no captains meeting. Finnaly, they cancelled the day. It was a relief.
I spent the rest of the day taking pictures with the sponsor clothes (thanks Northrop Grumman and Society of Automotive Engineers!), and working on the blog/emails/pictures. We went back to Giorgio's favorite restaurant in Cantalice. We invited the New Zealand team to join us. We had a nice time with them, and came back to a very cool evening (thanks to the trough that passed through). We're looking forward to tomorrow.
Kathy
Sidenote here: one of the things that I struggle with in my bag of skills as a pilot is emotional management. Flying gliders isn't so much about physical skill, it's about observation and strategy. I am, especially in a place as intimidating as Rieti (I've been spelling that wrong for months now -- who knew!), often nervous or intimidated, or in general distracted from what I should be doing -- looking ahead, planning my track and making sure that what I'm doing at that moment is as efficient as it possibly can be. Fear is something that I should listen to -- it's what keeps me safe, but I also have to make sure that it's not wasted energy.
I brought up the stuff about emotions because on a day like this it can be very stressful. The weather is difficult which causes nervousness, and there's the tension of wondering if the director will cancel the day. You have to remain in the mindset that you are flying, because it's too easy to think that you aren't, and relax into a rest day and then have to switch back into flying mode.
We gridded and then went to the pilots meeting. The forecast was supposedly for good soaring, but lots of overcast developing into thunderstorms later in the day. Alessandro and Leonardo said that it would be very difficult, and it would be a game of finding the places that were still sunny.
As we left the meeting, one of the organizers grabbed me and informed me that the regional newspaper wanted to interview me. They took some pictures and asked me several questions about what it's like flying as a woman in a man's world. I understand what they are getting at, but sometimes the really obnoxious part of me wants to say -- well I've never been a man, so I can't compare. I was pretty nervous, so my patience was a little low. I'm going to be interested to see what it looks like in the newspaper - I think I'm glad that I can't read Italian.
We came back to camp USA and the waiting game began. The clouds just kept streaming in from the north, and the cumulus over the high ground kept getting bigger and bigger. The started postponing the launch, until finally it was 10 minutes to 1330, and they hadn't called anything. We decided to head down on the off chance that they would actually make us fly. We got down there, there were some spotty annoucements about if there is a task, then there's a captains meeting, and if not, then no captains meeting. Finnaly, they cancelled the day. It was a relief.
I spent the rest of the day taking pictures with the sponsor clothes (thanks Northrop Grumman and Society of Automotive Engineers!), and working on the blog/emails/pictures. We went back to Giorgio's favorite restaurant in Cantalice. We invited the New Zealand team to join us. We had a nice time with them, and came back to a very cool evening (thanks to the trough that passed through). We're looking forward to tomorrow.
Kathy
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