WGC Uvalde: US Team... What Happened????

Here's some more fodder for the discussion. I set up a blog to post
some of my flight experiences and some post flight analyses as a
rookie at the Uvalde WGC. I only have the first 6 days up so far. I
plan to put up the second half soon.

http://leonardzl.dyndns.org/uvalde

Dave Leonard

Dave: These are fantastic! Just the sort of in-depth analysis all of
us wannabees are looking for from Uvalde. Thanks for posting them! I
look forward to seeing the remaining days.
John Cochrane

Here's some more fodder for the discussion. I set up a blog to post
some of my flight experiences and some post flight analyses as a
rookie at the Uvalde WGC. I only have the first 6 days up so far. I
plan to put up the second half soon.

http://leonardzl.dyndns.org/uvalde


OK, so let's stop fighting about rules and get back to the topic. What
are “lessons learned” for aspiring US pilots from Uvalde?

Dave put up his experience in his great blog, so I thought I’d play
amateur coach. Dave, I hope you don’t mind. The point here is, lessons
learned, not criticize the pilots. Dave’s blog makes it clear how
tough this contest really was. Don’t think from his blog or my
comments that doing better is easy. (I screwed up far worse at
Szeged!)

In fact, one of the things I see going wrong in US team flying is that
the lessons learned in one WGC don’t get collectively digested and
passed on to the next one, so take the post in that spirit.

(Context: I got to fly with the US team at the Uvalde pre-worlds. We
learned a lot about team flying, and how hard it is to accomplish well
at Uvalde. Less obvious at the pre-worlds, but the important lesson
we learned earlier is that staying with your team member costs a
little bit when things are going well. But it pays off when things are
tough, when you need that one hard climb. Which happens, even at
Uvalde. The hardest thing for the 2010 US team was to really digest
that it’s worth swallowing the small losses in order to stick together
to avoid disasters. )

Some selections from Dave's blog with comment:

Day 7
John and I launched around 1:40
We found in the training week that joining pre-start was pretty easy
with FLARM. Well, at least joining horizontally. Getting to the same
height at the same place and time when we wanted to go was another
story
We did not get joined up before the start, but when our planned start
time came, about 3:00 we both started. I was about 3 minutes behind
and a couple miles south.

Comment: It may sound easy, but getting together at the start is
remarkably hard, even if you launch one right after the other. When Al
Tyler and I were flying at Szeged, we found that the only technique
that worked was for the first pilot, and then the pilot with larger
energy, to zero in on the second one like WWII fighters, and then just
sit there. If you don’t like what he’s doing talk about it, but do not
leave high cover ever. Even so, we started together less than half
the time. That’s very hard to do, especially in weak weather when the
stress of getting to the right place and height (stupid unlimited
altitude starts) is so high. The rest of Dave’s blog shows several
disasters that might well have been avoided had they been able to
start together. This is a skill, it’s a hard skill to master, and a
good case for those who say we should practice team flying in the US

Comment 2: You read a lot in Dave’s blog about the usefulness of Flarm
for team flying. We will have a big debate in the US over the next
year or so whether to allow flarm unrestricted or to impose some sort
of stealth mode. Question 1, is it really useful, seems answered.
Question 2, do you want to fly contests this way (and gain skill in
using flarm for team flying) is the open one.

Day 6
An interesting twist today was that there was wave above the clouds in
the start area. Several pilots, including John got up 1500-2000 ft
above cloudbase for the start. I missed the wave and started at about
6900 ft.

Comment: Apart at the start again.

John found a good 9 kt climb a few miles into the gloom, all the way
up. Several others were with him. I came in about the time he was
topping out and found 3 kts. The Netherlands team (1R and K1) joined
me on the first short leg. We came in under John together and all
missed the climb.

Comment: As we all have experienced, once you’re a few thousand feet
low, it’s often frustrating to try to catch someone.

I was alone, looking at 200 miles left to go in the blue at 5 pm.
Tempting to just glide back to Uvalde. But soon after I found other
gliders, and some lift and decided to give it a try.. I had gotten to
the near the top of the gaggle and left in front.… Reviewing the
flight logs showed we were headed straight towards a thermal marked by
34 about 1500 ft below us. I did not see him, and just missed the edge
of his thermal. The rest of the gaggle stopped for a nice climb.

Comment: Ouch! I landed out twice at Szeged from just this mistake.
When you work your way to the top of a gaggle at the worlds, you feel
pretty good. And in US contests, the big boys lead out. NO. Under
worlds rules, you stick with the gaggle in this situation – unless you
can clearly see the lift ahead, or the next gaggle you can hopschotch
to. This is a very hard lesson for US pilots. Really, in my view,
the start time, gaggling, and marker strategies in world contest are
the hurdle, and harder to master than team flying. (If you can stick
with a gaggle, you can stick with a team mate)

Comment 2: One place that team flying helps enormously is just having
two eyeballs looking for gaggles, markers, birds, etc. Had they been
together would one of them have seen the marker?

Lessons learned: … don’t pass up 6 kts a mile away from someone
reportedly climbing at 9 kts but 3000 ft above you under a dark sky
like this one.

Comment: Yup.

Day 5
John and I planned to leave early, believing the weather forecast, and
hoping the pack would not and they would get caught. John got up and
left, right behind the British team at 1330. I was not able to get in
position and ended up starting about 6 minutes behind him, right with
M6, the current contest leader and a pretty big minnow pack.

The day winner started 15 minutes later than I did, and flew right at
minimum time. Bracketing the best part of the day and staying out of
trouble.

Comment: Apart at the start again. Leaving early turned out not to be
so crucial and worth leaving apart.

Day 4

John started with the pack about 12 minutes before me. Well, he
thought he started. A little flight computer misconfiguration led him
to believe the line extended farther north than it really did. We
never joined up out on course, but he did provide info on conditions
ahead. Missing the startline cost him dearly. His speed would have
been virtually identical to mine, had the start line been a little
longer.

Comment: Apart at the start again. Two eyeballs might have caught this
one. Lots of little losses are not worth this big disaster.

Day 3

We over did the waiting for others to go out first. At least I did. I
was out of position when John started, but found a climb and followed
about 2 minutes behind. I saw a bunch of gliders coming back toward
me right after starting and figured they would be right behind. But
they were 18 meter gliders. I was the last 15 meter starter.

So what went wrong other than the obvious low spot? Started too late
and flew all alone most of the day

Comment: Apart at the start.

Day 2
John and I started together at 2:45.

Comment: In 7 days this is the only report of starting together.

We stuck pretty close for the first two legs. We were in the middle of
a pretty fast pack. I decided to deviate a little to the right of
course to a marked climb. It was OK, and not a huge deviation, but it
separated us. John continued on with the Germans following him. I
rejoined in trail a couple miles back and above. The Germans (M6 and
EI) deviated a tad left of John’s course and found a strong thermal a
mile behind him, Just south of Uvalde. I saw them, but decided it was
too big a deviation. It was about 2 km, 90 degrees. I was at their
altitude, about 4300 ft. Right where a good climb was needed to go
into the hills high. But I kept going, thinking there would be another
just as good ahead.

10 minutes later they are going by 1500 ft above as I’m trying to
center a rowdy little thermal north of Uvalde at the edge of the
hills. I got it centered a few turns later and got up. John had gone
lower a few miles northeast of me, but found a good climb. We rejoined
10 miles further north (thanks again to flarm) and worked our way up
towards Rock Springs.

Comment: Digest this one for all the lessons learned. “I decided to
deviate… but it separated us.” OK, sometimes you have to split up, but
the benefit of the deviation had better be really worth the cost of
having split up. Evidently not so here, as “we rejoined 10 miles
further north” means neither pilot was right about the decision to
split up. Were I coach, I’d say “did you guys talk about the
decision?”
Sometimes one will stop for a climb and the other go on, and “rejoined
in trail a couple miles back and above” is this situation. So, back in
the saddle. Next the Germans and John go different ways, but Dave
seems to be following neither.
If you haven’t been to Uvalde, you need a good climb going in to the
hills—and it’s often just where it’s hard. I have blown countless
contest days getting low going in to the hills. OK, 2 km at 90 degrees
is hard. But following the Germans in the first place might not have
meant any loss. In the gaggle game of WGC AST soaring, you don’t
voluntarily give up markers if you don’t have to.

I got a little off line and dropped a little below him going into the
Rock Springs area…. But the pack I had been with was now12-15 miles
ahead of me.

Comment. OK, coach has to ask, why were you not with this pack?

The sky towards Uvalde was bluing out. Time to downshift a little and
try to stay high. I deviated a bit north of course. Most of the pack
in front of me deviated a bit south of course. But I could not see
them at the time as they were still 10 miles ahead….

Looking at the logs, there was more team flying at the top of the
scoresheet than Day 1. A lot more of the pairs started together and
stayed together. The fastest pilots started near the back (right with
John and I), stayed out of trouble, connected early with the strong
lift north of Rock Springs, and found a good climb on the last leg
late in the day to finish.

The big air typical at Uvalde makes keeping a pair together tricky.
The good line is typically too narrow to fly in parallel looking for
the best air. The guy that hits it right gets a huge advantage very
quickly. Both in cruise and in hitting a core to climb in. The
preferred strategy appears to be flying in trail with the higher pilot
leading. That works as long as it doesn’t push the lower pilot low
enough that he is out of the good air. It seemed that below 3-4000 ft
AGL, the good lift lines disappeared and and the sink increased. So a
500 ft separation rapidly turned into 1500 ft and real trouble for the
low pilot. Maybe thats just a personal problem, but it shows up in a
lot of flight logs. And some very proficient teams (Itallians for
instnce) had real problems staying together.

It really looks like the big payoff is being with a good sized group
at the critical parts of the flight and using them to avoid the
traps.

Comment: Everyone read those wise words again.

Day 1:

John and I had joined a big gaggle near the start line. He was near
the top, in a pretty good position. I was a few hundred feet lower and
could not climb further. I shifted a little further north of the line
to try to climb. That cloud was marginally better, but still only
about 1 kt. John lost track of the fact I was lower and had moved
further out of position and called ready to start. I started to
follow, although 600 ft lower. I found 2-3 kts about 1 mile south of
the line, which I worked for a few turns and restarted. Another 100 ft
lower and 4 minutes behind, but I never saw him again on course.

Stopping for the weak thermal just past the start line and restarting
was not a good call. It go me further behind the pack and my teammate.


Well done Dave! Write up the next few days!

In the trace analysis, I'd be especially curious to see how much the
leaders are using gaggles/markers, and how they manage to stay high
and out of trouble.

John Cochrane