1-line glider

From 4-liners to 3-liners to 2-liners. What next? The Sol-1, it may work in practice but they’ll never get it to work in theory.

Flymaster B1 Nav Review

OK, here’s another attempt at a review. Jug, from Flymaster USA loaned me a B1 Nav for the duration of the Rat Race. It took one day’s flying to get my head around it and set it up exactly as I wanted and then it was invaluable. The more I used it the more useful it became. Looking at glide ratio to the next point while thermalling to decide when to go for it, and judging how much speed bar to push based on groundspeed and L/D were just the start.

The optimised route and easy to follow interface navigates you on the shortest route around the cylinder edges, while telling you the estimated wind directions and strengths. It’s not perfect but better than the guess work looking for signs on the ground gives you. It also tells you were the last thermal was, with a graphic that isn’t that easy to understand, but has a weighty algorithm behind it that compensates for your altitude and drifting thermals, apparently. In practice I preferred to use the track log on the Garmin 76S map page set to 200m zoom to re-locate thermals (a trick I learnt from the great Eric Reed). It’s a method which also showed me the wind shear as the thermal drift shifted as I topped out over the valley peaks.

I have my doubts about the accuracy of the GPS cylinder alarm. On one flight I turned after hearing the alarm that I’d made the radius and when the scorer looked at the log there were only 8 points logged (8 seconds) inside the cylinder so it must have sounded before I’d actually reached the cylinder. “Seven points too many” I joked, but after that I made sure I was 10m inside the cylinder before starting turning out. An easier fix would be to enter the cylinders with a 10m smaller radius. It might have been a momentarily poor satellite connection reducing it’s accuracy, but the sky was clear and there was just my wing overhead.

The new goal line feature still has some bugs, but they are constantly working on firmware fixes and seem very responsive to suggested improvements from pilots.

It’s a great bit of kit, but it’s $640 which is why it had to go back. I don’t know if it’s better than the more expensive Flytech, although I did notice that Nick Greece, the competition winner, uses a Flytech with a pito tube, giving a more accurate windspeed indicator. Flymaster doesn’t have the option of a pito tube, but finding a solid mounting point for it on a paraglider where it will work well is tricky.

Certainly the Flymaster has a sharper screen than the Flytech, even with the protective film that Jug wouldn’t let me remove during the trial, and perversely was easier to read in direct sunlight than when shaded. Some would argue that the Flytech makes better use of the screen real-estate by not boxing the values, so they are bigger, but the Flytech layout looks more confused as a result, especially when some values disappear, like L/D during a climb.

The Flymaster, like all GPSs, can also be used to upload flights to Leonardo, a sharing database that also allows you to analyse your flights. I only spent 10 minutes trying, but couldn’t get my computer to recognise the flymaster even after downloading the driver from their site. I expect there’s a simple fix given more time. Pity because I wanted to save my flight track logs before returning the unit.

I’m still experimenting with LK8000 software (v2.2c), as a cheaper (free) option, but it doesn’t have a rosette wheel for navigation, using relief maps instead (which might be more useful), and I don’t think it has a continuously optimised route to the cylinder edges based on your changing position. On the hardware I’m using is hard to see in direct sunlight, and has a limited battery life of about an hour.

http://www.flymaster-usa.com/

http://lk8000.it/

http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/tracks/world/alltimes/

Rat Race Pictures

Click for more photos of the 2011 Rat Race

Rat Race

Rat Race – More than a lesson learned

I’ve picked up lots of tips and new perspectives from the formal and informal session run by experienced pilots and been really impressed with their willingness to share.

Most importantly I’ve learnt that I’m not as good a pilot as I thought I was, which is a really valuable lesson. Flying with better pilots has been a refreshing reminder that there is still much more to learn in this sport, at a time I was beginning to suspect I knew it all. And that’s reignited my excitement about flying and learning, and especially cross country flying.

I’ve also discovered that I’m not interested in competing. But maybe after a year or two of more XC experience that might change. So many of the conscious thoughts I’m processing need to become familiar and subconscious, so that I can spend my mental energy observing the conditions and planning strategies in the air, before can be competitive. But while the Rat Race is a competition, it’s also a very elaborate cross country clinic, and I’d agree with the organisers, that there is definitely a market among pilots for flying tasks under a mentoring scheme and alongside better pilots. It’s hard to see how to do that outside the framework of a competition which is enticing to the better pilots.

The event wasn’t without criticisms. Some felt that organisers were slow to respond to safety concerns that the oversized and under-skilled Sprint race gaggle might lead to mid-air collisions, even after comments about how dicey it looked from the Meet Director. The staggered starts used on the final two days were the obvious solutions and worked well increasing the enjoyment and safety for all the pilots in the air.

Half the Sprint tasks rated less than 50% in “Day quality”, a statistically measure of how fair and how testing the chosen routes were. In practice task committees have an impossible job when setting a course, balancing the skills of the pilots against the terrain and the weather conditions. But by comparison the Race tasks all rated over 80%, except on the day that was blown out. Perhaps a slightly different set of thinking is required when setting the course for lower airtime pilots, or perhaps we were just unlucky. Certainly from my perspective, the days which rated higher Day Quality were the more satisfying to fly, even though Sprint pilots made goal everyday, proving that the tasks weren’t impossible.

The Race pilots I spoke to were happy with the task setting, although on the day we all did circuits around the valley a few would have preferred to be going somewhere, other than round in circles. In recompense, spectators on the ground enjoyed trying to follow the race from the launch and LZ. Making Paragliding a appealing to spectators is a big and important challenge, and this was a worthwhile experiment in sharing the sport with an grounded audience.

The final two day’s flying were especially good, as the pilots, weather, and organisers all hit their stride. Minor problems evaporated, and by the last day the overriding conclusion was that it was a beautifully organised event.

I heard that four pilots came down under reserve, and a couple of landing injuries required hospital treatment. Perverse as it sounds, when weighed against the number of pilots hours flown, this seems like a pretty good record. The continuous reminders from mentors, that we shouldn’t make decisions in the race which we wouldn’t make in our normal flying, echoed in my head throughout the week, and I wouldn’t be surprised if those voices also kept other novices safe.

So after a week of my best flying, I’ve re-cultivated the feeling that I have a mountain of learning to do and can’t wait to get started practising . The Rat Race provided a great set of resources to start me off, and a quorum of other students with which to share the learning experience.

There’s some doubt about whether there will be another Rat Race next year, but if the organisers can’t do it, perhaps the local RVHPA club could organise something similar in the valley.

Rat Race Day 7 – Goal

So you don’t want to hear all the details, there’s nothing more boring than a pilot droning on about the nuances of his flight, but the headline is that I made goal. Finally, after a week of trying, I made goal. I came 21st on the day. It was a tricky little course, I had a three low saves, 44km of great thermal flying, avoided gaggle incidents throughout and landed after a few spirals to Chistina’s kiss. What a special feeling.

It was all quite emotional, and I thought I was going to cry at one point, until someone pointed out it was just sun block in my eyes.

The award ceremony is now over, someone called Nick the Greek won or something. I still don’t know what position I came in overall, but I’m guessing I was fifty something. I really wish I could run the whole competition again because I’ve learnt so much I know I could be a top 20 contender.

I’m flying much better than I was a week ago. Mainly thanks to Jeff Farrell’s mentoring lectures and Nick Greece’s fight club Q&A session before launch each day. I’m rolling with the turbulence, sitting back in the harness, climbing patiently and reading the terrain and thermals much better. A day off today, but I can’t wait to go flying again.