Worlds Wrap up

Our team after the last flight with our observer for the flight, Diana from Russia. From left to right; Tem, Diana, Wendy, Phil, Pete, Yosh and me.

Well done to Johnny , Joe and Uwe for another fantastic display of how it should be done.

After a hard week of flying, 29 tasks and about another 20 hours in the sky Johhny Petrehn has come out the other side at World Champion. Again Uwe is one of the brides maids which must really be starting to hurt. As always he was a popular person to have on the podium next to the Americans. With only 400 points between each place on the podium it was still tight to the end.

My result is up there with my worst at a worlds in 36th place. The rest of the Aussies finished in 18th (Paul Gibbs), 31st (Edwin Michell) and 44th (Andrew Robertson). I don't think any of us are very happy with our places but as always are ready to fight again - next time in Austria 2008.

At some stage I will get the rest of my track logs on the blog as they show in more detail where we were going - or not as the case may be.

We are now at the Holiday Inn at Narita after dropping the balloons off for airfreight back to Australia. Andrew, Adam, Pete, Dad and I got together to swap photos and we have around 1700 between us and just under 4.7gb in total. Got to love digital cameras.

I will also put down some thoughts on the 600ft/min climb rate restriction and the effects it had on the competition and behaviour of the competitors. I am expecting this to be a hot topic at the next CIA meeting so time to start contacting the competitors sub committee and lobbying your local delegate if you have an opinion. Rule changes will probably make their way onto the agenda of the Rules SC in the near future so watch out for them and make your voice heard if you don't like where things are going.

It has been a fantastic week but the sadness over the passing of Masashi has always been near to many peoples thoughts. It is still sitting heavy on my heart. I think he would have been very proud with the result of all his hard work - although even more so if one of the Japanese had got up top for a fairy tale ending.

Les Perfield did a great job as director and the team of officials Masahsi had in place need to be recognised for pushing on under difficult circumstances. As always the Japanese organisation was second to none and the continued support of the Honda Motor Company is a fantastic thing for our sport.

PS: having looked in the mirror again, I am not really a dickhead. I just had a bad day which is easy to do when pushing a bag of hot air around the sky.

2006 Worlds are over

The last flight has been flown and to celebrate the week of team Gomi I even landed with my marker!

After a wind shift once our launch site was chosen and the balloon out of the truck we were faced with a painful creep well to the right of goal or try and do something clever. I opted for the hero or zero option - it turned out to be a zero but it was a nice climb to 5200ft at 600ft/min followed by a dawdle down to landing at 600 ft/min. What a silly thing to do.

The wind never turned around as I hoped and in the end only got faster for a while. In the end I was no doubt last place at 4665m. The up side is that I could have been last place at 1000m either way so it was not like I threw anything away.

It has been a great week, the flying was hard and my decision making often questionable but the team were great and supported me the whole way. The final results are going to hit the board from about 8pm local time onwards and we will see where we ended up.

Time for the night glow then a cash prize flight in the morning before the big pack up and trip home.

Last morning flight

The last morning flight in Motegi has been flown. It was a PDG, JDG, JDG and FON.

Finally the weather was typical for the area with light winds and lots of challenges. The PDG caught many people out and I am happy with my 19.15m drop. There were better drops but it looked like some long ones too.

The first JDG was hard to get to and I think more than half of the field slipped off to the east of the target as the winds changed. As such my drop of about 7m felt very good.

The next JDG was next to impossible as the winds continued to turn and only a hand full of the early balloons got with in a bulls roar of it. Even at 1.9km I may do ok in points.

The FON was hard work as remaining fuel and a big change in direction forced a goal selection back in the direction we had come from. In the need I got within 1km before taking a safe landing away from the forest.

Fingers crossed for two tasks this afternoon at Haga.

Worlds Final Day

So today is the last day of the competition and we are driving in from our little houses.

The afternoon flight was canceled yesterday due to high winds and the expectation of them increasing towards sunset. The forecast was for a perfect day of flying today so there were no real grumbles.

An interesting discussion with all of the pilots was held after the briefing to see if there was some solution to the problem of mid air collisions. Collisions seem to have been on the increase in recent years and so far at this event there has been close to ten. In the most serious a balloon was destroyed and the pilot and crew only saved by quick thinking and a bit of luck.

Full details are yet to be released but the report we were given yesterday indicated that in the collision the lower balloon got a major tear in the top and started to deflate in flight - I think at around 1000ft. The pilot dumped three full cylinders from the basket and left two to continue burning all the way to the ground. They were lucky that it was enough ballast to slow them down and that the field under them was clear of power lines or house. In the end they made a relatively soft landing at 200 ft/min.

As far as I know this was the only accident with damage to a balloon but it was a little too close to killing someone.

As a result we were all warned before the flight yesterday morning that one more collision and the maximum rate of climb and descent would be limited. Guess what, yesterday morning there was another major collision at a target, still no one hurt but enough to scare the S&!T out of the observer in the basket and the people on the ground.

So now we are waiting on a determination of what the limit would be. If we had flown yesterday afternoon it would have been 600 ft/min up or down. Considering most competition balloons can comfortably do twice that speed it is a big restriction.

The problem as one French pilot put it is courtesy rather than the speed. Some pilots just don't seem to care. The good pilots go fast in clear air and communicate with the balloons around them when close to a target or making a fast climb. Many do not and will drop into a group of balloons level over a target and barge their way in causing the problems.

One of the American pilots pointed out that in motor sport they get rid of reckless drivers rather than slow the cars down. I have to agree.

We have flown World Grand Prix events here for six years with only one or two minor collisions. The pilots at these events have been mostly the same group of top end guys and girls who not only know how to drop markers but also how to work around a group of balloons. At the worlds we get first timers or pilots with little competition experience thrown into the air with more balloons than they may be used to and national pride at stake. A crazy mix.

Part of the problem also that limiting the speed will not fix the problem. A closure rate of 1200ft/min is still feasible with the proposed limits and that will still tear a balloon in basket to envelope contact. Indeed most of the collisions so far have been at about that rate. Some people have indicated that getting all the pilots to stare at their variometers all flight will also cause a problem. I am not so sure about that but it will be interesting to see the penalty's after the flight today.

I don't know what the solution is but the director is right. We don't want to see someone killed.

Yes, I am a dickhead

Ever had a day where you wished it was raining or you did not get out of bed?

Today was that day. I won;t bother with the details of the task other than to say it was four tasks and I missed them all. A bad launch site choice has me wast way too much time trying to get on track. By the time I arrived at the first goal it was all changing and we never recovered from there.

The next goal was 3500m followed by about 400m and then the absolute gem for the morning, flew withing 20m of my last goal only to climb a little to much and end up dropping at a bout 90 or 100m. Great stuff.

Anyhow, despite all that, the weather is still great and we have three more flights to do. The wind shear this morning taught me a few new aerobatic tricks and we did not damage anything. The crew are all still laughing and we are officially team gomi (rubbish in Japanese).

The most disappointing thing about today was that Paul took off with me. He is placed really well and had a similar flight and results to mine. From my position it is not such a problem but for him today will be devastating. I hope he can get the points back.

Lets see if I can remember to fly by the afternoon...

Worlds Day 5.0

Thursday is done. A four part task this morning with a JDG, Angle, Fly on and JDG.

Nothing much to report on the results just yet as nothing is published and it was a very hard day to guess how people went. I am not all that happy with my results but only the scorers know and they haven't told us yet.

The afternoon as a minimum distance which I messed up too. It has been a humbling week in an area I expected to do well in. The good news is we are having fun and with the weather looking like it may stay good to then end we have as many as 10 or 12 tasks to fly yet. Anything can happen.

Paul seems to be doing very well which is great news and Andrew is starting to see some targets after a slow start. Edwin has dropped off from his early positions but as I said, lots of flying to be done yet.