In preparation for last year’s world gliding champs in Rieti, Italy, Dane Dickinson escaped the NZ winter and pursued flying opportunities in Europe. He writes about his experiences from the continent.
A EUROPEAN SUMMER by Dane Dickinson
Valley fog being lifted by evening reheating at Klippenneck.
Warm sunny weather greeted my arrival in England in early May. But this was short-lived and the UK relapsed into a grey gloom after a couple days. London served as my logistical base to prepare for the World Championships, and with less than two months until day one, I wanted to go flying as much as possible. England was clearly not the place, and so after acquiring a car I was quickly off to collect my glider and head to the hotter drier possibilities in mainland Europe. Spain My first soaring stop was at Ocaña, a 45 minutes drive south of Madrid into the drought-prone Spanish interior. Here the British Overseas Championships are held each year and offer British pilots a chance to enjoy early season flying. Former world champion, Brian Spreckley has run this competition for many years, and it continues to be successful. This year however, the weather did not cooperate. Instead of 12 days of flat-out racing under 12000 ft thermals, we had to settle for 8 days of variable conditions. The competition was still lively and fun with over 30 competitors, but the greatest interest of the competition was the presence of seven brand new ASG 29s and the testing of a new handicapping system. The handicapping attempted to eliminate not only pure performance differences, but also wing loading advantages. The idea was that when soaring conditions are good (when average task speeds are in excess of 85 kph by British standards), longer wing gliders (open and 18m) should have their handicaps reduced
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because the ‘high-energy’ conditions mean shorter wing gliders (club, standard and 15m) have an advantage of higher wing loadings to allow faster cruise speeds. Like all handicap systems, the intentions are noble. However, this time the scheme really came unstuck. ASG 29s are 18m superships, and when full of water, even at low MacCready settings, they have cruise speeds in excess of 100 knots. On every competition day except one, the already undervalued ASG 29 handicap was reduced several percentage points because the average task speeds exceeded 85 kph. The irony is that most of the ASG 29s were flying with a wing loading of 57 kg/ m2, which is far superior to the 50 kg/m2 most short wing gliders can legally attain. Not surprisingly, an ASG 29 won every task, and six 29s finished in the top 10. After a shaky start to the competition and an unfortunate landout, I managed to place tenth overall in my seemingly obsolete and out-handicapped LS8. With plenty of room for improvement, and many lessons learnt, the next stop was Serres, France. The French Alps Serres is a small town located amongst the baby mountains of the Hautes-Alpes region of Provence in south-eastern France. The entire surrounding area is a soaring paradise and littered with dozens of gliding clubs. Each of the clubs has particular advantages in location, facilities, equipment, people and pricing. For instance, Vinon and Puimoisson are known to be well placed for
