Danish Open Nationals HG

torsdag den 18. december 2014

Nordic Championchip Hanggliding 2015.

This years competition will be the
NORDIC CHAMPIONSHIP Hanggliding2015. The competition will be a FAI CAT 2 event and will come up on the FAI calendar soon.

Good news for hang gliding in Denmark.
Hang gliders used to be limited to 1050meters in Denmark, during comps we had a dispensation to 2100meters in the comp area.
Rules changed , we are now allowed to fly up to 2800meters all year everywhere.

mandag den 2. juni 2014

Heat 2 2014

2 Juni 2014 heat 2.

Task today. 60km out and return to Videbæk.

Weather briefing

Cumulus clouds at 10:00

At 14:00 all gliders are on their way.

3 pilots made it to goal. Nils Ole, Mikkel and Johnny.

søndag den 1. juni 2014

Heat 1 2014

Good morning! The weather is promising. The briefing will start in few minutes.

As usual pilots are very busy on the first day: waypoints has to be downloaded, instruments programmed, gliders assembled etc.

The weather forecast for today looks promising and a triangle of 56 km has been set. Start is at 12.00. It may be a short day as we may have some overdevelopment later on the afternoon.

The results are published. The first place in Rigid wings took Johnny Christiansen, the first place in Flex wings belongs to Mikkel Krogh. Congratulations!
Nils Ole had the best Flex wing performance, but was disqualified from the heat, due to minor violation of restricted airspace.

lørdag den 31. maj 2014

Training day 2014

10:00
Good morning and welcome to Danish Open Nationals HG 2014!
Pilots are arriving. The weather is not very good today. The wind is a bit strong. So it's unlikely we have a training task.

11:00

Pilots are slowly beginning to show up. We have strong winds (7 m/s) and overcasts, so there might not be much practice today. We have considered going to the West coast, but the wind seems too high for some relaxing soaring on the beach.
We will use the day to get everything ready for a long day tomorrow - towing equipment, Airtribune tracking, payments etc.
The forecast for tomorrow looks excellent: no wind, strong thermals, and high cloud base.
Stay tuned

14:00

Gliders are measured and adjusted.

søndag den 9. marts 2014

Danish open 2014

It seemed that the event was not going on this year.
But 8. Marts it was decided to have the competition.
10 pilots from local club is working together to make it happen.

This year there will be 2 events Danish Open 2014 and talent class
Danish Open will be held like the last years, as a FAI CAT2 event.
In addition there will be a talent class.
The talent class is not the FAI open class, the restriction is not on the glider but on the pilot.
Talent class is for pilots with little competition experience, so task will be much shorter and easier than tasks in Danish open. Depending on the number of participants in both classes they will fly together or have seperate start windows.

Dates are
31. May Training Day.
1. June - 7. June competition dayes
8. June Spare day. Will be used only if the comp at this point is not valid.

lørdag den 8. juni 2013

Heat 5 last day.

In the morning the forecast and sky did not look good.
Low base, wind and overcast. Finaly we decided to do a task.
And after the window opened conditions had improved. Cloud base got to 800 - 900m and gradualy more sun on the ground.

A short 42km task with goal in Tamdrup.
On route the sky cleared and the day turned out nice.
4 pilots Nils Ole, Rob, Jesper and Flemming made goal. But time was fast 50min, giving low score for the day.

Heat 4 Out and return

And out and return task was set 74km to the east (and back).

4 pilotes flew the last 70% of the task together. Nils Ole, Jesper and Flemming made it Joakim missed the last thermal and landed few km from goal.

torsdag den 6. juni 2013

Heat 3. Fooled by the weather forecast.

Forecast promised very light winds and good conditions.
The task is a 83,4km ending in Fasterholt.

Start at Fasterholt TP1 Them TP2 Voervadsbro TP 3 back to Them and goal home at Fasterholt.
The day started a little late with blue conditions.
The wind was stronger than predictet, and big areas of shaddow between 1 and 2. turnpoint.
We never got to cloud base but some was in 1500meters 2 to 3m/s thermals.
No one made it to goal, day winners Flemming and Vegar landed at the same spot on the way from TP 2 to TP3.
An interesting day, patience was needed and low safes made a big difference.

Heat 2. The day of bad luck

Heat 2
5 june 2013
New wind direction, a little less wind than yesterday.
1800m base 3m/s thermal.
A 83,5km goal flight was set.

4 pilots made it to goal and had a fantastic flight.
Again Jesper the fastest and day winner.
The day of bad luck!
Charles got into turbulens at the landing at goal, lost all the his height and landed hard into a fence in the lee of bushes and trees.
He broke his arm in several places and needs surgery.
Rob made it to goal, he might have been the fastest, but we will never know since his track log was corrupt.
Nils Ole was few km from goal but was disqualified, hes track was a little inside Tirstrup TMA area.
Back at Fasterholt Joakim broke his carbon speed bar.
And Tormod hurt his tumb.
Getting the first thermal was difficult and more pilots got min. distance 5km.

Heat 1. North wind clear skies.

Heat 1
4. June 2013

Less wind but still from the north.
A small task is set 52,3km with goal back at Fasterholt.

52,3km seems short, but in flatland and having to fight the wind its an ok task.
It proved that we coul have flown a bigger task, but the flight was nice.
The sky was crystal clear so it was possible to se both the west and east coast at the same time.
Cloud base above ground more than 2000m and best lifts 4-5m/s.
6 pilots in goal and 4 very close.
Fastest pilot and day winner Jesper Hassing.
This year only 8 Danish pilots the lowest number ever.
But luckily 1 Dutch 1 swedish and 3 norwegian pilots decided to fly with us.

Danish open 2013.
First 2 days canceled, weather is perfect except to strong wind from north.
North is the worst direction for us for strong wind.

1.June Training day.
Lots of tows, windy low base and still lots of gliders in the air.
All flying localy and landing at the airfield.

søndag den 24. juni 2012

2012 Heat 2

Forecast:

An unstable air mass with a southerly flow turning south east during the afternoon was forecasted. Thermals would be moderate locally strong in strength all the way from the ground to the cloud base at around 1300m. Cloud streets would form in the early afternoon and last all afternoon – maybe even strengthen as the wind would turn south east having the sun direction perpendicular to the wind.

The clouds would be moderate in vertical build-up and cover 4-5/8 of the sky. In the late afternoon cirrus was forecasted to come-in from the south west shutting down the day and a sea breeze from the north caused by the convection in-land and the fjords to the north.

Task:

Bearing in mind how few pilots made it to goal in the first task, we decided to do a straight race to goal with the wind to go to goal south of Vemb. We discussed going to Lindtorp airfield, but I was afraid that the sea breeze would make it difficult or maybe even impossible for the late pilots to make it to goal.

Karup ATC allowed us to enter Karup TMA as long as we stayed underneath 3500 feet, which we are very thankful for.

Heat:

Again we saw most pilots getting away on their first tow.

The first pilot onto the task was Jens Henrik – maybe a little riskfull knowing many much more experienced pilots would come shortly after.

The first group is interesting – they were Jesper, Johnny and Dennis. Though starting at the same time as the other two, Dennis decides to try his luck on his own taking a more northerly route than the others. He does well and get the furthest of the three of them.

Jesper tries to escape from Johnny by going a bit south west before the start, but Johnny is on him like a hawk. He shadows Jesper who maybe pushes a little bit too hard. Jesper lands first and Johnny shortly after only a little bit further.

The next group is also interesting – they were Vegard, Rob and Flemming. Flemming does a nice preparation getting into a good position for the start getting high south east of a point between Arnborg and Skarrild. Looking at his track it seems he has decided that long and fast glides between the thermals would be the right tactic to win the day. However, unfortunately Flemming runs out of altitude and options as he passes underneath the Karup TMA and has to land.

I don’t have access to the track logs of Rob and Vegard. If they were with Flemming, I think Vegard couldn’t keep up with Flemming, missed a thermal and landed short.

I think probably Rob joined Flemming to do more or less the same flight.

In between these two groups Tommy sneaked onto the course. At first maybe he makes a mistake taking a thermal on the east side of the big forest north west of Arnborg. The thermal is weak and he spends a lot of time around this forest. But then he seems to make good decisions finding nice thermals that bring him straight to goal taking third place of the day – well done Tommy.

Charles, Joakim and Tormod were the next to start. Tormod did a start similar to Flemming. I was already in the same area further south of Tormod. He seemed to do at nice start. At that moment I was not sure who it was, but I thought that it might be Flemming, so I delayed my start a bit more seeing that nice clouds build up on the first part of the course. I had been waiting for the conditions to peak, but didn’t want to get caught by the cirrus. Shortly after Tormod I start my race. I find strong lift and quickly caches up with him near Fjelstervang. Together we work a moderate thermal. I’m in a hurry, so when I see the chance I leave for the next clouds that will bring me well in under Karup TMA.

Meanwhile Charles is chasing the good lift in an organic way covering a lot of ground, but even so he is making a good average speed getting to goal taking second place – well done Charles.

I leave Tormod at Fjelstervang. The next pilot I see is Joakim landing east of Barde forest. Apparently he didn’t want to follow the organic flying style of Charles …

I carry on towards some nice heath and good looking clouds further ahead. A little too eager to get to the nice looking cloud, I skip good lift and join some sailplanes under the cloud however, the thermal is not as good as the one I just skipped. I have to cross some wind to get to the next good thermal, so I climb all the way to 3500 feet and race towards what becomes my final glide thermal. It’s very strong and right outside Karup TMA, so I can climb to 1300m and glide to goal in a more or less straight line. As I approach the goal, I’m looking for signs of the sea breeze from the north. I slow down a bit because I see wind turbines showing northerly wind just north east of Vemb, but make it easily into goal with enough altitude to do a nice approach and landing next to Tommy, who kindly showed me the wind direction.

During this competition a long time dream by Helmer of having the pilots carry a position sending device came true. This way Søren had been following the second heat from his home in Holstebro. When he saw, we were three pilots in goal, he brought coffee and crackers to us – thank you, Søren :-)

Birger who hadn’t flown far this day was retrieved quickly in his own car. When he got back, he unloaded and went to goal to pick us up – thanks Birger!

With bears and snacks from the local supermarket we turned the drive back into a party celebrating the finish of DOHG 2012.

2012 Heat 1

Forecast:

A quite unstable air mass with a westerly flow turning south west during the afternoon was forecasted. Thermals would be moderate in strength all the way from the ground to the cloud base at around 1300m. Cloud streets would form in the early afternoon and break up in the late afternoon as the sun and the wind direction meet.

The clouds would be moderate in vertical build-up and cover 4-5/8 of the sky in the early afternoon. In the late afternoon there would be a risk that the clouds would spread-out and cover 6-7/8 of the sky towards the east.

Task:

We thought that a straight race to goal with the wind would be too easy, so we decided to make an easy first leg going east with the wind and then turning north north east to go to goal south of Hammel. This way the task would be equally difficult for the first pilots as well as for the later pilots.

Heat:

We saw most pilots getting away on their first tow though our young newcomer Dennis experienced problems with his instrument and had to land, correct things and restart.

The first pilots onto the task were two experienced pilots Rob and Niels Ole with Niels Ole taking the lead.

Rob benefited from this passing Niels Ole who landed short of first turn point. But maybe they started a little bit too early – Rob had to land shortly after first turn point …

The next group would be slightly bigger consisting of Joakim, Vegard and Jesper. Jesper would lose first Joakim then Vegard. Joakim had problems getting high before the start and got only 9,32km.

Vegard made a wrong decision leaving an obvious line of lift to go south – I guess looking for better lift in the lee of a forest … but he had to land before first turn point.

Jesper was doing better – I saw this, because I had taken the start with Charles and we came fast from behind. I had gone back to restart in the air, because I saw a nice cloud street building on the first part of the course. This made me fast and I caught up with Jesper just before the first turn point. Charles was slightly behind.

Jesper and I did the turn point and the next thermal together, but then took different choices for the last part of the route.

Jesper went a bit upwind of the course. I went slightly with the wind. A first Jesper gained on me, but then I found strong lift and could do a long high energy final glide, whereas Jesper had to stop in weak lift to gain the altitude needed to do his final glide into goal taking second place of the day – well done, Jesper.

Charles was not far behind us but was low on his final glide. He understood that he had to stop in lift to make it to goal however, the thermal he found was weak and he was drifting much not getting a positive number for his final glide. Hoping to make it anyway, Chares decided to try to glide to goal, but missed it by one km or so.

The rest of the pilots had various luck most of them landing between the lakes and the forests on the second leg.

Birger tried to avoid the forests right from the beginning forcing him to the north. Eventually he had to land because of Karup TMA, but he shortly entered the restricted airspace and got disqualified for the day.

The last pilot on the course was our newcomer Dennis. He now had his instrument correctly set-up and could focus on completing the task, which he did passing much more experienced pilots and making it into goal at a descent average speed taking third place of the day – well done, Dennis!

tirsdag den 7. februar 2012

The 2012 comp is ready.

This year we have a new meet director, Ivan Jensen from the local club MDK.
Ivan already managed to hire the officials needed.
Retreival bus is orded.
And even the option of a second bus plus a second trailer for gliders is a possibility.

Clossing dinner is ordered, Roast Pig.

This year will be fantastic.

mandag den 6. juni 2011

Danish open HG 2011 final score.

This years Danish open had 5 or lets say 4,5 heats.
Due to the difficult weather it only ranks as an average comp in Denmark.

The results of Danish open HG 2011 is
Winner: Jesper Hassing Denmark
2. place Joakim Hindemith Sweden
3. place Nils Ole Dalby Denmark