Na drugom tasku pred samim sletištem (1:40) Luca Donini sa upravljivom rezervom , neupravljivo pada.

After a week of flying here in Valle de Bravo in full on racing conditions I can
offer some perspective...plz remember this is my own.

Yesterday saw a few more events which helped solidly my feelings. Following
several reserves/incidents in the preceding days, notable events I'm familiar
with for yesterday (there were others) being 2 Gin Xs falling out of the sky
with one ending under reserve and the other, SA Russell, an excellent pilot,
cascading 800 meters with a clean glider but unable to restart the glider with
normal inputs - it finally started flying again at the last possible moment.

With full on racing conditions we've had much of the time, the majority of
gliding is being done on full bar and everyone has done everything they can to
optimize their speed systems. You can imagine that pilots are trying various
measures to eek out even the smallest additional speed. Yesterday they put the
ESS directly in the afternoon lee/rotor of C Gordo with a 1k cylinder which
wasn't the best call by the tc and many pilots got worked diving in there.
Greece was full bar in there on his Enzo and was trying something with his
risers to get a bit more and blew up with a big crevat/spiral/full stall/cascade
and unable to restart then reserve with strong downplane and scary high speed
tall tree crash falling 30 feet shredding his glider. We were all quite relieved
that he was ok and able to spin it humorously as only Nick can do.

Two days ago Luca Donini, one of the planets most skilled and experienced pilots
was acro deep stalling his Enzo over the lake after making goal and ended up
under reserve and in the trees up the hill a bit from the lz, again, unable to
get things sorted out and restarted.

Both the Enzo and the IP6 are gliding quite well and are rock solid on speed
through all kinds of turbulence. The Gin pilots are really struggling because
they dont glide as well at trim and are nowhere near as efficient while trying
to speed through turbulence. They are constantly pitching and having to come off
bar because it's difficult to effectively control the gliders with the risers.
There was all kinds of hype when we got here about the Gin and how it turned so
well it would easily climb right up through other gliders.. This of course ended
up being total bs and of course it climbs nice but doesn't stand out. Several of
the same pilots are now dissappointed in the overall performance of the glider
saying its not so good for racing but good only for recreational flying. The
current results tend to support this but of course it's early in the comp and
things may change.

The IP6 has had some healthy factory quality control issues which showed up in
several gliders after the first few warmup days. This was evidenced by dimples
discovered by nearby pilots on the top surface in various locations. Some were
temporarily sorted out by cutting and taping internal cross bracing... Another
IP6 took a full frontal (before the comp started) and broke some A lines then
reserve. It was thought that they were possibly improperly looped at the riser
attachment point and burned through at the first shock loading of the glider.

The Enzo is an R10.2 with restricted speed and a small C cascade which seems to
make it launch easier. The B handles allow top efficiency while speeding on
glide through all kinds of turbulence. Unlike the R10.2 and R11, the Enzo will
spin (and apparently do a nice helicopter spin according to Josh yesterday) if
pushed too hard while thermaling, but the spin authority is quite good and this
has produced no problems that I'm aware of.

The IP6 has very successfully incorporated much of the R11s leading edge shark
nose. It's flying very nicely and pilots are able to keep it coordinated while
accelerated through turbulence. The certification was showing it quite a bit
faster than the Enzo and again many pilots were talking about how they were
going to school us on glide..... Again, this never materialized and the gliders
seem dead even IF you get every cm of speed out of your system. If you're half a
turn behind someone when you leave the last thermal then you will hit the ESS
10k later the same distance behind them if you've both managed the glider
equally through turbulence and stayed mostly pulley to pulley.

I guess what you can take from this is that any of these gliders may be
difficult or impossible to restart if things go bad. Many Ozone pilots, myself
included, are convinced that the best and safest all around racing glider is at
home. While the risks of full speed blowouts are clear on the R11/B8, it
appears that all 4 of the gliders we are flying here are also at risk of being
unrecoverable if things go bad. Ozones website warning on the Enzo is spot on
and Gin and Niviuk should do the same. Why not fly the R11 which glides better,
handles better, and is much less likely to break/stall/spin than the gliders
we've been forced on to by the events of last summer?

It's been very typical Valle full on racing with great conditions, great pilots,
and plenty of carnage with fortunately no serious injuries... The way things are
going I'm sure there will be boat loads of data to summarize and sort through
when this is finished....

Jack

... the majority of gliding is being done on full bar and everyone has done everything they can to
optimize their speed systems. You can imagine that pilots are trying various
measures to eek out even the smallest additional speed...
Greece was full bar in there on his Enzo and was trying something with his
risers to get a bit more and blew up with a big crevat/spiral/full stall/cascade
and unable to restart then reserve with strong downplane and scary high speed
tall tree crash falling 30 feet shredding his glider.
Jack

Samo si mislim, kak su onda tak glatko prošli certifikaciju

"Top piloti", mislim na ove koji se redovito natječu na najjačim natjecanjima, su posebna vrsta pilota/ljudi, oni će uvik više riskirat nego većina nas običnih smrtnika. Zato bi možda bilo bolje vratit open class i dat ljudima najbolja moguća krila pa nek se jurcaju do mile volje, ionako su potpisali da lete na vlastitu odgovornost .

Prvih par dana su pričali kak je super letiti serijska krila, super hendling, nema stresa itd... ali i dalje padaju ko kruške Sad se već ploča polako mijenja...
Baš mi je drago da je čovjek napisal to kaj je napisal, da se dobije neka realna slika o novim krilima, odn. da oni koji čekaju na kupnju takvih krila mogu najprije dvaput razmisliti.
Sjebaše nam EN-D, kako je uostalom bilo i očekivano!
Samo si mislim, kak su onda tak glatko prošli certifikaciju

E, jedno su labaratorijski uvjeti, a drugo praksa. Svi prolaze glatko bez speeda, a svi manevri pod speedom se izvode na 70 % speeda, ne na 100%! KUŽIŠ! Na tekmi se speed vuče 110%. EnZo-a su uspjeli ustabiliti na full speedu, jer su smanjili top brzinu za nekih 5-6 km/s. Sad se Niviuku događa isto ono kroz što je Ozone prolazio prije 2 sezone. Gin je radikalno umanjio performanse i igra na sigurnost. Igra je sve zanimljivija, samo da netko ne nastrada.

Ne slažem se da je EN-D klasa sada upropaštena za običnog 'EN-D pilota'. Mislim da je svima jasno koji EN-D glideri su za obične ljude, a koji za najnabrijanije takmičare. Certifikacija malo znači sama za sebe - treba se uvijek temeljito informirati o glideru koji bi želio kupiti. Mada, bilo bi ok da i Niviuk i Gin izađu sa sličnim službenim izjavama i upozorenjima kao i Ozone za svoje krilo - da nije namijenjeno prosječnom EN-D pilotu!

Zato treba njima lijepo dati open klasu, pa nek gaze, i nek sami oluče koliki rizik su spremni prihvatiti.

"Ma to ti je nekad bil 2-3, ali danas ti je to ko 1-2 ili 2".
Da možda , ali samo što se tiče performansi. Sigurnost je još uvijek 2-3.
Zato mislim da se takva krila ne mogu "švercati" pod EN-D, jer možda ne danas ili sutra, ali za neko vrijeme bi netko mogao na tim EN-D krilima pošteno naj..ti!