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CCS2004 Mifflin Race


Guest Don Hamilton

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I did the task today with a Duo Discus.

I first started cutting some trees on a first attempt, was rescued with no injury (except self esteem), and the second was OK (because of the missing trees I guess).

Interesting... Never too high...

I'll try with the Blanik another day, but that's a different story...

Cheers.

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This is a hard one!

Three time now I have landed out (sucsessfully)!

All going down the tubes after the first turnpoit for me.

I always dive down the ridge on the northern side of the valley that works for a few miles, then I scratch for thermals and land on a road or that little strip back there.

Anyone want to try and set up a multi session?

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Look at the map Trace, and think another way. Straight lines between two points are still the shortest distance, but might yet be too far.

A few tips:

Before leaving a lift you'd better know where the next will be.

The ridge does not provide more height than a few feet above the crest. But at that height, if your speed is 120 kts, you can still transfer this energy into height, and avoid the sink behind the ridge.

Keep trying!

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Yes indeed. Energy management is extremely important in this race.

I made it around in the '28 and only once did I stop to thermal. I did have to track back and forth a bit to get some height a few times after pushing a bit too much. I'm sure it can be done quite a bit faster, but even at that, I made it in comfortably under an hour.

I haven't tried it in the 1-26, but because of the tough upwind leg and the sparse thermals, it might not be possible. On the other hand - hmm..... wink.gif

Since I failed to sign up for the race, bonk.gif consider this as "unofficial". nerd.gif

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Please sign up anyway! It's not like we didn't provide enough tow pilots because we didn't know you were coming...

The way I see it, the only important deadline is the cutoff for submitting logs so that the scoring can get started.

Kris

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I'm sure that the reason for the pre-signup is so that he does not have to keep going back and modifying the webpages. Believe me, this can be a real chore!

When I started the flightlog races 'way back when', I had to do all the HTML and all the log verification at the same time, delaying the posting of results. By having signups, it allows one to premake the results pages without time pressure, and drop in the times when verified. I had never thought of this, but it is a very good idea.

Don also does an awful lot of work that I never did- like posting all the background info, maps etc to the race page. All that info plus the pilot roster on that page encourages more pilots to jump in. His work is tops, and I'd never question the reasoning behind it. Ditto for anyone else who goes so far beyond the call of duty so that we may enjoy our sport.

If Don let me sign up late, I don't think it would be fair to others who might want to jump in at the last minute. So please...no notes to Don about letting me or other pilots in late. It was my oversight.

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A guy who "comfortably" runs the race "in less than an hour" should not be signing in at the last minute...

chairfall.gif No, no! The run itself was not comfortable by any means...plenty of low saves and pucker factor. I had to pull the seat cushion out of my butt several times. confused_smile.gif

What I meant was that I finished under an hour by a 'comfortable' margin- 56:47 to be exact!

Besides- Bud Fuechtmann DID sign up. He has the horrible tendency of making us all look like fledglings biggrin.gif

(how's THAT for pressure, Bud?? LOL). Just watch...this will probably be the one and only occasion that he doesn't beat my time doh.gif

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I'm sure that the reason for the pre-signup is so that he does not have to keep going back and modifying the webpages. Believe me, this can be a real chore!

...

Don also does an awful lot of work that I never did- like posting all the background info, maps etc to the race page. All that info plus the pilot roster on that page encourages more pilots to jump in. His work is tops, and I'd never question the reasoning behind it.

You are absolutely right about all of the hard work Don does for us. Sorry Don! doh.gif

Kris

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Anybody tried to fly the Mifflin Race in a Ka6 or 1-26? It's interesting, to say the very least! The second leg becomes a real challenge unless you're successful finding a thermal since, neither the Ka6 nor the 1-26 penetrate into the wind very well.

Bill

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I did try the 1-26 last night. No, I didn't make it mecry.gif

Ridge hopping just won't work. You'd have to get fairly high in a thermal just to get from one ridge to the next. you just don't have enough energy, especially pointing upwind or crosswind to be able to zoom climb high enough.

BTW...I even found the 'cheat keys' useless. The indicated thermals were always too far in the wrong direction to try for them. You almost do better to just pray that you hit one along the way.

This is definitely a flight where cloud thermals would make all the difference. As Norby said to Trace, "don't leave lift until you know where the next lift is". Of course, if static bgl thermals were included as part of the race, then it might be too easy ( for the glass birds, anyway) since the specific route could be determined and memorized with a few attempts.

Funny...all along we thought that orographic lift would be the hardest to produce. Eric beat that one handily with the scanning of the actual terrain ( notworthy.gif ). Sooner or later, we'll find out how to either place clouds over thermals, or thermals under wx generated clouds. That's when a 'race' like this in a 1-26 will be more a matter of pilot decision skills. Right now, there's a bit too much luck involved, but having flown XC in real 1-26's, that's actually not too far from reality anyway! laugh.gif

The other thing that would certainly help (which may be possible even before solving the cloud thermal puzzle) would be thermals over ground features likely to generate them. Again, you'd be able to use more real world skills in locating and reaching potential lift. Nonetheless, it's still a lot of fun trying this flight in the classic ships.

Primaries, anyone? chairfall.gif

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I'll give a try tonight with the (magnificent) Blanik. Not specially a thin bird... so I expect some sweating to complete the 2nd leg.

As far as I remember there was a thermal somewhere between two ridges on the 2nd leg in my previous attempt. I did find it with the "cloud" keys and I've got a few houndred meters just to make sure I'd reach the next ridge.

Also Mc Cready must be on board...

I'll let you know.

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Nearly made it to the 2nd TP last nite; 1.3 nm short of the TP and about a half mile short of the ridge just SE of Penn's Cave. I flew the Ka6e in the late 70s and early 80s, so was pretty familiar with its performance. Last nite, I had a "cheat key" thermal just out of reach from the next-to-last ridge. I stayed on the ridge for a couple of passes, hoping that something would develop between me and the TP, but no luck.

Bill

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Guest Don Hamilton

Chris, and everybody,

This is an informal race with very bendable rules. LOL If you failed to sign up, just e- mail me with the necessary information and I will add you to the roster. I will not, however, allow more than one flight log submission per aircraft type. This would lead to a mess. Save your logs until you think you have done your best. Then send the log of your best flight.

Glad you like the race pages. Karen and I sure enjoy doing them!

Cheers, smile.gif

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Glad you like the race pages. Karen and I sure enjoy doing them!

Indeed...let's not ever forget our heroine behind the scenes. Karen has done more of the 'blood and guts' HTML work than I can even recall. The two worst things that could happen to this site would be for me to forget to pay the host, or for Karen to stop keeping so much of this stuff organized wink.gif

As to late sign-ups, ok...as long as it applies to everyone who wants to get in. (Thanks , Don).

1-26 @ Mifflin Update

Well, 0 for 2 in the 1-26. There may be a performance issue here regarding the FS9 flight dynamics. Ray emailed me, saying that his l/d tests seemed quite low. I'll test it as well shortly. I also noticed some problems with an unusually high sinkrate in a turn, and a very slow turn rate. We'll be looking into this and report back.

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I like the idea of a set of races...mostly off-line with the last race or two on-line. That seems fairest to all and a good challenge for all of us. As others have said there are many, many details that will have to be worked out but that is the nature of racing...just look at sailboat racing for example.

Each year could be a different location which would keep every one on their toes. Getting the publicity should be easy...most FS pubs are always hungry for material.

t

BTW, I ge the SQL message on my desktop but the laptop gets in OK. Bit of a puzzle.

I have a hunch that the winner of the K6 class and the 1-26 class will be who gets the furthest not who finishes. Finishing leg 2 in one of these birds is like flying into glue. Like everyone else I get a glimpse of TP2 through the leaves as I grind to a halt.

Harry

[edit: Clear cookies on the machine with the problem, Harry. That should reset it. CG]

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Blanik update: Done! smile.gif

1:46:00 is not a specially good performance, but that's my best so far.

Strategy must be different than with fiberglass ships. And I happen to notice thermals that I probably crossed too fast with the Duo Discus. If it helps, I set the time of the day a little later than the pre-programmed time. Looking at CCS.INI I noticed that the thermal starting time was 13:30. So I managed to start so that I would reach the half of the 2nd leg by this time. Second leg costs more than an hour...

Third leg is not a problem, but I had to land 7 seconds after crossing the arrival...Without the L-NAV... because I dont have the polar for the Blanik.

Nice race after all. I'l do it again to save some minutes.

My best time with the Duo is around 56 min. according to FSWever and 52 min. according to seeyou.

Cheers, thumbsup.gif

Norby

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Blanik update: Done! smile.gif

Congratulations, and thanks for the report!

56 min. according to FSWever and 52 min. according to seeyou.

That is interesting. Did you pause the sim during the task? I've noticed that Max's recorder keeps right on recording while paused and the viewer doesn't remove the pause time. My answer is to never pause while recording. sad.gif

Kris

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I've noticed that Max's recorder keeps right on recording while paused and the viewer doesn't remove the pause time.

Yes, and this is kinda odd. An older version of the viewer would eliminate pauses by simply ignoring identical entries in the file. A change was made for some other reason, I think, and now the latest version seems not to eliminate pauses.

Maybe we should install relief tubes at our computer desks biggrin.gif

The discrepency with seeyou may also be in the recording of the arrival of the turnpoint...if the radius is not set the same , there will be a difference in the times. I remember one incident where seeyou reported missed turnpoints because it required you to fly around them...cutting inside (where the viewer reports 'arrival' within .5km) would cause seeyou to show the turnpoint was missed , depending on settings.

But 4 min, difference?? Hmm...I think Kris might be right about pausing.

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Yes, I'm sure that it would be. Again, I'm not quite sure why the most recent version of the viewer does not do this when other versions clearly did. There must have been something that made the results display differently for different people (?...don't really remember)

I can't help but think that some day the 3D viewer might show up when it's least expected wink.gif

Anyway, such a utility to process a log file would be handy. I'm sure that pilots would like to be able to pause when occasionally necessary, but I'd like to see it available as a convenient utility for pilots to use on their log when necessary. I wouldn't want to have to require a race official to add an additional step to the process. There are already quite a few things to do in verifying logs, apart from reading the numbers in the red box. Often, sections have to be expanded and scrutinized carefully- not often, but it does happen.

I'm curious to see if this will clear up the discrepency between SeeYou and the FSZweverview.exe. I do also remember that max had used both straight line AND round world math within the viewer and gauges, finding a slight offset in FS that always existed for some reason. Again, my memory is a bit foggy...that was 3 or 4 years ago.

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