Ridge Flights April 24

On Friday, April 24, 2015 at 1:32:53 PM UTC-4, Whiskey Charlie wrote:

Daniel Sazhin and the Duckhawk seem to be over 500 km into his 1000 km triangle as of 1:30 PM.

Daniel's flight is nothing less than remarkable. I may be wrong, but I believe there has only been one other 1,000 km FAI triangle flown in the USA.

There was also a group flown, 1,250 triangle.

Tom Knauff

Not to take anything at all away from this flight (heck, Daniel is a fellow club member), but there have actually been quite a few 1000K or greater triangles. In addition to a fair number flown in ridge country, there have been a bunch in the West/Southwest (Nevada, California, Utah). Certainly not hundreds or even scores, but I'd bet a couple dozen or thereabouts.

Regardless, it's an awesome accomplishment (says the guy who abandoned the same task as Daniel and had to settle for only 850K or so).

Erik Mann (P3)




On Monday, April 27, 2015 at 4:24:49 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Friday, April 24, 2015 at 1:32:53 PM UTC-4, Whiskey Charlie wrote:

Daniel Sazhin and the Duckhawk seem to be over 500 km into his 1000 km triangle as of 1:30 PM.

Daniel's flight is nothing less than remarkable. I may be wrong, but I believe there has only been one other 1,000 km FAI triangle flown in the USA.

There was also a group flown, 1,250 triangle.

Tom Knauff

The SSA web site listing records shows FAI 1,000 km triangle flights made in Texas (one) Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania (one)and California (5)

Tom



On Monday, April 27, 2015 at 4:24:49 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Friday, April 24, 2015 at 1:32:53 PM UTC-4, Whiskey Charlie wrote:

Daniel Sazhin and the Duckhawk seem to be over 500 km into his 1000 km triangle as of 1:30 PM.

Daniel's flight is nothing less than remarkable. I may be wrong, but I believe there has only been one other 1,000 km FAI triangle flown in the USA.

There was also a group flown, 1,250 triangle.

Tom Knauff

Fantastic flying.
Great to see so many Pudknockers having a fast day on the ridge.
Freedom's Wings too!
"May the Schwartz be with you"
Jim

Yeppers, say "Hi" to Ron....... (from a driver of "002")

Still wanting to finish my 3rd Diamond (alt) and a 1000K from Middletown, NY (everything else is done from here, "A through 2 diamonds").

Congrats to the long flights done recently from "further SW along the ridge" from us in Middletown.

Crap, wish I was flying the last few weekends...... sigh......

That's only the latest flights for records on the SSA site; several of these 1000K speed or distance records superceded older 1000K flights. In the last 3 years of the OLC Barron Hilton Cup there have been at least 6. There are another half dozen or more that are on the older Barron Hilton sites. I can come up with at least 20 or so. Still, a pretty elite group.

P3

On Tuesday, April 28, 2015 at 8:59:48 PM UTC-6, Papa3 wrote:
That's only the latest flights for records on the SSA site; several of these 1000K speed or distance records superceded older 1000K flights. In the last 3 years of the OLC Barron Hilton Cup there have been at least 6. There are another half dozen or more that are on the older Barron Hilton sites. I can come up with at least 20 or so. Still, a pretty elite group.

P3

First, congrats to Dan. Great flight!

Below is from the SSA site. Might also add that last 12 plus years, many 1,000 k's have also been flown out of Ely, NV. Some aren't claimed or not posted on the OLC.

Are we talking about "records" or just plain old 1,000 +K flights?

1000k Diploma
Badge# Date Name City, State
119 4/9/2014 Daniel J Mockler Kennett Square, PA
118 4/23/2014 George D Green Fairfield, PA
117 7/19/2013 Mitch Polinsky Stanford, CA
116 7/8/2013 Rolf Siebert Albuquerque, NM
115 6/30/2013 James Staniforth Tehachapi, CA

Best regards, Tom.

Thanks guys, I appreciate it. Friday was an outstanding soaring day and it was quite fun experiencing one of those magical Spring days everyone talks about. I am fortunate to fly out of Blairstown amongst some really first rate cross country pilots. Everyone has pushing each other to do better and using OLC we can build on each other's flights. It's amazing how fast the entire group is progressing, but even more so over the past year. Within a season, we went from simply getting to a transition, finding a climb and bombing along to expecting to find a line and thermal minimally if at all to make it across. We have been able to start finding patterns where these lines set up in the various transitions and been making more and more use of them. This is a revolution for Blairstown ridge soaring because by optimizing those early upwind jumps, we can really take advantage of our geographic location of being effectively at the NE terminus of the ridge system. I think we will be able to pull off bigger and faster flights well into the future as we keep pushing the boundaries of this great soaring site.

And a huge thank you to Bill Thar for giving me the opportunity to fly your absolutely freakin' awesome machine. That sailplane is a ridge monster!

Best Regards,
Daniel

On Tuesday, April 28, 2015 at 8:37:55 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Thanks guys, I appreciate it. Friday was an outstanding soaring day and it was quite fun experiencing one of those magical Spring days everyone talks about. I am fortunate to fly out of Blairstown amongst some really first rate cross country pilots. Everyone has pushing each other to do better and using OLC we can build on each other's flights. It's amazing how fast the entire group is progressing, but even more so over the past year. Within a season, we went from simply getting to a transition, finding a climb and bombing along to expecting to find a line and thermal minimally if at all to make it across. We have been able to start finding patterns where these lines set up in the various transitions and been making more and more use of them. This is a revolution for Blairstown ridge soaring because by optimizing those early upwind jumps, we can really take advantage of our geographic location of being effectively at the NE terminus of the ridge system. I think we will be able to pull off bigger and faster flights well into the future as we keep pushing the boundaries of this great soaring site.

And a huge thank you to Bill Thar for giving me the opportunity to fly your absolutely freakin' awesome machine. That sailplane is a ridge monster!

Best Regards,
Daniel

Congrats!

It was a little hard to tell from the flight tracker, partly because Blairstown appeared to be not at the northern turnpoint, but rather just short of it, but the flight looked to comply with the 28% rule for an FAI triangle. The curve of the ridges plus a few transitions make this work pretty well, so credit also for creative and effective task design. I know how hard it can be to get the FAI rules complied with.

It's not clear to me which of the other 1,000k flights referenced in this thread were FAI triangles. Great accomplishments regardless, but making the FAI proportions work represents an even greater challenge - especially on a ridge flight where it's so tempting to pick a flatter triangle and minimize the up/downwind transitions.

9B

See "Four on the Floor" November 1986 Soaring. The single greatest, IMHO, soaring flight in history. I believe Tom was also along for part of the ride - and did it a bit faster.

The flight was flown in ASW-20s... A Duckhawk should have a fairly significant speed advantage at 120kts. A US 1000km triangle and 1250km triangle speed record seem plausible.

On Monday, April 27, 2015 at 4:40:11 PM UTC-4, Papa3 wrote:
Not to take anything at all away from this flight (heck, Daniel is a fellow club member), but there have actually been quite a few 1000K or greater triangles. In addition to a fair number flown in ridge country, there have been a bunch in the West/Southwest (Nevada, California, Utah). Certainly not hundreds or even scores, but I'd bet a couple dozen or thereabouts.

Regardless, it's an awesome accomplishment (says the guy who abandoned the same task as Daniel and had to settle for only 850K or so).

Erik Mann (P3)




On Monday, April 27, 2015 at 4:24:49 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Friday, April 24, 2015 at 1:32:53 PM UTC-4, Whiskey Charlie wrote:

Daniel Sazhin and the Duckhawk seem to be over 500 km into his 1000 km triangle as of 1:30 PM.

Daniel's flight is nothing less than remarkable. I may be wrong, but I believe there has only been one other 1,000 km FAI triangle flown in the USA.

There was also a group flown, 1,250 triangle.

Tom Knauff