Big time PCD

PCD- Post Contest Depression seems to get worse every year. This year it is much worse than last year, but most likely because I had to go home right in the middle of the contest. And I hated it. But I had no choise...

It has been almost a week and still I keep pressing refresh-button from Civa-results and contest website, to see what is going on. Thank God for some facebook friends, who keep updating some info what is going on.
Anyway, here is few photos from Dubnica for you to see...

THIS is what they used for towing. A turbo-cmelak. 6 minutes a round... 

Looking for a shadow...

Swiss/German representatives...

With one of my favourite unlimited Fox-pilots :)

This "Kesämopo" was found one night at the city, when we had dinner there. There was Brittish, Italians, French, Swedish, Finnish and Polish partisipants. Quite international evening! Restaurant RETRO, of course!

Castle of Trencin during the night, much more beautiful in real life than in a crappy phone photo... 

Getting ready for flights... 

And I got myself some ID-cards too, thanks to PIK, I got two of them... :D

2 rows of planes ready for some action!

Socializing and getting ready to fly!

Briefing room

Last night at the airfield... 

... looks just like another night

Saturday morning, after 5 days at airfield we started our journey back home early in the morning. Since none of us had never been to Nitra (very famous for Finnish glider pilots, home of Pribina Cup), it was almost must on the way to Budapest. Nitra airfield was quiet and not many people was there. And the few there was, didn't really speak any English. So, after walking around a while we continued to Budapest airfield, jumped on board and flew home.
I could say the only souveniers I brought back home was a lot of good ideas for next year, a ton of new experiences, definately many good memories and two stones. :D

Here is few more photos from Nitra

So THIS is where they breed... Cmelaks... :D

I must say, it was really nice to go to Dubnica and meet all the people again. I had excellent 6 days in Dubnica and friday evening when I said good bye to these people I realized how much I hate goodbyes.

So, see you all next year I hope!

It's been a hard days night...

This trip is awesome! I mean, there is so many things you see, notice, realize, put on a paper, think, wonder, etc. We are here to observe things to be able to arrange the perfect setting for the world championships. And there is a lot of things to think through.
#1 we need pilots
#2 we need judges (ok, that is not up to us, CIVA will decide and nominate judges and jury for us)
#3 we need enough accommodation
#4 we need a restaurant, showers, towplanes, maps, folders, paper, copymachines, rubberbands, toilets, computers, chairs, umbrellas, fridges, id-cards, volunteers, oil and gas, tents, pens, techinical commission, website, wifi, paper clips, busses, drivers, drinks, food,... Million small things to remember. That was just a small, tiny part of all what we need to remember.

We are lucky to be able to participate the WGAG/WAGAC2012 in Dubnica Slovakia. We have talked with several people, asking questions, writing down expectations, fears, thoughts, what bothers, what problems they see. Ok, you are never able to please everyone. that's for sure. But as many things we can think in advance and even make some back up plans - we'll be fine.

Anyway, tomorrow is my (our) last day here. So need to get some sleep... And in the morning will start the unlimited Known. Advanced finished it today!

Next adventure... Slovakia!

I have now been in Slovakia from Sunday evening. I got a ride to Budapest from Nyiregyhaza from lovely Anico! Thank you sweetie!
I had to wait quite a long time in the ticket office - with no air condition, and I guess after 2 hours (and about 60 people in front of me and still 30 to go according to the number tickets) they took some of us (travelling that same day) to the business lounge to buy our tickets from there.

Eventually I got on the train to Bratislava and this time I even got a seat! Not like last year in Poland... Then a quick change of train in Bratislava and the next train was even better, with AC and everything. Seat numbers and all. I ended up to the railway station of Trencin, just like planned, and took a taxi to hotel. Big spender, it costed like 3 euros...

At the "hotel" there was a young lady in the reception, who wanted me to pay immediately. And of course their machine didn't accept my Visa NOR Master card for some reason, so I had to go find an ATM. And I can tell you, locals don't reallly speak english... Bankomat - that was the macig word... Eventually I found one, and yet there I had some problems with my plastic cards, but finally got the amount out from there and headed back to the hotel...

Next day I got a ride to the airfield with the swedish team, which was great! And then all the familiar faces there. This is like a big family reunion! It is nice to see how everyone helps each other, gives tips, comments on flying (doesn't still reveal all the secrets) but anyway, have fun and enjoy the contest. One evening we had a dinner in the down town of Trencin. There was Italians, Brittish, French, Swedish and then me from Finland. oh, and one Polish. Everyone together like a big happy family.

Last night our 2013 Contest director and marketing manager arrived and today we're just seeing what's going on here in the competition. Already visited morning briefing, startline, talked about HMD's, and several other things. And now... now it is time for PIZZA!!!

We did it!!!

After a very long and hot week, we managed to pull all the flights!
81 flights in Q, which equals 729 figures,
81 flights in Free, which equals 972 figures,
75 flights in Free Unknown 1, which equals 1043 figures,
58 flights in Free Unknown 2, which equals 814 figures...

total that is 295 Flights, 3558 figures... so including positioning marks, that is 3853 marks given...

 Now we have the time for the airshow and closing ceremonies for today!

8 down, 2 to go. Then to Slovakia!

We have had 8 days now for the contest and still have 2 more days left here in Nyiregyhaza (I have finally learned how it is written - and pronounced). Tomorrow we hopefully get the 2nd unknowns ready, which means 38 flights. And there has been a "Local Severe alert for Hungary!
Statement as of 2012-08-02 2:23:00 GMT, valid until 2012-08-02 02:23:00 GMT
Extreme high temperature
Description: Extreme high temperature.


Cities affected: Zahony, Hungary; Szolnok, Hungary; Debrecen, Hungary; Nyiregyhaza, Hungary."

That means, that tomorrow on the judging line will be very hot! We have the parasols and nice chairs, but in the middle of the day it is impossible to stay under the parasol all the time, so even I get really hot.
We have figured out a thing tho, which helps actually quite nicely. We take showers in the judging line. Well, not exactly showers, but half a liter of cold water on your head helps a lot - at least for a while. This week I have poured several of them on me, and when you get your hair and back of your shirt wet, you can actually be there. If there is no wind, it is REALLY hot - and humid.

So, after tomorrow we'll get the flights done, then on Saturday there is an airshow and after that - closing ceremonies. That will be nice.

On Sunday it is time to travel back home - well, for the others. I will continue my trip to Slovakia, where the World Glider Aerobatic Championships will be held. The contest is on the same site than the last years Europeans, so the the place I already know. I will take a train from Budapest and change it in Bratislava. And after about total of 2 hours of travel time I will arrive to Trencin, where our hotel is. I got some help with the trains and timetables from Anico, one of the assistants on the judging line. She is a native Hungarian and is assisting her dad on the line. So big thank to her, for helping me with that =)

On Tuesday our future contest director and our PR/Marketing manager for WAGAC/WGAC 2013 will arrive also to the site, so it will be nice to see what is going on and how it is done this year...

But, now off to bed, tomorrow is going to be... HOT! Again!

Flagman GO, GO, Flagman GO!

I just didn't have the energy to update anything yesterday. So here is something that has been going on...

We finished the Frees yesterday and started the 1st unknowns today. Got up to 40 pilots, which is a good amount, since a bit of time was spent to the video checks during breaks. Since the programs flown today, were unknowns, there was unfortunately some mistakes in some flights and we had to make sure what happened after the flight from video.

We haven't had much of a breaks from judging, today we managed to get 40 flights done, yesterday 50 or so.. that is A LOT! So we've heard this FLAGMAN GO-call several times, it is always the Chief Judge who gives the permission to flagman to send the next pilot up when the previous ends the program and joins the downwind for landing.

Tomorrow in the morning we'll hopefully get the 1st unknowns done and then after lunch start the 2nd unknowns. Tomorrow evening we'll have also a Aqua party, so we'll see. Could be fun!

Here is few photos to end todays report too...

The muddy afternoon (eastern judging position), during a small rain... 

It didn't rain for long, but... 

there was a lot of rain at that short time! :D

 

The German team had some kind of photo shoot, so I of course used the opportunity too :D

Had a break today in the red bull tent after lunch. Well, got myself about 5 minutes but I really like this with sofas and everything!

A view from the eastern judging position, this is next to the corn field and is in use during the mornings. 

South judging line, this was in use yesterday the whole day, and the view to the airport is nice!

 

Chief judges tent...

And here we go with Free warm up pilot!

And you can really see and hear the planes taking off and landing! 

The best place to judge - definately!

Every cloud has a silver lining... This was the nice ending for today...

I didn't think I'd say this, but...

man it was hot today! (I'm not complaining tho!) Twice I poured a bottle of water on my head. Seriously. And once some coffee, but I don't recommend that.

We judged 45 flights today, that equals about 405 figures with a total of 15000 different things to say and judge. Must say, I am glad that I m just an assistant...

so, without any further speeches, I am going to bed. Known was finished today so we start with the frees... I would have appreciated them as a "night time study material", but no, must adopt all of the information of all of the flights and all of the figures just before they are flown. Now I will go stand in front of the mirror and keep repeating "I can do this, I can do this"...

Muddy afternoon!

35 flights down, well, actually 34 since one pilot had to come down due low cloud base and is now somewhere down the end. Or tomorrow morning, who knows. We saw some very nice flights, and some not so good, but no bad mistakes anywhere. And that I like. It is so much easier to work as a judge if the pilots are flying correctly. But dear Lord if they miss a figure or turn the wrong way. Then all hell breaks loose. Sorry for the expression, but so it feels. Power aerobatics is so fast and quick that you need to be alerted alllll the time.

Must say, it was a really warm day. In the afternoon we got also some rain. And the field where we're sitting turned into a smelly, muddy field. Well, not that bad, since the rain didn't last for long, but I seriously thought that there was a mistake in the contest program and the Aquaparty was today, not on the 1st as planned...

Sorry for the bad quality, but this was taken with my phone from under the parasol, and I was also trying to protect all still at least remotely dry things... :D

Anyway, after the contest day we had a dinner at the briefing tent and then a German evening, with some delicious dried ham and different types of cheese. And some wine. Finally got back to the hotel and took a looooong shower, it felt like the ants from the field were still crawling on my legs. Besides, I got bitten twice, I don't know by what but it itches like ****. 

Now I think it is time to get some sleep, breakfast at 6:30 and briefing at 8:00. Again.

Opening ceremonies

No flying today, due low cloud base. Well, some, but only for training, and calibrating judges. Eventually today, after several hours sitting, waiting and just hanging around, we were told to get ourselves to the judging line for some training. Before that, there was one briefing, which was held in a huge tent, that is also used as a restaurant at the airfield.

Anyway, after drawing the lots (we weren't there at that time, but drinking coffee and snoozing off at the judges lounge) there was more waiting, a lunch and finally after that we were called to the judging line. We got few practice flights and then to the hotel to get ready for the opening ceremonies.

We were transported to the city center where there was all these festivities with a marching band, a group of cheerleaders, a lot of speeches and a dinner. I will upload few photos from today here, so to keep things shorts, here we go....

The briefing tent - before drawing the lots

'

our judging line, with very nice chairs and parasols!

This will be my and Kimmos place for the next week

And next to us, the father-daughter combination from Hungary :)

Shuttle bus from the airfield to the hotel

Just before the opening ceremonies

The other Finnish judges, Timo & Tuula Bartholdi

Overall view, about to march to the openings... 

sorry for the horizon :D

Pilots and officials, line up!!!

Just a bit of audience! 

Nice speaches, nice people, nice weather... can't really hope for anything more. Well, can, but I won't!  (Like winning the lottery) :D

Arrival

It has been a long day. And I mean really long.

After finnishing the Nordics, I went back home for a few days. Doing the laundry, taking care of things, having my daughter back home for few days, sleeping...

This morning, about 00:40 I started my journey to Hungary. I took a bus from Pori to Helsinki (slept a few hours in a bus!!!), spent a few hours at the airfield doing the CIVA judges evaluation test, then took a flight to Budapest (and with a nice twist, our friend, one of the aerobatic pilots and our trainer was in the cockpit) and then 3 hours to Nyiregyhaza (again slept a bit, but not much due to 2 large coffees, 3 shots of  espresso and 3 redbulls), to the contest site.

We had a brief judging seminar, went to check out the judging line and then came the rain. And the thunder.
The weather is really nice, warm, humid and so on, can't really complain. Since it has been so cold in Finland.

Afterwards we had a long dinner at the hotel (which by the way, is very nice), few drinks and now I think is time to get to bed. Man, I am tired.

Breakfast 6:45, transportations 7:20 and 7:40 so, briefing at 8:00 am...

it's been rather busy...

First of all, sorry for not updating things here in few days...

It has been rather busy, since we finally got the weather for flying. We finnished the power contest in one day, which was a very good thing! You can find the results here.
After the contest, we had a nice price giving ceremonies followed by a rather cool - and long dinner.

Then the power guys went home and the glider guys came here.

On thursday we had a very nice weather for training flights, and friday morning we had briefing again at 8:00. We had to wait for a few hours for the clouds to dry out and cloud base rise high enough and then we started the contest flights, first with knowns and then with free programs. I was calling the figures to the danish judge, since his assistant left back home with the power team. That was good practise for next year.  Although a bit challenging since all the calling was to be made in english.

Well, we managed to fly 2 rounds today, so tomorrow we're going to fly the unknowns, starting with briefing at 9:00. The results are here, almost in real time...  and we'll have nice time to get ready for the closing ceremonies tomorrow evening.

You know, this is a lot of work. But I am loving every moment of it.

It's raining men, hallelujah

The weather is keeping us from flying, so few pilots went sightseeing to Turku, and the rest of the people just spreaded out like a flock of birds. Good day for sightseeing, relaxing, reading, and socialising.

I got a lot of office work done, and the SMS-system seems to be working mostly. Few typing errors have already been detected but other than that, works fine.

In the evening we got the last pilot here, he arrived all the way from Norway. Now we have pilots from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark! Excellent! 16 all together for Power.

Tomorrows weather forecast seems quite well, so briefing is at 8 am and we're going to fly!

So, hopefully a lot of flights!!!

First contest day

Yesterday was a good training for the pilots, and judges also had a lot of work checking the free programs and getting things ready.

Today was the first contest day and we actually managed to get one (1) flight done, the weather is giving us a lot of troubles. Clouds keep hanging too low and it has been raining almost all day...

We have almost everyone here, except still waiting for one Norwegian pilot to arrive. We'll see if it ever works, since the bad weather is basically all over Scandinavia. And it is cold. For tomorrow, the weather doesn't look too good either, but that allows me to do some office work and things ready for the Glider contest starting on the 20th.

Today I got help to the contest office, Mia started today and is a big help. Also one of the judges assistants, Tuula, is a VERY big help, since she made all the folders for judges ready before the contest. That is just not an easy job.

Nice thing too, we got some publicity. A few days ago, a local news paper Aamuset wrote an article about the contest.Today Turun Sanomat wrote an article about how the weather is giving us hard time, the link is here, but it is only in finnish. 

It has been very busy 1,5 weeks for me, but I am not complaining. Au contraire my friend, I enjoy this work very much. And there is one good thing about a rainy day. It allows you to get some sleep at decent time... well, decent and decent, but before 2am. Luckily also the weather report says, that our next briefing is at 10:00 am. So now I have some time to catch at least some sleep :)




So, untill tomorrow. 

2 down 3 to go...

Midnight sun air show and Jämi flyin & airshow are happily behind us, both were nice and fine airshows as always. Worked in both of them, volunteer as always. A lot of work and I would do it again any minute!

Actually, I am doing it all over again... After Jämi I moved myself, my car and all my stuff to Oripää, to get the Nordic Aerobatic Championships ready. Nordics is always organised in turns with Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. Last year it was Norway, next year is going to be Denmark.

We started preparations last winter already, and we have received so far over 30 entries. Unfortunately also few cancellations due to technical, meteorological, medical or financial reasons. Things happen, no can do. I was hoping to see all the nordic pilots in Oripää, but you can't always get everything.

We have already some finnish pilots here, as well as danish and swedish. Also the swedish judges have arrived and tomorrow we can expect the Chief Judge to arrive. Maybe also some finnish judges and other organisation. This past few days have been really busy. I have been setting the contest office up, cleaning up the cottages and campers for the people accommodating here, cooking evening meal for people since the airfield restaurant will be open this evening, shopping, arranging accommodations outside the airfield, etc. etc.

Now we're having breakfast, press conference, training, cleaning, printing, checking papers etc etc. day. So, I'll get back to you later!

and btw, 3 to go... Nordics as a contest director, World Advanced Aerobatic championships in Hungary as an assistant judge and World Glider Aerobatic Championships in Slovakia as an observer. Huh.

Lost in time...

I have been very lazy. I mean very. Couldn't even finnish the story from UK...

so, here goes.

We managed to fly all flights for the contest. Even against strong wind. At some times, it looked like the glider was just staying there, hovering against the wind. But still everyone managed to stay in the box. Or almost :) Here you can find the CD's report from the contest. All the results are available here.

In Beginners class there was 3 pilots, they flew only Known sequence which - of course- was very easy. Basic manoveurs, good way to enter to contest world... Winner got the highest prosentage of the whole contest, 82,659 %. Way to go Robert Rizk. He did flew with a safety pilot, there was cameras in the cockpit to ensure it was really him flying the plane. Oh, did I mention? He is 13 years old. Ok, 13 and a half.
Very promising young guy. Seems to have a good head on the shoulders. Other pilots in Beginners were David Aherne (2.) and Nick McCloud (3.).

In sportsman, there was 5 pilots. 1 Pilatus, 4 flew with ASK-21. Best score was a bit over 80% Adam Lindsey. I am pretty sure we'll here from him later. Other pilots were George Rizk (2.), Rodolphe Herve (3.), Michael Corcoran (4.) and Peter Sharphouse (5.)

In intermediate class there was just one pilot. David Gethin. Finnished first (and last) with 66,230 %.

Advanced had 2 pilots, presumable seeing them in Wagac 2012 in Slovakia as well. David Morgan 65,345 % and Richard Brown 65,153 %. Very close as you see.

In unlimited the contest was very interesting. There was also one non-UK-pilot, Dietmar Poll from Austria. He won the whole thing with 79,018 %, but obviously didn't recieve the trophy for Brittish Champion. That went to Maz Makari, 72,717 %. The contest between him and bronze medalist Paul Conran was very tight, since he received 72,607 % which is only 0,110% less. Fourth was David-John Gibbs with 56,079 %.

About judging... Since I am not on the CIVA officials list yet, I need the rankings in order to earn my place there. I am not in a rush, I am perfectly happy working with "my judge" Kimmo Virtanen in the CIVA contests, but this was a good practise. For what I know, for the next 2 years there is no way even for me to judge in a CIVA contest... But I did well. When I received the RI's from our Chief Judge, the first thing came out of my mind was "are you kidding me?". I finnished second. For my readers who are not that familiar with Ranking Indexes and all this comotion about judging, it basicly means that I was the second best in knowing in what order the pilots end up in final scores. The smaller RI is, the better. In Civa sanctioned contests, where there is 8-10 judges, you hardly ever see RI less than 10, but the less judges there is, the smaller the RI is. We had 5 judges and my RI was 2.40. So I can be proud of my debute.

I must say THANK YOU all in Buckminster Gliding Club. Thanks Paul for inviting me. It was a great trip and a good opportunity for me. It was great to see all the familiar faces Paul, Maz, Rachel, David-John, Alex, Chris, Graham, Dietmar, Nick and Jen... And all the new people I met.

Thanks to the people in Cross Swords Inn. A perfect place to stay the nights and have dinner and few beers. The food was excellent and service... well, you couldn't hope for more!

Special thanks to Jen and Nick for the sleepover before my flight at their house and the excellend dinner Jen cooked. Besides, they have ADORABLE little Jack-dog there :)

And to Charles for picking me up and to Nick about the ride back to the airport!

Untill the next time!

Thoughts from above…. and a bit from the ground too

23.5.2012

It was time to travel to UK. The Glider nationals. Scary, and yet so exciting!

I drove to Tampere and picked up a friend. He dropped me off to the airfield and is going to take care of my car during my trip. Excellent service I’d say J

I like Tampere airport. There is a lot of traffic. Right when I walked to the plane, one of our F/18’s took off. I just love the smell of jet fuel in the morning… well, afternoon, and evening goes too. Nice way to start the trip!

After takeoff it was rather easy to keep track where we were going, but after the Baltic sea I was completely lost and only could guess where we were. I don’t know if I ever get tired of staring out of the window of an airplane. I was reading part of the journey – the judging rules of course, but couldn’t help taking peaks out of the window every now and then. The view is spectacular! No clouds, sunny day, and all you can see, is the sea. Then you see a coast, reaching to the sea. Seems to be longest white sand beach (or so it appears to the plane, 10km high) I’ve ever seen. It looks like an island. Might be one close to Swedish coast. But I am just guessing. Then there is more coast line, then again sea. At some point I saw oil riggs down there, or that’s what I think they were. Definitely not cruise ships, but there was a few of those too. The closer we get to UK, it seems to be getting a bit of foggish hazy and I really can’t see the horizon.  Nor the ground or sea anymore. There as a good turn here, and a the plane seems to be going down so we’re getting close.

This trip is a good opportunity for me. Even I am not in a rush to the CIVA list as a judge, this gives me a good perspective on few things. First, how things are done somewhere else than in Finland. I have only judged in Finland and been an assistant in a CIVA contest. Now this is a National contest in a different country. I am getting an assistant from there, and the second challenge is here. All the conversations, figures, everything in English. Good thing the “aerobatic language” is pretty similar in Finnish too. One might call that “Finglish”

Time to close the computer, we’re landing.

24.5.2012

I arrived to Stanstead perfectly on time and a colleague picked me up. Thanks to Charles, I got to Saltby well and safe =) Although I must say, the traffic is freaking me out. The bigger roads were ok, but small roads are just scary, the cars DO drive on the wrong side of the road. Besides, already twice I have tried to go in to the car – the wrong side… :D

Welcome here was warm and nice, a many familiar faces! Good to see people. Airfield is quite big and with a  lot of small bunnies everywhere and birds.  Pheasants and Quils and something I don’t know  the name in English.  Big birds anyway.

The accommodation at Cross Swords Inn is perfect. The hosts of the pub are great and the food is delicious. The place has 3 guestrooms and I am staying in Fishwell cottage, a nice twin bed room! I got a basket of food with me in the evening after dinner for late night snack or breakfast. Of course I enjoyed it this morning, only to realize you could get breakfast from the airfield. Need to try that tomorrow, with a full English breakfast.

View from front of the Pub

The Pub itself, the Cross Swords Inn

I'm staying here, the Fishwell Cottage!

 

Contest director Chris Cain

Paul Conran & Maz Makari

Chief Judge Manfred Binder and wife

Just finished a briefing, no flying yet, but preparing everything.

So, Briefing postponed, next briefing at 11.