< PreviousMartin was not so lucky and landed halfway down the hill. The final pilot to trouble the occasional red kites was Nick Collins, whose trip to the bottom was marked by a yell of ‘It’s f****ing rough!’ as he flew his first beat. Day 4. The plan was to brief at Kettle Sings at 11:30am. We huffed and puffed up the steep hill and began to rig in the heat of yet another scorching day. The task was met with some excitement: an out- and-return to anywhere with goal at the Three Counties field. The turnpoint radius was 22km and 11km for the Club Class. The window opened at 12:45 but we were assured that there was no need to rush; the forecast promised improved conditions later. In fact it was a hazy and challenging day. Those that chose their launch window carefully had the most success. The conditions were very ‘continental’: stable but with sufficient temperature to trigger convection, and no clouds. With nearly no wind at take-off there was some concern that it would come over the back when the sun reached the west side. Strategies were considered before take-off. As the best ground clearance lay to the east pilots chose to stay to that side of the hill. However the upwind/downwind decision was based on how much wind there was and how high gliders were getting in the start circle. Downwind meant half the points for sure but a difficult return; anyone who struggled for height at the start would probably go that way. The final decider was the ground you would cover on the final glide. Going north meant a final glide over Great Malvern; those who got high at the start headed more east. In the air the 20km/h south-easterly drift was was stronger than on launch. My decision was made when my second thermal took me to over 4000ft and I headed directly east from the hill. Climbs were good on the way out, with a ceiling of 4700ft under the blue skies. But, returning, I found myself very low with 15km to go. Fortunately I only required one climb to 2700ft to get home first. Justin Needham was just behind, and then Johnny Carr. Of the rigids Stuart Reid arrived at goal first, followed by Tim King, who had been the first to take off, and Nigel Bray. The Club Class was not activated. Day 5. Martin started proceedings by having us all give someone else a pat on the back for the previous day. There had been lots of excellent flying, and Sonia (Gordon Rigg’s mum, aged 82) received a day prize for her excellent retrieving skills, and for bringing ice cream and cold drinks to the landing field. After a weather update Martin discussed the available sites and it was agreed to can the day. With no flying possible, the topic turned to the future of British hang gliding competitions and our representation at international comps. Several of the committee members are standing down. Tim King and Darren Brown led the discussion and some volunteers for Comps Panel came forward. That evening we all enjoyed a meal together. A big thankyou to Jon Sacre and the staff at Fforest Fields for organising and accommodating us! Not even the torrential rain could dampen anyone’s spirits. The evening was spent catching up and having a laugh with friends. Pizza, brownies and booze seem to be a winning combination! Day 6. Thunderstorms and rain were forecast for all sites throughout the day. We woke up to rain hammering on the roof of our caravan and went back to sleep. The briefing wasn’t at 9am … Day 7. This had looked hopeful earlier in the week, but the day was canned due to bad weather at the Mynd. Instead, prizegiving was held at the campsite. A massive thank you to all involved in the organisation of the British Open Series – Martin, Tim, Jon, Phil and many more! Club class (also normalised overall result – no tasks at BOS 1) 1 Christopher Tracey Flight Design Exxtacy 144 2 Nestor Londoño Wills Wing U2 64 3 Paul Boyd Litesport 63 Class 5 1 Stewart Reid Atos VQ 2,866 2 Tim King Atos VQ Race 2,126 3 Nigel Bray Atos VR Race 1,918 4 Nick Collins Atos VR Full Race 1,543 5 Mike Armstrong Atos VQ 11 1,537 Class 1 1 Grant Crossingham Moyes RX3.5 1,914 2 Justin Needham Moyes RX3.5 1,801 3 Darren Brown Will Wing T2C 1,513 4 Dave Matthews Moyes RX3.5 1,499 5 Johnny Carr Moyes RX3.5 1,438 6 Gordon Rigg Moyes RX3.5 1,194 Overall BOS results (normalised) Class 5 1 Stewart Reid Atos VQ 1,589 2 Tim King Atis VQ Race 1,382 3 Mike Armstrong Atos VQ 11 1,325 4 Nigel Bray Atos VQ Race 1,006 5 Nick Collins Atos VR Full Race 849 6 Steve Gill Atos VQ 102 Class 1 1 Grant Crossingham Moyes RX3.5 1,744 2 Justin Needham Moyes RX3.5 1,687 3 Dave Matthews Moyes RX3.5 1,515 4 Gordon Rigg Moyes RX3.5 1,505 5 Johnny Carr Moyes RX3.5 1,363 6 Darren Brown Will Wing T2C 1,280 Full results are Report by Grant Crossingham and Katy Cole 20 SKYWINGS NOVEMBER 2021 hang points Photo: Katy Cole Photo: Katy Cole Photo: Katy Cole Gordon Rigg, fourth overall in the seriesRichard Hunt, BOS weatherman and 10th overall Christo Tracy, Club Class Champion NOVEMBER 2021 SKYWINGS 21 The end of an era At the BOS, hang gliding Comps Panel Chairman Tim King and scorer Phil Chettleburgh both announced they were stepping down. Between them Tim and Phil have been the face of hang gliding competitions for over a decade; it is hard to imagine the BOS or the British Nationals being as active, fun and welcoming without their hard work in all that time. Both have contributed not only their own drive and skills – their families have been actively involved too. Tim’s recent career change has made it harder for him to sustain the many hours he puts into the role. Anyone around him will know that when he promises something he gets the job done and delivers, which has made my life easier as Comps Director. He somehow manages to combine being straight- talking and easygoing; in his time he has delivered ten Nationals and nearly 30 BOS rounds. Tim is himself a very fine pilot and won the Class 5 Nationals in 2017. It is a mark of his determination that he returned to top-level competition after two accidents that would have grounded a lesser man. Although he is stepping down for a well-earned break, I believe he will eventually succumb to my pressure to return and play another role in the BHPA. Phil Chettleburgh’s departure will also leave a huge void in the comps scene. The ritual of reporting to Phil’s van or scoring room was always an important part of the day’s flying; even after a miserable performance he would always have a cheery ‘Well done!’, however improbable that was. Doing battle with the GAP scoring system cost Phil many a late night, beating the software into submission after a task that didn’t quite fit the mould, ready for the morning rush of pilots wanting to see how they had fared. We lost some of that with the advent of trackers, but Phil’s place was always at the heart of the comp. The competition location was wherever his van was parked. While scoring is Phil’s most celebrated role, he is also involved in many other ways – representing the BHPA at CIVL plenaries, keeper of records for trophies, master of the XC league and hang gliding team manager. Phil was once the man to beat from a winch launch; I hope his new-found leisure time will allow him to rekindle his flying career. Bill Bell, Comps Director Phil Chettleburgh Tim King Photos: Katy Cole Photo: Katy Cole Photo: Katy Cole Steward Reid, Round 2 Class 5 winner and Class 5 Champion Dave Matthews, third overall in BOS 2021Justin Needham, second in Round 2 and BOS 2021 overall Photo: Richard Sheppard22 SKYWINGS NOVEMBER 2021 dead centre A west-south-west wind direction on Saturday allowed half of the east-west runway to be used for towing with the target set up behind the launch point. The day had a wind gradient, and many pilots fell short of the target after being unable to penetrate the stronger upper winds, while others had to rely on their speed bars to get in. Newcomer and Veteran Satwant Dhanjal seemed to like the conditions and showed good positioning to achieve pad scores in the first two rounds. Two Norfolk winches, four lines and a quad bike were ideal for a fast turnaround in the competition. Liz Lawrence took on the role of Chief Judge and was assisted by Jess Coghlan as Event Judge, with Del Lazell and Andy Shaw making up the necessary complement to fulfil the Category 2 judging requirements. Local Scouts were also on hand, helping out at the target and the launch point. The day was punctuated by some precipitation and high winds. This gave some time for Andy Shaw to talk about the parallel towing system, and for William Lawrence to demonstrate the PATpad automatic measuring device. On the resumption of flying the sun came out to make the conditions lively, but Simon Sykes was able to demonstrate his talents by posting a well-executed DC in the third round. As the flying progressed into the evening the wind gradient became more pronounced as the lower winds eased. This caused lots of pilots to now overshoot the target – full marks to them for flying safely rather than being tempted to apply more brakes. Three rounds were completed by the end of the day with Simon Sykes in the lead on 6cm, followed by William Lawrence (10cm) and Andy Webster (13cm). Lighter north-westerly winds on Sunday morning meant less height on tow and less time to set up on finals. The top three pilots in the competition all dropped their biggest scores in the first round of the morning, only Andy Webster making the pad to take the lead in the fourth round. The winds had picked up a bit by the fifth round, along with thermic activity, but both Simon Sykes and William Lawrence were able to score DCs. The DC, and dropping the worst score after the fifth round, allowed Simon (6cm) to re-take the lead, followed by William Lawrence (10cm) and Andy Webster (17cm). By the 6th round the wind had switched to a more northerly direction and relocation of the winches was required to the north- south runway. The target remained in the same position with the winches close by; pilots were now releasing downwind of the target and having to penetrate forward into Paragliding Accuracy Nationals The 16th Paragliding Accuracy National Championships were hosted by the Norfolk Hang Gliding and Paragliding Club at their tow field in early September. The FAI Category 2 event proved to be a great weekend, with seven rounds completed in generally good weather and some practice flying thrown in on the Friday evening. The entry included three ladies, three veterans and three newcomers, and two novices. Photo: D av e Mercerwind to reach the desired area. Thermic conditions made approaches tricky, and it was luck of the draw whether pilots had to deal with unwanted lift or had a nice glide into the target. The top three pilots all scored 5cm or less in the last two rounds, Simon Sykes and William Lawrence achieving further DCs in the last round. In the end Simon Sykes had three DCs to his credit, and with a total score of 10cm proved to be a worthy UK individual national champion for the fourth time. Scout Rebels won the team trophy for the third time and Razvan Iluca won the novice event, even making the pad on his last flight. Trophies were presented by CIVL Secretary and accuracy legend Andy Cowley. A big thanks go to the Norfolk Club, and especially Martin Kay who did the bulk of the organising and the towing, to the tow team of Pete Marcou, Bill Banks-Jones and Jason Harper, to the judging team of Liz Lawrence, Jess Coughlan, Dell Lazell, Andy Shaw and the Scouts, to Chris Haynes for taking on the Meet Director and Launch Marshal roles, to Mark Bignell for organising the event and Andy Webster for administration. Report by Andy Webster Individual 1 Simon Sykes UP Ascent 3 0.10m 2 William Lawrence UP Ascent 4 0.15m 3 Andy Webster UP Ascent 4 0.25m 4 Matthew Bignell UP Rimo 2.27m 5 Katie Sykes UP Ascent 3 3.56m 6 Dave Mercer UP Ascent 3 8.65m 7 Dale McMahon UP Ascent 4 12.48m 8 Ben Woodcock UP Rimo 18.24m 9 John Lawrence UP Ascent 2 19.45m 10 Satwant Dhanjal Ozone Ultralight 3 20.19m Team 1 Scout Rebels S Sykes, W Lawrence, K Sykes 9.44m 2 Green Dragons UP A Matt Bignell, D Mercer, Ben Woodcock 41.92m 3 Oldies A Webster, S Dhanjal, E Cunliffe 53.66m 4 Green Dragons UP B T Paul, D McMahon, Mark Bignell 76.83m 5 Green Dragons UP C J Lawrence, M Ewington, C McMahon 85.38m Full results are Best Veteran John Lawrence Best Lady Katie Sykes Best Club Pilot Cherry McMahon Most Improved Pilot Dale McMahon Best Newcomer Satwant Dhanjal Best Novice Razvan Iluca Photos Left: Scout Rebels National Team Champions – Andy Cowley presents Top right: Simon Sykes, National Paragliding Accuracy Champion for the fourth time! Centre right: Katie Sykes: Best Lady Bottom right: Satwant Dhanjal: Best Newcomer Photo: Andre w W ebster Photo: Andre w W ebster Photo: Andre w W ebster24 SKYWINGS NOVEMBER 2021 pilot profile No. 335: Tom Yeoman Age? 37 Where were you born? In a hospital car park in Nottingham, on the back seat of a brown Austin Allegro. Where do you live now? In Sheffield with my wife Rosie and my son and daughter, Finn and Skye. Occupation? When pretending to have a grown-up job I work as a doctor specialising in Anaesthetics and Critical Care. For fun times I’ve worked as an expedition doctor on Kilimanjaro and as a festival medic. I’m currently enrolled on the UIAA Diploma in Mountain Medicine and, most recently, I’m teaching paragliding first aid with Jocky Sanderson. Previous occupations? Potato packer, daffodil picker, pizza delivery guy, petrol station attendant. Pretty glamourous stuff … How and when did you start flying? My Dad, Paddy Yeoman, flew hang gliders for as long as I can remember. Growing up, my brothers and I were dragged up many a windy hillside. I was never really interested in flying until, in my late teens, I was gifted a sailplane flight on the South Downs. It blew my mind, and as soon as I got back up North I joined the Derbyshire and Lancashire Gliding Club as a cadet. I went solo shortly after getting my driver’s license, fairly life-changing for a lad of 17. However hang gliding always seemed cooler (and cheaper), and I left gliding to start hangie training at Airways in 2002. I was pretty shambolic at tow launching and bent more than my fair share of Chris and Judy’s aluminium (sorry!). I came pretty close to giving up after a particularly dodgy tow, but somehow I managed to get to my hill conversion. It turns out running off a hillside is way easier than being yanked up on a wire! In 2009 I decided to continue my trip down the performance curve and got my paragliding CP with Peak Airsports and I’ve been flying floppy ever since. Which pilots most influenced you? Gosh, so many … my Dad has always been really supportive, and Mark Bosher has been a legend throughout my flying life. He taught me to fly both hang gliders and paragliders, encouraged me through my hang gliding wobbles at Airways, and even bought my old hang glider from me when I was strapped for cash travelling in New Zealand! Len Hull was great, both pushing me and keeping me safe in the early hangie years. Trevor Birkbeck persuaded me to have a crack at the British Open which led to my PB XC distance. More recently, definitely Matt Wilkes. We met in New Zealand in 2011; he has been a regular source of adventure inspiration when I’m getting a bit bored with the day job! Where and what was your most memorable flying experience? There are so many! Magic valley lift at sunset at Piedrahita; getting to 12,000ft on my Avian Rio on my first-ever flight at Laragne; flying 52km over the Brecon beacons in the British Open on my Scandal XK; cruising up the big cliffs of La Tournette in Annecy with Matt, and topping out to views of the Mont Blanc massif. This season has been pretty special too. What is your favourite flying site in Britain? Probably Stanage Edge, if it’s not too rough. The views are great and there’s a near three-mile ridge run. It’s also 15 minutes drive from my house! For coastal flying, Rhossili holds fond memories. What is your favourite site in Europe? Annecy is pretty special for easy flying and XC potential. What is your favourite site in the world? I haven’t flown enough of the world to know! I dream of flying in Nepal and India one day though. Who do you most admire in the sport? The humble skygods that share their knowledge, the club committee members who give up their time to keep our flying sites accessible, and anyone trying to make the sport safer. What trait do you most deplore in yourself? Procrastination. I’ll get around to fixing it one of these days. What trait do you most deplore in other people? Probably only the ones that I secretly deplore in myself. Nobody’s perfect! When not flying, what do you do for recreation? I enjoy climbing, cycling and occasionally mountaineering. But I mostly love being out in nature with the kids, bouldering and scrambling in the peaks. What is your favourite piece of music? I’m a big Radiohead fan. Pyramid Song is good for stirring the soul. What is your favourite book? I like anything that attempts to distil what life is all about. I’m currently enjoying Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It by Oliver Burkeman. What is your favourite film? I love Into the Wild by Sean Penn. I like to believe I’d be brave enough to give myself completely to nature like that. What is your greatest fear? I’m not keen on sharks. I’m not the best in water to be honest – I’ll stick to air and land. What is your idea of perfect happiness? I’m easily pleased! Sharing cloudbase with friends and having a beer afterwards is pretty special any day. If I could share it with my kids one day, all the better (the flying, not the beer). What would your motto be? If you don’t try, you don’t fly. How would you like to be remembered? With a plaque on a bench? Tom started flying sailplanes at 16, moved on to hang gliding with Airways Airsports in 2002 and then to paragliding in 2009. Since then he has flown in the USA, New Zealand, Spain, the Canaries and the Alps. Although he has logged some XCs over the years, he says he mainly flies for the intense emotional connection to the elements that the sport gives you – and the views. Emerging from the recent ‘pandemic craziness’, he made a conscious decision to push himself more, soon rewarded with 44km from Bradwell in July, a personal-best distance. A fortnight later he fulfilled a long-held ambition to fly home to Sheffield, landing in the park next to his house. Tom recently became the latest member of Jocky Sanderson’s Escape team, delivering a paraglider first aid course simulation course in Keswick. ‘It’s kind of my dream job,’ he says, ‘merging medicine and paragliding.’NOVEMBER 2021 SKYWINGS 2526 SKYWINGS NOVEMBER 2021 airmail No beaters please! Paul Timms offers some great advice to those who fly hang gliders on a tight budget (Oldies but goodies, October). However, I am at odds with some of his terminology. Some beginners take a while to realise fully the seriousness of what they are getting into. An experienced pilot’s choice of words, even when used casually, can affect the thinking of such individuals. For example, one reason Paul gives for buying an old wing is, ‘For a beginner on a budget, to use as a beater to knock about before buying a decent glider you will damage less.’ This implies that is is expected and perfectly OK to beat and knock about a hang glider. However, if a hang glider is beaten and knocked about, the likelihood is that its pilot suffers a similar fate. Serious injury can result. And about the Aerial Arts Clubman, ‘ … examples are still flying today, albeit mainly as dune gooners.’ Sure, goon rhymes with dune, but there is no room in hang gliding for goons or for gooning. Flying on a low dune requires just as much care as flying any place else, especially as most beaches are open to the public and you are likely to be flying close to pedestrians. Lastly, while there are those who are genuinely short of money, some beginners I have encountered over the years strike me as being too keen to strike a bargain. To quote longtime instructor Ken de Russy: ‘People say they can’t afford a thousand-dollar glider, yet if you offered them a brand-new Cadillac for a thousand dollars, they’d have a thousand dollars.’ My own rule of thumb is to never buy a hang glider for less money than my car cost. Everard Cunion, Christchurch 600kg microlights – really? Three cheers for the CAA announcing its revised Microlight Aeroplane definition that encompasses the new ‘600kg Microlight’ classification (600kg microlights are go, October). However it’s worth noting that there is far more exciting work going on at the other end of the microlight spectrum. Recent developments in the Sub-70 class, led by Ben Ashman at Flylight, have opened up a whole new vista of flying for those who just want to admire the landscape and relish the simple purity of flight. Fully loaded, a 600kg microlight (that’s two thirds of a tonne!) is a mighty beast; even the Delta Jet flexwing pictured last month has a max. take-off weight of 500kg. With 100hp engines, 85 mph cruising speeds and colossal price tags, the upper end of the flexwing microlight spectrum has moved a long way from its humble roots where a pre-take-off power check meant both feet on the floor (full brakes), and 15hp was a luxur y. Let’s hope microlight flying continues to appeal to a broad range of people, but for my money sub-70 flying is where it’s at. Maybe it’s time to dream up another name for such low-impact, low-budget, maximum-fun flying? Bimbling? Sky-rambling? Loitering without intent? Dennis Hawley, London Return of the sailmaker! The photo (below) shows long-time hang glider sailmaker Roly Lewis-Evans launching at Kimmeridge on the Dorset coast on Thursday October 14th. The occasion is Roly’s first hang glider flight for 22 years; launch assistance is from local instructor Gary Dear. Preparation for the flight involved three not-so-young guys carrying a lightweight glider a mile across sloping fields. Who dares wins! Well, one young guy and two not-so-young guys – Gary is nearly 20 years younger than Roly and I. Roly, originally a boat sailmaker, had an interesting career, firstly with Kestrel Kites in 1974 and later with Birdman. In 1980 he joined the newly formed Solar Wings, destined to become one of the world’s foremost hang glider and microlight manufacturers. Nowadays Roly flies flexwing and rigid microlights, but had for a while been talking about returning to hang gliding. Gary Dear suggested that his borrowed Airborne (Australia) Fun 190 would be an ideal wing to use on his first flight. Roly flew it as if he had never been away. Everard Cunion, ChristchurchNOVEMBER 2021 SKYWINGS 27 call us on: 01883 652 666 or Parallel Universe! At Green Dragons, we’ve introduced a revolutionary new way of teaching on tow. It’s called parallel towing and allows the instructor to ride alongside the pilot whilst on tow. • Want to learn the quick and easy way? • Would you like to find the perfect way to train for hang gliding, paragliding or paramotoring? • Convert from hang gliding to paragliding or vice versa? • Need revision on take-offs and landing? Well, there’s no better way to do all of that, than with Green Dragon’s parallel towing system. Coming Soon: Become a BHPA Parallel towing operator or Instructor - get your name on the list! Green Dragons’ Parallel Towing System Join the Darley … more! I have been told by my old instructor that it’s sometimes worth sending in pictures taken during a flight. I took the attached photo taken during a flight out of Darley Moor (Airways Airsports) in Derbyshire. It was taken during a triangle I flew from Darley Moor-Dovedale-Carsington; it shows the view north-east over Carsington Water with Wirksworth in the distance on my way back to the airfield. I am relatively low airtime on the grand scheme of things, and have just started to get more confident at leaving the airfield on my own a bit more. Matt Smith, Airways Airsports Explorer in Dorset The picture here – taken by Abby White – shows me, Skippy Thompson, taking off over Fortuneswell at Portland West in Dorset on September 19th. Skippy Thompson Sunset in the blue yonder I hope you can use this photo of Viv Fouracre taken at Eype, Dorset on October 16th. Neil Russell, Wessex ClubActivating Telegram to try and cadge a lift out of this remote pocket of Wales, I discovered that the lead paraglider gaggle had another 30km on my full-carbon, racing spec hang glider. It came as no surprise, since the paragliders had been cranking out big flights all year, a well-oiled machine when it comes to XC planning, flying together and retrieving, compounded by their overwhelming numerical advantage. I’m lucky if I see another hangie on the hill, let alone in the sky. Yet surely our supposedly aerodynamically superior craft should count for something? My own shortcomings as a pilot couldn’t explain why far better hangies than I are also regularly being outflown by floppies on the same day. I couldn’t dispel the niggling feeling that perhaps the gulf in performance between hang gliders and paragliders isn’t as wide as assumed. So I went home, downloaded some tracklogs and bashed out some code. Initial findings were noisy and inconclusive, but as the algorithms were refined and more data was processed, its potential use to the wider free-flying community became obvious. The result is the web app Overview XCBuddy analyses .igc cross-country gliding tracklog files, instantaneously generating numerical and graphical flight reports on glide and climb performance. As greater numbers of glides and thermals are collated over multiple flights, glide polars and corresponding speed-to-fly curves emerge from the averages, useful for comparing different gliders quantitatively. Multiple same-day flights can be used to compare competition tactics, whilst sufficient numbers of flights over time can detect performance deterioration due to wing ageing, or gains due to improvements in technique. Capabilities Pilots. Upload your tracklogs to find out what your personal glide polar looks like. Add wind and lift/sink to determine your speed to fly in all conditions. Selling your wing? Brandish your polar to show how good it is! Aspiring skygods. What are the skygods’ secrets? Upload their tracks and spot the differences. Skygods. Maintain your supremacy by ensuring you have the best gear available. Is your wing past its best? See beyond the marketing bluster and base your next purchase on unbiased data. Team captains. Struggling to decide who to pick for the next comp? Let the data guide your hand. Not only can you identify who has the all-out best glide and climb performance, you can also spot talent where it’s perhaps held back by a sub-par wing; for instance, those who thermal well yet don’t even know it, because they’re still sinking faster than the rest of the field thanks to their antiquated kit. Manufacturers. Evaluate the effects of that latest design change without having to wait for consistent flight test conditions. In fact, use your customers as an extended pool of test pilots by uploading their tracklogs, and keep an eye on the competition too. Analysis Analysis results are summarised in a table and illustrated in three graphs, the first of which is the glide polar, the bread-and- butter standard graph for gliding. Your scattered points may not be as neat and ordered as the textbook smooth curve, but they ought to confirm your suspicions that as you fly faster, you sink faster. It probably won’t show the hook at the top as you’re unlikely to be gliding close to the stall. Fig. 1 charts my glide performance on the aforementioned flight from Malvern to Carmarthenshire on a Moyes Litespeed RS hang glider, alongside that of Tim Pentreath on his Advance Omega X- Alps 3 paraglider. Though we did not see each other in the air, we flew similar tracks with similar numbers of climbs and glides in a similar time, in the same conditions on the same day, so a fair comparison can be made. Each small blob represents a glide, the large blobs are the medians and the curves are the trendlines, in this case representing the polar curves of the system comprising glider and pilot. I would recommend grouping at least ten flights of around ten glides each before using the resulting polar to program flight computers, but fewer will still give a feel for ballpark glide performance. At 60 km.h-1 I was gliding on average 58% faster (through the air) than Tim’s 38 km.h-1, but sinking 49% faster too (1.95 vs 1.31 m.s-1). This equates to a still-air glide ratio γ of 8.57 for me and only marginally less for Tim at 7.59. Moyes claims a max glide for the Litespeed RS (now a 15 year old model) of 15 at 48 km.h-1. Advance (shrewdly) no longer make performance claims about their gliders, but 15 years ago they claimed a glide of 10 for an earlier model in the Omega range. There are plenty of caveats about harness choice, flying posture, etc, but having now analysed thousands of tracklogs, including those of world champions, I have yet to find a single pilot on any glider who consistently achieves anything close to spec. At this point it’s worth mentioning that my aim is not to make myself universally unpopular. Instead, XCBuddy aims to promote a culture of transparency and integrity in free flying. Having built and somehow survived test flying a hang glider of my own design, I appreciate that glider development is far from trivial. Pressure to deliver a measurable improvement in max glide with each new competition-centric model has, I believe, led to considerable glide inflation over the years, conceptualised in Fig. 2. Manufacturers have ‘gotten away with it’ for so long because of the prior absence of an objective means of comparison. By the time a new model is released, its predecessors have likely deteriorated through age and use. And furthermore, the most competitive pilots are usually the first in line for new gear, so it’s no surprise that competition results tend to favour the latest model. XCBuddy is committed to providing an impartial review of glider performance, and as such is neither sponsored by, nor in cahoots with, any particular manufacturer or dealer. 28 SKYWINGS NOVEMBER 2021 I landed after 5 hours and 120km feeling pretty chuffed, my longest flight of the season so far. The last 20km had been a bonus, drifting along with some kites under a fading sky, and I was confident of having milked what I could from the day. Fig. 1: Glide polar 2021/04/15 Malvern to Carmarthenshire. Soperman - HG: Moyes Litespeed RS vs Tim Pentreath - PG Advance Omega X-Alps 3, still-air performance SOPERMAN INTRODUCES WWW.XCBUDDY.COM, A NEW WEB APP FOR TRACKLOG ANALYSIS AND OBJECTIVE GLIDER COMPARISON NOVEMBER 2021 SKYWINGS 29 Returning to the case study: my advantage over Tim in nil wind is clearly a lot less pronounced than I would have liked to believe. What about in the actual conditions of the day itself? Imposing the 10 km.h-1 average tailwind that was blowing us across Wales, the numbers swing firmly in Tim’s favour. The second graph, speed to fly (Fig. 3), shows the glide ratio achieved over the ground against glide slant airspeed in the specified conditions (head/tail wind and sink/lift), with the triangles marking the best mean values. Tim’s best mean glide over the ground was 10.9 to my 10.1. If you fly with a speed indicator, it would be worth memorising your speeds to fly for a few common sets of conditions. If not, you can still resolve to fly faster or slower to get closer to your best mean. The third graph on XCBuddy’s analysis page offers two datasets on climb performance: climb rate vs thermalling period (time per revolution) on the left and climb rate vs thermalling diameter on the right. Fig. 4 immediately reveals that Tim and I have the same median period of 26 s but he is turning much tighter, with a diameter of 68 m to my 118 m. His 38% faster climb rate explains why, despite my faster glides, we have almost the same overall average groundspeed. Given my 0.56 m.s-1 greater sink rate at thermalling speed u ↑, it’s also apparent that the slowest 1/6 of Tim’s thermals would be inaccessible to me as I would not achieve a positive climb rate in them. Median values are tabulated in Fig. 5 with the same colours, units and symbols as the above graphs. For a single analysis, the results table shows best means too. Specific datapoints can be scrutinised in the graphs by hovering your cursor over them. Detailed instructions are on the website. Further functionality Besides the basic functionality of analysing and comparing up to six individual flights, XCBuddy allows you to group multiple flights as one, useful for comparing your flights this season to last season, for instance. ‘Publishing’ one of your flights, i.e. making it available to all other users, earns you 1 point, which could be exchanged for another published flight, or saved up to purchase a glider polar. These are estimates of what pilots around the world achieve on average on a given glider, and are automatically updated as more data becomes available. At last: a quantitative measure of performance to assist with your next gear investment, rather than relying on hearsay and marketing spiel. Fig. 6 samples the polars of four contemporary topless hang gliders – can you guess which? Additionally, anyone can join up to three teams of up to seven members, with whom your uploaded flights can be shared freely and vice-versa, fostering a sense of community in XC flying and facilitating daily objective feedback for team management at competitions. Discussion Although our case study examined only two flights on one day, analysis of a considerably greater corpus of data draws much the same conclusions. Paraglider development, driven by a much larger customer base and correspondingly bigger R&D budgets, has naturally made great strides in closing the gap with hang glider performance. Where maximum distance downwind is the aim, the craft that can stay up in the sky the longest – i.e. the one with the lowest sink rate – will generally prevail, able to exploit weaker climbs in the early morning and late evening. At the time of writing Sebastien Kayrouz has just broken 600km for paragliding; how much longer can Dustin Martin’s 2012 record of 764km retain the lead for hang gliders? Without a step advance in hang glider design (and I sincerely hope Avian et al. have just such an innovation up their sleeves), I believe the tipping point is imminent. But am I tempted to exchange my flexie for a floppy? Not at all. One thing XCBuddy cannot quantify is the pure exhilaration of flying like a bird. Disclaimer Anything that may be construed as an opinion in this article is that of the author. XCBuddy itself is merely a tool for meaningfully extracting the information embedded within .igc tracks, and does not assert that one wing is ‘better’ than any other. Those sorts of subjective conclusions must be made by the user, accounting for handling, cost, aftersales support, etc. To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, XCBuddy ‘… is like a sewer – what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.’ So get out there and chase some thermals in the footless halls of air. When you’re back on terra firma, upload some tracklogs to XCBuddy, and maybe your friend in high places can help you achieve your Pe rf ormanc e Time Glides Results Climbs Medians Actual ? Claimed Fig. 2: Sawtoothed glider development Fig. 4: Thermalling 2021/04/15, Soperman vs Tim Pentreath Fig. 6: Measured polars of four contemporary topless hang gliders Fig. 3: Speed to fly 2021/04/15, Soperman vs Tim Pentreath, wind effects restored Fig. 5: Table of results 2021/04/15, Soperman vs Tim PentreathNext >