Analise Australian Nationals 2009

Some comments on the 16th Nationals:

I had a change to have glance at the responses of the questionnaire and like to react to them. Only the fuelling and the map got a generally negative response because of the low pressure and the small print letters. Everything else got mixed responses until unanimous good response which shows that this was a good event. A mixed response often reflects a point of view, in which both points are valid but opposing. Like e.g. the rest period; one pilot commented he regretted the rest period stating “… we are here to fly and it takes the crew out of their rhythm …” whereas another stated “… the director needs to be congratulated by his choice of a rest period at the right moment …”. The same goes for observers; some missed them others praised the gained time and not having to search for markers.

Financial support:

Although an internal ABF affair to me, I like to pass on the situation in Holland. We had the same situation that the non competing pilots complain when the money goes to the competitors and vice versa. We then decided to institute a competition club like the Brits already had. This provided for separated financial budgets and fees etc. which was welcomed as a good solution by both groups.

Benalla and time period:

I think Benalla is fine and agree with some remarks that there are more fine places probably in Australia. I think we were extremely lucky with the weather and but would recommend doing the nationals in autumn.

Task briefings:

I appreciate the positive reaction of having everybody in the briefing room during task briefings, but agree with some remarks that one needs to have a bigger briefing room allowing for comfortable and undisturbed briefings.

Targets versus goals:

I think having targets in fields instead of goals was a great advantage. It allowed a low and undisturbed approach to the target with some drops as low as 1m of the ground. It is a lot safer with no persons on the street, no trees on the junction and hidden power lines in between them. Unfortunately one target had a nasty swir line, however the Target Team reported it and warnings were given in advance. Although I value critique at this item one should not forget that within the set time frame, the dark and limited man power not much can be done otherwise.

Loggers:

The new loggers performed very well and in 4 of the 8 flights we had no spikes at all. The software checks for spikes and displays them in a table see below. Spikes are defined as movements of the loggers greater than the possible movement of a balloon. The TP identifier is displayed followed by an H or V standing for a Horizontal spike or Vertical spike. Quite often both deviations occur for the same TP as you can see in the table.

In flight 0607a (6 July AM) Pilot Nr. 9 had a substantial spike problem around TP320. As you can see he started a rapid climb and this together with the direction change and possible turning of the balloon might have caused the spikes. If this occurs a visual check is necessary to see what happened. In this case it was not scoring relevant and could be ignored.

Flight 0707p had an unusual number of spikes. The reasons are unknown to me and any reason given is pure speculation, which could range from solar eruptions (CMEs) to an AWACS aircraft radar hitting the group of balloons to whatever. A look in the internet leads me to the rather amusing reason for the problem at the 7^th July because it has been predicted by crop circles J (See: http://www.examiner.com/x-2383-Honolulu-Exopolitics-Examiner~y2009m7d3-Crop-Circle-depicts-solar-eruptions-hitting-Earth-on-July-7 )

In flight 0807 Pilot Nr10 had one small horizontal spike and one vertical spikes after landing.

Flight 0807p had two pilots with a complicated spike combination that required a visual check. Both deviations were not scoring relevant.

Except for the afternoon flight of 0707p an overall good record; nevertheless we had more spikes in Benalla than in the World Air Games with 28 pilots.