The Ohio Challenge
Middletown, OH USA
July 10-12, 2015
by JOE ZVADA
Middletown, OH USA
July 10-12, 2015
by JOE ZVADA
A Series of Mistakes
The competition in Middletown was reduced to a single flight Saturday morning due to weather. Event Director Maury Sullivan called a five part task: PDG, HWZ, JDG, XDI, ANG. Winds flowed north to south with a left on the surface and right as we climbed. Looking back, it is obvious now that I kept making small mistakes that kept me behind the strategy eight ball the entire flight. A frustrating flight, but a good learning experience.
My first mistake occurred before briefing even began. Due to a lack of helium I was unable to do a pre-briefing pibal. The pibal at the PDG declaration location was my first look at the winds, giving me no knowledge of any trends in the wind direction. Had I done an earlier pibal, I may have recognized that the low left had weakened and changed our strategy. Nick and Chase Donner, Ken Draughn, and myself were flying together this weekend and we identified a PDG strategy fairly quickly and found a launch. A final pre-inflation pibal indicated that the left had dwindled slightly making it very difficult to get from our PDG to the HWZ task. We debated launching quick to use the last bit of left or go back to declare another goal. We decided that going back to declare another goal would take too much time and we launched as quick as possible.
Once airborne, we barely held enough left to get to our PDG and had OK scores. By this point the surface winds were helplessly variable. At times we were tracking to the western most HWZ target option, but mostly we were sliding right for roughly 150m scores.
The JDG and XDI were placed together on the main field of the event. The bearing from the HWZ to the JDG/XDI was better than what we had on the first two tasks, but would still be difficult in the low variable winds. Nick made the decision to bail out and try to find a left at altitude. Mistake #2: Without thinking or judging the merits of a climb for my own strategy and position I just followed Nick to altitude. He leveled around 5500ft in a wind that was heading just a few degrees left of the goals. At this point I was still just a follower, unfocused on my own flight strategy. I should have remembered that the forecast showed a left turn around 7000ft. Instead I followed, but really didn't even do that well because Nick scored 600+ pts on the JDG and I scored a measly 200pts.
The ANG was where I really shined (sarcastic). After the JDG/XDI there was a plenty of time to plan out a strategy for the ANG before entering the scoring area. It took me about five minutes too long to decide my game plan. The wasted time cost me 15-20 degrees in the final result on the task, or another 400pts
Drew Egerton's flight was the antithesis of everything I described above. He beat the field on every single task, winning three of the five tasks. An impressive flight and lesson on decision making. Congrats Drew!
The competition in Middletown was reduced to a single flight Saturday morning due to weather. Event Director Maury Sullivan called a five part task: PDG, HWZ, JDG, XDI, ANG. Winds flowed north to south with a left on the surface and right as we climbed. Looking back, it is obvious now that I kept making small mistakes that kept me behind the strategy eight ball the entire flight. A frustrating flight, but a good learning experience.
My first mistake occurred before briefing even began. Due to a lack of helium I was unable to do a pre-briefing pibal. The pibal at the PDG declaration location was my first look at the winds, giving me no knowledge of any trends in the wind direction. Had I done an earlier pibal, I may have recognized that the low left had weakened and changed our strategy. Nick and Chase Donner, Ken Draughn, and myself were flying together this weekend and we identified a PDG strategy fairly quickly and found a launch. A final pre-inflation pibal indicated that the left had dwindled slightly making it very difficult to get from our PDG to the HWZ task. We debated launching quick to use the last bit of left or go back to declare another goal. We decided that going back to declare another goal would take too much time and we launched as quick as possible.
Once airborne, we barely held enough left to get to our PDG and had OK scores. By this point the surface winds were helplessly variable. At times we were tracking to the western most HWZ target option, but mostly we were sliding right for roughly 150m scores.
The JDG and XDI were placed together on the main field of the event. The bearing from the HWZ to the JDG/XDI was better than what we had on the first two tasks, but would still be difficult in the low variable winds. Nick made the decision to bail out and try to find a left at altitude. Mistake #2: Without thinking or judging the merits of a climb for my own strategy and position I just followed Nick to altitude. He leveled around 5500ft in a wind that was heading just a few degrees left of the goals. At this point I was still just a follower, unfocused on my own flight strategy. I should have remembered that the forecast showed a left turn around 7000ft. Instead I followed, but really didn't even do that well because Nick scored 600+ pts on the JDG and I scored a measly 200pts.
The ANG was where I really shined (sarcastic). After the JDG/XDI there was a plenty of time to plan out a strategy for the ANG before entering the scoring area. It took me about five minutes too long to decide my game plan. The wasted time cost me 15-20 degrees in the final result on the task, or another 400pts
Drew Egerton's flight was the antithesis of everything I described above. He beat the field on every single task, winning three of the five tasks. An impressive flight and lesson on decision making. Congrats Drew!
