From: Steve Kittel Subject: SCUM report 2/8 Date: 2 August 2004 11:28:04 PM To: newton@atdot.dotat.org
For those who have been to a large comp like this in Australia you can appreciate what it is generally like, but the details are different. Although we have been sending pictures back, this doesn't really capture the activity and energy of the launch grid. Another day I might try to describe the technicalities but today I would just like to try to describe some of the things I saw.
The sky is really a postcard of cumulus, about half the sky is covered and a cool breeze is blowing across the airfield from the west. The weather is pleasant and not trying at all. We are sitting waiting for the gliders in front of us to be towed out of our airfield conciousness, once they leave the end of the strip we don't really think where they have gone. They just disappear. If we care to look up and away we can see them in groups and sometimes alone in the distance, but they are not part of our immediate here and now.
Along the front row run the boys and girls from Klix, mostly mid to late teens and running with the hooks they use to drag the ropes. Some are running barefoot, the field is soft grass and chaff, green from a distance but with yellow threads when seen up close, sitting, waiting.
The overpowering presence is the Wilgas. All blue and yellow bar the one odd silver one flown by Freda. And all noisy. They bang and backfire on finals, which seems to be their normal operation. Every minute or so another Wilga lands, sometimes there is a long wait, sometimes they come in bunches.
Two Wilgas fly in tip to tip. They appear to be about two wingspans apart, all the way down finals and they touch down within a second of each other. Pulling up they both pirouette neatly to the right and form line astern. Perfectly, together, they clear the landing area for a third Wilga less than 400 m behind. In ten seconds he is on the ground where the other two were. You couldn't correograph flying like that. It was so neat and so completely controlled.
There are two aircraft marshallers who wear daylglo vests. One of them has no shirt but has his dark glasses on with his baseball type cap on backwards. He holds up both his arms in front of the next glider due to go and the next spare Wilga taxis over. The marshallers never seem to move around much, they just pop up in the right place at the right time. Unlike the rope collectors who seem to be constantly running back and forth with their hooks, along whatever passes for the front row.
A few rows back we are waiting, idly, last class to launch today. It will be twenty to thirty minutes before it is our turn. I am sitting by the left hand side of the cockpit, trying to get a bit of shade from the wing, even though it is not hot. Habit I suppose. Lisa is strapped in. Mathias and Gunnar are sitting on the other side of the cockpit. For the last two days Lisa and I have been wondering what the marshallers say to the tugs. While the gliders use wing runners who give the normal German take up and all out signals, it is clear the marshallers are controlling who goes when. To our anglophone ears mediated by the crackly handhelds it sounds like the marshallers call "stop stop" on the ground frequency, just before the tuggies apply full power. But this can't be. Finally unbearable, I ask Mat what they are really saying. We were right, it is their all out call, but they are calling "seil straff, start",the rope's tight, go.
Fewer rows left in front now, the activity is creeping closer. The runners with their hooks, backward and forward. I can now see Thomas the local cameraman going around the aircraft too. He has a still camera but he is brandishing a small video camera on a long stick. He delights in taking pictures from weird angles, many which don't work, but some which are striking.
The other Lisa is in the row before us and two gliders to our left. As we wait, Hanno the contest director comes over to talk. Hanno is the archetypical thorough German and has come to both check that things are OK with the foreign pilots and to wish them luck.
Now another Wilga pulls up in front of the gliders ready to hook on. While he is sitting there I notice his engine sounds wrong. It's making a noise I can only poorly describe as a regular "glurk, glurk". They make odd noises but this is a new one. As I look I can see dull red flames about as long as my forearm shooting from his exhaust pipe. I've never seen that before on a sunny day! The engine seems to be running at low revs. I don't know which of the flames and the low revs is cause and effect. A different Wilga guns his motor to swing around to take up the slack on the glider in front of us and our wing comes off its stand. Everyone outside the cockpit makes a dive for the wings to keep them level. Although we have plenty of time to let the water stop sloshing we get a bit protective this close to the launch. I didn't see what became of the flame spitting Wilga.
The other Lisa is hooked on now and Keith is running her wing. Her Wilga opens up and they accelerate like a winch launch. The bit of airfield which is our part of the grid has more than its share of chaff and the short rope the Germans use puts the glider up close to the 260 horse power fan. Keith momentarily blurs in the whirling mess. Ah, good, she's away. Cathy was directly behind them with her camera so it could be an interesting shot.
The time for our launch is getting closer and I start to cough a bit from the chaff in the air and the wheat which is being harvested behind us. All the loose waterbottles, rope and other bits have been shifted behind the glider. We are now the front row. There is only me, a young lad to hook the rope and the marshal in front of the glider. Mat has the wing tip and is holding it level for the water. Today, he will run with it when our time comes. I am still not sure when we are going, the marshal hasn't signalled yet because there is a hiatus in tugs. The one on base will be a good thirty seconds. Yes, it is ours. Lisa goes to lower the canopy and the locking levers won't sit home properly. A bit of suppressed scrambling and the canopy is reopened. It closes properly this time. The Wilga is behind me, I didn't see or hear him come. The runner is squatting down and quickly loosening a knot which has formed in the rope. With his teeth. He then hands the rings to me to hook on. Everything OK with Lisa, hook on, run past Mat and leave him to do the signalling and running.
The glider is gone.