To Laszlo.
First, this would have not been possible without Meric Morel’s parents, Elise and Laurent. I told them openly “In the past, I was jealous of Meric (their son) because you make for him everything possible : he has not to deal a drop of logistic and this makes a big difference!” and Laurent just answered “I understood quite fast entering this sport with a very naïve approach (i.e. he is not a glider pilot) that logistic is one of the key to help the pilot to be the pilot and nothing else”, Elise joining the conversation “it is normal what we do”. No it is not! So round of applause for this great family, not forgetting “Crew” their super dog, helping us to have some fun on the ground.
The Morel Family is partner of the french association Simon Rêve se Réalisait, supporting young autistic persons in their social development.
It would have not been possible too without Schempp-Hirth, my boss Tilo Holighaus, giving me some tips and feedbacks after his recent experience during pre-WGC in Germany with the new Arcus-M “20” evolution (I will definitely call it "Arcus-X" but it is just my grain of salt boss). Allowing me also to be away again for few days just after the recent European championship. We are still a small company and any absence can be problematic.
Finally, thanks to the local club of Châlons-en-Champagne, putting a lot of efforts to make a very nice championship, not perfect but with relaxed atmosphere, no shouting, no drama, easy going, which is a very good sign for next year WGC! Again, Pierre Huet, chairman of the club, knows how to get a great team, as usual.
Thanks finally to Bruno Pieraerts from Belgium, allowing me to use his electric one man rigging system to save my back for the 2 times we rigged the Arcus-M “20”, priceless Bruno and enjoy playing Golf!
Context of the event in Châlons en Champagne
As usual, one year before a real World Gliding Championship, local club Organizer create an event to allow all foreign teams to train and learn the tricks of the terrain/weather combination. It is also a great opportunity for Organizers themselves to train, as welcoming 130 gliders on an airfield is not an easy task. And 130 gliders means at least 300 people on the ground...
French organisation went to same general sporting rules as Germans nationals, just days before, during their pre-world and nationals : start line with max altitude and max GPS speed for safety (less prone to push pilots to fly in clouds... forbidden but... and anyway the airspace here means a bit of caution with max ceiling under clouds) and finish line as a circle with great areas to outland if you are too low (at least 2 pilots did that way with no drama). Perfect philosophy from my point of view as a competition director, as as a pilot. It makes definitely more starts & finish, and modern tools help pilots to make it right in a low workload way in the cockpits. I would not set anything different if I was a contest Director today, and if you want "smokers", yes it was allowed and organised, so do it. Talking about smokers, one was pretty ugly, others were technically good but none was impressive and nice to see. Pilots will need to train back to make them properly ;-)
So back to what happened and key points during this championship. As expected, weather was a bit technical. Pilots coming from all around the world (Argentina, USA, Netherlands, Germany, Romania, Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Ireland) flew typical flight area and various weather awaited there : a super flatland with only the great “Mountain of Reims” to give you some hope when flying low, and the “alternative weather spectrum” going from 8/8 to 0/8 in just few km distance… Saying I like this kind of weather is just a pinch of reality, I was born in Nancy just 150km to the East and typical weather there is even more various and worse in thermal strength so I’m kind of “home”. Big difference between my place and Châlons is that the soil is different (much more dry in Châlons with cray under the ground, my place is much more clay… just one letter makes a big difference sometimes…) and no ridge terrain at all here in Châlons compared to Nancy, close to east border of Paris basin, so layers of rocks are much more tilted, making lines of “coast ridges” orientated north-south (we saw first clues of that change when flying eastern parts of the races).
Preparation and flying the new Arcus-M "20"
I made just one flight with this new Arcus-M “20” evolution before the championship, with Meric Morel, my friend working for the french Schempp-Hirth representative, visiting the factory. We made a flight for the official air photo shoot session in Germany. It was completely overcast, with not a drop of thermal activity, and the 1 hour flight was just raising up the engine, climbing (with noise), and then gliding next to the Piper Husky. But still, as discussed with Meric, we could feel that low speed was not a problem with this glider and handling was astonishing for such a mass, good first contact!
Tilo made the other pre-WGC few days before and explained me, just before I left the Schempp-Hirth company, all about settings, CofG (center of gravity), flaps, etc… not forgetting to help me plug the trailer to my car, as always, a real passionate pilot. So we tried first configuration with Claire on front seat, some lead in nose, some water in tail and maximum permitted mass for the championship, i.e. 800kg (but the new Arcus-M can go to 850kg), and we failed! As soon as I was in the air I could feel a too aft CofG “you can drop all the water now Claire…” and still empty it was not a joy in the cockpit but enough to figure out that we had to shift forward the CofG, so one more lead in nose and one less litre in the tail would make it, so we did.
Telling it was perfect is still an open question but frankly, from our cockpit it was a joy to fly it with this new setting, and reports from many cockpits from all types of gliders with any wingloading are more than my only selfish point of view (I know I am a good climber, thanks) and what I heard was : “you fly 800kg an Arcus and overclimb me in a 47kg/sqm LS8!”, “I was hyper concentrated in my Duo @750kg and you just overclimbed me with this heavy Arcus…”. Same kind of stories occurred during glides with pilots telling openly “the 2 other Arcus-T, we could follow them for a while, not this one, no way”. And what they told, we could feel it also from inside the cockpit : this feeling of power, with always a bit of extra you get under the foot when needed. I still have some fresh memories of gliders trying to overtake us: typically they are a bit higher just behind us, trying to push for a while and then start sinking deep compared to us, lose confidence, and withdraw, going back and back and back gently, and lower, disappearing, whatever the speed.
What can you do against that in the air? Nothing! After each glide we were a bit higher, and then finding the thermal was a breeze with such an agility and again pilots astonished: “your Arcus is more agile compared to my LS8 when you need to bank hard…”. And still this legendary Schempp-Hirth good feedbacks to center the core of the thermal the fastest, even @800kg. Saying I’m impressed is an euphemism, you already feel it reading this past few lines now.
So yes, this new glider was the "perfect weapon" for this mild-good weather with 170kph as “standard speed” going down to 145kph for long range when needed and to 180-200kph when super high under lines, pulling in good lifts, jumping to the next one. We had naturally our dose of doubts in the cockpit, especially in deep sink areas, usual on final glide to insidiously wash your brain, crush your hope. Also on last day with strong wind and some spreadouts, pushing us to fly a bit too-low-to-my-taste, but still, the strength of the glider to allow you to get any thermal, even the most technical and weakest, in the low layer, allowed us to stay airborne, soar again, fast, cool down, going back to hope and confidence, allowing to think again for next move.
Claire did not pilot a lot, I’m sorry for that, but she helped, questioning, asking, confirming, informing, telling nothing when needed, not an easy task too as I know myself as a perfect cloudy grinch when low and doing technical s*it in thermals, or taking silly decisions in the air. As she said, she did pilot a bit and can figure out how much she needs (and wants) to train to be able to reach the technical level she wants, but also she learnt that being a grinch saying F*** words in the cockpit is normal (I must be Tourette…), being able to still go forward when flying low is a key, not stopping to race, making mistakes also, being too much influenced by others too, being able to keep a good technic and look for thermals even with nervosity is perhaps the most difficult task I would say. Best way is probably to forget the ultimate goal of the daily/overall score when it tends to get very difficult in the air, and focus on the immediate moment, to polish each second, extract all the energy, raise the head/look to the ground to find any clue of any usable lift. Just being able to be efficient any second, even in the worse position (i.e. low...). You can also thank her for the pictures she took, I feel like in the air watching them.
A pre-WGC full of great people to race with!
To get a better picture of the full championship, first we had some great pilots there : Eric Napoleon (France), Enrique Levin (Germany), Norbert Alin Scarlat (Romania), Sjaak Selen (Netherlands), Christophe Abadie (France), Wim Akkermans (Belgium), Lukasz Grabowski (Poland), Uwe Wahlig (Germany), Meric Morel (France), Robbie Seton (Netherlands), Niklas Lofgren (Sweden), Andre Emmanuel Litt (Belgium), Sabrina Vogt (Germany), Melanie Gadoulet (France), Anne Ducarouge (France), Aude Grangeray (France), Christine Grote (Germany), I can’t cite all… So quite a bunch of international pilots with some medals hidden somewhere at home in a drawer or a bookcase.
These people make the race more interesting, more dynamic, more challenging, good for everybody in the air to fly faster. Even if, frankly, they came here more to explore the area than trying to win the championship, but we are all the same when we close the canopy : we all want to win!
The airfield of Châlons
Place of Châlons-en-Champagne is a typical French style country side with old town (pretty) center and post-modern (ugly) peripheral areas (avoid them), in a super flatland area East of Paris for 150km straight. You can even use small boats for a tour with 2 channels crossing the center city. City is surrounded by big crop fields, all cut from mid-July on. It makes it quite difficult to find the airfield from the air, but a nice line of trees and a big massive grain silo is showing you the place for marginal final glides.
Airfield has poor facilities, but local club managed to get more than usual, using the football pit as a nice big camping area (just missing some trees to make shade) and a big crop field next to the airfield as parking for trailers and gliders. So, all the airfield strip, a massive 1500x150m grass orientated 04/22, was available for the operations. A taxiway next to the strip allowed smooth gridding with scaling and the volunteers tested various configurations to polish operations for next WGC in 2020. Briefings were organized in main hangar, free of any glider in, with a single video beamer (they will get at least 2 next year) and a routine structure of briefing which became better and better each day, same for the level of English language they used.
This was a big training for the Châlons team in English, with official courses for the volunteers, weeks before the event, good for everybody and a clear indication of the motivation they have. As we all know level of English speaking in France is not our top… It was not perfect, sure, but everybody showed great respect to this team, and I believe gave useful feedbacks with help of IGC stewards kindly visiting the event. Thumbs up for all the efforts and round of applause to all the volunteers helping each day.
Day to day report
Weather was technical, but good point was very dry conditions just before the championship so, even with shade, nice thermals could trigger.
First day was with a weird high clouds cover with no cumulus, rainy Alto-Cumulus (rain was not going to the ground) but instability and raising temperature allowed almost everyone to get a nice 2000+ meters for last glide even if it was more a 1600-1700m AMSL all day long. Already heterogeneity of ground was here with more forest and a raising soil to the East, super-flat-only-crop-fields to the West, Reims “Mountain” to the North. And frankly it was a day you would have perhaps not open the hangar just staring at this weird sky, but it worked very well! We did not make big mistake with Claire, and already the extra power of the new Arcus-M “20” helped us to get away from the gaggles when needed. Wim Akkermans in LS8 “CM” showed us his magics for quite a while, impressive! My hero of the day, definitely. We are the fastest with 107kph but handicap index of the glider makes us 5th, Enrique Levin winning.
Day 2 was more standard with cumulus clouds but a bit of “too moist” airmass, so a lot of them where not good at all. Organization was aware of that and set a 2 hours AAT which was wise, also as our class was taking off quite late (at same time same place was French Club Class Nationals and they had priority to take off).
Claire flew a bit this day, but I was asking so much question she almost evaporated in the cockpit. But the 15 minutes she did (basically I give her controls on top of a thermal so she can do the next glide and next thermal fully) went very well, even if, as a typical flying grinch, she was not happy with her technic and choice. I just helped her to polish a bit her push-pull and make a more steady angle of attack in the glides.
Again, no big mistake and a quite fluent flight for us combined with the good glider allowed us to win this day. Just popping out of cockpit, Laurent Morel saw us jumping and laughing together with Claire as flight was just great. We knew we made well but you never know if somebody made better! But the way we were flying, always higher, always getting rid of others in the glides, such a feeling is priceless, especially with your wife in same cockpit, winning together with average speed of 114kph. Routine of preparing the map together after briefing, asking some questions about what-is-the-plan-for-today and keeping it simple, questioning the start line tactic, confirming it is good moment to start, managing the other competitors, etc… You can tell what you want but being two in a cockpit is a big advantage : you can make less mistakes, and you enrich the typical amount of information you normally can deal with in a single seater, so in a single brain. And Claire is fast! She is a scientist, a real big data eater, always going for efficiency, always looking for better, always asking why I do that that way, another time, priceless in a cockpit! After 2 races, we are leading, but marginally, and already Christophe Abadie on his JS3-15m is second, followed by Enrique Levin and Norbert Alin Scarlat both on Discus-2a.
Next day is cancelled with a rainy/coldy front. Weather was just good enough to visit the great city of Reims before the rain (what a timing with the last ice cream!), and then enjoy visit of a small producer of Champagne who invited us at home and explained us everything (almost) about what, when, why they do that and how to make great Champagne. Now we now how to make some! No, no, kidding, this is a science and these people have a great experience to deal with a living material and produce the best bubbles around the world! We even have part of the family making also Champagne West of Reims and they make a great job too! So feel free to visit both of them! And don't go to big names, it is boring!!!
Wednesday was “back to business”, but smoothly, with a very short 1.30 hours AAT, still with some moist in the air, and a line of Cumulonimbus just north-west of the flight area. Ceiling under cumulus was lower and very variable due to humidity and bubbles of warm air, especially on the start line (I remember around 1100m) but clearly better when watching towards north and north-west where the task was set. The wind helped a lot, weak from West, but making a very nice street of cumulus going from south of first turnpoint area to middle of next one, allowing us to use it back and forth. Last turnpoint had just enough ceiling (it was going down again…) for a nice final glide. And we win again with 101kph! Claire flew a bit this time, but I was asking so much question she almost evaporated in the cockpit. But the 15 minutes she did (basically I give her controls on top of a thermal so she can do the next glide and next thermal) went very well, even if, as a typical grinch, she was not happy with her technic and choice. I just helped her to polish a bit her push-pull and make a more steady angle of attack in the glides.
Hero of the day are the 2 Duo-Discus we started with on first leg, helping us to get the nice first thermal, always crucial in such a short race for confidence in the mind. More importantly, our direct competitor Christophe Abadie made a too long flight (we make 1:32, he makes 1:50) with a step down in average speed. Good for us.
Next day is a very nice AST of 270km, still with a bit of moisture on the western part of the race. We do a not too bad start but after turnpoint 1 under spreadout the decision to follow a bit southern path to go East does not allow us to find easily a good thermal. Also, the 2 JS3 of french team, with Anne Ducarouge and Melanie Gadoulet flying together, are on a good day, and following them but 500m lower is not the best decision I took (I would say it is even the worst of the week…). I still managed to crawl quit far East on second leg even not flying high but then, passing 2 times through a nice 2.x m/s..., then eventually taking a weak 1.x m/s below the JS3 climbing twice as fast… Don’t question me why, just the fact that the influence of others is too high is the point, and Claire saw that clearly, asking the question you don’t want to hear. But I answered straight : yes, apology, made a major mistake. We took some time to get back around 1000m and then I took decision to go forward again looking for better and better it was, back to the race. End of the task was more “standard” and we are very happy to finish 3rd on the daily score, giving only 50pts to Abadie, daily winner with 122kph. As we land not so late, I offered a future instructor of Rennes St-Sulpice (the place of the Sailplane Grand Prix in France) to have a try on the new Arcus-M “20” (he knows DG500 selflaunchers) with still a bit of thermal activity. He is impressed by agility of the glider.
Then Meric organized a flight trial for his mother Elise and I rarely saw such a joy in the air. Weather was perfect and quiet, we shared a very nice moment, enjoying the view of Mountain of Reims with some balloons taking off, then city of Châlons with its 2 big churches, then the small farm where she got eggs on the morning, icecreams and strawberries from another; unique! And I was impressed by her capacity to find this with no map! This day, we had a failure on starter of the engine like the day before in the grid (so we used tug plane to take off) and this time again the axle of the starter was not engaging to the engine, just spinning “in the air” with the typical sound of electric motor… Meric (he is a mechanic) used all the tricks he knew to make it go and it worked, well done! And Mr Levin told me on EB28 same problem with too much internal friction on the axle, “will be better after 2 years of use” he told and "use WD40" ;-)
Day after was canceled too, with strong thunderstorms expected around 5pm and a very high clouds cover before, and so it was. We decide with Morel family to go to the local swimming pool to change a bit from our very static posture in the seats of the gliders. A lot of other pilots and crews will do the same. Good point of view to see the stormy front coming with heavy rain and wind, always impressive. Gliders were secured in their trailers so no stress, just enjoying the spectacle of Mother Nature in a cool atmosphere with bubbles, not to drink this time, but massaging your body. We slept well after that, with perfect cook of Elise, and relaxed atmosphere of Laurent, as usual. The dog “Crew”, the kids of the Jambon family, the smiles of the Levin family (in the tents next to us) completing this balance you need to feel right in a friendly place.
Epilogue
Last day was coming, with a predicted very windy condition but with fast raising ceiling of cumulus up to 2000m. Prediction was good from weather models except one point : ceiling took too much time to touch the 1500m bar allowing, perhaps, Club Class Nationals to start their race in a too windy day for such light gliders. Organisation took decision to stop this class and I think they were right. Some pilots were high and even some tried to make the task but failed, outlanded on leg 2, the first leg head wind... I heard complains (are there any grinch there?), I saw smiles too. I was also competition director in the past and know the feeling of solitude you have when you must take a heart-breaking decision, not easy. And you will never know if it was the way to go. But anyway, strong wind (25kts on ground, 35kts in the air), low ceiling, is not a good mixture for Club Class and landing in fields can make some serious problems, so I would personally have done the same. We were waiting on the grid when they announced for our class they would reduce the AAT time to 2 hours instead of 2.5, due to delay in take-off. That’s all, go fly! And it was a good decision. So, we took-off at around 2:30pm, waited for opening of start gate, trying to be at the good place good moment (not easy with such a wind and not so good thermals in start area). After a first test on first leg, we decided with Claire to make another start and fly securely with the gaggle for the first part of the race to find thermals in this headwind leg. After a while, we were much higher than all the others and used this extra energy to go further on leg 1, and it was a good decision. We should have gone even a bit further as 2nd leg with sidewind led us too much downwind of 2nd turnpoint area, too low, with great difficulties to reach it. My hero of the day is multiple: first with Lukasz Grabowski on Diana2 on 1st leg helping us to go upwind smoothly, then Bruno Pieraerts with his Arcus-T who helped us to find good enough thermal on the tricky 2nd leg, and my last hero is Christian Mallick on his Asg29e escaping the bad spreadout with us and finding another time the “good enough” thermal which save our day (I would say our *ss…). After a very low recovery, we finally make again the ceiling in this 3rd leg with strong backwind, reaching 2000m, enough to follow a nice street of cumulus and reach final glide. It is quite late now, a bit short of 6pm and thermal activity is going down faster and faster, last few cumulus in last turnpoint area are big deceptions, but we are high enough even with headwind to reach finish line with 90kph average. Norbert Alin Scarlat wins the day with 93kph average on a 240km length task, but he must outland in the finish line circle, flying not high enough to reach the airfield safely. Crop fields around the club are more than generous for safe landing.
After a smooth last landing, it was time, as always on last racing day, to pack everything in the trailer, clean the best we can this crazy sailplane, and store it securely in its trailer. Some juniors from various French clubs were here to enjoy this last day of an international championship so it was very nice to share excitement and report adventures and fun we had in the air, just waiting a bit nervously final day result… and finally we are the winners! Christophe Abadie finishes 2nd followed by Norbert Alin Scarlat 3rd, Wim Akkermans 4th, Lukasz Grabowski 5th, Uwe Wahlig 6th (on a LS3!!!! impressive), Enrique Levin 7th, Meric Morel 8th, Melanie Gadoulet 9th and Robbie Seton 10th.
Again my last words will go to the same family I started this report : thank you so much Elise, Laurent and Meric (and Crew the dog).
Extra thing we learnt during this event: take it like you stole it or drop it like it's hot!
- LX9070 with touch screen get gorgeous screens super readable in the air! I did not personally used all the possibility of touch screen interface as I’m used to “non touchscreen version” but still if you need some advices for LX system, feel free to contact me on Facebook messenger. After 5 weeks of extensive use of the system in national and international championships I think I can help and tell you what is good and not.
Contact me on Facebook through @benjaminneglais
ClubOwze is a good provider in Europe for these devices with good price. You can contact them direct by lxavionics (at) gmail.com
- As usual I used as IGC backup logger (with engine sensor) my LXNAV Nano4, using it as moving map was a clear “no go” (and no need) as I have a Naviter Oudie2 for that which still makes a great great job as ever on the ground and in the air. If you need some advices for SeeYou mobile and SeeYou for PC, feel free to contact me.
Contact me on Facebook through @benjaminneglais
And as usual ClubOwze is a good provider for these devices with good price. You can contact them direct by lxavionics (at) gmail.com
- We used typical 2 litres waterbag with hoses to bring drinkable water on both seats, it was perfect on front seat for Claire to strap the bag just behind her headrest as the new backrest on front seat of Arcus has now 2 “vertical spars” to store a bag or water there, perfect! On back seat, mine was just below headset, some straps or Velcro would be perfect there to secure both waterbags.
- Headrests for Arcus-M were standard one Schempp-Hirth use and they were easy to store on both headrests. When engine is running, problem is headset of back seat has microphone triggered by engine noise (coming from behind) so you get engine noise in the boomer of the headsets… I used the trick to protect with my left hand the microphone to avoid that noise and it worked good for a quieter experience (it is still noisy). Good thing is you just need around 4 minutes of engine run to reach 500m high with the powerful SOLO used on this glider.
- Electric retractable gear runs perfect on Arcus-M “20”, Claire loved it as she struggled with mechanic version before, only one time an alarm for “overload” occurred (during retraction) and still you can override the system in case of emergency.
- Flying a gorgeous glider does help : new winglets (from front seat you fly like in a Ventus-3 and Claire got it, including portion of the gorgeous wing in almost all her pictures!), new tailplane (a bit more aspect ratio for less drag, thinner and new airfoil for better efficiency and less bug sensitive, and it seems it still gives the legendary good grip in the air!), new canopy more flat ("Is it an Arcus-a? Did you change fuselage shape?"... no but definitely it seems more agressive!), new interior design with better handles, new engine management with user friendly information and very automated engine in/out operation (never failed), new pneumatic assisted front seat setting (no more metal wires grinding your shoulders!). Does it help? Probably, as Arcus "classic" was already a masterpiece, this one is even better. So at least it helps for self-confidence! You can even let the wing down on the ground with water in ballast as, now, a valve stop water leaking from top of the lid of water ballast!
- We tested before wingwalker from Soaringxx with 360 degrees free wheel (on a Std Cirrus) and I can say it is good also for double seater like Arcus-M, with new (much much much much better) system to secure the wingwalker on the wing (it is basically like straps of ski boots, easy and clever). Go there.
- We tested for first time the big sturdy towbar from Soaringxx with 2 arms to raise the tail dolly of extra tail heavy gliders like a selflauncher, and except it makes strange noises behind the car (which makes you nervous, first time you use it), it makes a great job and save your back to put in/out the tail dolly and plug the system to the car (Claire could do it without effort). Go there.
- Nicolas Henry was flying club class nationals with the famous family Std Cirrus “19” (must be small brother of Arcus-M "20") using my set of Vertigo “all weather” covers I used last year during club class french nationals in Issoudun. And he seemed to be equally happy about quality. You can ask him direct for feedbacks. More info on these covers here.
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