January 13 2008:

I have spent the last two days carefully reviewing my packing list, and finally packing the two bags that I am allowed to carry. It is quite difficult to foresee what I will need, and certainly a challenge to pack everything I think I will need in two suitcases weighing a combined 100 lbs. or less, particularly considering the fact that I need to bring my parachute, my tent, my sleeping bag, and an air mattress. Normally, when I go racing, I just throw stuff in the back of the car, and if that fills up, I start throwing stuff inside the airplane trailer. This time, however, it took some very judicious selecting for everything to fit.

It must be that I am stupid, but I just can’t understand why, in order to fly from Austin to Buenos Aires, it is imperative to visit Chicago first. Airlines are a mysterious thing indeed. Normally I would not complain about such a thing too much, since I like flying. However, it became a problem when due to snow I arrived late in Chicago missing my connecting flight to Buenos Aires. An immediate and non-negotiable 24 hour delay. Once again, this wouldn’t necessarily be a big problem, except when there are people waiting at the other end. Luckily Bill and Nancy are very understanding and I had built sufficient slack in the schedule to allow for things such as snow.

For now, all I can do is sit and read my book in the hotel while I wait for tomorrow’s southbound.

January 14 2008:

It was a fairly long day, but at least I got a chance to catch up on some much needed sleep. I also had a chance to finish reading my book, which I am sure will help me in the contest, as it makes a perfect and up to date complement to Reichmann’s classic Cross-country Soaring and Moffat’s Winning with insightful comments on strategy for Turn Area Tasks.

It’s quite a long flight between Chicago and Buenos Aires; over 11 hours. Luckily the plane was half empty and I had enough room to get comfortable, sleeping most of the way.

January 15 2008:

Bill and Nancy picked me up at the Airport, and we immediately departed for Chaves. We are at latitude -40 and I had never been this far north in Argentina.

After a six hour drive we reached the glider club. I peeked into a hangar and coincidentally in there was an open trailer with little “AI” on it. I correctly assumed that this is the aeroplane I will be flying in the contest. More interesting, however, was the presence of an unfinished Horten flying wing in a hangar corner.

My original intention for today was to be able to work on the glider and get it ready for flying tomorrow early. I know much has to be done before the machine is race-worthy: the instrument panel needs to be revised and somewhat upgraded, all control surfaces have to be removed and properly sealed as do the wing roots, the flight data recorder has to be installed, etc etc… Unfortunately, due to my late arrival, and the fact that I couldn’t find anyone who would “officially” give me access to the plane, I had to postpone those plans.

It wasn’t very clear where we had to go, and the registration desk was not open yet, so we walked a bit around the airport we went to check out Bill and Nancy’s rental house. We also met their landlady, Graciela, who made us feel as welcome as could be.

I spent the night at the house, at Bill’s request, in case they needed translation services.

January 16 2008:

As soon as we were ready this morning, we headed to the Airport. I continued looking for the folks from the Rafaela club, but still couldn’t find them. Frustration is setting in. There is so much to do, and I have the time, the means, and the tools to do it, yet my hands are (bureaucratically) tied. We had the same fate with Bill’s glider and its owners. Another issue that is also starting to bother me is the fact that we have not been able to find our helper, whom we made arrangements to hire for the training period and the duration of the contest. Apparently he’s been looking for us, and we’ve been looking for him but we haven’t found each other.

After having thrashed all morning we started finding some of the right people and at least were able to move the gliders into a suitable parking spot for the race. We drove stakes in to tie the gliders down and assembled Bill’s Kestrel. It’s a nice looking plane. I’m not sure what Bill is going to do with all that wingspan though. He’ll probably figure out something.

The folks that helped him out then volunteered to help me assemble my glider. Having assembled an SZD41-A dozens of times before, I thought it would be no big deal and we got the little beast off the trailer. All went well until it was time to assemble the tail. Funny though, since this should be the easiest part. However, despite all we tried, we could not get the tail to fit properly.

A nice thing about flying a Jantar here is that you’re not by yourself. In this contest alone, there are 25 such planes participating (of a total of 84). So we were able to borrow some additional talent, but to no avail, the horizontal stabilizer did not want to be a part of this project. By now it became imperative to find the airplane owners and see if they knew what was going on. Unfortunately I couldn’t get a hold of them, so I decided to spend the afternoon making some modifications to the instrument panel. At least I wasn’t wasting time, which made me feel a little better. I replaced the mechanical variometer and the flight computer, and also installed the flight data recorder. Still, the fact that I spend the whole day without flying was starting to bother me a little too much.

After 48 uneventful hours, Bill decided that it would be safe for him and Nancy to stay at the house, so I brought all my stuff to the airfield and set up my campsite. I placed my tent in an area that was away from the crowd and managed to fit my entire luggage plus the air mattress inside.

The club facilities are remarkable. There are tennis courts, a restaurant and a cafeteria, a swimming pool, several hangars (one of which contains 10 tow planes), plenty of meeting rooms, a wooded area for camping with available electricity, and large bathroom facilities with showers.

I went to bed somewhat unnerved for not being able to fly today, and for still not being able to find our helper. The contest practice period is particularly important for me, since I have never flown here before and I am unfamiliar with the weather and the area. Furthermore I also want to get used to the plane; despite having experience in that make and model, I haven’t flown a small airplane in over ten years and I need to get my skills recalibrated.

January 17 2008:

The subject of ADs (Airworthiness Directives) is an interesting one. Suffice it to say that the SZD41-A has no ADs in the U.S., yet it has plenty of them in Argentina, as it does in Australia. The same can be said for the SZD42-1. It appears that several of the service bulletins from the factory have been adopted as ADs by those countries, but not by the U.S. However, those rants are outside the scope of this text and shall remain, at best, food for your thought, gentle reader, in particular if you happen to fly a glider in the U.S.

This morning I finally found the folks in charge of my plane. They tried to help me put on the horizontal stabilizer but we couldn’t get it to fit properly. They were even more surprised than I was. After some investigating it became clear that the bolt where the metal arm rests had turned a few degrees, and, not being circular, the notch in the metal arm no longer fitted over said bolt. We took the rudder off, realigned the bolt, and successfully assembled the tail section. Whew! At least I could fly it now, and hopefully it would not come apart.

I took a tow to the customary 500m and flew around the local area for a while. I could hear lots of air leaks and made a mental note of each to fix them later. The flight computer settings were giving me trouble and I was definitely not flying well. After two and a half hours I decided to land. There was a lot of work to be done. I parked the plane back in its place and proceeded to remove every control surface on it. I sealed all of them internally with weather stripping and then did the same on the canopy’s perimeter. I also installed boot seals in the aileron push rods on the wing roots, and fashioned a seal with duct tape for the tow hook. This ought to quiet things down!

After a lot of thinking, I decided to return the instruments to their metrics settings. As disorienting as this was, I thought it was better than the alternative. Today’s flight had been utterly confusing.

This afternoon I finally met my helper, Raul. Not a moment too soon.

Bill spent most of the day working on the Kestrel’s instrument panel.

Yesterday my tent was in what I thought would be a peaceful area of the camp. This evening I could barely find it, as it seemed lost in an endless sea of tents. I estimate there were between 200 and 300 tents in the whole camping area.

January 18 2008:

With only two practice days left, I thought I better fly with a full load of water ballast today. They assigned us a short practice task down to the coast, which I completed easily. Too bad it’s only a practice day. 90% of the wind noise is gone; I still have to do a little bit of work on the canopy seal. The plane flies quite well with water and I think that I was much more relaxed than yesterday. Consequently I flew much better. I was able to out-thermal other gliders which is always a nice confidence builder. I wish we had more days to practice.

After the flight I spent some time working on the rudder and canopy seals.

The atmosphere in the soaring club is fantastic. My helper is also great; he keeps the plane spotless and doesn’t want me to do any of the work. This is a big cultural adjustment for me, since I am used to be 100% self sufficient, and I have never flown with a dedicated crew before. For now I am very happy. I hope I am equally happy later in the contest.

January 19 2008:

The plane is now as quiet as it’s going to get. The seals have really made a difference. For practice I flew with full tanks again. We had an unofficial task and some people found weak shear wave. I did not. In race mode it may not have been worth it. I only flew about three hours since we had to be back early for the opening ceremony.

And what a ceremony it was. It all started in the central square downtown, where they have brought and assembled several gliders to adorn the place. Local children performed dances and there was a speech by the Mayor. There were six international delegations: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Italy, Sweden, and the United States. Each international team captain was given the equivalent of the keys to the city, in the beautiful form of a glider wing. We were welcomed and introduced to the public. It seemed like the whole town was there, but in reality it was probably more than that. I think it was all of Chaves plus a good number of folks from neighboring towns.

They lit up a torch and then there was a parade from the square to the glider club on the outskirts of town. We went by car so as to be ready for our part in the ceremony there.

Once in the club all the contest participants formally entered, starting with the international delegations. We did so in alphabetical order. It was rather amusing to be between the Brazilian and the Chilean delegations, each of which was composed of that least 40 people, while the Colombian delegation was only one guy. The place was absolutely packed with people as we entered, and they cheered and clapped as if we were rock stars. What an incredible reception. After a few more speeches, the torch that had been brought from downtown by athletes and other local celebrities was used to light up the flame that would burn throughout the entire contest.

The stage had been beautifully set up and was dominated by the now painted Horten flying wing, a primary glider, and oddly a PW5.

As soon as the festivities ended I went to get some sleep since tomorrow is the real deal.

January 20 2008:

Well, the real deal is fun so far. I got up early to finish placing the foam inserts in the aileron gaps for sealing. Why so fixated with sealing everything, you ask? It is important to remember that only five months ago I lost a championship by a miserable three points out of over 4500. When you deal with such margins, having properly sealed control surfaces can add up to much more than three points over the course of ten flying days. So, I consider it time well spent.

We had a safety meeting mid morning followed by the daily pilot briefing. It was all very laid back, and covered pretty much common sense stuff. The folks here at the club have done a tremendous job of organizing everything. They should have every reason to be proud of their contest.

We set off on a short task, Juan E. Barra -> Aparicio -> San Cayetano, just shy of 270 km, and the first half of the flight was excellent, fast running, with well defined streets and hardly a need to stop. Unfortunately after the second turn the sea breeze front came in and obliterated any and all lift in its path. Now it was time to change gears and fly conservatively in the blue. I was able to keep all my water; the plane flies a lot better that way.

I was amazed to see the amount of people at the Airport when I was landing. It must have been a few thousand people, all lining the runways, taxiways, and covering pretty much all the space in between. Even outside the fence people had stopped their cars off the highway and were watching the landings. Somebody told me later that the local radio station was calling the finishes live on the air. One thing’s for sure, it can get pretty hectic when 84 gliders all come back from a task at the end of the day. It was literally raining fiberglass. Thankfully their runways are super wide.

I had a good feeling about the way I flew and it turned out to be right, since I scored 7^th for the day. Not bad for first try.

January 21 2008:

After a long series of beautiful sunny days, today it decided to rain so the task had to be canceled. This gave me time to adjust the airplane’s wheel brake and work on the tail dolly, which is not fitting properly.

It also gave us plenty of time to worry about the well being of the ships. There were several announcements over the PA system regarding the presence of storms in the area although we were not under immediate threat. The prospect of disassembling is one that Bill and I dreaded, so we finally settled for re-parking the planes under the trees. This could prove a questionable decision if the wind starts knocking off branches.

I should mention that the whole fleet is divided into two groups A and B according to handicap. I am flying in group B which is more numerous and reportedly more competitive. Both groups are handicapped but, unlike Sports Class in the U.S., the plane’s performance has to be within a certain range, so the handicap spread is less within each group.

Another very important difference between competing here and in the U.S. is that team flying is actively encouraged here, while it is punished in the U.S. This is a great drawback for Bill and I since none of us is part of a team and thus we cannot take advantage from any of the benefits of team flying.

And interesting thing about the handicap system is that each plane’s handicap is adjusted everyday according to the day’s conditions. This makes a lot of sense. The average lift strength is determined by the looking at the top finishers’ scores. This determines which handicap value is used based on a table. Nice! I wish we would adopt the same thing in the U.S.

January 22 2008:

The weather didn’t look so great this morning. In the pilots briefing we were told to grid late to see if we could at least get a short task done. We had a relaxed lunch at the cafeteria and got ready to fly mid afternoon. Group A launched first, but by then it was already starting to rain and the day was scrapped before group B could get into the air. Good thing, since we would have gotten nowhere.

Bill and I took some time to analyze our flights from the first official day on his computer. We placed our traces side by side and it is evident that he needs to fly faster while I need to find better thermals. It was an enlightening analysis courtesy of See You.

Daniel invited us to visit a car repair shop in town where an old-time Chaves resident has restored a number of cars from the thirties, forties, and fifties to their original showroom condition. We saw at least half a dozen of them, all operational, each of them worth a fortune.

Having two canceled days in a row surely underscores the social aspect the sport, which has been fantastic here.

January 23 2008:

During today’s flight I made as many mistakes as it is humanly possible to do in an aircraft, without actually hurting oneself. I came so very close to landing out and that was a great shame because the first half of the flight I had done rather well. During the second half I was so low and for so long that I am sure I ruined all the good I had accomplished on the first day. The conditions were so bad that I was flying in survival mode instead of racing mode which means that no attention whatsoever is given to speed or forward progress. I almost landed out in Tres Arroyos. Lessons learnt, I hope. I finished a very painful number 30 for today. That said, there were still fifteen people behind me. But that is no consolation.

January 24 2008:

There was dangerous whether again today so we couldn’t fly. We went through the same debate about disassembling, and again decided to park in the trees. I hung around the airport all day reading my book.

January 25 2008:

Incredibly, today had to be canceled due to bad weather again. It’s hard to believe that this area was experiencing a drought for many months until the moment that the contest begun. At least we are in good company.

The club installations are really remarkable here. The property is quite large and they rent the land to farmers who cultivate soy and wheat. Carved in the field are the three runways. The two that we have been using are wide enough so that we can take off four to five abreast. Since the wheat has been already harvested, in an emergency one could land almost anywhere with no problems. What a nice setup.

January 26 2008:

Finally we get to fly the third contest day. We had a late grid time and to add insult to injury, I was in the very last row for launching. I really became worried when it was 4:00 and I still hadn’t gotten a tow. I thought there was no way we were going to be able to finish the task, but it turns out I was wrong.

Due to the late takeoff I was anxious to get going and did not have time to nail the start. But it was still reasonably OK. Thermals were good on course, and I was able to read the clouds well. My final glide was perfect, not too fast, not too slow, finishing with only 40 seconds over time and just enough energy to pull up and do a small circuit before landing. That’s the way they always should be. It was a very satisfying flight, especially after being skunked for two days.

Today I was 13 for the day.

January 27 2008:

Oh, the humanity! Only one glider in group B finished the task. And it was not me.

It was a totally massive landout for our group. The first leg took forever into a 45kph wind. By the time I nicked the area, the sky was fully overcast with almost zero thermal activity. I kept getting lower and lower and had been with the McCready at zero for a long time but it became evident that I was not going to reach any airfield from where I was. Despite my precarious situation I would see every now and then gliders that where much lower than I was. At least this made me feel less bad.

There are not many airfields in this area; almost none at least when compared to Texas. However, landing is not really a problem since there are large wheat fields in most of the task area. The tricky thing is to find one that has reasonable access to it.

Eventually things got to the point where I could make no further progress, and I picked a nice field that had a house and a road next to it. It was a totally uneventful landing. The fifth outlanding of my career. I was 72km from the airport near a place called Barker and I could raise nobody on the radio. As soon as I got out of the glider, the rancher showed up. He let me use his phone to contact my crew and he himself gave directions for how to find the place. Very nice guy, really. It does help to speak the language though.

I was somewhat concerned that it may rain so I started doing all the preliminary work I could before Raul arrived. When he finally showed up, it was time to learn how to put one of these birds in an open trailer. It wasn’t too bad at all. The trailer is very well designed and fits the glider perfectly. We made it home in time for dinner. I have a great helper!

January 28, 29, 30 2008:

For the next three days, and despite all our best efforts, we were not able to fly due to weather.

During one of the afternoons we had a meeting attended by all international team captains to discuss the options for future South American championships. There was also talk about the next Grand Prix, and about the World Championships of 2012. The intent is to have the South Americans every other year, and the first few are going to be in Argentina and Brazil. As far as I’m concerned, they could all be right here in this wonderful place and I would come back to each and every one of them.

We used one of these forced rest days to drive down to Tres Arroyos for banking purposes. Esteban offered to be our guide and we stopped to visit one of the two airfields in town where there is a full repair station with engine shop, paint shop, and all.

Wednesday afternoon a memorable event took place. After some final adjustments, the beautifully restored Horten flying wing was deemed ready for a test flight. It was a small hop while being auto-towed, climbing only to 10 or 15 feet, just to confirm its airworthiness. It flew well (at least from a spectator’s POV).

It has been an interesting cultural adjustment for me getting used to flying with a crew. For many years I have raced independently, always taking care of everything myself, from assembling and cleaning the glider, to taking it out to the grid every morning, to moving it off the runway after landing and tying it down in its parking spot. That’s not quite the way they operate here. Each pilot has a helper, and the helper takes care of just about everything except for flight planning and flying the plane. I don’t personally agree with that philosophy, but at least I hope that my helper was able to learn something about gliding while hanging out with me. After all, he has recently soloed in a PW5.

I’d have to say, though, that the convenience of being able to call on the radio and ask whether the plane has been ballasted while you’re sitting with your friends having breakfast is wonderful. I suppose I could easily get used to it.

Another thing I could easily get used to are the glider “groupies”. I will comment no further in this regard, except to say that I am happy to report that the glider groupie scene is alive and well. Very well indeed.

January 31 2008:

Today I got to fly my first AST. Given the narrow handicap range and the group division they can get away with it here. I was flying with Esteban, a local from Chaves who now lives in Buenos Aires. We got off to what I thought was a dubious start. However things improved later and we were team flying for the first leg. That was a good bit of fun and quite efficient. Unfortunately later we got separated. Throughout most of the flight I was flying with other airplanes since it is such a big group. Ten planes in a thermal was an easygoing one. 25 to 30 was not all that uncommon, and was absolutely nerve wrecking to me. Other than that I thought that ASTs were great fun. I did quite well in my final glide decision. From 50km out or so, when I still needed an additional 400m, I took off and left the pack. They were higher than me, yet I beat them to the finish line because I slowly made up my altitude deficit en-route. Nice lesson learnt from experience, and reinforced by the very good book I recently read.

I finished #9 for the day, which means I beat 31 people, but unfortunately also means that eight people beat me.

The only thing that marred and otherwise very nice flight was a regrettable incident involving a zip lock bag. I will not go into the details. Suffice it to say that I had plenty of washing to do immediately after landing. Ugh!

A delicious dinner of homemade gnocchi put together by Graciela’s parents fixed everything.

February 1 2008:

Sadly it’s the last day of the contest. We had another assigned speed task which again was a lot of fun. This time I was able to get an almost optimum start and flew reasonably well, although 2/3 into the flight I had a low point that cost me half of my water ballast and going into survival mode for several minutes. As it turns out, a few people did landout. I nailed my final glide once more. Woo who!

Like the first day, when we returned from the task, it seemed like a few thousand people were there to witness the landings. As soon as I landed, Raul helped me disassemble the airplane and put it in its trailer. I was a little bit rushed since the banquet is tonight, but it ended up starting at 10:30 so there was plenty of time. What a great closing party they threw for us. It was approx. 600 people in one of the hangars eating a great “asado”. Little did I know that, as head of an international delegation, I was expected to get up and address the crowd. But it all went well and at least I got a chance to publicly thank everyone for their amazing effort in putting up such a great contest.

Unfortunately I ended up on thirteenth place, but I suppose that it’s OK since I never flew here before and the weather, terrain, and airplane where big unknowns. It was also relatively large group of airplanes with people flying in teams which at times was rather intimidating since you would see them coming as a squadron and it literally felt like they were gonna run you over. But I guess that’s because I’m not used to that. All in all, and despite of the weather, we had a magnificent time.

February 2 2008:

I was lucky that Esteban offered me a ride back to Buenos Aires. I got up early this morning and started dismantling my tent and tried to fit all my belongings once again into two suitcases. Thankfully I succeeded.

We arrived at the Albatros glider club just outside Buenos Aires and were invited to eat the obligatory and delicious “asado” in Fernando and Irene’s house. This club has excellent installations. Club members actually have their own little houses on the premises and can spend the weekend at the glider club in the comfort of their own home. Not only that, but there are also tennis courts, swimming pool, a nice cafeteria, and an area with rooms where visitors can stay for a modest fee. Since my return trip to the U.S. is in three days, I decided that I would be better off here than in the big city.

February 3 2008:

This morning we had breakfast in the cafeteria, and I helped Esteban reassemble the club’s Cirrus which he had been flying in the contest. Parked beside was Fernando and Irene’s new and very beautiful ASH25 which I helped assemble as well. Presently this is the only ’25 in Argentina. I was surprised and delighted when Fernando invited me to fly with him in the big two seater. Yesterday had not been very good for soaring, and today it didn’t look promising at all, but nonetheless when we pulled out to the runway there were fourteen gliders waiting for a tow. We had a late start and despite the marginal conditions had a fairly decent flight. It’s a very easy airplane to fly, especially when compared to the beast that I am used to. Similar to a Nimbus 4, a magnificent machine.

February 4 2008:

I spent most of today reading and hanging out at the Airport. A good opportunity to rest after all the recent activity. This is such a pleasant place to be; we have so much to learn in terms of club installations…

In the afternoon, Aimar (former Aerolíneas Argentinas captain) and Ana Inés gave me a lift into town. Buenos Aires has beautiful architecture and I enjoyed my short stay there, which I spent mainly walking in the downtown area.

February 5 2008:

Unfortunately all great trips come to an end and today I flew back home. Ironically it was not via Chicago, since it was snowing there and the flight had been canceled, so I was moved to the Dallas flight which made much more sense to begin with.

If I don’t come back here in a year for the Argentinean Nationals, I hope to be able to do it in two years for the next South Americans.