IHLGF Report
Reporting: Jan Kansky


Two picture perfect days were in store for the pilots converging
on Poway, California for the 2004 International Hand Launch
Glider Festival.  The field included top pilots from all across
the US and one international entry from Austria.

  Both Saturday and Sunday were mirror images of one another.
Both days started with a low layer of fog and haze that burned
through 30 minutes before the scheduled 9am start to the
contest, leading to a pleasant 80 degree day with generally light
winds at 5-10 mph, with occasional periods of 10-15 mph.

  Lift conditions were strong during periods of light wind.
Down-air cycles were short, generally lasting less than 10
minutes.  Saturday included a stretch in the afternoon with
stronger wind that necessitated aggressive downwind flying in
tight lift to salvage any hope of making time and returning to
the field to register the required on-field landing.

  Rules prohibited slope soaring on an inviting hill downwind of
the field, however the definition of slope soaring was
intriguing.  Back and forth passes along the hill were deemed
illegal, while circling was not considered to be slope soaring.
This led to general heckling and merriment whenever someone was
"thermalling" over the hill.  This heckling, along with a change
to the field boundaries to make the legal landing zone further
from the hill than in years past minimized the utility of the
hill.

  The contest format was 10 rounds from the standard Torrey Pines
HLG CD.  The whole field of competitors flew six rounds on
Saturday, and 4 rounds on Sunday with one throw-out.  The top ten
finishers were then entered into a three round fly-off to
determine the 2004 champion.  Scores from the best 9 of the first
10 rounds carried over into the fly-off so the final result
included the total of two days of competition for the winning
pilot.  Consistency marked the road to victory.



  At its heart, flying HLG is very similar to F3J or man-on-man
thermal duration contest minus the hassles with winch
malfunctions and the dubious soaring task known as the spot
landing.  In each flight group, the winning pilot needed to
employ the same air reading and flying skills as with open class
aircraft in potentially more challenging turbulent air near the
ground making this contest the truest measure of a pilot's
soaring ability.  As always, the cream of the crop found its way
to the top of the leader-board.

  Phil Barnes opened his 2004 campaign with seven straight 1000s
and led the first day of qualifying from start to finish.  He
registered a perfect first day!  The running joke on the
field was to wait for Phil to return from a round of flying and
instead of asking him if he got his max ask him if he got his
throw-out yet. Phil's booming launches left others wondering what
was missing in their throw technique.

  Sunday was less forgiving for Phil.  With a strong overall
performance, Kentucky native Bruce Davidson managed to surpass
Phil by an incredibly tiny 9 point out of 9000 margin leaving
Phil in the second spot entering the flyoffs.

  On Saturday, 2003 champion Oleg Golovidov was running a close
second with one throw-out round, and a pair of scores in the
900s.  He looked to be on track for a chance at a repeat
performance of his 2003 victory.  The combination of a few bad
rounds on Sunday, and a mid-air left him in the 11th spot after
qualifying, just missing the fly-offs. Nevertheless, everyone
acknowledged that Oleg is right there with Phil as having one of
the best launch in DLG and clearly some bad luck prevented a
repeat performance.  After his mid-air Oleg jokingly contemplated
installing carbon reinforcements into his leading edges to slice
through any intervening aircraft.

  Tom Kiesling managed an impressive showing this year with 7 of
the 10 qualifying rounds showing a perfect 1000 on the scorecard.
He put it all on the line several times with his "hero or zero"
mentality and generally returned to the field with altitude to
spare, with one notable exception that involved a good-natured PA
announcement to focus the attention of the spectators on his
"walk of shame".  Tom entered the fly-offs in third position.



  Mark Drela topped off the list of ESL pilots making the
fly-off. He asserted himself by registering two Sunday morning
1000s and two rounds in the high 900s to complete the push into
the Sunday afternoon fly-offs.

  The fly-offs had the top ten pilots in the field flying head to
head for three fast paced back-to-back rounds of flying.  The
scores were tight, with Bruce Davidson in the lead, Phil Barnes 9
points back, Tom Kiesling 47 points back, Paul Anderson 60 points
back, and Joe Wurts 64 points back, all in serious contention.

  In the first fly-off round, the task was five two-minute
flights in a 10 minute window.  This stressed fast turn around
time and the ability to find a glimmer of turbulent lift while
drifting downwind at an alarming rate, all the while avoiding the
worst of the sink in a down-air cycle.  No easy task.

  Relative to the performance of Joe Wurts, scores averaged in
the mid 800s in this round.  Joe Wurts, and Michael Smith
significantly helped their bids for the championship with Wurts
moving into the lead taking the place of Davidson who dropped due
to an off-field landing.  Barnes managed to hold the rest at bay
with a respectable 931.  After this round, the top five were
Wurts, Barnes, Kiesling, Davidson, and Smith, with Anderson in
seventh and looking to be in trouble by dropping points due to an
off-field landing.

 The air started looking up for the second fly-off round.
Achieving three three-minute flights was still a challenge with
most pilots getting two maxes along with a 1:30 flight.  The
exception being Bruce Davidson, and local California 3D and DLG
young gun Paul Anderson, both battling back from their prior
round mistakes.  Joe Wurts was sitting in first after his
impressive first fly-off round, but he let the title slip from
reach with a shorter than average first flight in the remnants of
the previous round's down-air cycle. Phil managed a "good enough"
score of 899 to keep a charging Bruce Davidson at bay.  The
order after this round stood as, Barnes, Davidson, Kiesling,
Anderson, and Wurts.

  The final round of the fly-off involved a 4-throw 1 min, 2 min,
3 min, 4 min flight task, with the flights in any order.  The
beginning of the 10 minute working window proved challenging with
several critical decisions regarding whether to start with the 1
minute flight, or press on for two or more minutes.  Wurts,
Anderson, Drela, Markiewicz, and most notably Barnes all
succeeded in this endeavor and maintained or improved their
respective positions.  Kiesling and Davidson dropped a single
minute of air-time out of a ten minute window, but this was
enough to send them down below Anderson and Wurts.  In the end,
Phil Barnes maintained his spot at the top due to his strong
final flight and became the official 2004 IHLGF champion.