Pictures from Kobala open 2011

Task 5

Sooo... What to say? We had 100km task, which was obviusly to hard for most of the field. 5 pilots reached goal - and were they widely sperated time wise. Primož Gričar showed that he is realy the best.
It is so sad that we had a serius accident of the Ukrainian pilot and we hope he will recover soon to fly again.
The competition is over - we had 5 tasks out of 6 days which is realy great giving this years general weather condition at competitions.
It is very nice to see a lot of friendly and happy faces saying that they will come agin next year!

Last competition day

Same schedule for the last competition day, briefing at Kobala take-off at 12.00.

Task 4

The weather forecast was right for the task 4, just bad weather hit as a bit later than we expected - at 10pm. It seems that the condition were not that strong, only half of the field came to goal on a relative short task - 71 km only. Suan Selenati won the task, followed by Edoardo Giudiceandrea and Slovenian Jože Frim.
At the evening we had a nice party with free food and drink for pilots, followed by impressive fire show.

Task 4

Today we have some TCu's forcasted, but we hope that main trouble will stay north of us. We are leaving to Kobala in half an hour to have briefing on take off at noon.

Day 4 - Task 3 - wow

Well, todays 86 km task was somehow to short. We actually shorten it by advise of the saftey commite - and this of course is not a point of debate. We had a very stable conditions around the launch, but most of the pilots patiently worked their way up above the inversion. Later in the day the weather switched on and half of the field reached the goal. So we had a lot of smiling faces in goal - and this is what is all about!
Winner of the day was Primož Gičar again, who beat Suan Selenati by 12(!) seconds. Anther 24 seconds was needed to get third in goal, Stanislav Galovec. Overall Primož Gričar is in the first place, followed by Franc Peternel (5th place today) and Suan Selenati, who kicked out of the third position Stanislav Galovec.
The forecast for tommorow does not look that great, but we have a fair chance to fly again - unusual for this year comps!

Thursday, 18.th august

Flyable weather continues, today the same plan as yesterday. Briefing at the take-off Kobala. One more important :) info: Tomorrow after the task we are organising some party at 20.00 at the HQ, dont miss it.

Day 3 - Task 2 - amazing performance

It was really amazing how well top pilots can fly. As the day progressed it was more and more dry, clouds dissaperd and conditions were harder and harder. However 6 flex wing pilots reached the goal leading by Primoz Gricar, who beat Stanislav Galovec by 2 minutes. Third was Franc Peternel, 5 minutes later. How hard the day was is obvious by the average speed of the winner, wich was just over 30 km/h. The first and only rigid wing in goal was Kristoffer Nielsen who came in almost an hour behind the winner.
We are looking forward for three more days of flying here in Tolmin, with hopefully challenging tasks and exellent flights.

Day 3 - Task 2 - in progress

Today the forcast was a bit better than yesterday so we set a longer task, 122 km. However now it seems that the conditions are more stable so pilots are strugling to reach the goal. We hope that they will be manage to overcome problems on the way and actually get the goal.
Some pictures....

Task 1 - 13 pilots in goal

First task on Kobala open 2011 was a grate chalenge - we got 13 pilots in goal and many came very close to it. The weather forecast was somehow funny, at least for the wind direction. Anyway it was a good and very competitive task - and we are looking forward for five more.

Task 1

Results are online... we are still waiting for some pilots to dowload their tracks.
RESULTS HERE

Day 2 - Task 1 - 99 km

Today we woke up in wonderful day with promisnig forecast. We set the 99km long task around 3 turnpoints. Right now it seems like half of the pilots are heading towards last turnpoint. We expect them in goal in about 30 minuts.

KEEP THE NATURE CLEAN

In the campsites please separate the garbagge. Plastic is separated from other garbagges, please keep this in mind and collect them this way!

At the take-off you must collect them and take it away by yourself.

TASK 1 cancelled

Todays task is cancelled due to instable air coming from the west. So there is no chance to do a proper task today.

Come to the office for lunch packets, the transport to the take-off will be organised at 11.00

ONE MORE INFO: please park the cars outside of the fence at KOBALA CENTER at the parking places. Thanks

Free camping

We did it again! Camping fee is included in competition fee again this year! Location of camp and competiton office is here click. If you prefer ex Johnson camp, now Camp Gabrje we manage to get special price for competitors during competition: 3 euros per day.

Daily schedule modified

The competition is in full preparation. We discussed the daily schedule and decide, that we'll have no morning team leaders briefing. Instead of team leaders briefing we will publish all information on the bulletin board at competition office and on this blog.
Decision is based on experience, gathered on previous competitions - Kobala open and Aeros winter race, where only few (or even none) team leaders showed up at morning briefings.
BTW - there is a lot of bad weather right now, so we hope we'll get some good weather for the comp!

Slight change in local regulations

We just made a slight correction in local regulations. If pilot leaves start cylinder to early will not score a minimum distance for the task any more, but double amount of time will be added to his/her flight time.

The web page is online!

The web page with information about Slovenian open 2011 national hang gliding championship is open http://hg.sffa.org/open2011. There is a pilot registration opened as well - so feel free to register!
Looking forward to good competition this year! We had our share of bad weather last year so we hope for the best.

There is also an Dutch Open championship just before the Kobala open - for details about it please contact harm.annet(@)planet.nl