Slovenian open

Pictures from Kobala open 2011

2011-08-26T00:20:00.000-07:00

Task 5

2011-08-20T12:11:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-20T00:24:00.000-07:00

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

Task 4

2011-08-19T23:24:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-19T00:25:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-18T00:25:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-17T12:11:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-17T06:51:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-16T10:19:00.000-07:00

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

Day 2 - Task 1 - 99 km

2011-08-16T06:14:00.001-07:00

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

2011-08-15T00:22:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-15T00:11:00.001-07:00

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

2011-08-09T00:11:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-01T23:13:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-04-19T23:09:00.001-07:00

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

Pictures and memories

2010-08-23T11:23:00.001-07:00

Enjoy

Last task 93 km

2010-08-23T00:19:00.000-07:00

On Sunday on the spare day we managed to get the task of 93km and get the official king of Kobala open 2010. The task was set in to the two main valleys with returning back to Tolmin landing field.
Primoz outcome the other competitors again and won the competition also overall. Three Slovenian took first three places this year. First Primoz Gricar, second Franc Peternel and third Petr Kejzar. For women Julia Kucherenko won the competition over Evgenya Lartiskaya and Julia Burlachenko on the third place.

Thanks to all competitors for good flying and we all wish to see you all again next year.

Final day

2010-08-21T23:33:00.000-07:00

Last night we had party with free food and drink for pilots. It was a lot of fun with live music and cheese competition. You don't know what is cheese competition? It is easy: loaf of cheese was hanging from the roof of competition office and pilots tried to guess how high it is. Two of them missed the hight for only 9 cm, the cheese was 5,58m high.
Today looks like another day with fair weather, so we expect yet another, rather short, but interesting task.

Task 3

2010-08-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

Todays task was 69 km long, and finaly we saw some great race. The winner of todays task is Italian Suan Selenati, followed by Slovenian's Franc Peternel and Primož Gričar. Overall Primož is still in the lead in front of Franc Peternel and Primož Gričar. Tomorow we will have another comp day!

Finnaly the succesful day

2010-08-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

We set 70 km long task, which was completed by 3 pilots, Primož Gričar, Peter Kejžar and Franc Peternel. Unfortunatly there was only 504 points for the winner and we will likely had to make another competition day on sunday - the spar day.

Day 5

2010-08-19T23:53:00.000-07:00

Ok - we finnaly got some fair weather. We are going up to the launch at 10 and hopefully have a task today. There is still some showers forcasted but north-east winds are finnaly setting in. Fingers crossed.

Day 4

2010-08-19T07:32:00.000-07:00

We had to cancel day 4 as well. There was a lot of low clouds in the valley, fog was hanging od low on the ridges. Later a lot of pilots went flying anyway, and for those who wait until almost 4 o'clock, sky just opened in sun was shining and cu's start to pop out. They had some nice fligts.

Competition director made a flight on school glider

Our Ukrainian friend

Clouds under the launch...

Take off

Julia is landing in nice, sunny weather

Day 4 still rain

2010-08-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

The weather start to change - we postpond the briefing till noon - we hope for afternoon task.

Day 3 - canceled

2010-08-18T02:18:00.000-07:00

Well we just can't go against the weather... We had to cancel the task today. Maybe tomorow...

Rainy morning

2010-08-17T23:53:00.000-07:00

Now it is clear that yestardays forcast was complitly wrong. We woke up today in rainy morning. We still have some hope for better weather so we postpond decision to next briefing till 11:00 am

Pictures from second day

2010-08-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

Day 2 - Task 1 stopped

2010-08-17T07:47:00.000-07:00

Today we had fair forcast for a task. We set 80 km long task up and down the Soča valley with two start gates. However the weather did not cooporate and we had to stop the task due to unsafe weather conditions near the second turnpoint. Actually the task was invalidated due to too short time between first start gate and time of stopping the task. At least we flew today and hope for better conditions tomorow.

First day cancelled

2010-08-16T01:43:00.000-07:00

As soon as pilot leaved for Kobala take off, clouds came in with lightening and rain. The day has been cancelled. The weather for the next days looks good, so no worries about good flying in Soča valley.

Want to know more about the area?
Check out this page HERE

Here are some pictures from registration yesterday:

Day 1

2010-08-15T23:54:00.000-07:00

We are going to the take off Kobala today, hopeing that forcast for afternoon showers is wrong. Anyway weather looks better for next days...

The registration is on

2010-08-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

e are enjoying the late sun here at Kobala office and excepting the competitors where they can download the points they will need to look trough this comp and of course have a nice chat in front of the Kobala office.
There where pilots already in the air today flying, checking the air above Soča valley. Seems like the EOL God will be with us for the next days. The first briefing is set to be tomorrow morning at 9:00., before we get up to the take off of Kobala. Keep in touch with us for all the latest news about the comp.

Testing the air

2010-08-12T03:21:00.000-07:00

We are already counting down the days to the beginning of Slovenian open here in Tolmin at Kobala starting place.

We have part of the Dutch team here already and yesterday the sky was already tested for you all with thermals up to 2500 m. It is all prepared to begin with another great competition.

Weather

2010-08-10T23:13:00.000-07:00

Looking at the forcast for next week I see that we might have some realy good weather. We can just hope that this will come true.
We will be using XCskies for weather forcasting and of course, years of expirience of our meet director Ivan Brovč.

Send data by email!

2010-07-29T03:50:00.000-07:00

In order to minimize stress on pilots (and scorer) we decided, that we will accept flight data by email, or on USB key if applicable. Files will have to be in IGC format with valid G record, file name will start with pilots name.
So pilots will find WiFi spot (or other internet access), download flight data and send it to scorer, while they eat pizza and drink some nice gold colored liquid with white foam on top!

Kobala open 2010

2010-07-29T03:44:00.000-07:00

Soooo - here we go again!
This year we will have Slovenian open national championship on Kobala starting august 15th, with registration at competition office at Kobala center. On monday, august 16th the competition days begin so we hope for good weather!

The video from Slovenian open 2009

2009-08-26T23:50:00.001-07:00

Slovenian open 2009 from Matjaz Klemencic on Vimeo.

For better quality use the link to vimeo

Pictures from Slovenian open 2009

2009-08-25T05:19:00.001-07:00

The end

2009-08-23T23:42:00.000-07:00

So the competition has ended. We flew 4 tasks in very different weather conditions, from mild weather caused by westerly winds to more complicated flying in easterly winds. We try to use XCskies (www.xcskies.com) but it seems that their model is not very good for Posočje area, steep, rocky mountains and valley systems are probably to much complicated for those general models.
The overall winner is Primož Gričar (Slovenia), winnig all three out of four tasks. Second place was Thomas Weissenberge (Austria) and third place belongs to Gerd Doenhuber (Germany).
Two pilots, Gerolf Heinrichs and Flemming Lauridsen, showed great sportsmanship when landing in the middle of the third task to assist the pilot, who crashed landed on the hill side. Fortunately pilot was rescued by the mountain rescue service and suffered only minor injuries.
Overall we had a great competition with a lot of friendship among the pilots and organizers, who have learned some lessons, just to improve next year competition.

Fourth task

2009-08-21T23:27:00.000-07:00

Fourth task was not that long, but with tricky first and second turnpoint, so there was a lot pilots landing at about 30 km. Gerolf Heinrichs won the day with healthy margin of 8 minutes in front of Primož Gričar who was followes by closely, just 7 seconds, by David Shields. Gerolf was realy supprised at goal field thinking he missed did something wrong in the task being so fast. After checking turnpoints he realy got big smile on his face realising he flew realy good. We are having somehow bad forcast for last day of the competition, hoping for some flying anyway.

Third task

2009-08-20T11:23:00.000-07:00

Today we had third 118km long task, much more difficult than the yesterdays. Regardless we had 8 pilots in goal. Others also flew very well, however easteren winds were to strong for most of them, regardless their best effort. In overall results Primož Gričar is in healty lead in front of Thomas Weissenberger who is closely chased by Gerd Doenhuber.

Some pictures from today, 2nd task

2009-08-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

Second task

2009-08-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

Great flying conditions! The task was to short for the best pilots, however on 104km task 26 pilots where in goal - some others were getting just short of it. The fastest was Primoz Gricar (again), following by Thomas Weissenberger (AUT) and Gerolf Heinrichs (AUT). Tomorow we hope for another great day in Soča valley!

First task

2009-08-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

Today we were able to fly the first task of our competition. There was short, 73km long task up and down the valley. We still had over development in our area so we wanted pilots to be on the landing place soon in the afternoon. The fastest in goal was Primž Gričar (SLO), closely folowed by Gerd Doenhuber (GER) and Thomas Weissenberger (AUT). Those pilots were in goal in 1 hour and little more than 15 minutes, with average speed over 50km/h.
We are looking forward to fly new tasks in next days of the competition.

Some pictures from today

2009-08-17T12:29:00.001-07:00

Task 1 - cancled

2009-08-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

Today we try with first task of the competition. The weather forcast was not that bad, however soon after start window opened some thunder storms start to do loud noices around the takeoff area. They really developed very fast, in less than hour and a half. About third of the field was in the air when task was cancelled. Some pilots encontured very good conditions just away of our area while others have to land in strong cold winds from the high mountians north of us. It seem that everybody is ok.
So we hope for better wheathe tomorow.

Flying, preparing

2009-08-16T00:27:00.000-07:00

Most of pilots who will compete in our cmpetiton is allready here and flying every day. Yesterday we had very nice wheater and pilots where flying all over the Soca valley. There where a lot of smiling faces on the landing place at the evening! It was really nice to see more hang gliders than paragliders in the air.
We expect good weather today also, perhaps is slight higher probability for some over development later in the day. Today we finnaly start with official part of the competition - pilot registration will start at 5 pm.

Looking forward

2009-08-14T08:18:00.000-07:00

It looks very promising for next week. We should have good weather all week, according to long/mediumtherm forcasts - we sure hope that is true. If things are accurate we will have an awesome flying week in Tolmin!

2009-08-13T05:35:00.000-07:00

There is very good weather these days in Tolimin. Ukrainian team is here and flying every day. There is some thunderstorms forcasted every day, but there were no rain yet. Dutch team is on their way to Tolmin as well.
Photo by Valentin Burlachenko (all pictures).

Exact location of competition office

2009-08-11T08:09:00.001-07:00

A lot of pilots are heading toward Tolmin these days, some are there already, flying and having fun in beatifull Soca valley.
We prepared some information about location of competiton office and campsite on Google map bellow.

Look at Kobala open 2010 on bigger map.

Weather forcast during competiton

2009-08-06T04:14:00.000-07:00

We decided to take 1 month subscription on XC Skies Soaring Forecast (http://www.xcskies.com/). It seems that their forcast is at least roughly accurate, thought we'll have to be carefull becouse of local properties of Soča valley.
We hope that their model, with expirience of local pilots and our competiton manager Ivan Brovč, will give enough data to get the most of flying on given day.

We are getting closer

2009-08-04T02:47:00.000-07:00

There are only 11 days left to the start of the competiton. We (the organizing team) are busy making final preparation for the registration on sunday, 15th of august.
The pre-registered pilot list is published on our official web page http://hg.sffa.org/open2009, where other information is avialable as well. We will publish results on daily basis, trying to keep general public well informed about the competition. We will also try to write information about the competition days on this blog in order to present more general information about the weather, tasks, flying.
So stay tuned on this blog - or even better join as at this amazing flying site of Tolmin as competitor or just as spectator.