Sunday, March 08, 2015

Valentino

Italian sweetie Valentino came into goal few days ago and failed to see a set of difficult to see power lines and hit them at very high speed.  He scared the crap out of everyone sending up a giant spark , folding the glider in half and then falling to the ground.  Luckily, he escaped with relatively minor injuries - a broken wrist that required surgery and a plate.  We're all so happy he's fine.  His brand new Icaro glider didn't fare so well - the lines melted the sail, wires and various carbon parts.  Last I heard from the Italian team, only the base bar, crossbars and one leading edge were salvageable.  All that really matters though, is that he is alive and well.  






6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lovely pics Jamie, pleased to see Valentino smiling, no doubt
you and Glen had big smiles after yesterdays awesome result. Made up for him and Carl. Still follow you and all that you do. We all love the live tracking...its our evening fix here in the UK Take care everyone and enjoy.

John G said...

On Valentino's incident. If there were people at goal, and these power wires were so close to goal that he flew into them, wouldn't it be a good idea to mark those wires - or be sure to comment on the existence of the wires at the morning task meeting. By marking, not meaning anything extravagant but at least throw some orange or green plastic tape around the wires at least they would be somewhat visible. Coming into goal at high speed would make it the wires hard to see and it would only make sense to mark them somehow - or at least, tell the pilots about their existence before they come zooming in.

Jamie Shelden said...

The existence of the power lines was mentioned in the pilot briefing. The lines were at the far end of the field and pilots would normally cross them quite high, or turn base leg before them and not cross them at all. Valentino hadn't been to this goal before so he just missed them. He was doing a high speed approach - presumably he was excited and happy to be in goal. It was pilot error - an unfortunate mistake any one of us could make.

Unknown said...

Pilot error? Hmmm. It may have been mentioned at the pilot meeting, but in the heat of finishing a task, that could easily be forgotten. Getting those lines marked with some of those orange visibility balls would have been much better.

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