Last day - the hardest one

Although the task was short and seemed easy enough everything turned out to be much more complicated than anyone expected. It was obvious from the beginning that the day is gonna be blue and white from the cirrus, pretty low and weak. Nobody expected though that the winds aloft will pick up that much. There was also an abrupt change in wind direction at about 1500 ft which was well our operating altitude that day. I was showing around 27 kts headwind on my last leg.

This was one of the very few days where a sniffer had to be send up to check if it was soarable at all. Even the British pilots who used to launch well before the competition gliders decided not to fly. Sniffer reported 1 kts up to 3500 ft AGL and it was clear we had to go.

"holy cow the sniffer stays up!"

The task was a 2 hrs 30 min AAT (150-330 km). It started pretty low and slow and seemed to be getting better towards the first area. I think some got tempted and went deeper into this area. I kept in mind that going back home will be a struggle and just touched the first and second area. When I turned back home I knew it was going to be harder than expected. To make it even harder I was all by myself and just couldn't see any other gliders.

grid

I decided to stay as high as I possibly could and slowly make my way back. Thermals were rare and weak and some of them unworkable because of 27 kts wind. I've fallen down passed the wind shear height and it got more and more complicated from there on. I was picking paddocks. Firstly I concentrated on the ones suitable for aero retrieve (I didn't wanna be late for the final dinner). Choices were very limited and after a while I had to give up the idea of aero retrieve and just picked one paddock with a house just next to it. I was well below 1000 ft and all I could do was fly around my paddock, inspect it and hope for miracle. There was a sandy junk yard close by and this was my last chance. I knew it was cooking and in matter of minutes a bubble would come up. I tried to stay airborne on the downwind side of this yard which wasn't easy cause the wind kept blowing me away towards hills ... and I already way way below their tops. 300 ft of the ground I decided it was time to give up and straighten for final for my paddock. As I reached for the brakes the vario went nuts (nuts meaning 2 kts) and stayed this way for few seconds. I decided to give it the last shot and turned. It stayed positive all the way around and after 20 minutes that seemed  like an eternity I was back up high ... 2500 ft and could move to my next landing option.

D1 brought me back home again

I repeated the same story one more time and finally managed to work out my final glide back to Benalla (via Winton). This was one of the hardest flights ever. Similar to my Swedish experience with the difference that I had paddocks and airfields instead of lakes and forests below me which makes the situation much more easy and relaxed. 

When I was 5 km inbound Benalla Ziggy and few other gliders called 10 km on final glide. There were very many outlandings that day but we've made it just in time for the final dinner. It is proven again that D1 knows her way back home and always brings you there.

Here are last day's results:

http://soaringspot.com/ausclub2012/results/club/daily/day8.html