Yesterday was an extremely challenging day for me. It was very difficult to choose the right tactic for the day. I didn't have problems staying up and moving around but I just miscalculated the development of conditions. This task wasn't easy since there was no clouds.
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| yesterday's grid |
There were some clouds in the morning but disappeared quickly as soon as we started gridding and it turned blue. There were some very nice climbs in the blue and the first leg run was reasonably fast. I turned more less as planned and headed for the second area moving across the wind. That was where my troubles started.
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| on the grid of day 3 (by Steve Schneider) |
I never connected with any gliders and was all by myself trying to figure out what was going on. I couldn't find the nice and smooth thermals I had on the first leg anymore. It was all broken up and I had to keep myself satisfied with 4 kts. I arrived in the second area and was heading toward my chosen turn point. This is when I met few Std and Open class groups. Most of the gliders were really low. This made me think that the area was soft and the day was probably slowly going to an end.
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| on the first leg |
I was 88 km from home and decided to turn some 7 km earlier than planned and make my way back home with the groups that I've met there. I was 8 minutes over time by then and the way back home was supposed to be against 16 kts wind. I thought there was no way I can speed up ... but ... There was streeting in the blue and we all kept hitting very good climbs one after the other which in the end put me 7 minutes under time. Yes, I did it again although I really didn't want to.
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| final glide |
I thought I had a fairly big margin on my final glide but then another surprise came across my way. Wind was stronger at lower altitudes and all my margins started to melt away. I kept going knowing that I can land straight ahead almost everywhere and in the end made the airfield completing the task.
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| Tim in D1 |
The results are as usual here:
The task is out for today. We are again going for a 3 hrs AAT (170 km - 400 km). This time though we are heading SE then to the W and to the NE for the last area. There is hope for some clouds and we'll see what I can mess up today ;-)
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