we all have to keep learning

All yesterday's emotions sort of calmed down today. It was an extremely challenging day with lots of lessons to be learned. The weather was predicted to turn bad as the cold front was approaching. No one expected 45 kts wind gusts though. It started getting really nasty exactly the time the finishes started. Final glide calculations were all messed up, there were few outlandings in safe paddocks at the finish circle but some others just pushed too hard risking ... yeah exactly, risking what? The scariest one was the one we all watched live. The glider hit the trees at the beginning of the runway and spun into the ground. The pilot had more luck than anything else and got out of this mess uninjured. The glider is trashed though. There were few ground loops in paddocks and on the airfield as people were fighting the 45 kts gusts.

Zig ready to go

tugs landing

I'm not the only one with medical condition - here is Claire landing

she has no problems even with the heaviest gliders in the fleet

I have to mention Ziggy again after I analysed his trace. Not only he stopped to top up his altitude 15km out but also commenced a safe high approach (out of all the turbulence close to the ground) keeping the speed up to 80 kts and ended up with a perfect landing. It was really nice to watch. Some would say, why stop and thermal 15km out having 3000 ft AGL? He wouldn't have made it without doing this. There were fields of horrible sink on final and some didn't expect them. The actual L/D of some gliders on the last 15 - 20 km was 1:11. So again, on a day like yesterday you just have to overcook your final glide. If you are lucky and end up too high you can always fly a circuit, if you are less lucky you can end up like quite a few yesterday - in best cases with the shit scared out of you.

The day is cancelled today and we have a general pilots meeting. After that we're going for lunch to Banrock Station winery to have a meeting with our Leszno World Comps pilots.

Scott seems to be very happy with his Diana 1