What a day that was. Quite typical for Europe though. Way too many clouds already in the morning ... you can imagine the rest. 3 hours AAT was set and I was determined not to come back too early. I was so fixated on that idea that I kind of ignored what was happening on the way towards home and was just going for the kilometers. The first and second legs were great, although I was flying only between 3,000 and 4,500 ft I was averaging ca. 125 km/h after the second leg. Then I turned back 140 km from home and all I saw was a huge black wall ... here we go I thought.
The goal was now to deviate a lot a try to reach patches of sun on the ground on the western side of the storms. They were a long bloody way away and I had to cross over 40 km of "black" to get there. I got as high as possible and went for the best glide speed glide towards bits of sun. I arrived there @ 2,000 ft and it worked out. I got a few climbs that made me tip toe back towards the last turn point.
This was were I realised that if I play it well I can actually complete the task, not only start the engine closer to home. This was what I did. Time and speed were not an issue anymore - by that time I was showing +1.5 hours on the AAT. I managed and completed the task with ca. 83 km/h.
The trick yesterday was to leave early, just after the gate opened and not be greedy for distance. I would have been better off turning earlier and coming back under time - my speed would have been much better. The positive is, I didn't land out like many others :) I survived.
 |
| into the direction we had to come back from |
18m class results:
My flight on the OLC:
Today is looking like a totally different day. We have a 500 km triangle racing task.
No comments:
Post a Comment