Glen Volk gave advice at the pilots meeting before day 5 that as my flight began, rang in my ears. He had found himself very low within the start circle while the rest of us were grouped up. As we all left on course, he had to go all the way back to the airport to find lift, ending up low and alone again. When he did eventually get on course, he smoked it (finding much stronger conditions than the rest of us had) and won the day. During the pilots meeting, he reminded us all to never count yourself out. Just enjoy your flight, do the best you can and it's never over until it's over.
Today, we again launched in soft conditions with a few pilots having to take re-lights (when you sink out in the airport and have to take a second tow to try to stay up). I managed to find light lift low and was able to stay in the air with a few others, feeling lucky. When the conditions got a tad better, the group was climbing together and I went out a bit to search for something better. I didn't find anything and looked back to see the group still climbing well but when I got to them, the "rope had been pulled up" and there was nothing under them but sink. I made a long, lonely glide back to the airport where there were only 2 or three gliders left. I found something on the far side of the airport under a cloud and climbed to 6000'. When the lift died off, I committed to another long glide back to the only cloud (about 7 miles away) where I could see the gaggle at it's base. I was sweating it as I arrived about 1000' over the ground but found 700 fpm right to cloud base. Back in the game;-)
driving around base at the start
A group left for the second start time but Zippy, Jeff and I were keen to drive up wind and wait for a later start because the day was definitely turning on. It was a little bit of a challenge to stay out of the clouds and we all played the start game, tread milling under the clouds. We ended up taking the 4th (last) start with Jeff, Zipp and I on top of the stack. Derrik turner, Chris Zimmerman and several other good pilots were with us as we connected clouds and good climbs toward the t-point.
A few gliders climbing below on course
I was familiar with the course line because we had flown the same task the day before. Zippy and I ended up working together to get through the section between the 2 turn points that had become pretty blue (just like the day before). After getting the last before heading to goal, I looked down to see Derrik Turner really low and scratching. Turns out he had to land and broke his glider (putting a fence post through his sail) and rung his bell pretty good. I'm glad to know now that he is OK and has a spare glider to race on;-)
Zippy and I went on some smooth glides, both spreading out to look for lift to make good time on the last leg into goal. He stopped in 200' fpm and quickly left, thinking there was a better value to find. I searched a little and found 500 and decided to stay in it until I had an 11-1 L/d into goal. I was a little gun shy from my final glide on the day before. When I got the value that I wanted, I stood on it at 65-68 mph all the way in. Unfortunately, I was pretty conservative because I misjudged and ended up at goal with 500'. I guess that's what a lack of confidence will do.
On my way in, I blazed past a glider turning in lift. I knew it was Zippy and wondered what he was doing. I was a little confused as to why he was not racing me in. Turns out that he had not heard that the task was changed (it was announced an hour before we flew) and thought there was another leg. He was topping out before what he thought was the turn point and made it to goal with 8000'! It sucks because he is flying lights out and would have made up some time and points if he knew about the change and had raced in to goal.
Goal feild
As we drove back to down load our instruments, there were a few massive cells developing around the town of BIg Spring. It was both massive and beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment