Saturday, June 6, 2009

WCPC - Days 5 and 6

Day 5 started with heavy rain; it seemed inevitable there would be no task and I had decided to get a hotel room for the last few nights. But the forecasts showed a possible improvement in the afternoon and at HQ the decision was to meet again at 1.00pm. The weather did improve, we went up the hill but it was still unsettled and we stayed chatting on the bus before braving the great outdoors.

A short 40+ km task was called and a few gliders launched as clouds swirled above our heads. The wind was strong, initially from the S and even comp wings were struggling to penetrate. Launch was closed, the task was cancelled and we waited a little longer and conditions slowly mellowed. Almost everyone flew down in the early evening, with a few gliders getting nice convergence in the valley above Longswords.

Day 6 looked a little better, and another shortish task was called due to concerns about the wind picking up and overdevelopment. Initial conditions looked good, but the wind was already getting stronger. I launched towards the end and struggled to get up to the gaggle. At the race start I needed to get higher and flew around for maybe 30 minutes trying to get high enough to make the initial crossing. Eventually I ran out of lift and joined a whole bunch of pilots in the LZ, landing in 20 mph winds. Everyone found the conditions difficult; there was a reserve deployment, some pilots got 'worked' and lots of people sunk out early on. It turned out that only one pilot - Hayden - reached goal at an average speed of 15 km/hr (about half normal speed). Because so many pilots sunk out so early the day was marked down a lot - Hayden only got 175 pts (instead of the 'ideal' 1000).

6 Days into the comp and we have only had 3 very short tasks where most of the field sunk out early. Only 8 flights in the whole comp have ended in goal. Tomorrow is the last day of the comp and everyone is hoping for better conditions - many pilots, myself included, are hoping to get at least one decent flight from the week.

No comments:

Post a Comment