Day 7 Result

Another landout I am afraid. I decided that I wanted to start after others and given the 337k task and Roch's weather forecast I felt that the optimum start time was about 12:30 but I would be happy until 13:00. Started at 12:44 but made a mess of the route out, however I caught T4 at Turweston and out climbed him there to get my nose ahead.

A slow point near Wellesbourne and he caught me up but I then had a good run down the only street in the sky into LUD getting there ahead of T4 and many of the 18s. After the turn we had to get to TEW. Two choices: one back the way we came up the street to the N for a long detour or straight down track. I chose the latter as it didn't look too bad, there were cu but far apart. Oh, I wished I had longer wings....

A couple of lowish saves at TEN and GRM got me round TEW and into some good air near BRO for a good run down towards LRI. Now the sun was well blocked by spreadout and approaching frontal cirrus and I found myself chasing to get back to the sun. Several weak climbs later I made it into the sun at TOW but was now too low and too late.

Once again I found it really hard to work 70 ft / min near STS and going away from the finish. Frustrated I pushed on and ended up on the ground near the prison at MK.

I don't think the task was well set into the approaching low but 11 got round, so it was do-able. The rest landed out. Thanks to a big airspace bust by FJO I made up one place to finish 7th overall. Whilst this looks like a reasonable position from 0 on day one, the fact is if I had won that day I would have still only made 6th.

Reflecting on the week, I can take away some positives and some lessons:

1) I flew well on task. I made better glides and better climbs than the winner T4 - another 27 - and many of the bigger gliders .
2) I didn't crash!
3) I won a day, by a margin, but
4) My start tactics were crap getting me on the ground on day 1
5) I need to replace my batteries (and still charge them daily)
6) I need to practice in weak conditions and work out how to make J1M climb in 1kt or less, and
7) I need to find a way of enjoying climbing slowly!

And, of course, I need to race more, to sort out the tactics.

Thanks for the kind support. Now looking forward to next year.

Day 7 Result

Too depressed to comment tonight. Will update tomorrow. Well done William. Day win today placed him second in the comp.

Day 7 Finale

Weather done, just about to set off for Dunstable for the final day. We were hoping for a blast but I think it may be another limp day in the start zone and although it will be much better in the task area to the SW and over the Cotswolds, I am not sure we shall get away early enough for a 3 hr task.

I have been having a lot of trouble with my Garmin. It keeps giving up and requested a power down re-initialise. This means the loss of wind and glide information. Yesterday I moved the aerial away from my Colibri and Flarm aerials and the signals were a little better. Hopefully it will behave today.

Plan today to start not more than 10 mins after T4 and Rackham. If I can catch them it could be my day......

Piccy from Craig

Craig took some nice photos on the grid on Day 1 (before I landed out). Here is my favourite.

Day 7 Mark 1

Saturday scrubbed at first briefing. I didn't win yesterday but they did award me a bottle of Champagne for being 'nice' to another competitor. Who'd have thunk it?

Day 6

With bad weather approaching fast the director spat us up into the air early for a 154k LBZ GRW CAS BED LBZ DUN. Once again I screwed up the start and started later than I wanted under 8/8 at 2500ft. Despite flying a pretty good task to GRW and CAS I was too late and had to fly well N of track back in order to stay in the sunshine.

After BED there wasn't any sun at all and I crept up to Cranfield thinking that I would land there. A weak climb at Cranfield gave me hope but at about 2000ft  it started to rain on me. I went for the best looking air near MK and had a decision whether or not to overfly the town at 1000ft of go for the turn and land. I chose the latter just getting into sector before putting the wheel down.

Unfortunately T4 and some others got back. More unfortunately two pilots crashed trying to get back. Both pilots OK but one glider written off.

Trace on the ladder. Jim

Day 5 Result

I flew the task pretty much on my own: 196k to ELY and back via STS. Cloudbase at the start was under 3000 so I waited a bit but, as I waited, the top cover thickened and I thought the day might end before I completed the task. So I started before I wanted but 30 mins after the eventual winner (He chose right).

Good 38k glide out from the N end of the line towards Bedford along a decent line but I didn't connect with any substantial lift and ended up taking a 3kt climb from quite low off a combine harvester to the SE of Bedford. Going well...

Another good glide over St Neots towards ELY then I got really limp wristed! I spent 6 minutes in a 2kt climb and started to feel uneasy. I decided to take a major deviation from track to follow some energy S towards Sandy. At the time I thought this was a good decision as I spotted some gliders turning and zoomed in to greet them. You can imagine my dismay when I found them to be the slow guys taking 1.5kts!

I moved on and found 2.7kts so soon left them behind. Still going slowly I dropped some ballast and got a modest climb near Sandy. I then found a fantastic street into MK flying 45k for just 900ft! A 3kt climb over MK put me on glide for STS turn and the 42k home.

I thought that the flight went pretty well so was disappointed to find that I was beaten by 13 minutes by Nick Tillet also in a 27. I guess he must have cored some better climbs?

The overnight leader had a mare of a day so I have picked up a couple of places but Nick has stretched the lead. Hopefully a couple more racing days ahead.

Day 5 Update

It turns out the competition website which announced the 14:00 briefing had gone rogue! Briefng was reset to 10:30 as I was on the way to the golf course. Sitting there now waiting for the task. Let us pray that all competitors found out and we avoid a protested day. More later....

Day 5

This goes with a 5000ft cloudbase!!

Looks like my hopes of getting to the top of the results table are to be snookered by the organisation. My look at the weather indicates a pretty good day - much better than yesterday - and Masson suggests 300 is on.

The organisation however has decided to delay briefing till 14:00 which means 15:00 earliest launch and 15:45 earliest start! The forecast shows that the lift will finish around 17:00. Another 100k devalued day at best.

Today could well be our last racing day so I am a bit disappointed. Going to take my golf clubs with me!

Day 4 Mark 2 - updated

Weather was difficult to call today. It did do as I expected but the organisation was slow to rebrief and slow to get us away so we ended up on a no hoper 158K to CHN and NOW with a 16:15 start line.

I was unable to get any height before the start without dropping my water; water that I was going to need on the 20kt into wind leg. So I started at about 2k and worked my way down a street to BIC. Unfortunately and despite the fact that I could plainly see that NOW was impossible, I kept racing and rejected a 1.5kt broken climb at Upper Heyford and continued on .... to a little past Enstone then to the ground at Enstone scoring 56.1K for third place and 195 points. The winner got 214.

UPDATE - A5 obviously got his trace in late last night after I posted and won the day. This puts me 300 behind and 97 off a medal. I am not sure it will now be possible to get this back - see below - but I will try.

Jim

Day 4 Mark 1

Back to normal competition routine: Tea, breakfast, rig, ballast, grid, brief, tea, squat, tea, squat. rebrief, squat, momentary terror as tugs begin to warm up, scrub, drop ballast, tow back, derig, more tea.

Back tomorrow.

Day 3 result

We did launch quite late after the blue class which had mostly fallen down. The climbs were poor and we had 107k to go so I decided to start early rather than tactically in order to maximise the chances of getting round. The winner took a chance starting much later at 16:54 but it paid off. I flew most of the way to DED with a group of 18M gliders but got there low and had to dawdle a bit. I set of for a good looking cu to find it in the Hinton penalty zone so had to take a climb off the gound at Turweston. After that a brave glide over MK to get a poor climb, then another, then another onto a thin glide in.

Not too bad. 140 points off the winner for the day but I made up some points on the overall lead. Now lying 265 points off the lead with plenty to do. Can't wait!!

Day 3

This morning I was pretty hopeful we would get a task into East Anglia but this is now looking remote. The 12:30 briefing has been postponed to 13:30 as it is now raining and the satelite picture is not great. On the grid with fingers crossed.

Day 2

A better day today!

The blue clss didn't launch leaving William sitting comfortable in 2nd place (and in the bar).

Tricky this biz. I got up early this morning to do my own weather as yesterday the weather man was clearly out by a mile. I thought the day would be best between 1500 and 1800 but the weather man said at briefng that the day would end at 1500!

Well when we launched at around 1300 the sky looked awful. The director obviously decided to get some of us away on a treasurer's before it went completely tits up. I was on the back of the grid and was persuaded to launch by Watty who was flying Bob Kings 27 K5 today.

Just like yesterday I couldn't get to start height in the start zone so whilst everyone else made a start I trickled up to the sunshine at MK where I got a good climb to 1000ft above start height. This gave me the confidence to wait for the dark bit to clear and the good weather to appear - there was no point going as I thought I unsoarable at the first turn. It did.

I started pretty much last after burning off 1000ft getting back into the start zone (and staying there for 2 mins). Another trickle into good air at MK then on to the best looking bit of sky at Santa Pod before turning for GRW where the sky looked OK. There I started to catch earlier starters and the rest of the flight was a case of finding climbing gliders despite it going a bit gloomy around Calvert.

Around Olney I caught up with Watty and then just sparred with him onto a generous final glide and home. It looks like I may have won the day and made up a few points on the leaders.

Trace on the Dunstable Comp site and the ladder.

Thanks to Glyn for the pep talk and to William for listening to me gripe at breakfast.....

Day 1

They say that pride often comes before a fall. I fell right down today! If rule 2 is "do not land out", rule 1 must be "do not land out before the start". That is exactly what I did. I went for a climb a bit downwind as the sky became overcast with cirrus. Unfortunately I got  myself out of range of a relight and faced with a 6k glide back with 300ft in hand and a 20kt headwind, I chose to land in a field before I had even crossed the start line. Bugger!

Before launching I had a chat with William: "Today," I said "is not about winning. It is about getting round and not losing". I think I set my fate at that point.....

William did a fantastic job and did go round the task ending in 3rd just a few points off the lead.
Hopefully just a big zero for me and no penalties....more tomorrow.

Jim

Off to the Dunstable Regionals

So we are off to another competition. Hopefully we shall have some weather that we can fly in this time!

William Parker and I are representing Booker at the Dunstable Regionals this year. William is in the blue class flying his Discus LC and I am in the red class with the 27.

Although I will not be able to post before and during tasks I hope to put up a report of each day's flying after we land / get back.

Scores will be found here: http://dregionals.onglide.com/current-day.xml

Positive comments welcome.