Bavarian Open Task 2

Today girly mon got a cradle to lug his glider up the ski lift.  It was also my turn to set up on the nicer launch.  The weather forecast was the similar to the day before with the Northery Bavarian wind (kinda like a sea breeze) kicking in later in the day.  We were told the clouds that had started earlier then the day before would not stick around.  Lucky they were wrong about that part!  108 K out and back was the task and we were eager to get an early start.

 

Hochries is a tough place to climb away from and there were pilots struggling again for the second day.  I joined up in the death gaggle and fought to get to the top, a whopping 200m above launch.  We were all clustered north east of launch and the lift seemed to be dying off temporarily.  I figured if it wasn’t working in this area, then maybe further down the ridge in my bird thermal from the day before?   I lost a bit of height cruising over there but BANG, flew right in to a strong shot.  Just like the day before it was broken and rough but the strength more then made up for it.  I was quickly several times the height of the gaggle over the ridge.  Straight over the back I joined in the bottom of the Rigid gaggle under a nice cloud with strong lift.  I danced in and out of the forming clouds with about 4 rigids for the next ten minutes while we watched to see what other pilots got away from launch.  For some reason they called a race start today and it was clear many pilots were going to get screwed by that.  In a momentary lapse of common sense I got my distance to waypoint confused and flew further into the start gate to get a clean start.  By the time I glided around the cloud all those rigids were gliding away quickly.  Mickey, Seppi, and I cruised after them with Seppi the lowest.   We glided a long way to a ski resort in the distance.  I could see the rigids climbing well but I wanted to arrive higher then the top of the ridge so I cruised relatively slowly.  Mickey knows the area well and got there ahead and about 200m lower.  He was still above the ridge and beamed straight up.  Seppi fished around and climbed up slowly below.  We all left around the same time and chased after the Rigids.  Now lower I passed through a light thermal Seppi stopped for (I can hear the damning piano music in the background) and continued to chase Mickey.  He flew around a peak and straight into another boomer that I couldn’t quite hook into.  I was low, and had to go into fish mode.  I missed the elevator and just watched him climb to the moon and dust me.  Later Seppi glided in high above me and just cruised down a nice cloud street towards the turnpoint.  I eventually found a screamer off the high point of the ridge and cruised down that same cloud street.  The other guys had taken a line over some of the highest peaks in the area that had great clouds but was a longer course line.  Seppi later told me that the thermal I passed up turned into 7m/s and that cloud street allowed him to catch back up to the leaders.  Now, I don’t know exactly how strong 7 m/s is since I am a feet per minute kind of guy but I do know it is strong as all hell and over a thousand feet per minute.  No wonder he caught up so quickly.

 

Leaving the turnpoint life was still jolly with great clouds dotting the way.  That didn’t hold true all the way back though as the Bavarian wind suppressed the once good air ahead.  It was clear that the last 30k was going to be blue.  Getting back over the ridges and mountains adjacent to Hochries looked very tricky.  Most of us opted instead to follow some clouds to the north for a much longer circle around.  I liked this strategy after experiencing first hand how hard getting back could be the day before.  The clouds to the north east worked but they were thin and the lift was very sporadic and rough.  By flying so far East I realized it would be more cross wind then head wind once I ran out of clouds to mark the route.  Flying here I use the clouds to teach me what ground features work in different conditions and at different parts of the day.  I am always surprised at where my theories are either off, or totally wrong!  I am terrified of gliding into a huge headwind halfway across a gap and falling from the sky but it wasn’t to happen today.  I got to a nice spire at the mouth of the valley and found some nice stuff to edge around the corner in.  Once around the corner the terrain became lightly soarable with the northerly breeze flowing into the ridge.  From there it was a nice leap frog in light thermals down the ridge until goal was an easy glide.  I was aiming for a windsock and a white piece of plastic in an empty field.  Once withing a mile I realized the real field was about 2 or 3 over to the right, had an outside bar, a huge windsock,   Gigantic bullseye, and other gliders.  Whoops! 

 

Some pilots predicted the task was undercalled but it seemed reasonable to me.  It was nice making goal after missing the day before.

 

Kev