Most of the XC pilots from SA traditionally head over to Birchip for the easter tow competition. This year was no exception with 3 teams from SA traveling over, each team comprising 5 pilots and a driver.
Day one had light winds from the SE. A task of 79km was set and we headed to the field to start towing. First pilot in our team broke the rope and managed to get away, taking the end of the rope with them fo a few hundred meters. It took a while for us to get the rope fixed by which time it had got harder to get away. I had 3 launches without getting away. Unfortunatly nobody else from our team got away either.
Day two was a northely so we moved to the other end of the paddock. I found some weak lift on my second tow which realy wasnt going anywhere but as the day was shutting down I stuck with it. It took me about 35 mins to drift 3km and loose the little bit of lift so I decided to land by a road for an easy retrieve. Only 2 of the team left the paddock today.
Day three was looking a lot better, still took me 3 tows to get away but the lift was better. I was climbing nicely out of the paddock when another glider joined me at about 2500'. I put too much effort into keeping out of his way and lost the lift so headed to anothe gaggle that was downwind. I got to them quite low, about 650' and the lift was broken. Took me a while to climb back up to about 2500' where someone else joined me. Same thing happened here except this time we both lost the thermal and went on glide together. Unfortunatly we didnt find any more lift and landed just short of Bircip for a 17km flight. We all got out of the paddock today.
Day four turned out to be another frustrating day. Lots of people were taking lots of launches to get away as the lift cycles were few and far apart. I found some weak lift on my sixth launch which I stuch with as it was about 4pm. A couple of glides and lots of weak lift put me just north of Birchip at about 2800'. I decided to take a final glide from there and land by the campsite.
Results etc can be found here.
Tuesday 17 April 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)