Well this is very strange for me. For the first time in a long time, I'm competing so I can't do much in the way of tweeting and blogging about the comp gossip and results and such. Not being in the thick of things at goal every day means all I can do is write from my own flying perspective....which can be rather bleek much of the time. But, oh well, here goes anyway.
Yesterday, as forecast, was quite windy. The truth is, it was too windy for my comfort level. Linda and I stood around launch all rigged, watching the wind increase and the tows looking rougher and rougher. I definitely have a tendency to talk myself out of flying much earlier than I ought to. I did exactly that yesterday. Giant thanks to my great teammate Linda! She convinced me that we ought to at least suit up, get the gliders on a dolly and just see what it was like. About an hour after everyone else launched the wind started to back off and we got airborne. Having my favorite tug pilot here from home is so comforting. Jim gave me a beautiful tow in the super rough air and dumped me right into a beautiful mellow thermal.
My little RX (Maggie, she's named) handles like a dream. Surprisingly, in many ways it feels so much like my Litesport, that it's like flying with an old friend....but one with much much lighter handling. Although I have some issues with quite a bit of bar pressure (the opposite of what the other girls are experiencing), Kraig and I are working on that. Meanwhile, I blame the landing characteristics for me being short yesterday....the problem is that it lands so magnificently that I just want to do it over and over again ;-). It's amazing how it makes a flight so much more relaxing when you aren't nervous about landing. In the end, I only flew 45km, but I was happy to be up in the cooler air and to actually get away from the airfield. The lift was somewhat weak (for Forbes) and base was low...I don't think I got above 6000ft all day, but the first day jitters are out of the way and it's goal for the rest of the comp....ha ha ha ha!
On the girly end of things, we only had 7 girls flying yesterday as Lisa was sick with the stomach flu. But, 4 of the 7 were in goal with the lovely Chisato from Japan first in for the girls. Awesome job Chisato!!!
The US men's team got off to a rough start with Zippy landing very short. I can say for the first time in history (and I'm quite certain the last) I beat him!!! But they'll be fine. All of the others American boys were in goal and the scores are all quite compressed for the top 30 or so it's still anyone's game. Christian Ciech (Italy) officially won the day, but apparently only because Scott Barrett's instrument died and he had to use his backup Garmin which isn't set at a high record interval. 5 or 10 seconds difference is all it takes to lose the day win.
3 comments:
So nice that you don't have to worry about landing. That would be so uncomfortable to be up flying and not feel completely confident about landing. Great job.
And who can blame you for thinking "Why keep flying when I can head down and enjoy a landing?" :) :)
Hi Jamie,
Glad you did the sensible thing and waited untill you felt good about the wind.
Great to see that your glider is going well,thanks to Gerolf. Oh, wait, he didn't and you had to wait 3 weeks to get is fixed by someone else! F**k that!
Mart.
Scott's Garmin was recording at 1 second intervals.
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