There must be an epic story on the way............
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The forecast was for a strong south easterly with a low inversion, and a general high pressure ideal for wave!!
A 260km task was set
and many people struggled to get away, the inversion wasn't as clear as
hoped and the sky was messy with lots of rough thermals. After a few
relights from people a call from John Williams indicated where the wave
was and after getting above 3000ft it was child's play to climb high.
We got to around 7000ft
and pushed along an energy line on course... At about VNE. We then
turned the first TP and we had a long glide flying across a big gap to
then contact another energy line, we got to it about 5000ft a few turns
got us to the strongest bit of it (around 12 up) at 7000'. We then flew
the next leg along an energy line, at about 10knots below VNE. By the
2nd turnpoint which was downwind our average xc speed was up to
220kph... The return legs were just as easy, we had to jump a few bars
to get into a really good 7/8 knot line. We then contacted 13knots at
the last turn point, we were well over glide but S turned in it a little
bit to go for the height gain trophy. The last glide was at VNE again
with 6/7 gliders a few wingspans from each other - a proper racing task.
We completed it a
146kph (windycapped 159.61kph), John Williams flew it at about 190kph actual on his second
attempt, and he still only just scraped fourth....
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| Liam and Roy in JE ASH25M |
Without a shadow of a
doubt the most exciting and enjoyable moments in my gliding career so
far, I heard similar remarks from much more experienced pilots than I
showing just how epic a day it was. - Liam
(Ed: Friday was scrubbed - too dangerous to launch with howling southerly)
