Uvalde at it's finest

The last day of the contest turned out to be a classic Uvalde day at its finest. The forecast called for overdevelopment and a chance of thunderstorms late in the day. Dave and I planned for a start around 14:00 to be back by 6p.

When the start gate opened at 13:48 there were already plentey of cu and we were able to climb to 6500 msl, close to the 7000ft start gate limit. I was resolved to fly higher inter-thermal speeds (95 - 105kts) than on the previous days and to not throttle back when getting lower.

Had a good start at 14:05 and made good progress on the first two short legs,pushing hard in a working band of 4500 - 6000ft and consistently finding 6-8kts lift. The third turnpoint was Leakey in the hills but with a large enough turn area, so one could touch it with a minimal transition into the hills. Before launch Dave and I had discussed to avoid the hills today and max out the turn areas in the plains. Since I wasn't able to max out the second turn area due to blue conditions, I felt it was too early in the 4hr task to start cutting short and transitioned into the hills to get deeper into the third turn. The clouds looked good but didn't work well. To make matters worse, when I finally turned, there was a long stretch of unlandable terrain ahead which I was unable to cross at my present altitude. It became clear that going into hills had been a terrible mistake as I was forced to take weak climbs and fly detours to stay over landable terrain.

Due to the lost time, there was no point maxing out the 4th turn area and I turned south toward Laredo with a dream sky ahead. Lift rates were now consistent 8kts with the occasional 10 knotter thrown in and cloud base had risen to 8000ft. It was fun.

I had just decided to break for home in the last turn area, when I ran into a boomer thermal that took me from 5000 to 7000 in two and a half minutes. Determined not to repeat past mistakes coming in under minimum time, I extended by 10km before I started the final leg. A light tail wind and another 9 kt thermal to 9000 helped me cover the 153 km of the final leg in 53 minutes. As I was cruising towards the finish on a 120 kt final glide, I paused to take in the picture of a soaring pilot's dream around me one last time : A beautiful sky filled with cu gleaming in the late afternoon sun - what a great end to a great contest!

On day 8 I achieved my personal best speed in the contest of 133 kph over 559 kms which leaves me wondering what my speed could have been without the mistake of going into the hills. Either way, it would not have changed anything in the final outcome.

Although 15th place out of 21 is not much to write home about, 85% of the winners score is o.k. for flying a Standard Class ship in 15m Class. In conditions like we had in the contest, the higher wingloading and negative flaps of the 15m ships make a significant difference.