Dave's Day 8

Today, I had pretty much an ideal start and a great run along the first leg with a couple of other gliders.  Part way down the leg, I was able to get ahead of them by finding and centering a good thermal.  Then, all hell broke loose.  There was a wall of rain to the east as shown by the black line on my route below.  I connected with the storm and was able to run along the shelf a long way, but 50 degrees off course.

There was sun in the ground, well to the south, so I thought I would be able to get to the end of the storm and then turn left towards the turnpoint.  When I arrived at the end of the storm, the sky was completely overcast behind the storm and there was another 55 km remaining to the first turnpoint (blue square at the bottom right of the picture - first leg 172 km).  I was at 4500 ft and 1300 ft below glide to get to the turnpoint.

At that point, I decided that a return back to Leszno would be much better than being 170 km from home, sitting in a field as thunderstorms rolled through.  As I was flying, I had already seen 3 lighting bolts within 10 km.  The roads in Poland are all two-lane back roads and 200 km would probably take close to 4 hours one way and make for a very long retrieve and a very late night.

On both the route and barograph, I have added yellow lines to indicate the 5 lines of rain that I had to traverse on my way back home.  In some ways, it was a very interesting flight home as I was able to run under the shelf of all 5 thunderstorms and climb while flying straight ahead.  My last climb on the way home averaged 7.6 kts and just got me home.  At 10 km from Leszno, the computer said I was 79 ft below glide slope.

As I was heading home, I kept in contact with Jarek at Canada Base and he informed me that the airport was reporting 35 kt winds and some gusts up to 40 kts.  Fortunately, it was not raining when I arrived at Leszno and I was able to land immediately.

It will be interesting to see what time some of the other pilots started, because the French team pilots in my class flew 220 km, so they were able to get around the first turnpoint and part way along the second leg.  Even though I abandoned the task, I still made it further along the course than some other pilots, so I am comfortable with my decision and happy to not be out standing in my field.

Here is the satellite shot from 1530 local time, just before I landed.

Here is the radar map from 1615, about 30 minutes after I landed.  The approximate task is shown with blue lines.