The launch happened promptly at 1130 this morning without a sniffer and into a sky of cu over the airport. Our start gate was about 15 km to the south near the foothills and at start time there was pretty much 100% cloud cover at the south end of the line and towards the first turn area to the east. I had originally planned to go south into the first area, but had to change that plan with no sun on the ground in the sector.
Turning north, there were good clouds until about the middle of the second circle. From there I pushed north to the back of the circle with the Austrian team and then ran into the third area with them.
On the leg south, they pushed ahead low and I found a good climb that ended up putting me ahead of them by about 20 km at the finish.
The working band today was better than the previous days and I was able to use 3500- 5500 ft with climbs in the 4 kt range. Once again as I got south towards Benalla, the Warby Range of hills kicked off a good climb to get me on final glide.
The 5th place finish today moved me up to 4th place overall!
Posts
Following the tracking, it was good to see top speed for the first leg !, but slowing down down the second leg while others were doing better having turned earlier and overtaking. It wasn't obvious why the speeds were decreasing on the third leg, but looking at the thermal drifts showed that the wind had picked up significantly from the south. It was going to be tough to get back home... Good result Dave.
ReplyDeleteGreat flight, Dave! Beating WO (in a Ventus 3 no less) was superb!
ReplyDeleteGood work and advancement too!
ReplyDeleteCongrats again to all of our team.