July 31 evening

Yesterday (July 31) WGC organized International Day.

Large hangar was converted to "international buffet" with teams serving national food and drinks.

Our group didn't prepare anything. Our reality is that in Canada we have this sort of "buffet" every day due to diversity of our population:-) Maybe with the exception of "Maple Syrup" that we didn't have:-(

Hangar was full of chatter and people serving food & drinks.

We even have original Japanese ladies in traditional dresses serving "sake".

Overall, great evening!!!

Today's morning looks promising. They're some high level clouds and sun is out.

There's dew on grass and cars - usually that indicates great day!!

Jarek

Day 5 - some pictures

This first picture shows the Leszno airfield at 0830 this morning, looking from the road at the eastern edge of the field.  In terms of a standard airfield, it does not really have runways laid out as we are accustomed in Canada, it is really just a big field.  Yesterday, as I was on final, there were 6 other gliders beside me and we all landed line abreast.

Based on the sky this morning, it did not seem likely that we would fly, but at the 10 AM meeting, the decision was postponed  to noon.  Around 11 AM, the Open class was told to grid for 1 PM.  In the Open class, almost everyone has an engine, so a mass landout day is not nearly as taxing as in the other classes.

At 1:30, the launch of the open class started into a very dark sky as shown in the picture below.  There were cu, but also a heavy cirrus shelf over top.

A small gaggle of Open class gliders shortly after release.

Once everyone was in the air, the day was cancelled.

Day FIVE

Today weather conditions are not the best, we're are in the area between two fronts.

At this moment there's no decision about grid for 15 & 18 M classes.

We expect to have final "go/no go" about possible grid/task after noon local time.

Open class is getting ready for 1 PM local. 

Jarek

HD First Four Contest Days

Last four days were full of  technical problems

On Day One ,one of the varios didn't work other was slow . Each day before flight and after I had hour and half to work on plumbing , no change very frustrating.

Day Two - we tried other configuration , none of varios worked .Flew without working  varios.

Day Three
One vario worked, but hard time to center didn't believe vario ,vario was right because thermals were very broken. After landing we found that there is no air in the  main wheel. Inner tube was fixed by some one before and patch gave up. Because of  fixed $ 20 tube I could  damage  $150,000 glider.
Leader of contest Karol Staryszak give us his spare. Unfortunately wrong size we  damaged it during filling with air .
Day Four
We found new tube today morning and installed . Pete Alexander from US team lend me his spare vario I was able to compare settings.
 At the same time based on instruction from Clear Nav Team I was able to sort out vario problem .

When I converted imperial polar numbers to metric I entered wrong number in polar and vario was giving wrong indications.

Vario worked today ,but pilot didn't I went in to restricted airspace 60 km from the start earned 60 points for the day .

I hope I used all possible bad luck credit :)
Jerzy

Dave's Day 4

Today was another interesting weather day.  We again had a 2 hr area task because the forecast was that we would again have a lot of cloud and some isolated showers in the area around 4 pm.  Today, that forecast was correct.  At this morning's meeting, the weather man apologized for the forecasting error yesterday and told us that he hopes his forecast today is correct.  The satellite image below shows the cloud cover at 1645 local time proving that the weather forecast was correct.  The yellow square in the image is Leszno and you can see there really was a lot of cloud.

The next pictures were taken at our B&B around the same time and show the full overcast and no cu.

In this last picture, the view is towards the SE where our last turnpoint was located and you can just see the last bits of blue sky.

In general, the day was quite good for the short 2 hr task period and I had a couple of really good climbs, with the best climb at 6.1 kts.  Unfortunately, on the way home as things were starting to get dark and rain showers were popping up, I took a couple of very weak climbs with the gaggle that cost me a good 5 minutes.  At one point, I finally had enough and moved forward to find a "good" 2.5 kt climb - this in comparison to the less than 1 kt in which the gaggle was climbing.

The finish gate today was a 10 km circle around the airport at 1000 ft AGL and for most of the glide home, I didn't believe the final glide calculator, it showed I needed too much height.  I then realized I had the Mc ring set to 4 kts and dialed that back, and then finally (too late) it occurred to me that I did not select the navigate to the edge of the ring option, so it was calculating arrival at 1000 ft over the airport, plus my safety factor.  So today, stupid mistakes cost me.

The goal tomorrow - no stupid mistakes (and no weak thermals and less deviations)!