No goal today, I landed out around halfway into the 134km task, pushing into the wind. I was on glide to a gaggle of gliders circling in front of me and ignored one area of weak lift, but then got punished for my optimism and found just enough sink to glide too low under the pilots that were thermalling at the 3. TP, and I had to land there.
Found a nice field to land in though;
None of the team got to goal, Olav was closest around 10km short, and Johnny landed after 62km.
I did not like the first few thermals after the start gate, and glided out too early to get away, it was way to dangerous with pilots turning every other direction in a gaggle with 50+ pilots. We should stick to the same turn direction until after the first TP when the pilots are spread out a little more.
Day 2 and a 123km task back to the goal at Espanalada in Brasilia, the first pilot off the hill was Wolfi, into a bad cycle with very weak conditions that left him on the ground in 10 minutes.
The launch was then closed for a while due to crosswind, before pilots started taking off as we watched the Vultures showing us the thermals. Olav was early in the launch order and sunk out quite low beneath takeoff before getting up.
I did a very bad takeoff, my left wing dropped just as I picked up speed, and I had to use full weightshift to avoid turning back into the hill. The the zipper rope had a knot in it, so I could not close my harness until I found a lift that got me high enough so I could take my hands off the speedbar, which took around 15 minutes. Then I was super thirsty after the struggle to get up, but the camelback hose had a kink inside the harness, so no water for me today.
I did not have enough time to get the height for a good start, but it turned out OK as I found a good line coming back from the startgate and towards the first TP I could push to catch some of the pilots in front. After the first TP I pushed a little too hard, and had to stop in weak lift, loosing sight of the lead gaggle. From there it was an OK flight to goal, except when the YotaPhone crashed just as I came up to the 3. TP, it restarted by itself, but as I had just taken the TP it was pointing the wrong way and I had to to reprogram XC Track again.
Going on final glide we had a small gaggle with 5-6 gliders around, we had to stop around 14km out in weak lift, and I left it on 9:1 glide, hit the main thermal that you always find on final glide and shot up into the sky like a rocket gliding as fast as I dared. I came out of that last thermal with a 4:1 glide, so I had no problems making goal….
Setting up the landing I jammed the zipper in my shorts, and had another adrenaline filled minute trying to solve that problem while on downwind with 10 other gliders in the same position. To top that off the brakechute had twisted lines and did not open as it should, but I pulled off the landing anyway.
Oh, and I should mention that my new YotaPhone fell out of the car and broke the e-ink screen this morning. What a day! Things can only improve from here though.
Olav did a really good flight again, coming in just after the leaders at 17. place. I was mid-field at 67. and Johnny had instrument problems and missed the last turnpoint with 27m before flying to goal, and lost some places ending up at 102.
More than 100 pilots in goal today of total 134, skill level is high for sure!
It was quite a good day to start off the worlds, with blue skies, calm winds and very high cloudbase at over 3500 meters. We got a task of 107km out and almost return, with goal close to Planantina.
Despite having a total of 134 competition pilots on launch it went very quickly to get everyone airborne. I had a very hard time getting up above the ridge after takeoff, and spent a lot of time low searching for a core that could get me up to the rest of the pilots waiting for the start above. I finally got up to 2550m just in time for the first start gate and went on glide out of the start circle quite low compared to the rest of the gaggle.
I went with a group of pilots on track, but we got a pretty bad line with very turbulent and broken lift for the next 3-4 thermals, before we finally found a good core getting close to the altitude limit at 3500m. From halfway and to goal I could stay high and pick better lift, so I could catch up a little of the lost time from the start.
Olav, me and Johnny all made goal in the end, in 27. 64. and 72. place, making it an OK first day of the comp, but we need to speed up for the rest of the days.
We are not using individual Airtribune trackers for the Worlds 2017, as we all have the official trackers from the organizer that should work just as well. The official tracking also show the task map. Click on the link below to get the live tracking. The task will usually start sometime around 18 CEST.
So one year later, we made it back to Brasilia to fly the Worlds. The team this year is Olav Opsanger, Johnny Nilssen and me.
We arrived two days ago, flew a nice practice flight yesterday, and did registration and admin stuff today. Tomorrow is another free-flying day, and then a rest-day before the competition starts on the 9.
There will be live-tracking in the comp, so I’ll publish links here as soon as I have them.
Olav and me packing up after the first practice flight, it’s dry and dusty here!
It was very windy from the morning when we got up to have breakfast, and it did not calm down much. We measured 70km/h gusts on takeoff and average over 50km/h. So unfortunately the last day was cancelled.
Today was very windy at takeoff, and the launch was postponed 1 hour while the winds calmed down a bit. It was OK to launch, but I spent too much time getting up and had to take a bad start about 5 minutes after everyone else. The flight was OK and I got to goal flying with Olav Opsanger the last part of the course. Did a conservative and slow final glide just to enjoy the experience of landing downtown Brasilia. The final glide the day before was the most marginal I’ve ever done and I did not want to repeat that :-)
Olav Opsanger, Erland Åmot, Georgia and me are in Brasilia to fly the Brasilian Championships and the Pre-Worlds here. Two competitions in a row to get plenty of practice and experience for next year’s worlds.
We are traveling with our hanggliders shortpacked and without sail, packed in some really nice travel bags that Skyline provided us just in time for the travel. Checking in the gliders at OSL went fine, but we saw the gliders were not loaded onto the Luthansa Airbus 321 that we had booked the first flight to Frankfurt. We had paid extra and got confirmation from Lufthansa that they could take our hanggliders, so we were not happy, and the SAS agent that handled the gate was not exactly helpful, telling us it was our problem to get the gliders to Frankfurt ourselves…
All padded and packed
Lufthansa saved the day in the end and got the gliders on a SAS 737, so when we arrived in Brasilia after a layover in Lisboa we had 3 undamaged gliders going through customs.
We have rented a house with a big garden and pool, so it was nice mounting the sails back onto gliders and getting ready on the green grass on an overcast day.
Assembling gliders in Brasilia
The first day with Task 1 got quite stressful when we went to the wrong takeoff at first, but the weather conditions was good for a late start, so we all got off and almost made the race start and all 3 got to goal. Lots of pilots infringed the airspace limits, but none of us went that high.
Task 2 saw more sun, but more wind, so we struggled with weak lift in strong winds once we got towards the end of the 109km task and the clouds shaded the ground. I landed 30km from goal, with Olav and Erland behind me at the last TP.
No results yet for task 2.
Weather looks good tomorrow, and a bit iffy sunday, with great forecast for the rest of the week.
We had a few good days of flying but not that many taskable days because of unfavorable weather conditions. Yesterday was the best day so far, with a 90 km task down the valley. Conditions were OK with 2500m cloudbase, but quite broken and difficult thermals.
A snapshot from yesterdays task, on top of Norway;
Over Vågå
I got stuck at Otta with Kjell and Erland, and lost quite some time there, after I finally got up we still struggled in the broken lift, but slowly got aorund the first and second TP, and to goal as 3. for the day.
Today was gray and with no lift we had to cancel the task, but we got to fly and do the spotlanding.
