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.
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 :-)
Looks like a good day today, no problems with crosswind, not much wind at all in fact. Forecast for big clouds and some showers in the afternoon.
Task is 118km back to land at the Esplanada.
Task cancelled, launch conditions were not good due to crosswind.
Erland and Nils packing up
Some more high clouds moving in over us today, but should be an ok day. Task is 88km.
I got sick last night and did not fly today, I went to takeoff and set up, but I did not get well enough to fly. Puking inside a full face helmet is not my idea of fun…
Only Olav Lien and Bjørn Joakimsen made goal from our team, the sky looked awesome from the ground, but Olav Opsanger and Erland landed at the last TP.
Unfortunately Bjørn went too high and broke into airspace, so he was scored 0 for the day.
We had a mostly blue day today, with some good thermals between all the broken and weak thermals trying to get through the inversion.
I got off into nice lift, and met up with the whole team taking the first start clock at 13:20. We all had a good run until the first TP, and from there I joined up with Erland for the 30km headwind leg towards the second TP. I thermalled up 3km from the TP and went on glide with the lead gaggle, but got hammered in sink to the TP and back, loosing out 200m on the pilots just next to me. I found an OK thermal again and got up, but had lost contact with the lead gaggle.
After getting back up Olav Opsanger and Erland caught up with me, and we glided towards goal crossing over a small lake north of Planaltina city. I was 20 meters below and 50 meters to the left of Olav Opsanger, and again hit a massive sink line losing 200m in 1 minute to Olav that was just gliding straight 50 meters away from me. I tried to move away from the sinkline, but even pilots right under me were not affected and I continued to fall out of the sky and was soon groveling low finding nothing. 4 other pilots landed in the same field with me, 16 km from goal. What a shit way to end a good days flying.
The rest of the team did well and made goal, around 30 pilots in goal in total.
Briefing now, similar task to yesterday 109km, with forecasted similar conditions, but drier air with less clouds.
It was pretty good racing and strong conditions until til first TP and back towards start. The whole team had a good start, but Olav Lien Olsen was pushing a bit hard and landed close to the first TP. Olav Opsanger and I had a fast flight back to the ridge south of takeoff, when conditions were weaker and we had to change gears a bit and slow down.
I got a terrible line as we glided to the edge of the plateu and came in below Johnny Durant and Olav who banked up in a good core, I could not find the thermal and ended up on my own struggling to get high while the main gaggle further out in the valley got high.
I finally got up and came in over the lead gaggle just before the second TP, but the conditions were slow and weak, and I needed around 150m more height to get back into the lead thermal. I joined a weak core with Bjørn Joakimsen, but we could not find the thermal we needed and landed after some kilometers.
Erland landed close to the second TP, while Olav Opsanger had a great flight and came to goal with 3. place.
