Friday 3 January

No flying yesterday and it was cold and rainy! Got the glider weighed - looks as if I can only carry 30 lt of water ballast.

Today was cold and grey in the morning with a strong wind. People were busying themselves around their gliders, convinced there would be a task, but it looked unlikely to me.

Gridding Time

After a comprehensive weather briefing, we were given the tasks - A and B tasks, both AATs. The sports class was launched after the club class. Being the only self launcher here, I was put away from all the other gliders on the grid, and perilously close to the tow ropes where the tugs were landing. Not only that, I got to launch last :(

Launching Time

Although the clouds look good here, they had
all disappeared by the time I got to launch!

We are using a start line which is 10km long, but of course, everyone crosses it at the same point, being where the best thermal is! Our task was a 2 hour AAT Armstrong 10km, Copeville 20km, Pata 30km and back to Waikerie. There was a strong South Westerly wind which made things a bit difficult. When we launched it was blue, but there were clouds to the west, and they gradually came over the task area, but the lift under them wasn't very good.  The max height above ground that I got was about 4500ft, but got down to 2000 AGL a few times. Waikerie is suprisingly low lying, only 150ft AMSL.

I had a bit of a mix up with the AAT time at the last turnpoint, thinking I was going to come in early, dithered about a bit and ended up coming in 20 min late. Something to improve upon!

The locals here are all used to flying in the blue - they call clouds "umbrellas"!

Looks as if tomorrow will be a similar sort of day. The wind is raging outside, and it's cold! Reminds me of the safari.