Following Peter's advice from the day before "I decided" (I wish...) to get my inevitable outlanding for this competition over and done with. The day started off very nicely with a 2.5m/s climb after the tow up to 1500m. Then I just hung around waiting for Peter, who had another problem with his LS8 and couldn't launch for a few more hours. So after close to an hour of hanging around I finally got going. The met man's advice was that it'll be good over the ridges and being a good boy I did what I was told and followed the ridges north towards our first turn point north of Zilina.
The air was very rough with patches of very strong sink and areas of rising air without any useful cores. As the trees started coming up to me I had to deviate east into the Martin valley. There I managed to find a good climb back to 1600m. Felt really good then and the task was on again. Back over the hills again on track the air became very rough and it was difficult to keep in any thermal. I hit one rotor in a narrow valley but couldn't climb in it. Eventually I found myself some 40km out from Prievidza in a picturesque valley with many outlanding options and very little lift. Enough lift though to have the time to select a few nice looking outlanding paddocks.
I found one better thermal to give me the chance to venture over the next row of hills but there was only sink there and the outlanding options didn't look as nice. So I decided to dump the water ballst and return to the freshly cut meadows that I had identified as being pretty safe. There was a bit of an uphill slope and two tractors to circumnavigate but otherwise everything went well. The very short ground run was rough as I rolled over a few heaps of hay up the hill.
Whilst it was all pretty straight forward for me the big challenge started for Andrew. He has never driven himself on a retrieve in a foreign country. Whilst he practised on parts of the way to Prievidza with me sitting next to him now he was on his own. Well, not quite. He had Jessica. I'll write more about Jessica in another blog but suffice to say that she directed him somehow to the bus stop where I was waiting for him. It took the pair a bit longer than I expected though and I wonder what they were up to.
While I was looking out for Andrew and Jessica I also had to keep an eye on a few on-lookers who's Sunday afternoon just got a bit more exciting with a glider having landed in a meadow near their village. And there was also a Storch looking for frogs and later showing me a nice thermal. Often do I wonder why those thermals seem to be always working after you have landed out.
Once Andrew and Jess had arrived I took over the wheel and drove us to the glider. The de-rig went smoothly without any hickups. Getting the car and the loaden trailer back up the hill was a bit more tricky. Anyway, we managed and arrived back at the airfield about an hour later. In time to hear that the Germans had just beaten the Poms 4:1 in soccer. The Dynamics were dancing on the apron and dinner with a nice cold Topvar beer tasted as great as ever.
Let's hope this was my compulsory outlanding for this comp and that from here on in Andrew doesn't need to drive Jessica around anymore.
Cheers
Tobi #
No comments:
Post a Comment