Practise day 2

After a quieter day yesterday I was ready for a nice day's flying.

The glider's scratched wing was repaired yesterday and final polishing this morning followed by the contest numbers being stuck onto the wing gave us only a small window to get rigged and onto the grid before grid close at 11:15am.

The weather outlook was for some good conditions with high probability of storms at the 1st turnpoint; the task set at 3 1/2 hours AAT for club class.

The crew came together to get the glider rigged while I attended the pilot's meeting after briefing. Thanks Graham, Narelle, Dave and Alex; great job. I was sat in the glider with all the gear operating with at least 5 minutes to spare.

Today's flight was another mixed bag. I find one of the biggest challenges is the speed at which conditions change with the time of day, weather, terrain and as you move through the task area.

Yet again I got stuck by terrain and turned back into the valley to get a climb. Essentially this resulted in the differences in Allan's and my result. The storms were over the north area, we diverted west into the circle, avoiding lightning but not totally missing the rain. Later coming south past Prievidza the sky opened right out and the climbs weakened off to 2 knots. The poms took a more easterly line here and were rewarded with better climbs. A fairly uneventful 3rd leg followed to the point of turning for home. Some reasonably normal calculations on when to turn were all that was required; we entered the circle with a required last leg speed of 97kph and decided to turn just after the 180kph point. Post flight both Allan and I agreed that the top-up we took to clear the "barrier" terrain wasn't really needed. It did make for a hot final glide which is a great way to finish a long day. I spent just under 5 hours in the air today.

This arvo, Graham and I cleared up all of the remaining jobs to get the glider sorted including the lead weight to get myself closer to the reference weight. a quick trip back across the scales tomorrow and we should be fine.

Leschy's arrived tonight, pretty tired but in good spirits; everyone's here now.

I've posted quite a few photos in the Team Dingo gallery, we intend to keep adding to the collection. I won't be adding any more photos from the air as I've squashed my mobile phone/ camera.