Thursday, July 22, 2010

2010 Europeans, task 8, racing day

Yesterday was a risky day for overdevelopment, so the task committee decided on a short 77 km task. Launch conditions looked difficult at first with a 22 km/h east wind in the valley, blowing along the ridge.
I took an early start and headed against the wind to approach the start circle from the east. I worked on that for half an hour, until the thermal seemed to die there and I drifted back towards launch. 5 Minutes before the first start gate, I got high again with the guys who just started at that moment...
But OK, I wasn't in a bad position to start and had a really nice, fast flight. In an easy thermal I didn't release the VG because I really want to optimize my climb. I pushed out a little and thermalled like that. Suddenly, I did it a bit too much and the glider got into a spin. I lost 100 meters in a matter of seconds and it was only after releasing the VG that I dared pulling it out of the spin. There was much more force involved in the spin than I expected it would have. I will never thermal the Combat with full VG again, not even in the smoothest thermals!
I loved racing the clouds and was in goal in 22nd position, which is my result in the task too. I got 792 points for the task, a new personal best which took me to 34th overall. First pilot of the Benelux. Absolutely way past my personal expectations or ambitions. I hope I can continu the learning curve. I love this sport!
Have a look at the videos on the Ager 2010 blog. The sound of gliders diving into goal at high speed is so cool :-) Yesterday I flew into goal with a top speed of 113 km/h. Against the wind that is. It's always big fun to aim for that white goal line!

1 comment:

  1. Well done Jochen!!! Your future as a comp pilote is promising. I hope we can share more the airspace in the future and who knows start flying together in the comps (flex for me?)

    bests,
    Mario

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