Signing off

 Sorry for the delay with this final report, it was a bit of a rush to pack up after the ceremony before heading to Frankfurt.

I’m now in Scotland (Dunkeld), where it is 18C and raining. Pete is still in Frankfurt waitlisted on a flight to Paris as his original flight to Hong Kong was overbooked.

It seems that the Saturday’s task was set based on the weather of the previous day. It turned out to be one of the best days of the comp and they only set a 2 hour AAT, hence the fast speeds J

Still at least it meant that everyone was home early to derig and pack up.

CX who had a flat tyre on the grid, also had a flat tyre on landing. They derigged it in the middle of the strip as gliders landed all around them. They were very fast.

On the final night we had a great light show from a near by thunderstorm, as we drank free beer and wine with Goulash.

Sunday morning we awoke to steady rain. Everyone in the campground will be taking a wet tent home with them.

It has been a difficult comp. for the Australians, particularly on the slow days in conditions that we are not used to. How often in Australia can you score well with an average climb of 1.6kts? 

Pete has also learned a lot about gaggle flying, something he has not done before.

I hope that people at home are not too disappointed. The guys flew really well in difficult and patently dangerous conditions (a PW5 was broken in 2 on the day of the mass outlandings). In the end they were beaten by some really skilled pilots who had a lot of local knowledge. Despite this they still scored well on some days.

For those of you who are blog addicted the Australian Team in Hungary have a blog

http://aussieglidingteam2010.blogspot.com/

And Graham Parker has a blog at

http://wgc2010grahamandmark.blogspot.com/

good luck guys and fly safe


Mandy

Thank Chad

An Ordinary Day?

The sky is full of Cus that are not overdeveloping there are light winds. I think it is still as hot as before but we are getting used to it. The dew point is still 19 so it is still sauna like here.
The guys are reporting 4kts but I haven't heard a cloudbase yet.

I forgot to mention that yesterday Pete spent most of his first tow in heavy rain. This morning at briefing they apologised for outlanding so many pilots and subjected the task setter to a public flogging. This involved a masked man, who looked a lot like a KKK member in a red hood walking in with a drummer and beating away behind him. The torture table was unveiled and he was held down and beaten.

The Poms just announced in their coded way that "it is soggy in the Nether region".
CX had a flat on the grid they pulled him off and changed the tube and launched him at the back of the grid. It looked like a Formula 1 operation, very slick

2 hour AATs set

They have set a 2 hour AAT for all. First take off at noon. Here is a photo of the 'portal' the pilots flew through to get to the first turn, the only gap between the storm cells.

Here's a photo of Ian manning the radio in Aussie base.











Ron Sanders and Brendan English have arrived to help us pack :-)

Well what can I say?

Out of 109 gliders only 7 Standard Class gliders completed the tasks.

With a measured dew point of 20 no thunderstorms were predicted by the weather man and the tasks were set on that basis. The gliders launched into a beautiful light show, with a background rumble of thunder thrown in to add to the experience.

Just before the Standard Class gate opened the chief steward called to the contest director and suggested cancelling the Standard Class task as the first leg was towards a very active thunderstorm. The CD said it looked fine to him, and the gate was opened. Pete turned back from his first sortie after a couple of near misses with bolts of lightning.

Saturday is the last possible contest day but at this stage the weather forecast is mixed. We shall see.

BTW the bus is proving very useful.

Dave and Allan’s car, which has been problematic, from the beginning, finally died last week. This leaves them with a trailer to tow back to Frankfurt and no car. The current plan is to leave here on Sunday immediately after the opening ceremony, with Alex, Dave and Allan on board the bus, and tow UX to Frankfurt airport where we can hand the car over to them to tow UX to Wolfsburg. We’ll be throwing Alex out somewhere along the way to get a train to Munich. I’m off to Scotland for some R and R (Red wine and relatives) whilst Pete is heading home to winter, weeds, and work.

Grid at Martin

If you are awake check out
http://www.gliding.sk/Webcam.html
to see the gliders in a grid waiting for aerotow retrieves from Martin airfield.
Mike just came back from there, via a trailer, he saw 40 on the grid before he left :-)

What a day - updated

Immediately after launching it looked as if we wouldn't have any relights.
However.
Once the Club Class gate opened we had a clatter of Standard Class gliders back on the ground. Not surprisingly they had trouble staying up in heavy rain with thunderstorms all around.
Pete and Allan came back at 3pm and took a relight just before the deadline expired with 2 minutes to spare.
Pete has just restarted at 15.42 so if he does the time he will be home late.
The conditions here seem somewhat better but who knows what it will be like at 6pm.
There are already a number of outlandings and also people back on the field who either cut the task short or could not stay up after 3 launches.
It's a tough day.
JT has outlanded at Martin airfield, Allan has just radioed in that he will be outlanding South of the field.
Toby seems to be blocked from heading North to the last turn.
Pete is still flying but is making big detours to get around the storms.

Update
6pm. Toby has outlanded, and Pete came back to the field as he could not get enough height to clear the ridge on the way to the next turn.
There were no finishers in Club Class and only 7 in Standard Class.
There is a rumour that the Club Class day will be cancelled. You will probably know before I do.