Wednesday

Pete had his longest flight here yesterday, over 5 and a half hours. He didn’t quite finish the task, just turning short of the last turn, for a distance of 320km. Pete felt he would have outlanded if he had continued, as it was he only just made it home after spending almost an hour thermalling in 0.3kts to get final glide. The others made the same decision a little earlier.

Conditions were mixed and the pilots talked a lot about changing gears as conditions were very variable. The second turn was a challenge as it was 6709 feet up on the top of a cliff. (maximum heights were around 7000’ for the day). They flew mainly in the blue with a few Cu over the mountains. Best climbs were 5 or so knots but average climbs were closer to 2kts.

I missed a few things yesterday, can we blame it on the temperature? (It was 31C on the ground and I am only rated to 30C).

What I forgot to say is that Alex Wallis arrived from Adelaide on Monday via a flight to Munich, a push bike, a few trains and a handful of buses (but no boat).

He has already figured out the routine and has helped Pete and I rig and derig, helped with the scrutineering, helped fixing Dave’s car’s radiator/overheating problem, etc. He will not be bored whilst he is here.

We successfully got through scrutineering yesterday morning with our 14.99m LS8 (according to the official measurement). Pete needs to register today and then he is ready for the competition. I had planned to register for him yesterday whilst he flew, but he has to fly with all of the documents that are needed for registration, and yesterday he landed after registration had closed.

Someone overheard the Americans complaining that their team cabin was very hot and the air conditioning didn’t seem to be working. The Aussie cabin only has a heater, so Dave went off to investigate - they had turned on the heater thinking it was an A/C unit J

Today is the first official practice day. The forecast is for no thermals and thunderstorms.

Briefing is in 45 mins, we shall see.

I asked about gridding for today to see if each glider would have an allocated position, “no today gridding will be random”. OK would you like us to grid before or after briefing “yes”.