After a nice flight a day before, I was more relaxed and ready to enjoy a new day. It didn't matter much how it would turn out. I now got an idea how mentoring worked for me. I was going to report my position, if it was relevant to the group, and I was going to take route suggestions from the mentor, if we got to that point. Otherwise, I was going to fly my flight, my pace, filtering everything else out.
The task was set to fly to a private airstrip - Leeward Air Ranch. No other waypoints - just a straight line between Quest and the goal.
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| Team One on launch. John Blank is taking off in front of me. |
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| On tow to yummy looking clouds |
We launched, and got the whole team into one thermal. Michael directed us a few times trying to get the whole team to leave at the same time. We switched thermal a couple of times, and eventually, Jeff and I were at the cloudbase.
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| Going up! |
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| Michael is joining the fun |
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| Banking hard into a thermal. Jeff Curtis a few hundred feet higher. |
Jeff reported that he was going on course, and he set on a glide (he was higher than I was). I made a few more circles to maximize my altitude before leaving.
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| At the top. Time to leave. |
As soon as I felt there was nothing else to gain here, I went on course as well. Michael stayed behind to help the rest of the team.
I was about a mile behind Jeff and saw him flying into big sink. I looked at the sky in front of us, it seemed like a good idea to change my glide a bit to get to a different cloud. I lost sight of Jeff after that.
15 minutes later, we all reported our position, and I made a slightly better progress toward the goal. Jeff turned off-course to find a climb and was low. I was pretty low as well... I actually was ready to land. There was a big field across the prisons. I was about 1000' AGL at the end of my glide. I unzipped the harness - started boxing the field, but still making a last ditch effort to find any air that wasn't going down.
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| Low next to prisons/construction area. |
I flew along the road to an intersection (thinking about ease of retrieve), as I finally felt air pushing up. 10' up - gentle circle, 20' up... 30'. After a few circles, broken, weak lift started to get more organized, and I was able to complete a few full circles in lift. I started thinking I could save it. As I approached 2000 MSL, I saw another glider going through my weak thermal but continuing farther over the construction area - hitting some faster raising air in the process. I moved over in the same direction and went up faster as well. Phew! I saved it. Now I had a chance to beat my personal best for distance. Ha! Each day was getting better and better!
Very soon I was approaching cloudbase, but not quite making it all the way to the top. A low save was still fresh in my mind, and I wasn't pressing on. Also, there was a choice to make - huge blue hole if I go straight toward goal; a close line of clouds to the left way off-course but with many LZs; a farther looking line of clouds to the right going over dense housing development with no visible LZs from my vantage point. Decisions, decisions.
Other gliders started to show up in my thermal. Pete (our first day mentor) and his group started circling around me. I thought following Pete to see what decision he makes, but he wasn't going anywhere, just circling around. I figured he was waiting for the rest of his team.
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| Pete |
Then Tom and his flock showed up. This place was getting too crowded, and I also realized I was just wasting time. It was time to leave. I was on my own and I had to make my own damn decision. Be brave, eh?
I went with a lots of LZs and closer clouds option. Tom later told me that one of his mentees was about to follow me, and Tom radioed - "Don't follow that green glider". I wish I was on that frequency! Apparently my decision wasn't optimal.
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| Time to leave |
And so I was pretty much flying alone. Only after 20 minutes or so, another glider caught up with me, apparently making the same decision. This glider rushed through my weak thermal and went on a glide to the turnpike truck stop. When I got there I was plenty high but saw that other glider very low. Oh well, sometimes it is better to wait, I guess.
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| Other glider joining my weak thermal close to turnpike |
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| Going toward truck stop |
After I topped out thermal over the truck stop, my instrument started showing that I might be able to make the goal. I set on a final glide.
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| On a final glide |
I had to stop one more time to recharge for another 300 feet, just to be safe. And I arrived to the goal with 800' to spare. Not optimal, but safe decision.
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| On final glide. Checking my instrument for L/D progress toward goal. |
I finally made a goal! I beat all my personal bests in the process, too! 63.5 km, or 39.5 miles. I actually flew for 78km with all the detours I had to take.
Fast thermals, slow thermals, low save, good decisions, bad decisions - all 3 hours of it. It was awesome! (my course time was 2h35min, but total flight time 3 hours)
I didn't really race, just tried to get to the destination for once. My result for the day wasn't great - 8th. That 90 degrees detour I took, cost me plenty of time. But it didn't matter, I was happy as a clam.
One more note about NOT racing, - when I was just a few km away from the goal, Jeff radioed that he had the goal on glide... My non-existent racing mode immediately switched itself on. I checked my vario and it told me I had a glide with a small margin. I started racing, gliding as fast as I could. Made it to the goal 2 minutes before Jeff :-)
Many people made goal this day, so it didn't improve my competition standings, but I already got what I came for. The icing on the cake was that I completed the flight on my own from start to finish. Michael actually landed out while helping other team members...
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| Tom Lanning posing for a photo in goal |
Day results:
https://airtribune.com/2017-green-swamp-sport-klassic/results/task2279/comp/sport-class
Anyway, I had an awesome flying day. My best flight to date so far! A lot more to learn, a lot more to practice.
Flight stats/tracks:
https://airtribune.com/skymax/tracks__104281
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