The day started in Novi Sad with the 6 AM coffee at Bojan ans Sasa's balcony. The cold front seemed to has passed over night and there was some lingering medium and high cloud cover above Vojvodina. However, the Internet weather charts indicated that the day may be flyable, so I phoned Mita (the chief judge) around 7 and told him I was coming to Ecka. A quick breakfast at Olga and Vlada's and off I went.
By the 10 AM briefing, the Cu's were already popping up all over the sky and the mid level clouds were still covering about half of the sky. Based on this situation, Mita called a 3 hour pilot selected distance task, so that we could pick the order of turn points based on the local weather condition. The idea would be to stay out of the overcast sections.
The take-off went as planned at Noon and by 1 PM we had all crossed the start line and set a course towards Novi Becej. The first 25 km of the first leg went very fast, cruising at 160 km/h under a cloud street leading to the first TP. However, as all good things must come to an end, so did the cloud street and a bunch of us found ourselves circling in a weak broken lift just south of Novi Becej.
After rounding the first TP, I selected to go Southwest towards Zabalj, together with BB and JB. The thermals got a little stronger closer to Zabalj and after rounding the second TP, I decided to turn due West and head upwind towards Crvenka under a bunch of well formed CuCong's. This proved to be a mistake, as soon I found myself low, at some 600 meters AGL and under a completely overcast skies, with the Cu's falling apart. Looking West the sky was even darker and, realizing that I lost at about 25 minutes, I made a U-turn and headed back towards Zabalj. There I had to circle in a couple of weak thermals just to stay up.
Finally, I made it back to 1300 meters and headed Northeast towards Basaid. Close to Becej I met again with ZR (Jagica), who was heading in the opposite direction. From this point on, the things started going my way, and the weather improved as I went along. I rounded Basaid and set off North towards Senta under some nice looking Cu's and blue skies above them. That proved to be a good decision, as I easily made it to Senta and then turned downwind on a final glide back to Ecka. I landed back at the airport just as the 3 hour limit was expiring.
Given my 25 minute blunder, I was quite happy to find out that I was second for the day, behind Filko (77), who won the day and was closing in on me in the overall standings. http://www.soaringspot.com/odjpsz2008/results/standard/daily/day4.html
Everyone made it back to the airport, although Rica (03) had a hard time and almost landed out, making 3 low saves. One of the best story tellers was Dr. Aca - a movie clip testifying to that is attached.
No comments:
Post a Comment