Day 5

Thursday, July 17
The night before I came back to Novi Sad to see my cousin Petar, his wife Maja and daughter Dora. We chatted till about 11 PM and I went to bed a bit later than usual. In the morning, the 6 AM coffee at Bojan and Sasa's balcony was served as usual, and I used the time to check the weather charts on my laptop.
Before I was done, Katarina came by to give me a hug before heading off to Nena's Skoligrica school. She had on a very cool pair of sunglasses.

I arrived at the Ecka airport around 8:30 AM and immediately got to work analyzing the weather charts. The day looked like it was going to be a good one, with Cu's starting to appear at 11 AM. Mita gave us a 3 hour assigned area speed task with five turn points and the length between 250 and 450 km.

Take-off started at noon and we all crossed the start line soon after it opened. I started at 1:04 PM, about 40 minutes early according to my calculations, but since mostly everyone had already left, I decided to follow the crowd and practice some gaggle thermalling that will come in handy at the World's in Germany. Jagica (ZR) started right after me and was following me closely in his DG-300.

The first TP was Cantavir and we had no problems getting there, with the average lift of 2 m/s. I was carrying 80 liters of water ballast and decided to keep it. weather throughout

After Cantavir, I met with Fica (77) and Ziva (EJ) and with we went together towards Bac. The weather continued to be good and we had no problems rounding Bac and Senta after that. Just above Senta I found a good thermal and managed to climb up to 1900 meters.

The next TP was Srbobran and I selected a Easterly route, following the Tisa river. Ten minutes later, I realized that this was a bit of a mistake, since just a few kilometers to the right a nice cloud street formed. I decided to stay the course and made the Srbobran TP after climbing in a not-too-good thermal above it with EJ to 1400 m.

Towards Basaid, the last TP, there was a big blue hole, too big to go around. I set off into it from 1400 meters, flying relatively slow in order to make it to the other side at a sufficient altitude to find something. Approaching Becej, I saw a wisp of Cu forming above the town and turned 30 degrees off course to get under it. There, I found a rough 1.3 m/s thermal, which I used to get back to 1300 meters. EJ, ZR and 77 joined in.

I found the last thermal of the day inside the Basaid TP cylinder and climbed back up to 1400 meters, which gave me a comfortable 100 meter reserve for the final glide to the Ecka airfield. I completed the task in 3 hours and 6 minutes, with the average speed of 88 km/h for a daily win and 1000 points. Filko (77) was a close seconds with 995 points. With this, I increased my overall lead from 70 to 75 points. See http://www.soaringspot.com/odjpsz2008/results/standard/daily/day5.html After landing, there were some important local visitors...

When Pap's 2 month old baby started crying, we realized that none of her parents were around, but Mita did a good job soothing her. Who says that the judges are all evil?
Later on, Brane brought a water melon, which turned to be an instant success.

The forecast for tomorrow looks pretty bad, with a new cold front moving in from the West. If it unfolds as forecast, there will be no flying tomorrow, so today will be the last competition day.