Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Davis 365 Miles Later

Today was looking like great conditions for an early start as the wind was more south. We all raced out to the airport around 8:30 am and got prepared for what could be the day, however there was still high cloud around like yesterday. Davis launched first around 9:35am then I took off at about 9:45am. The first part of the flight here is amazing very low and slow but also very buoyant under the streets. I glided 10 miles before reaching cloudbase which was only 1,600 ft agl, It is amazing for some reason you always feel low especially when the landings are not so good and the retrieve even worse. The only good side to that is that there is a lot of encouragement not to land and just stay in the air all day. I was making good time today and was actually catching Davis who started 8 miles in front of me and was now only 2 miles ahead. I spotted him for the first time 30 miles out and made the mistake of trying to catch him. I ended up low at the wrong time and tried for a very low save but due to the lack of landings I gave up as I would have needed to comit once again to the trees but this time the thermal was just not good enough to be comitted... So I landed 42 miles out at 11am flying for just over 1 hour. Davis struggled in light lift between 1-400 up untill reaching the 100mile mark. This sounded just like the conditions I flew in yesterday. It was not looking like a record day by any means but he knew that this would be our last chance so he was going to go as far as he could. I have not talked to davis yet but sounds like he survived the hill country around the 200 mile mark and got back into some blue sky with a convergence line. He increased his speed considerably and was able to fly another quick 100 miles before getting shut down again by more cirrus. He landed early around 7 pm in full overdevoloped sky 365 miles out or( nearly 600kms). I would have to congratulate Davis as this was a awesome flight considering the days conditions. Nice one mate!!!!!