Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Canungra classic 08

Day 1 85 kms task with only 4 pilots making goal and a scattered field throughout the course making for a nearly fully valid day. Scott Barrett took the honours of winning with Glen, Missy and Bruce not far behind. Enda did well landing 3kms short and Joel flying a sonic managed to fly about 50kms landing with Attila. Day 2 Today was going to be hard good skies but hard to get everyone off the hill unless we started much earlier like 9am which would have been soarable. Anyway only 9 pilots got off the hill before the see breeze moved in and shut launch conditions down and the day was cancelled.. day 3 well today I was finally able to fly and we went to Flyingfox despite many bidding for driving 3 hrs to Killarney for a fly. A 75kms dogleg task was set and a good day was had by many. Over 20 in goal with I believe Attila wininig the day doing the 2nd start. I started 1 hr before the 1st start as I was in 50th place from not flying the first day I was not locked into doing any starts. I was out alone on the first leg before getting low and taking some slow climbs nothing stronger than 200-300 fpm. Big Jon and Neil Peterson caught up to me after starting nearly 15 mins later we flew then together untill the turnpoint. I made a long glide into a place that most pilots would not to venture and was rewarded with the first strong climb of the day to 6,000ft. Big jon and Neil did not follow me on this glide and left them both behind and charged off to goal alone. I was first in with Big jon arriving 20 mins later and neil landed. It was a long wait nearly 1 hr which was the time I left before the 1st start. Then I could see Scott and Curt racing for the line. Scott was higher and in front but after the short 6kms final Curt crossed the line about 500 feet higher and a few seconds in front it was amazing to see from the ground just how big the glide difference was at high speed still. It just goes to show you how well Scott is flying getting these results with this performance. Curt should be 2nd Scott 3rd and Me 4th about 1 minute behind them so I did well considering I was alone and early. Stayed tuned for todays video of the task. I left my camera at HQ so was unable to edit the vid last night.