Sunday, January 18, 2009

Bogong Cup Task 1

After 3 days of not flying everyone was keen to take to the skies. Today was looking better with lighter winds than the previous 3 days. It was just the matter of finding the right launch so that we could get a round in. After sometime we decided on going up to Mystic despite the South winds and hope that t he valley winds from the north would get us all off the hill. The task comittee Ollie,Lukas and I decided on a 121km zig zag task ending up in Mt Beauty. I was in my harness early as there was no ordered launch and was 2nd to take off behind Ollie. We climbed out and I headed over to Mt Porepunkah with Lukas and soon later Davis came over in the litesport. It was just the 3 of us over there and we had a great start at 2pm and in no time we were well in front of the others. Most of them turned back and did the 2nd start realizing that might be the smarter move. After the 1st turnpoint we were faced with some airspace and I managed to fly low just on the outside of the airpsace while Davis who made the penalty went into airspace and climbed out. I figured that cause we were so far in front we he wanted to penalize himself. After the next thermal I decided that I would hang back and let Lukas and Davis glide off as I wanted to go a different direction and have them follow me all day. It worked I headed off 45 degrees to the right back on course line and was rewarded with a 5 m climb while the others struggled in the Kiewa valley low. I did the 2nd turnpoint at Coral bank and headed onto Mt Tawonga to climb again. I raced off down the ridge finding some good lift and did a 10 km glide out into the valley for the last turnpoint. I dove back into the small hills and had to take a light climb so I could get enough height to make the glide back to the main range where the good thermals were. I did that and hit another 4m climb when I topped out Gerolf and the crew came in so I was 20kms in front of them so I knew I was going to do well as long as I did not blow it in the last 30kms. I raced off down the ridge and kept gliding to Coral bank where I found the srongest thermal of the day 5-6m and climbed until I had final glide for goal. I raced off and came into goal at 110kph 1 m off the goal line before turning around back into the wind and landing. Michi will be the next pilot in 25 mins after me then Curt one of my team memebers came in 3rd 32mins later. Davis was doing really again on the litesport but unfortunately was in airspace for to long and scored zero for the day.Hmmmmm. Many pilots made goal so it was a great task for the 1st day. For the full results CLICK HERE. Here is a video of me crossing the goal line.