Todays Tracklog
Todays Result - 23rd in Sport class in the Race
Nice flight today for the first day of the competition. Started early and was close to the lead gaggle before the large start cylinder over the Burnt turnpoint. About half the race field (around thirty gliders) seemed to be in the lead gaggle above Burnt, circling around for 30 minutes before the start at what seemed to be the top of lift just under 6000ft.
The leaders took off quickly and many seem to get really low on the difficult Rabies ridge quite quickly, so I held back and made sure I had plenty of height for the first transition. Starting paragliding races is quite a difficult proposition with a lot of . Cross a circular, invisible line in the sky at a certain time, with enough height to get to the next thermal source, with a bunch of other people flying in close proximity. I ended up hitting the start cylinder 7 minutes after the start and was surprised how far away it was.
Conditions were much better than yesterday, with much smoother thermals and less wind as we started about an hour earlier. There were lots of other pilots all along the course line, and some seemed to getting pretty high.
The course went 11km north in an out and back, then went west to Jacksonville, then turned south for another 15km leg to a landing field called Donato. I arrived back at launch after the out and back legs just below the launch height and climbed straight out again up to 6000ft. Then we had to head west, and it quickly started to become very difficult. The wind from the Medford Valley was flowing up from Jacksonville at about 15km/h, and we were flying directly into it.
There were people all over the place making slow progress and losing any height they had starting out from getting high over Woodrat Mountain.
I made several attempts to push forward, then managed to climb out again in a slow thermal, but the wind drift was so great that when you turned back into wind, it cancelled out the forward progress again. Just like yesterday, but wind from a different valley system flowing in a different direction.
Todays Result - 23rd in Sport class in the Race
Nice flight today for the first day of the competition. Started early and was close to the lead gaggle before the large start cylinder over the Burnt turnpoint. About half the race field (around thirty gliders) seemed to be in the lead gaggle above Burnt, circling around for 30 minutes before the start at what seemed to be the top of lift just under 6000ft.
The leaders took off quickly and many seem to get really low on the difficult Rabies ridge quite quickly, so I held back and made sure I had plenty of height for the first transition. Starting paragliding races is quite a difficult proposition with a lot of . Cross a circular, invisible line in the sky at a certain time, with enough height to get to the next thermal source, with a bunch of other people flying in close proximity. I ended up hitting the start cylinder 7 minutes after the start and was surprised how far away it was.
Conditions were much better than yesterday, with much smoother thermals and less wind as we started about an hour earlier. There were lots of other pilots all along the course line, and some seemed to getting pretty high.
The course went 11km north in an out and back, then went west to Jacksonville, then turned south for another 15km leg to a landing field called Donato. I arrived back at launch after the out and back legs just below the launch height and climbed straight out again up to 6000ft. Then we had to head west, and it quickly started to become very difficult. The wind from the Medford Valley was flowing up from Jacksonville at about 15km/h, and we were flying directly into it.
There were people all over the place making slow progress and losing any height they had starting out from getting high over Woodrat Mountain.
I made several attempts to push forward, then managed to climb out again in a slow thermal, but the wind drift was so great that when you turned back into wind, it cancelled out the forward progress again. Just like yesterday, but wind from a different valley system flowing in a different direction.
Landed in a beautiful field of daisys with at least ten other pilots from both Sprint and Race, as both tasks went out in the same direction. The retrieve bus was full!
Landing in a field of flowers
A full retrieve bus full of downed but happy pilots