Route (click to enlarge)

Day 1 is in the bag and I finished 3rd at 80 mph.  Our task took us southwest and then north into the hill country to Junction.  The weather was softer than the previous two days and was mostly blue.  We struggled to get a reasonable start and then struggled more on the first leg.  I was flying with my teammate, Gary Ittner (P7), and we had Al Tyler (8H) with us too.  By the second turn, Jerzy Szemplinski (XG) was running with us too.

Turning north and heading into the hill country proved to be an interesting transition.  As Ron Tabery said today in the pilot’s meeting, “It is interesting to have your plane losing altitude on the glide and have the ground rising up to meet you — the ground gets closer to you must faster than normal!”  Our group of four gliders made it much easier–and certainly more comforting–to find good thermals in the blue.

The barogram below shows the rising terrain.  You can also see that I had a low point of close to 1000 feet AGL.

Click to Enlarge

The climb rates and top of lift improved as we continued north to Junction. We converged on many of the 15-m Class just short of the Junction turnpoint and found we had lot’s of company. Topping out around 9000′ just before Junction allowed us to make the turn with confidence and head for home.  Two more thermals and I was on final glide just behind Jerzy.  Below are the links to the Results and my task stats are below that.

Competition Website • Tasks & Results

Day 1 Stats for WE (click to enlarge)