WE Report, Day 3 PWGC/UvaldeGlide

The weather continues hot–very hot.  I wake-up each morning around day-break and head out to the glider.  I am keeping it assembled since I do not have crew and this allows me to stay out of the heat as much as possible.  At 7am, the temperatures are in the low 80’s.  It takes me about 30 minutes to prepare the glider, ballast up with 36 gallons of water, get weighed and then move the glider to the side of the grid.  Then, back to the hotel for breakfast and spend some time in the room working on SoaringCafe posts and writing my daily report.

The weather forecast for yesterday’s flying suggested that we would have plenty of Cu and for most of the day–it didn’t turn out that way.  We ended up with some Cu and large blue areas.  And, of course, we had a final turn area (TA) way to the north in the hill country (back side of the moon for landing out) and it was completely blue.

The 18-m class was to launch first so the CD, Ken Sorenson and his Tasker/Deputy (Dawg) CD, John Good,  cooked up a long task for us.  We were given a 5 hour minimum Turn Area Task that had a nominal distance of 638 km.  So, with a probably start time of 2pm, we would be flying until 7pm … actually, I landed at 7:05 after a long slog home into an increasing wind gradient.  Our task is shown below.  We left Uvalde and headed southeast to Los Angeles, then southwest to Laredo, back northwest to Catarina, then another zig northeast to Hondo, and finally north into the hill country to West Kerr before we could finally turn and head for home.

Gary Ittner (P7), Al Tyler (8H), Dennis Linnekin (DL) and I all started together at about 1:45.  There were some Cu on the course line but thermals were weaker than the previous day and seemed to be somewhat choppy and broken.  Our progress south was slow and just felt like we were not connecting well.  P7 got away from us and was out in front several miles.  We turned Laredo short heading for Catarina.  DL had gotten a little behind so he cut Laredo even shorter and was back with us by the turn.  You can see from the barogram that we were having lots of climb, dive, climb episodes with little cruising–we were moving slow.

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We pressed on from Catarina towards Hondo biasing our line to the right of course working our way across a long blue hole to get to some clouds.  We had a great climb to 8,500′ and made our turn towards West Kerr from the back of the turn area.  Now, we just needed to stay high and make the transition into the hill country.  You can see the abrupt rise in the terrain above.  There were wisps along the course line and we generally had a down wind leg which should help get our speed back up.

We found P7 as we entered the hills and XG was now with us.  So, five gliders abreast, we head further into the rough terrain of the hill country and now only haze domes to the west as lift markers.  As we approached the center of the turn area, XG and P7 press on faster than us–each in different directions.  DL makes the smart move and turns for home at the turnpoint.  My computer is telling me that we need to go about 15 kms deeper which puts us about 8 minutes overtime.  We had just topped out at 9,000 feet with a 7 knot thermal so we must be cautious about turning to soon.

It never works out that way and I should know better that more 7 knot (or even 5 knot) thermals this late in the day will be rare.  8H and I are staying together and working hard to find good thermals to get home.  It is almost 6pm and blue when we turn and we have 121 km to go.  The wind has increased to just over 15 mph.

A wisp forms to the west of us and we decide to make a 3km 90 degree turn to go for it.  It is a 5 knot thermal but I am concerned we have deviated to far.  We are now lined up nicely with the wind for a run home–we still need about 4,000 feet for final glide.  We press on side by side looking for lift.  Another climb … 4 knots.  Press on.  We find the last thermal, start our climb towards a final glide altitude, set our computers and head for home. 8H calls and asks me the wind.  I had already noticed that it had increased from 15 to 19 mph.  15km further and the wind is now 21 mph.  Looks like some lift is ahead in the area where the hills transition to the flatland.  We bump up and make it home nicely.  I finished 3rd for the day and I am now in 4th place overall.  Bruce Taylor and Brad Edwards (both Aussies) have done well!  Brad is flying the prototype JS1-a that I flew in previous US Nationals.

My stats are below.  Also, it was pointed out to me that my previous stats had the wrong polar and thus was causing some of the stats (e.g. netto stats) to be incorrect.  This has been fixed here.

Day e Stats for WE (click to enlarge)

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