The weather started out looking very similar to yesterday – gray and overcast with high cirrus.They called a small task and an early race start of 12:40pm. The route was from Launch to start at Espina then to Divisa that had a 2km cylinder around it, back to launch, then Espina and then to the lake.
I decided to launch early and see what would happen. Dave Byrne had sent me a note to just enjoy myself and forget the comp and have a fun flight. That was my intent today. So I took off amongst the first few and circled with a few gliders. However, we started gaining height and quickly the small gaggle grew in size as those below on launch followed suit to take off and join us. Not an enormous gaggle by any means but certainly I now know for sure that I have succumbed to the fact that I hate flying in gaggles and thus through inference competitions are not for me. This will be the last for a while until I feel comfortable flying in groups larger than 15 or so gliders.
I left the gaggle at around 8200 and headed to the Penon again with a few other gliders hoping to be able to soar the rock a little and get to the wall and some decent height before the rest of them caught up to me. At the wall it was soarable and I did my merry little dance of 8 again. Basically we were now flying ridge rules. Some people obeyed some didn’t. With the rock on my right Wheelie Bob was coming towards me about 10 feet below me. He wanted me to give way as I heard him on the radio saying lower glider has right of way. Not for 10 ft lower you don’t :-) He wasn’t too amused but I later led him up the wall so he can’t complain!
I headed off from the Penon about 3/4 of the way up and made my way to the wall. I finally figured out how to get up this sucker now. The clouds were still a bit overcast but it did look to be clearing. There was more lift today and I soared up the second spine to the top of the ridge and onto the Mesa. There were only about 15-20 gliders at this point. The rest were seen over launch or scratching the Penon or coming up the wall. It was nice to just have lift and be boating about up there. However, my fun times were short lived. A small gaggle started coming to join me. First there were a few then there were more. I moved out of the thermal I was in and flew out into the valley a little to have a bit more space. More lift and I started to go up. I could see them come to join me. I left again. I think they got the message as they started their own little thermalling circle and I was on my own again.
I was higher than yesterday so decided to see if I could get over to the front wall again of crazy thermal. If all failed I would head back to the Penon and scratch again. There was another 25 minutes before the start of the race. By this time a lot of folks were now on the Mesa and getting higher. In fact as the day went on the weather just got better. However, for me, off I went in my own little route. Folks below must have thought I was mad flying away from lift but I do like to find my own rather than follow some one else’s. Not a good strategy at all for a comp pilot so another reason for me not to be one!
There was one other glider bellow me heading in the same direction obviously with the same thought. He hadn’t managed to get up the wall so I guess as trying some other place. Major sink again as I headed across to the crazy thermal wall. I guessed the wind was splitting at the the rock face and wrapping around and over. It as quite turbulent around there. I could see that this wasn’t going to work so I headed back to the Penon arriving about halfway up . I was surprised by the number of people still scratching at the rock face. I flew a few circuits with them but decided to leave them to their race and I headed out and landed at the Piano.
It was nice down there relaxing in the sun, having a beer and waiting for the pilots to come back from Divisa. And they came back fast. Josh Cohn arrived back over launch 50minutes from the start at Espina and completed the course in 1hr 16min! Good news on the NW front as Mer, Arun, Dave, Frank, Stefan, Chris all made goal. Congrats to them!
Well that’s this years blog folks. I have arranged with my landlord to take me to the airport on Sunday morning. All that is left is to enjoy the rest of my stay. I had intended to fly back on Saturday but there were no flights out of Toluca free. So it looks like some shopping in town tomorrow and the End of Comp party tomorrow night.
Cheers
Iain
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