Another high pressure blue sky day. Not a great deal to write about today. My head still spinning with the news that Constantine got rescued but has back injury needing surgery which will happen tomorrow. My thoughts were with him today as I flew about. That plus Mer’s wing was torn in too many places to fly again. All the Seattle pilots were feeling a tad down today.
I promised myself today that I would tank up at launch before heading for the Penon. I launched early, 1:15 before the start as per the previous days and got up to around 9800. I headed towards the Penon and just like yesterday had some big sink. I briefly tried to look for some lift before heading back to the launch area. I came in at about 1500 ft below launch and had to scratch again. However, I was lucky to find some lift and managed to get back up to over 9800 again.
The wind was pretty strong I felt and the thermals were punchy when they kicked in. Quite disturbing to see gliders right in front of you taking big frontals. The Ra has been holding up very well in this big air and it for sure gives me a big confidence factor. Peak lift rate I got today was 5.7m/s (1110) ft/min). On quite a few occasions I had to almost full extend the brakes to stop the wing from overflying, What is good though now is that I am starting to fly on auto pilot. My hands and body just react automatically to what is happening with the wing.
I managed to start today officially which was good but I felt really tired. The lack of a full nights sleep since I came here has been taking its toll on me. On the way to the 2nd waypoint I was not getting high enough over the crazy thermal area. Every time I topped out and went to transition I encountered big sink. As it happens John had the exact same issue.
At this point I was tired, my arms were sore and my mind just wasn’t on the task. I decided to throw in the towel for the day and head back to the LZ. John had the same issue at the plateau and also wnet to the valley to land. Mer landed out at the 2nd waypoint but Arun and Gordon did well again as of course did Stefan and frank who both made goal.
Tomorrow is another day so my goal is for 2 waypoints at least tomorrow! :-)
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