January 10, 2013 - Day 4

The night before I slept very well and woke up refreshed and ready to fly. The weather forecast for the day (shown below) was quite good, calling for 1/8 of Cu's and lift up to 2300 meters  in the best areas, with the average lift of 2 to 3 m/s in the afternoon.

However, the actual weather was blue thermals of 1 to 1.5 m/s to 1400 meters in the best areas and much worse than that in the wet zones. Luckily, the wind was more or less as forecast, unlike most other days when it turned out to be much stronger.

Luckily, the task setter Eduardo Toselli chose a cautious approach and set an assigned area task (AAT) that you can see below.

Day 4 task for the Club Class

I was the first on takeoff and managed to get a good thermal right after the release. I climbed to 1100 m and then headed into the wind and towards the 1st TP to check the conditions. There was some lift along the way and my glide ratio was quite good, considering the 25 km/h headwind. However, after turning back I encountered heavy sink and, with no other glider circling in the vicinity, I barely made it back to land on the runway 36. When Luis asked what happened, I told him that I made it back as I had promised I would do that day, just a bit early. Since by that time the last of the Club class gliders were being launched, I soon got back after only 10 minutes on the ground.

As usual for this competition, the day brought a lot of gaggle flying in weak bumpy thermals, but this day I felt good and up to the challenge. The other trick was not getting caught low in the wet areas. Other than that, the whole flight for me was  quite uneventful, except right after the start when I got relatively low at 650 m (450 m above ground), but since several others, including the current Club class world champion Arndt Hovestadt, were much lower, it didn't seem that bad.

The lift was between 0.9 m/s when climbing in a gaggle and 1.5 m/s when alone or in a small group. Therefore the key was to join the big gaggle only when necessary. The other trick was to go a little deeper into the cylinders and then rejoin the gaggle from below where it's less crowded. My flight trace is below.

My flight track from Day 4

What also made a difference was the improved cockpit (and pilot) cooling system that I installed into Kilo-Yankee, with water cooling for cruise (a water spray bottle) and air cooling during climb (a flexible tube to redirect the air from the scoop).

At the end, my effort earned me the second daily win, which this time didn't come as a surprise because I knew that I had done quite well given the conditions.

The one scary  moment came when I realized that my Nano primary logger hadn't recorded the whole flight because the memory card popped out (an old problem that I thought I had fixed). Luckily, my secondary logger had the whole flight recorded.

In the evening the organizers threw an international party with most of the teams preparing some food or beverage offerings. The Brazilians prepared large amounts of kyperinia (the spelling is probably wrong), which is a mix of vodka (or kashasa for the real kyperinia), lime, sugar and crushed ice. It goes down easy, but you have to be careful with it, so I had just one serving. The well financed and well organized Polish team prepared a poster presentation and showed a very interesting documentary film from the 1963 World Gliding Championship held in Junin, Argentina.

Next day at the briefing I got another yellow jersey and a bottle of wine and this time a kilo of local cheese, which of course, I donated to the Brazilian team.

Below are a few photos from Day 4:

Waiting on the grid for take-off

Circling in another gaggle. My newly installed air cooling snorkel is reflected off the canopy.

Back at the airfield after completing the task

Kilo-Yankee cockpit with the air cooling snorkel

International party night