Pilots Comments: Wednesday 28/7/04

Contest Day 1

(compiled from Bar Talk while drinking beer)

The day was difficult before the start. It was cycling and not all clouds worked as expected. We got together well before the start. The start was good.

We worked the height band 900-1500m. The average rate of climb was about 1.5-2 m/s.

The first leg was difficult with a high workload and some communications and navigation issues. Team flying started slowly but ended well with less than 30 secs between our two gliders. We needed to go into survival mode on the last leg.

Initially we set off on track following cloud streets. There were big blue holes. We needed to zig zag jumping streets with a big zag around the airspace.

Overdevelopment during the second leg meant we needed to stay in contact with the clouds. On the last leg there were some very nerve racking final glides. But we made it home while some outlanded.

We really enjoyed team flying and it would appear that it has paid off given the scores. Our team is very happy with the scores today.

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