Welcome

This is the blog for the USA Soaring Teams. Check here for the latest on-site contest reports from the team members.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Day 3 and Crew Day

Yesterday, the guys had another good flight of 300+ km with many of the speeds in the 100+km/hr range. Yesterday the competition had a lot of warnings (13 in all) for dangerously low finishes over the lake. Today everyone was much more disciplined and finished much higher. The US pilots have both shown very professional flying. Over the radio, we can hear good team work, and a lot of flying together as the score sheet shows.

Devin is flying a Discus, which has a higher handicap than Corey's LS-4. This makes it hard to come in close together each day in points. However both of them have worked together to show nearly the highest speed overall in the class on the first and third competition days. The second day they had a slow leg, but still came home very close together.

Today we awoke to overcast skies, and the radar in the briefing hall showed some rain moving into the area. It was welcomed by many pilots and crew after six spectacular soaring days as everyone needed a bit of rest. The competition committee however had different plans for us. The morning meetings were delayed, gliders were put on the grid, and after much consideration a 1000€ triangle task was announced for the ladies. Yep that's right... hold on to your pocket books... Rest day it was. Our Finnish friend Petra Sundström, who has been very helpful in Finnish translation, and where to find necessities like gas/groceries/misc, led everyone on a shopping tour of Helsinki and accompanied us for a nice lunch downtown. Fortunately we "landed out" and came in no where near 1000 euros.

Looks like more good weather tomorrow, the high pressure system that has been influencing the competition area is moving back towards us and should provide booming soaring weather again. Rumor is 400+km task.

Make sure to check out Hubi Huvermann's videos and pictures from other photographers for a good representation of what has been happening here in Rayskala:

http://www.jwgc2009.fi/pictures.php

Please also check Ritz de Luy's blog on the official website; she has frequent updates on the site about contest happenings.

Links to her blog can be found at the main page of the JWGC site and her archives below Hubi's video links:

http://www.jwgc2009.fi/

No comments:

Post a Comment