Days 3 and 4

Swiss aerobatics team (there were five more of them)

Two difficult mostly blue days. I came in fifth every day, good enough to make the finals.

Landed out in a beautiful grass strip yesterday. I missed get high enough on the mountains and thought it would work to bubble along on weak climbs to about 3000 MSL but fell out. Luckily most of the other pilots landed out as well.

Today was all blue with clouds at about 3500 meters leaking over from the Alps - tantalizing but unreachable. The lift was very broken with lots of false tries. A few thermals finally worked well after beating them to death for several minutes. Came in just below the group near the second to last turn and could not connect, the rocks were in the way again. I ended up very low and had to grovel my way to the last turn. Made a second finish again after going through the gate low (500 second penalty) and getting a good climb. Tomorrow I will try to do the climbing before the finish gate.