01 August 2010

Monte Cucco Pre-Worlds Task 1: 104 km around 5 turnpoints


Today the wind dropped down and we went to Cucco North for take off. It was impressive to see 150 competitors and various free flyers set up on the ground, but in the air it was scary... very crowded gaggles almost all the way along the course. The fact that made our flight even harder is the restricted Perugia airspace that cut us down to 1800 m MSL or 6000 ft MSL almost everywhere on course! Luckily there were a few nice clouds around today and the lift was reliable and started quite low. Most of the landscape here are scenic rolling hills, just not exactly ideal for landing, as there are many small powerlines and the wind directions on the ground keep changing.
Looks like Manfred won the day just ahead of Jonny, and there were about 80 in goal. Christian, Hans and Roland were in goal way ahead of me, also Gerd and Uli Eysel did well of the German team. Monique flew really well, just before the last turnpoint she got stuck and didnt quite make it into goal. Yulia and Natalia were in goal ahead of me, I don´t know if Carole made it.
A big thanks to our driver Tim – he is the most dedicated supporter of competition pilots I know, Ive met him in almost every comp I flew over the past few years, and he has been a very competent , friendly and extremely helpful travel companion. I hope we always get to goal this week to make his life easy, but it is a good feeling to know that he is there to rescue us if we get low in the middle of Umbria´s nowhere!

Keine Kommentare: