12 Juli 2009

Ager Day 2: 132 km

Today we flew another task, a long 132 dogleg flight around 3 turnpoints. The weather prediction sounded wonderful, base at 2700 m at 2 pm, but when we were in the air it was worse than yesterday, climbs only up to 2000m. Primoz, Tim, Monique and I waited for a long time and only started at 3.15 pm, Monique even later! Not so promising to start that late and know it is not yet a fast day...
Big difficulty in the beginning: a crossing with no places to land for some time. Soon the climbs were getting better, but also the westerly wind picked up, so we had a big headwind on the way to the 2nd turnpoint. Primoz and Tim voted for direct way, but I was too scared of the tiger country on their route, so I went back towards take off. A big cloud was developing there that took me up to 2700 m! Finally the promised height was there, and I needed it, because the gorges and mountains under me looked like Mars.
After a while, I caught up with a few guys and flew quite some time with Jonny - maybe he even filmed? I have to ask him, would be nice for Red Bull.
The final glide was against headwind again, and late, so it wasnt just the air temperature down low (35 degrees) that made me sweat. I reached goal and there were about 15 people in. I think I was first German, Primoz arrived just a bit later, and Tim didnt quite make it. Monique landed at Tremp before the 2nd tp, I dont know where all the others of Team D ended up. Jonas landed only a few km´s short of goal!
5 hours of flying, and 3h29 mins for the task, Im tired but wearing a big smile!
Young Spanish pilot Blay Olmos was in goal first ahead with a lot of time, so he might have won the day. Gerolf wasnt in goal, so Carl Wallbank might have moved into first place overall now.
Kathleen was very early in goal today, probably 4th, so she was the first British pilot who made it in, also first woman! I was very happy to see her performing that well, it is really encouraging for the girls in our sport. Congrats to her! Her husband Gordon is also an excellent pilot who finished 5th in the World Championships last week, at the moment he is at home with their son Tyler - as they are the highest profile flying couple in the scene at the moment, I can´t wait to see 6 year old Tyler starting to hangglide ;)

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