This great picture is shared by the organizers.
12.00 PM;
There will be a group photo at the grid at 12.15.
For those who are not on FB here is the day yesterday, as seen by Matt, one of the finishing pilots. Those UK pilots really have a fun-way of writing with such a lot of humor and self -mockery. Enjoy!
—” The crazy comp just got crazier. What a strange day! With an approaching front we had some more overset tasks bringing us back into the 30kt headwind. With the Club Class struggling to soar the organisation made the odd decision to give us a C task in exactly the same area as the B task but just 6km shorter. We already had a short window to complete it and this cut our time down by another 15 minutes while we rebriefed.
Anyway, we scrabbled around a bit off tow until the temperature picked up and we climbed up to 7000ft. Suddenly I found myself in a silky smooth climb and realised we were in shear wave. This took us up to 10000ft before the start and meant myself and a couple of Poles could glide out and round the first turn to sprint onto the downwind leg.
From there it was pretty epic with climbs at 10kt+ to 12000ft eventually. We could see the front moving in so we were just racing time, pushing hard so we didn’t have to stop much into the punishing headwind. Coming round the final turn 135km from home I pushed into wind down a big line of energy and climbed to cloudbase 105km out. From there I had a skinny margin and glid home at 75knots!
Annoyingly the Poles found another climb behind me so they came in a bit faster. We’ve just been debating the fact that if we’d slowed down a bit we’d have got loads more points and way more than the other finishes. Annoying scoring system!
Another story to tell from the competition that keeps on giving!
Matt—”
NOT all retrieves were early, I found out during the day.Some only arrived back at 5 in the morning. AND,…are fresh and ready to go for it.
The weather as shared on the site says:
“No impending weather events today! No high winds, no high cloud, no cloud at all! Today is cool, 10-15 knot SSW winds, and dry convection to 6500 to 7500 ft. The weather is better to the north west corner of the task area, but otherwise very same-same.”
12.30 PM. Will they start at 12.30 ????? Will keep you informed! Hear the tuggies start their planes.
And yes for the last time during this JWGC the tuggies are doing their tough but exciting job in the heat and bring all pilots up in the sky. At 12.35 sharp the first tuggies with gliders on tow were on their way.
THE LAST DAY of this competition is a FACT!!!
And what days they had, extremely good weather, good weather and not so good weather, but all in all Narromine has showed it’s quality-weather over 10 glorious days and as we all know the weather is not in the hands of the organizers, so they were lucky as well.
1 PM. Still busy with the launches.
In my earlier blog I wrote that Petri nicely landed close to the gate. Should have told you with it that there was a total fire ban yesterday, so cars and planes were not allowed on the grass. Only from private air strips and aerodromes pilots could be retrieved.
This morning there was no fire ban, so Arnie got 3 pilots in ONE go. Picking one up, dropping him off and a height he can come home, picking up the other one etc.
If you were not close to a gate you had to push the glider to it. For some, a 10 km.out-outlanding, still took a couple of hours due to the pushing or carrying to the trailer and the car.
With borrowed gliders and trailers there were some problems with “fitting gliders in” as well.But no worries ,as far as I heard.
Yesterday was also a day on which gold altitudes and diamonds were flown by several pilots. Among them some Danish pilots.
The start line for St. class opens at 1.31 PM.
The start line for club class opens at 2.04 PM .
1.45 PM.
In between, whilst waiting, more time for stories and pictures.
Robert Smits, originally from Roosendaal in Holland , arrived here from Alice Springs ,a 3 day drive. He borrowed /leased his glider, an LS 4 to the French team [Lucas Delobel] , who won a day in it, so a good glider / pilot combination.
Tomorrow he drives back with this glider for another 3 days drive.
A lot of pilots ,one way or another are involved in this JWGC .I guess there will be many sincerely THANK YOU’S tomorrow. Aussies ,both clubs and private owners have been great to provide the juniors here with a good glider , trailer or car !!
2 Guests for the weekend.Robert and Bruce who finds it weird and a bit ” uncomfortable” to look and not glide himself.
Patrick from team USA who provides me with wonderful pictures and Dundee, my, as he calls himself, personal chauffeur.
2.15 PM; Most gliders are on track and big gaggles have formed, the departure-game has been played or is still played and we here are waiting now.
As you know a bit later you can find the start times , so you can see, who left early ,who left together and who maybe ” plays all or nothing.”
The teams photos are here as shared by Patrick.
and some funny/interesting pictures telling a story
” Right into it” AND
ZR winning the last but one day with Boyd.
This glider belonged to the “Sportavia-period from Bill Riley” and Ingo flew it during the WGC in Waikirie to be beaten on the last day by Helmut Reichman, who flew the task twice and won with the 2d speed the WGC.
The very much sold video “ZR good start” is legendary.
Later it was on line with Don and Jeff and with us.
Grant Heany bought it and flew quite a lot with it, later he sold it to a hang glider mate Attila Bertok. He converted with us from hang glider pilot to glider pilot as well and a very GOOD one too.
He “gave” it to Boyd to fly this competition and I think Adam Woolley organized that.
—
Later more in the last part for the day!!!