It is so much colder today. It rained virtually all night and it was still raining when we got out of bed this morning.
Briefing was held at 10:00 and a 135km racing task (Lindesberg – Koping – Hed – Arboga) was set in not particularly good soaring conditions. Liz, Ayala and I all rigged and put the gliders on the grid. When it came to the launch time of 14:00, Liz and Ayala decided to pull to the back of the grid and I decided to go – I needed the local soaring practice if nothing else.
As soon as I came off the aerotow, my trimmer mechanism collapsed; I could still fly the Mosquito, but I would be unable to trim throughout the flight.
Conditions were tricky – the thermals were very broken due to wind shear and I soon found myself back down to 1500 feet off the end of the Arboga runway. I eventually climbed up to the 3000ft cloud base in a 4.5kt thermal and decided to head towards the West side of Arboga town. In doing this I went through the Start Zone and my instruments immediately said that I’d started the task and gave me heading to the next turning point. I didn’t want this – I wasn’t ready to start. I fiddled with the LX7007F trying to get it to re-start and eventually managed to find the right sequence, but as soon as I went into the start zone, it clicked over to the first turning point again. Conditions were hard enough as it was – clearly some kind of setting had been mis-set as we’d had to change the length of the start line from 6km to 10km in the morning. I left it as it was and decided to go on track.
Occasionally I was with other pilots, but mostly I found myself on my own trying to stay airborne in an increasing NW wind. Once I recovered from a low of 1300ft and again at 1500ft. Climbs were only taking me to 3000ft maximum and the terrain was becoming increasingly forested. Suddenly I had a 4 – 5 knot climb which took me to 3500ft and I glided into wind in zero sink – this helped me near the turning point at Lindesberg. But the sky was quite different ahead now and although I tried several clouds, none appeared to have lift beneath them. I chose a field alongside a road – a cut hay field, and then decided to try for a climb at a developing cloud into wind, knowing that I could turn downwind and still get into the field if required. The cloud worked in parts, but I couldn’t get a sufficient climb so decided to go to the next could ahead. This time I ‘burnt my boats’; the cloud didn’t work and I couldn’t reach the field downwind.
I scoured the landscape for a suitable field – there was very little indeed. I could make out a medium-green type of field, of which there were several, and I could see there was what appeared to be crop, but I couldn’t be sure if it were Oil Seed Rape, which I certainly did not want to land in. I chose a copped field where there was plenty of soil showing through, but it wasn’t into wind and it was surround by tall fir trees on two sides. Considering the possibility of curl-over form the trees, I put on sufficient speed to counteract any problems pulled out the airbrakes and landed, rolling a bit too rapidly towards the far fence line and trees. I stopped rather conveniently alongside the gap in the fence by the road.
I downloaded my logger traces and walked a short distance to a barn where I hoped to find a farmer. Sure enough, there he was raking up hay in the barn where his sheep were still lambing. I was worried as to what to say because I was sure (from previous experiences in the Czech Republic) that he wouldn’t speak good English if any. I introduced myself and the farmer was fantastic. He explained in excellent English how his eldest son had learned to glide at Arboga and that it wasn’t a problem at all that I’d landed in his field. He gave me directions, requested that we didn’t drive onto the field and I wandered off to the junction at the main road to wait for Steve and Michael with the trailer.
We quickly de-rigged to ensure that the next trailer could get into the field OK, thanked the farmer and his family profusely and left back for Arboga.
Back on site we had the trimmer mechanism to fix, the LX7007F to re-set (it had been put onto an auto mode for the Start line) and the time to change (for some reason it was 2 hours out). Then when we checked the logger trace we had a problem with that – it never ends. As we were downloading the second logger, Brian Spreckley told us to drop everything and come and join them at the ‘Czech and German’ party in the briefing room. We should have really downloaded the trace, but joined in with the food and beer (potatoes and sausage – what else!).
I then discovered that my engagement ring had broken…too many wedded years…
Fran said that she had seen the results and that I was first in the Club Class. Sure enough when I checked on line, that’s what it said. Somehow, I think that once they’ve reviewed my trace and seen that I’m in the same field as the other 3 (also club class), I think my scoring distance will reduced as I have the higher handicapped glider. We’ll see in the morning…but it’s very nice to be first for a while anyway!
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