Sweden - Friday 10 2011

After completing the 1279 miles that it took to reach Arboga, I certainly slept well last night; even going to bed at 22:00 still in what seemed like broad daylight, had no effect on keeping me awake, I was shattered.

I awoke at 06:00 in an already hot tent and managed to hang on another hour before getting up. 

We ate breakfast and then decided to rig the Mosquito and get everything ready even though I wouldn’t be flying it today because I was booked to fly with Brian Spreckley  (previous World Champion).

We got the Duo ready and put it on the grid; by now, it was a 10kt crosswind tailwind, which Brian was certainly rather nervous about.  The other gliders in front of us on the grid managed a successful launch and so we decided to launch, but shortly afterwards, the grid had to change runway ends to be able to launch into wind as it was becoming too difficult.

Brian did the launch and I decided to let him do all the flying so I could look out and try to orientate myself with the map, which wasn’t easy at first.  The landscape around Arboga is OK with several landable fields, but as soon as we head North West there was a clear difference with fewer fields and many more lakes and forest areas.  We continued for 100km up North towards the airfield Ludvika, and this was definitely unlandable country with virtually all forest and lakes.  We turned Eastwards towards Fagersta to avoid airspace and to stay with the good weather, then Southwards towards Skinnskatteberg and then onto KÖping.   It was a really fantastic flight with 8 knot thermals and a cloud base of 6000 – 7000ft.  It gave me a great opportunity to digest the type of terrain and typical weather conditions, although I later learnt that these were rather good conditions and it’s not always like that!

We parked up the glider at Arboga and had a cup of tea (what else, we’re British!) with the rest of the British Team and chatted about the day.

Later we had to take the rigged Mosquito to the ‘Scrutineering’ tent in its flying mode with all equipment stowed, where the glider itself was weighed, checked for safety, inspected to ensure that there were no ‘blind flying instruments in the cockpit, I was weighed, and then the glider was weighed a second time with all the car tow-out kit assembled on it.  All of this is to ensure that the gliders are not flown overweight, which would be cheating.  There will be various checks throughout the competition to ensure that the pilots adhere to the strict rules.

Tomorrow is the start of the practise flying days – we’ll have to wait and see what the weather brings, as the internet is down and we cannot check the weather online.