Good news! Overnight due to other pilots receiving penalties (airspace infringement), I managed to pull up another 2 places and therefore I am in 10th place overall and not 12th after all.
Today the Competition Director set a 2 hour 15 minute Assigned Area Task for the Club Class, start Bravo – Karbenning – Sala - Skinnskatteberg – Sura – FTPN – Arboga.
This time at the back of the Club Class, I was launched last and after flying around for an hour or more, had to have a relight. The cloud base was low (2500’), there was spreadout, a trough to the South of us and we were surrounded by low pressure areas; the thought of drifting across the unlandable countryside did not fill me with glee..
Liz and Ayala had already started and I went through the start line shortly after my relight at 14:09 from 2500’…not a lot of height. For this flight, you have to imagine the area of land in the middle of the task area that we had to criss-cross three times, is completely unlandable. Now in the UK, I am OK with gliding across the countryside at 2000’– 2500’, but the forests, clearings and lakes that constitute the central area of this task are totally out of the question for an out-landing. You can therefore fly across it anyway in poor soaring conditions, if you are tired of living, or you can alter your course to take yourself across the river ‘valleys’ where there tend to be some landable areas.
I could hear that Liz and Ayala had diverted to the East to fly over the fields, but I flew North because I was with the Club Class Leader Amelie Audier (France), which took us across the dreaded unlandable area. I stuck with Amelie and two others for the first half of the first leg, sometimes with myself leading to find thermals, and sometimes with Amelie leading. But there came a point when I looked ahead and thought ‘she’s crazy’, that I left the three gliders and turned towards the East, where, if I could no longer stay airborne, I could at least land with relative safety.
I struggled for some time over a massive area of lakes, but eventually slowly climbed away. It was at this point that I noticed Amelie coming into the thermal below me, but she couldn’t connect and I later learned that she landed out somewhere in this area.
Liz and Ayala were now in the same vicinity as myself and I went across to their thermal to join them, but the bubble of lift was above me and I couldn’t connect with them. I pushed into the first area, climbed, then headed South Eastwards towards the second sector at Sala. I had already seen several gliders in fields and here on Sala Airfield, I saw another two. I flew into the area, and then decided to go completely off track, downwind to the North East. At first, I thought that this decision was the wrong one and was cursing myself, but in fact the big black cloud beneath the spreadout did eventually work and I gained my highest climb of the day (3700’). Ahead of me was a dark, black cloud street and I was able to glide on track into wind using the lift beneath it. This enabled me to catch up with Liz and Ayala, although I never saw them. Shortly afterwards, I heard them both land out safely.
I flew as far as I could along the street and at the end of it, all that lay ahead were scrappy bits of broken cumulus. I had already chosen a field to land in when I took a very good climb from 2000’ with a 15 metre class glider. This took me back to 3000’ and I glided out back on track.
Ahead looked grim and for a few minutes, I was very concerned about airspace as a pink sector was showing up on my IPAQ, and I finally had a change of heart. All that lay ahead for miles and miles was forest, lakes and forest clearings.
I flew down track as far as I could, then turned back to my landable field, in which there was now another glider. The field had power wires along the Northern edge, and was surrounded by forest on two sides, but it looked like grass. On the approach, there was heavy sink and as I dived through the sink, then pulled out my airbrakes which drops the trailing edge flaps to give me more float, the pilot of the other glider ran for the road! I rounded out and realised that the grass was very long indeed and I held the wings level for as long as I could, the wheel touched down and I crunched my way through what felt like rocks. The right wing went down with the heavy heads of the grass and I couldn’t prevent a groundloop through 90 degrees to the right. I came to a jolting stop. I was OK, but was the glider OK?
I leapt out of the cockpit. All the bits of the glider were still attached (if you have a groundloop with the tail on the ground, you can sometimes break off the tail at the narrow point on the fuselage, fortunately, I had the experience to raise the tail). The pilot of the other glider (Stefanie Mühl, Germany) came and spoke to me saying ‘I tried to warn you that it was not a good field’. I couldn’t blame her in any way; I had also independently chosen the same field before she landed in it.
I took my GPS position and called Steve and whilst on the phone went round checking the undercarriage, undercarriage doors, tailplane and wing tips…all seemed to be OK. The ground was hard earth – it appears that some kind of critters (I haven’t a clue what they were), had dug up the whole field and the hard crunching noises I heard as I landed were the tops of their burrows. The grass, nettles, thistles etc. that were in the field were as tall as my armpits. At the edge of the field was a ditch, a dirt road another ditch then a bog.
Steve arrived with the trailer and Michael, shortly followed by the German retrieve crew with additional helpers. There was no choice but to remove the tailplane, then take the wings off and leave them in the field and roll the fuselage into the trailer that we’d positioned like a bridge across the ditch. At this point, a local fisherman (Sebastian) arrived and offered us assistance which we gladly took and he was able to help in carrying the wings to the trailer. It was hot and hard work, but we succeeded.
We headed off back to the airfield and arrived back at 20:30 where the rest of the British Team had very kindly laid on a cold supper for everyone (it was very welcome). We quickly ate the food and whilst the others prepared for Babajaga night (the induction process for new female pilots flying in the World Championships) and International Night (whereby some teams prepare typical food and drink from their countries), Steve and I went out to rig the glider again to check that everything was OK. Other than a little play in the tailplane on the fin, and plenty of dirt and grass stains, everything seemed to be OK.A review of the scores for the day showed that I was in 3rd position, Ayala in 6th and Liz in 9th.
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