Thursday 10.12.2015 – Longest tasks in JWGC history
After yesterday’s thunders and rains, the weather – actually I would like to say “air” – felt lot more humid than days before. I’ve learned so far that the weather, I mean the flying weather, doesn’t behave the same way we have learnt in Europe. But this morning it felt like it would be possible to get cumulus even at Narromine area, if you have read my stories, you might have heard couple of times how sky here is blue and blue and blue.
In the briefing Adam was holding a big glass jar and told that there was a spider inside. He invited everybody to come and see it after briefing, but I didn’t want to have any nightmares by taking a photo of it. If the jar is still there tomorrow morning, I might be brave enough to take a closer look.
Adam is giving special “prize” at the briefing for doing something…hmmm..I would say stupid or silly. The prize is to wear a pink flying hat all day long. Matt Davis got the hat today as he had been complaining that his variometer isn’t working, they’ve changed other vario on his glider, but it didn’t work either. Somebody figured out that the reason isn’t the vario, but that the probe would be blocked. Reason was the he had blocked the vario air holes with tie-down gear.
Long tasks, very fast day
Tasks were really long, 501km for Club class and 631,46km for Standard class, I heard that it is longest task in JWGC history, as that’s some kilometers more than we had in Räyskälä 2009. We expected pilots to arrive around 17.30-18.30. I had a nap and a swim in Narromine pool while we waited. I have to build my tan, otherwise nobody will believe that I’ve been here. :-D
Surprise was that they all arrived almost at the same time, both classes I mean. Just after five in the evening we heard first “10 nautical miles” announcements on the radio, and after that announcement didn’t stop. Landings were over quite quickly.
I went to have a walk around the tie-down area and asked how the day had been. Radek’s comment was “we flew 145 km/h and we weren’t the fastest”. That seemed to be true, since on results you can see that two Dutch guys flew 158 km/h. If I heard it right, Adam said that that’s 65th fastest average speed on Soaring Spot in general.
Topic of the evening was again the Danish guy Simon, as he was last to finish. I mean there was couple of hours between his landing and the others. We got contact on him, and he said that he is not far away, but he is not that high anymore. Also he said “turn on the runway lights” as it was getting dark already. I left at the airfield around the time when sun was already setting and our safety group was still waiting for him. When I met Ailsa & co. at Courthouse terrace, I saw a glider flying just above the trees. The airfield is close to the town, so I think it was Simon. I met him at the Royal in the evening, and he told that he didn’t actually see the airfield anymore when he landed as it was twilight. Ah, I am talking about his landing, but he landed just before the finish ring, but got a retrieval towing back. Long wait, but as easy for the crew as it can be. Remember the story when Simon hurt his hand? This is that same Simon, and when he came back, we joked that he should have tried to throw the logger to the finish ring as he was again very close to that.
Evening
In the evening we had a dinner at Royal with big bunch of people, all of them Australian team members or organizers. Some of them I haven’t seen before, and the evening was their meeting after a long time, so I left quite early since there wasn’t any conversation which I could participate in. Alex (the Australian team met-man) told that he had found the spider from his hat at their crew camp.
Evening ended at Courthouse common room, Al came to sit with us and we had a drink and a chat together.