Day 6: A poor forecast with lots of high cloud meant a short task- 250 km speed task and guess what, high cloud gone and cu's popping all over the sky. The task will be underset and I think the times will be about 2 hours.

Perhaps a good thing, Jenny has flown 32 hours in 5 days and fatigue is going to be an issue with no change to the weather in sight and the high temperatures continuing.

Back home again

Well it was a stonker of a day - I'm really missing the full water in the glider but having a ball and learning heaps from some very excellent pilots. Th 5hr AAT was a challenge - the last turnpoint was 145 kms from home. Despite the results so far, I'm really happy with how things are going and the experience is amazing. The captain and crew are brilliant and keeping me laughing.

Jenny

Day 5: another hot day, forecast is for very good conditions though very hazy. The task is a suprise: a AAT with 4 turning points and a 5 hour time period.

Launches is completed by midday and the sky is filling with cu's.

Jenny starts at 1pm and the spots we have received indicate averaging about 125 kph so far.

We have become friendly with the Danish team and they monitor the german frequencies (as they speak german) and the germans are averaging about 130kph at the half way stage.

The picture is of Jennys out landing on the 2nd day, could be any paddock in Australia.

Jeremy

A Few Pics

Ziggy's new girl friend The Poms got us back after they found Aussie flags on their Gliders

Lunch with Japanese team

The Team at the first briefing

Day 4

The weather was much better today - an AAT. We finally got some nice cu's and a good task. I started just after the gate opened, and had a good run, but was cursing only being 1/2 full of water - just not competitive on a good day - we are hoping for a rest day so we can pull the bags out to solve the prolem. The Germans, Czechs and French are so organised and today their met people looked at the cloud and blue holes on track, so called their teams back for a second start when the cloud base was lifting. It really is hard competing against such an organisation.

day 3 debrief

Well the good news is I got back and it appears the crew was so busy lunching and socialising they didn't get time to update the blog.

312km racing task today. We are under the influence of a high and southerly winds and blue - all very bad. I counted around 50 gliders in 2 contra-rotating thermals at the start. My mistake again today was not going out with the gaggles, despite telling myself to. Suffice to say i had a pretty awful day in crappy lift on my own and suffered the consequences. Had a wonderful view of the Danube at the last turnpoint and took a thermal over an industrial town that spewed smoke into the air. I was nearly nauseous from the smell, but I needed the thermal. Environmental controls have not yet made it to Hungary - the whole town was covered in a brown dust from the smoke stacks.

The Germans and French are team flying and are so professional. Many pilots are full time glider pilots.

Jenny

Day 2 debrief

Like all good gliding contests, the task was set on the day before's weather. We resolved the GPS problems (almost) and still can't get enough water in the glider. I got a good start and caught up the 15m gaggle in the first 30kms. The gaggles are far more fierce than in Australia and I had the worst near miss of my life, a very aggressive German coming within a metre of me. Despite being light, I kept up with the gaggle (the 27 goes very well), but being naiive, decided to leave the gaggle as I was on top. Big mistake. Very soon the conditions were dying and we still had 270kms to go, and the last turnpoint was just over the Danube - by reputation a very dead area. I thought I'd lost pace with the main gaggle and conditions were awful, but was surprised to see them all just come out of the last turnpoint as I was going. Unfortunately the day was so dead, I was about 1 thermal too late and outlanded around 50km from home. Thank heavens for SPOT and a new car GPS. Jeremy and Ziggy had to drive through paddock after paddock to get to me, arriving just on dark - there are no roads to speak of and no-one speaks English to ask directions.

Learning heaps and having lots of fun

Jenny

day 2 continued

Day 2 continued: Jenny has just started on a 500km speed task, the consensus is the task is set on yesterdays weather which everyone told us was an "australian day" plenty of cu and good thermals. Today is more blue and reported by Jenny as not being very good.

Still having issues with the water ballast bags and yesterday only got about half water in the glider,which was a disadvantage on what was a pretty fast day. Today we got about 2/3 water so it is getting better.

They do things a bit differently here in Europe:

We grid the gliders at 8am prior to the briefing.

A maximum height limit of 2700 metres has been set for all tasks

No restrictions on which way to thermal within 10km of Szeged

Must radio start time to team manager who passes to organisation

There are 7 tugs and launching was done in under an hour

We have the equivalent of a CTAF for circuit traffic but the tugs operate on another frequency for towing. The tug pilots only seem to talk Hungarian on the radio anyway so it does not matter.

The gliders operate on either the operational frequency or their country frequency so every one is usually on a different frequency.

Weather has been very hot and typical of southern australia in summer, hot and stable under the high pressure and getting better after a cooler change.

Jeremy

Day 1 update

We had very good weather for Day 1. 416 km fixed task. Unfortunately we can't get very much water into the glider and I had to fly 110kg under max weight on a day that needed full water. Also having instrument anomolies, but overall I had a fun day. More on the blog later in the day on today's task and weather.

Jenny

Last day before the Competition

The met man today said the weather would not be flyable so no task was set. A cold front passed through overnight and it again blew a gale today but at least the temperature has dropped. By 2pm the temperature improved and cu's popped all over but only 5 pilots took a flight. My first flight in Europe yesterday was interesting. Towed behind the Zlin - really poor climb performance and he raised the undercarriage as soon as he was a few feet above the ground. His airspeed varied 15 kts in the tow and at one stage he and I started to stall. When he dropped the gear I knew he was ready to descend - then a waggle of the wings and next thing he was diving at the ground - just as well I had my hand on the release when the gear was put down - the most horrifying tow I've ever had - and this in my first flight in the new glider. I did an orientation flight, doing about 140 kms. Opening ceremony tonight and first comp day tomorrow - I would have liked to have had more practice but weather, travel delays and glider problems had prevented this.

Jenny

From Singapore to Szeged, Hungary

This is our journey so far:

Friday, Saturday and Sunday

We finally arrived in Singapore Friday night and found our connecting flight had left without us, Qantas put us in a hotel for 20 hours until the next flight . After arriving in Warsaw via London we had lost a day and rushed out to Lezno the next day to pick up the glider

Monday 20^th July

Finally got to Lezno and de rigged the glider, it is an interesting place, the hangar is full of Polish gliders:

3 Puchaz, 3 Bocians, 4 Pirat, 6 Jantar of various types, 3 Juniors, and 3 Foka’s. The only non Polish glider is the ASW27 which we are hiring.

There is a hotel and bar and restaurant , a full time operation which has now been purchased by Thomas Gostner and is being redeveloped.

Tuesday 21^st July

Set course for Szeged with the glider, Ziggy decided he had to see his parents in Krackow, so we dropped him on the way. It took 12 hours of mostly difficult and slow driving to reach Szeged covering 4 countries. The Polish are the worst drivers in the world and try to kill you at every opportunity.

Wednesday 22^nd

Greg, who came via Cathay and Hong Kong left later than us but arrived in Szeged before us. We met up with him for breakfast, then rigged the glider and changed the instruments and did all the jobs required to get organised for a comp.

It was very hot but not much in the way of soaring, last week Mak (from Narromine) did a 1000km from here.

First comp day is Sunday.

Sorry We Are busy

Today has been spent fitting Altir Cambridge etc.
We now have Hungarian phones and are all melting in 40 degree heat.

More soon

Greg Schmidt

Delays!

Well here we sit in the Qantas Club lounge (again!!). A fuel leak on our departing Airbus (!!) developed before the engines even got started so our departure will be delayed by 6 hours, and we have no idea of a time into Warsaw! We had awful pizza, sipping wine and waiting.....

Nearly time to leave Australia

Finally got the Polish licence on 10th July after months of agony, and we leave Brisbane tomorrow for Poland to pick up the glider. Big thanks to Gerard Harber, Paul Mander, GFA, Allamanda Private Hospital and Qantas for some financial help to get us this far. Looking forward to the next phase.