day 3 - here we go again

The sky is fully covered and it's very cold and windy. MN is on the grid and we're waiting for briefing. The "window" is supposed to come later on so we should be able to fly. It won't be easy though. Looks like another low and slow day.

We used the yesterdays rest day and got some good rest but also visited the Arboga missile museum and did some grocery shopping. It's pretty amazing how much military activities this little town used to have.

museum

remove before flight

Zig in the cockpit

I gave it a try as well

Asia is still leading after 2 days and could keep her leader west

shortly before launch - day 2

The German Team has quite a few nice rides: "Only glider flying is more efficient" & Mercedes Benz is supporting the German Gliding National Team"

Since we got here, which is a week now, Ziggy has been talking about the Swedish wooden shoes. He used to have them years back when he was often visiting Sweden. So we just had to have them now. On our trip to Stockholm our friends who live there took us to a special wooden shoes shop where we got Ziggy's dream shoes. I decided to go for the high heel pink version, while Zig picked the standard black ones.

wooden shoes

official rest day

The briefing is almost over and the sporting director just called the day off since there is no chance for flying. At least we can plan the day in a different way. In Poland we would have been waiting till the afternoon to hear the official "no task today" ... 

the met man

task setter with guts

useful gadget for today

group shot with the gifts from the British Team

rain, rain, rain

We woke up this morning and all we could see were the grey clouds and rain, rain, rain. The briefing time is set for 10 but there will be no flying today. I'm not happy with that cause looking at my yesterdays result I badly want to fly to make up for the losses. Hopefully there will be some good days ahead :-)

We're thinking about visiting the aviation museum that apparently is close nearby.

Here are some more pics from the previous days.

before the opening ceremony

Zig and the girls

Zig should have his Australian passport taken back

Captain and the First Officer

someone said we look like virgins

preparing maps and marking the very few landable spots

big challenge on a short task

I don't think anyone had a plan for today's tactics. Anyway my plan didn't really seem to work out. Very hard conditions and most of the flight was under 8/8 spreaded fallen apart clouds. Some had to take a second tow and this turned out to be good. It looked like the weather was getting worse and worse and I decided not to wait, crossed the line as soon as I could, and stayed twenty something km short of the last TP for some 40 minutes till the stuff started to burn through and there was a chance for thermals. This was when the "late" groups came ... I guess there is no more explanation required. Oh well, there will be another days and let's hope for some normal flyable weather.

morning of day 2

We celebrated yesterdays success with a nice steak and a glass of South Australian red in town and went to bed at 9 pm. Everyone was exhausted. It doesn't make much sense to wait till dark cause it just doesn't get dark during night. Somebody asked the other day about the end of daylight here but there is none. It stays kind of grey all night long but never gets totally dark. Good to have blinds in the windows :-)

MN is on the grid and we're waiting for the morning briefing. Weather looks similar to yesterday and they are predicting a non flying day with lots of rain tomorrow. So we will see ...

successful end of day one

I guess nobody could see it coming. Weather looked weird, task was short with no room for mistakes. Asia won the day in Standard Class - she just classed everyone out. I ended up third for the day, which was very challenging. The last turn point turned out to be the hardest one. 17 km to the point and 18 km back through the rain starting at 1300 m MSL. Leaving the rain zone I ended up around 150 m AGL over my picked paddock and hit 3.5 m/s lift that got me the fast final glide back home. The lift was coming from another Cb just building up and this made it possible to catch it straight from the bottom.

The results are here:
http://www.soaringspot.com/wwgc_2011/results/

A very good start for the both of us and we're going out for dinner soon.

The pic below is a special for Max Hedt. Ake says Hello!

comp day 1

All ready, MN is on the grid and we are waiting for the morning briefing. The weather looks ... undefined. The sat pics are showing that we're in a sort of window and there are clouds all around us. Winds are pretty strong from the west. We'll just have to see how it develops and see what kind of task we're gonna get.

Here are some pics of yesterdays activities:

the boys putting up the radio antenna

Asia and the stickers

the Team Captain

no comment on this one ...

LS8 winglet

me & MN

me & MN # 2

ready for the opening ceremony

the Swedish way of travelling

teams arrival

attractions for the public

ASH25 low pass

the Team

Pipers

the countdown

Everything is ready and today is the last relaxing day. We got the glider and myself weighed and inspected yesterday. All good, all approved. We had to remove the turn indicator though and MN now had a big empty hole in the instrument panel.

the hole

We have the official opening ceremony this afternoon and will be marching with the flags. There is gonna be an airshow with military jets and some other attractions as well. Since Arboga is a small town it looks like its gonna be a  big event and everybody is invited.

invitations in town

I just love the briefing room. It's an old wooden barn, very cosy and the multimedia setup just beats everything. The projector is placed in an old drawer and it's all mounted on a ladder. This is the Swedish way I guess :-)

projector holder in the briefing room

the first official briefing

Ziggy is giving everyone lectures about the psychology of winning. He also presents his weird theory in all possible situations. This morning he showed us the face you should put on in the morning to make other competitors feel uncomfortable. I have to admit that it just doesn't do to me. I neither get uncomfortable nor scared. Check it out yourself:

psychology of winning

And here are some more Arboga impressions:

downtown Arboga ;-)

the Swedish way of pushbike riding

Välkommen till Arboga

We all finally arrived in Sweden. We planned to complete the whole trip in one day but got too tired on the way and had to stay over night. We found an absolutely beautiful wooden cottage in the middle of a forest and got some good rest consuming a bottle of red we brought from the duty free shop on the ferry.

One of the first things we noticed was that alcohol is just unbelievably expensive in Sweden. This explained the behavior of Swedish people in the duty free shop before boarding the ferry loading carts full with all sorts of this liquid bread.

getting everything ready in Szczecin

Avionic makes very good trailers with a designated beer loading areas

waiting to board the ferry

pretty long and adventurous ferry ride

breakfast time

exploring Arboga

unloading stuff in Sweden

our team jackets with hot logos

The official training finishes tomorrow and we'll start competing on Wednesday. Everything looks almost ready and I only have the viral infection to get rid of and will be ready to go. The airport internet connection seems to be working from today so I'll be back with more soon.

Sunday trip to Stockholm

The comp website:

http://wwgc2011.se/site/