So my comp week is finished, I bailed on a short task on Thursday after getting very low and taking an hour to get back to a sensible height. There was just not enough day left to make progress.
Friday we were set a 2:45 AAT Bicester, Broadway, Charlbury, stony stratford, bicester. The first leg was very slow going out to broadway as conditions were improving all the time. I was averaging 40kph so opted to turn early, which I thought, after getting stuck at charlbury for 30mins was a good idea. The run for then on was fantastic, the sky was booming and looking at my trace I can see one period where for 20secs I was climbing at 13.5kts. So I ended up getting back very early which cost me and I really should have pushed much further into the first sector, but hey ho.
Two days to go and it looks as though we will get a full nine days flying which is fantastic. I have learned a massive amount about competition flying and cross country in general, lest I forget that up to the start of the comp I had done one XC flight which happened to be my silver distance. I found that if I had had a landout or two under my belt before I would have made it round on the first saturday where instead I bottled it after getting low.
But probably the most important thing that I learned is that despite all the advice given, and there was tons of it, when flying a lower performance glider on blue days leave near the back and on Cu days go early. Also when you have as little experience as I did find someone with a similar spec machine that is doing well and fly with them to find out why they do so well!
Finally big thanks to Tony Cleworth for lending me tie down kit, being on stand by to retrieve and an all round good guy. Thanks also to the mitchels and BAM's crew for looking after me and Ian harris + 2 scouts for pulling me out of a field at silverstone.
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