This morning at Briefing, our meteorologist told us that the conditions would be good to very good, and then he corrected himself and said “very very good.”  The only hazard was the possibility of cirrus encroaching from the northwest. In fact, that didn’t happen, and the conditions were indeed very very good.

They assigned two Racing Tasks of 360 and 404 km. The 15 Meter Class went first, and Fernando (W) was the first glider to launch. Our ASW-20 pilots departed together at 1245. As was true yesterday, Phil and Fernando stayed together for the whole flight, while Robin and Juan flew independently. The tracking system was working, and we were able to follow the team for all but a very brief portion of the Task, near the first turnpoint. On the second leg, Phil found a 5 m/sec thermal to 2100 meters.

Going into the second turnpoint, Fernando was the first to spot the Atlantic coast, and a few minutes later, Juan took a picture.

Robin’s avionics battery died at around 4pm, but fortunately, his flight log was intact. A lot of the AC power around here comes from generators that get turned on and off during the day. Robin promises to be more selective of the places he charges his batteries from now on.

Meanwhile, in the Standard Class, Al and Ryszard started together, but Ryszard got low and turned back to have another go. He was able to rejoin his partner on the third leg of the Task late in the day. It turned out to be too late for Al. After a heroic struggle on the last leg, Al landed in a grassy field that was actually within the city limits of Chaves.  So close!

All in all, it was a pretty good day for the team, despite a couple of warnings for landing on the wrong runway.