Day 3



Ben and Andy wrestle with the AAT planning



There was a tradiational groan of disappointment from all pilots at today's briefing as it was announced there would be an AAT: Area Assigned Task. That left us all free to struggle with trigonometry and guesswork trying to figure out where would be best to go into each sector and maximise speed and distance in the allocated 3 hour racing window.



Ready to start with Rieti airfield at 11 o/c

The conditions were fabulous for most of the flight with cloudbase in excess of 11,000' in the start area and an incredible cloudstreet running South towards the first sector. I had a great run down and turned Settefrati deep in the first sector and then changed plan by only nicking the second sector and running back to the good street (the sea air spilling in from the East ruled out Gran Sasso as far as I was concerned). A long run North to Gualdo Taldino all went to plan and I was expecting a speed of 140kph and was worried about getting home early until 35kms out it all fell apart. The soft and fluffy valley of fun had a NE wind blowing into it and all of a sudden the picture ahead looked bad and I bailed West towards a landable area. The average speed ticked down depressingly but what I was really focussed on was a) not landing out and b) not breaking the glider. Finally I found a climb and clawed back onto a safe glide and trickled home 30 minutes over time. 6th for the day and now second overall - it's all still to play for and could have been so much worse!

On the second leg climbing at 11kts through 10,000'