Day 5

Master tasksetter and all round superstar, Giorgio Galetto



Back to racing tasks again today with a 361kms task to Pescarasolla and North to Nocera Umbra. The day felt like it should have yielded some really fast speeds but very few people seemed to string it all together. The Empire team certainly seemed to struggle down near the first turn with a few low points on the ridges before we could get high enough to nip in and out of the turn. Going North was much better with a couple of very strong therms of 8kt average, with one peaking at 13.5kts on the vario average. Getting round the last two TP’s was surprisingly OK and I finished with a speed of 124kph. The LX9000 logger is doing funny things with the SD card download so it was a good job the Colibri 2 backup is working well. Man I would have been annoyed if I'd not scored for the day!

On tow for another fine day of racing

Day 4



Possibly Dane Dickinson, but more likely some chav tourist who's misplaced Magaluf



Day 4 was another AAT on the familiar format of hack down South then push back North of site and charge home. The added excitement today was avoiding a large chunk of airspace sat in the second sector which made the in-flight planning even more complex. As it was the run South was excellent albeit interspersed with the occasional light shower that smacked on the canopy with big fat raindrops.




Down at Settefrati - the view West (ugh)... and the view East (nice).

 

 Coming North the line of lift was strong up just beyond Rieti and then it was into bluer conditions for the last two sectors. Time to change gear then, and still I managed to run over time unnecessarily by going too deep into the final sector for a flight of 410kms-ish. The final glide back over Terni was enhanced by the view of two impressive waterfalls tumbling out of the Rieti plateau. Better yet we were back at a decent hour which meant more pool time. Sadly for Owen that included a view of him derigging in the field he landed in at the bottom of the hill the hotel sits on...



The view from the hotel pool area...



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'

Day 2

Day 2 was expected to be a really classic Rieti day but it kinda didn't work out that way. The 15M class had a 396kms task to Roccarsolo in the south and Gualdo Taldino in the North. Launching was delayed an hour from 1200 to 1300hrs which should have set the alarm bells ringing in the first place - and once off tow I just could not get high near the start and finally set off at 7000' amsl. I lost a good 10 minutes on the run to Celano getting stupid low on the way as the ridges just weren't working as well as I'd hoped and the lift was really only thermal generated. Just after Celano I met Roberto Romano in the Ventus 1B and followed him across Lake Flewett onto the next ridge and into a convergence therm to 10,000'. A quick nip round the turn and back then it was off on a long, long glide towards Assergi. The Gods were smiling as I pulled 11knots out of what felt like the weeds near Assergi and got into the seabreeze effect on Gran Sasso. A run up past Vittore and out to Gualdo went OK but I lost more time short of Gualdo mucking about in 3.5kts before shifting a couple of kms into the 7kts good stuff. The soft and fluffy valley of fun (I refuse to call it by the traditional name of Death Valley) was working well and once over the last ridge it was time to push the stick forwards, up to VNE over the hotel and in for a speed of 123kph. Not good enough by 44 seconds and 1B won the day. What a hoot!     

The view from final glide - spot the airfield!

Day 1

The pride of Britain (and NZ)

So yesterday was a scrub as the weather was just too stable. The temperature peaked at 39 degrees so the only place to be was the pool and very nice it was too



Italian Tow Out Equipment



Today, Tuesday was Day 1 and the weather was goooooooood. A 15 knot Westerly had all the ridges humming and therms were peaking in excess of 11knots at times. I had a very pleasant run round at 134kph and only got mildly scared once or twice. The embarassing fact that a Duo Discus ran round at 152kph is to be ignored thank you. Ben came second in the standards so all in all the Empire Team put up a good show. More again tomorrow please!



A decent sized Tug fleet for the 82 gliders on the grid 



Practice Days



2A running South past somewhere or other



Well the drive was well worth it! We had three great practice days where Ben led the newbies round pointing out the crap field options, where to land in lakes and the occasional valley with landable fields. The conditions were really good with a cloudbase peaking at 11,200' and climbs of 10kts in places. What's really impressive is the energy lines: ridges that run and run and run...

We did 430kms at 115kph on day 1, 360kms at 125kph on day 2 and 330kms at 113kph on day 3: nice work if you can get it! The only disappointment was the Master Gardener landing wheels up on day 2 as he was distracted by the requirement to chat away to the tower and follow their instructions.

The flying is fab - but the launching is, shall we say,a little chaotic. day 2 I nearly ran 500kgs of ASW27 leading edge into the back of a rope runner who walked backwards at "all out" and was only saved by Tony Flewett bellowing at him to move.



Geoff Tabbner in his new pride and joy: Ventus 2CT "GA"



Copa Internationale di Mediterraneo

OK so it is really stretching it using the Serres Bimble blog for an Italian Mountain competition but what the hey!

August 3rd to 17th promises to be great fun racing around the hills East of Rome. We have a goodly number of folk going:-

1. yours truly
2. Ben Flewett
3. Andy Perley
4. Geoff Tabbner
5. Lord Gorringe
6. Uvain McCormack
7. Dane Dickinson
8. Leroy Wells

The only daunting factor is that drive to get there: 1100 miles: ouch.

It all kicks off in just a few days - can't wait!