Getting to Orlando

It's all going really rather well so far.

A civilized start on Saturday morning for a 1000 Delta flight from Heathrow to Rochester and we arrived at 1800 local time. The outstanding star of the entire entreprise is Andrew Ainslie who is lending us his ASG29 and his van to drive from Webster, New York State, to Orlando Florida for the Sailplane Grand Prix. What a testament to the kindness of strangers - a post for help on the r.a.s. website put me in touch with Andrew who could not have been more kind and helpful. Andrew was even generous enough to collect us from the airport and put us up for the night in his beautiful house on the shore of Lake Ontario. He and his wife, Teri, and 3 legged dog Ginny were model hosts and tolerated a pair of jetlagged Brits for dinner, even raiding the basement wine cellar for some rather splendid Rioja.

What a view from a house!

Check out that numberplate - very apt

Sunday morning we followed Andrew down to Harris Hill and the National Soaring museum where his trailer is wintered. A check of all the kit, a briefing on how it all works and we were ready to go - almost taking a stowaway Ginny who had hidden herself in the back of the van. Midday and we were off on the 1250 mile drive to Orlando. The rig tows really well: nice and stable and the Interstate cruising is good. We're overnighting just North of Richmond and planning to get to Pierson Monday evening, ready for a checkflight and the necessary formalities needed to finish off getting a U.S. glider pilot licence.

Ginny the apprentice stowaway

Checking out the 29

Victor Whisky: Ready to rock and roll and swap snow for sunshine

2017 tour

It will shortly be time to pack the car, hitch on the trailer and set sail for the sunshine.

The last couple of years have yielded some fabulous flying in Spain, France and Italy so it's back for more of that:-

Southerly wave in Cerdanya, and 197 kph for Moustique

another little O/R from Serres to Cervin

Hooning down the ridges in Bella Rieti for the CIM

 

But first, it's off to Orlando for a little SGP action

 

QSGP U.S.A. 2017

 

Bring it all on!

Postscript

Pilot and Glider in better times

The Empire Team achieved great results:-

15M: Leigh won, Dane second
Standards: Coutts first, Ben, Jay
18's: Afandi fourth technically, second morally

Personally I can't say I enjoyed the last few days, particularly not the landout that broke my beloved T6, but there were some great moments prior to that. Another time there's a number of things I'll do differently...

Huge thanks to Contest Director Franca who worked incredibly hard and was great to have running the competition...



The hard working contest director, Franca

The glamorous Met lady...

Why can't UK comps have met people like this?

and the ground team including Emma, Alex, Martyn and Bex

Leigh's crew - Martyn and Bex

The grid launch underway...

Arrivederchi Rieti

Day 6

Dick Daninson demonstrates the approved Kiwi salute

We launched early at 1230 today and into a moist sky with a relatively low cloudbase of 8,000' over Terminillo. The NE wind is still blowing making things less predictable and that combined with cliudbase coming down to 6500' at the first turn made things a little uncomfortable. Leigh and Dane cazme out back up the second leg well and ran the West side of the ridges up to the last turn at Gualdo. Dane got the day at 114kph in the 15's with Leigh second: nice work.



Aaaaghh! My eyes!!

Day 5

Another amazing pilot who's also a good guy: John Coutts

The cold front went through last night but there was a lot of cloud hanging around to the South East and hence it was time for another blasted AAT.

The 15kt NE lent a tempting hint of wave so we spent a good hour or so trying to get in it - without success. Most of us set off within 15 minutes of each other and turned early in the overcast first sector, halfway up the second and third, clipped the fourth and fifth sectors. 5 sectors for an AAT: hmm.

The penultimate sector was blue and stable and virtually the whole field congregated on East facing ridges 40kms out. Lots of scratching around before limping over the final ridge and home around 1900hrs. Only 5 of the 12 in our class got back, most of the landouts happening on that last ridgeline from the look of it.

Rest Day

Today was forecast for rain and storms and a rest day was announced 24 hours in advance: good move.

It was indeed overcast but fine for bike rides, floating on lakes, lying by pools and chilling out.

In the evening Alex invited us to his uncle's house in a hilltop village near Rome. It was beyond outstanding. Trestle tables set out in a piazza high in Montilibretti with risotto and suckling pig: fantastic and thank you Alex.

The hero of the day: Alex Trovalusci

Day 4

Overkeen at attention: flying brilliantly for his experience, He'll go far in the next couple of years.

A day of two halves.

For the clubs, 15's and standards it was excellent. The 18's and Opens were scrubbed which seemed very harsh indeed. The launch was delayed to 1415hrs for the clubs and then a 10 minute break before the 15's and standards went. Launching at 1440 for a 356kms task felt a little daunting and the first climb off tow was naff. A risky glide out behind the Terminillo mountain paid off and I was able to climb up to where Leigh was waiting with Riccy Brigliadori. A brief wait and we were able to set off from 11,200' and glided 45 degrees left off track onto the Gran Sasso range to link with a booming cloudstreet. From that climb I had a 205km glide at 415:1 into the first turn and back to Castellucio at 175kph. Back up to 10,000' here and it was off to Gualdo Taldino and onto the ridges for a less marginal run through the soft and fluffy valley of fun and home. 356kms at 161kph is a personal best: yeehah!

Jay had a nightmare and finally landed at 2015hrs having manfully struggled home exploring hitherto unknown ridges in the valley of fun. Epic perseverance!


Dinner was takeaway pizza  for most of us, but the sophisticates (Dane and Coutts) opted for fine dining and went offsite for the extra large with fries. Classy.