The 2009 Hang Gliding Worlds, day four, task 2
Who was the last US pilot to win a day at the Worlds? How long has it been? How long has it been since the US was in second place?
Manfred Ruhmer showed again why he's the king. Yesterday he went on an extended task putting an extra 30 km into it, and no one around here (the US team) seems to know why he went off on his own doing his own task.
Today he smoked the field coming in about thirty five minutes before the third place pilot, Attila. Christian Ciech was second about ten minutes minutes behind Manfred.
With a forecast for northwest winds at 4,000' at 2 PM at 9 knots the meet organizers sent us to the Aspres launch as they said that they would last night when I gave them this forecast from XCSkies. This entails a drive of about an hour from Laragne but it is a beautiful launch, a feast of wildflowers, and steep launches into, on this day, lots of wind on the west launches.
The task was a pretty straight forward out and return to the goal at the Camping Montéglin where we are all staying. The start circle was centered at the "volcano", actually a little spot on the south west corner (44.376507,5.785413,Colombe Riouge). The start circle was an entry start circle of 17 km. This gave us enough room to get up on the ridge to the south of launch.
Passing up a great opportunity to go over there after I got high at launch (7,500'). I went over to there lower which made for some work to get back up. Other pilots were already getting high on the ridge just at the edge of the start circle.
I finally found good lift and climbed up at 800 fpm but the first start window had opened and I was still in the entry start circle. I popped out of it but got a five minute late start. Most of the field had taken off. Jeff O'Brien waited for the second start time.
It was no problem getting the first turnpoint at the center of the start circle as there were plenty of cu's on the way. The guys who started high showed laggards like me where the lift was so it was easy.
After getting the first turnpoint I headed due east down the ridge line away from the course line to the southeast that is the south lip of the "volcano," and found strong lift at its southeast corner. The out turnpoint at 43.944364,6.173815,Estoublon was 56 km to the south southeast and there was a big valley to cross so I topped up and headed for the gravel pit on the east side of the canal coming off the Durance river.
After topping up there I headed for the foothills and the little pimple with a tower on top. There were lots of pilots around and we worked weak lift there enough to jump back onto the range to the southeast and climb out in strong lift to almost cloudbase over 8,000'.
We ran the hills about eight km to the east of the course line but under the local cu's. With a 10 mph tail wind it was a fast race and we had plenty of opportunities to find lift. There were pilots spread out all over taking various routes and finding various thermals.
We got over 9,000' and jumped over to the plateau that comes before the out turnpoint. I didn't find much over the plateau but got to the turnpoint after a seventeen km glide fairly high (6,100'). Of course, the turnaround was not so pleasant as now there was a 10 to 15 mph head wind and we had to go back up on the plateau (3,000').
I wasn't all the high but I dove in after getting the turnpoint at Estoublon before the rest of the team who were not too far behind me. I was finding little broken stuff, enough to stay up and maybe keep going, but nothing to really get up. Zippy came over a few thousand feet over me and reported lift under a few wisps ahead. I came in under them, but just got lower. I turned around to find a place that was safe to land as I was down to 3,999' and noticed the winds were 18 mph. There were a few small fields below. At the end of a small valley on the plateau I found a bit more lift.
After working it for a while I moved over to a 800 fpm core and took it to 9,500'. Things were a lot better now that I didn't have to land in an unfriendly spot.
I headed northwest along the northern edge of the plateau and a pilot ahead of me found a nice thermal just before the main valley of the Durance. Again I climbed out to over 9,000' east of 43.8483953,6.725885,Saint Auban and just east of the main valley.
Jeff Shapiro and Jeff O'Brien headed back to the ranges to the east of the Durance valley after getting the turnpoint. Zippy and Dustin were further to the west along the ranges but just up to the east from the valley. The winds aloft were much lighter, so it was good to stay high.
I came in under another pilot climbing over the river and got high once again, this time to 8,000' just east of Saint Auban and a sailplane port. I watched a tug take up a sailplane to the east but I didn't see where he let him off. It seemed late in the day for a flight.
The trick was to stay on the east side of the valley. I knew that having done that on the way to the turnpoint, but for some unknown reason I headed for the west side. Not much was going on over there other than the strong west wind and I landed just west of Sisteron.
Zippy and Dustin had made it into goal. Jeff O'Brien was seven minutes behind them. Jeff Shapiro got stuck at 200' AGL on the east side of Sisteron and took an hour to get up on the rocks and out of there. He barely made it into goal at 10 to 1.
The results should be up late (here).
http://OzReport.com/1245963442
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