Davis beats Manfred yet again (who writes these tag lines,
anyway?)

Here.

Did you check us out live?
Live Tracking. Wouldn't have been too exciting today.

The forecast was all wrong (when it came to the wind), but that was a good
thing. There were midlevel, lower level, and upper level clouds every where. Not
much that looked like clouds produced by lift. The winds were in fact light, at
least on launch.

The view from launch. That's Innsbruck down below. The launch faces south.

We (Franco Rinaldi, Nuccia (his wife) and I) drove up the road to the gondola in
Innsbruck while the rigid wing pilots went to the launch above the main LZ in
Gnadenwald. We had a truck take the gliders to our launch.

The forecast was for strong east winds in the afternoon, say twenty five km/h,
when the valley winds combined with the prevailing east winds. It looked like it
might be windier than the first day when there was carnage in the LZ due to the
high winds. That was the forecast any way.

It took a while for the gliders to get up the hill as they were logging next to
the switch back road that goes up under the gondola. We hung out on top at the
restaurant on the sunny deck and enjoyed the comfortable temperatures in the
partial sun.

Finally the truck made it to the top and they unloaded the glider:

Given the forecast I wasn't up for flying as I didn't want to be a leaf in the
wind as a number of pilots were on the previous day when they came to the LZ.
But the forecast changed as the day went on with a south component and lighter
winds forecasted. So I was the last one to setup.

The task was called, an up and down the ridge race of a mere forty seven
kilometers given the poor conditions. They looked safe, but the amount of lift
looked very minimal.

As you can see from the view from launch there was a lot of shade, but every now
and then the sun would peak through. A couple of pilots got off the hill and
circled up, with at least one getting high over the peaks behind launch. It
looked perfectly safe.

I think Manfred was next and then three other pilots, before the launch process
stopped as the last four pilots were not going up. In fact Manfred soon landed
in the bomb out LZ. I think he may have been the only pilot to land there,
although perhaps another one or two did also.

The other three pilots were low but higher than Manfred and they worked light
lift and headed east toward the turnpoint. We lost track of them down the
mountain range. It did not look good for them.

No one wanted to launch as the valley was shaded for a while. There was one
start time, 2:30 PM and that was fast approaching before pilots started
launching again as the sun came out. A few pilots maybe fifteen pilots in front
of me got up to the right of launch and got over launch, but how high after that
I don't know. I launched near the end of the queue with Joe Bostik a few pilots
behind me.

It was after the start window opened when I got to launch. No one was getting up
to the right of launch and the valley was shaded below, with spots of sunlight.
There was a nice brisk breeze coming up the launch and I took off right away and
turned left toward the first turnpoint.

There were maybe a dozen or more gliders in front of me and I figured that the
best strategy was to use these guys as thermal markers to see if they would
sniff out the lift for me. The air was buoyant and the sink light. Every once in
a while I'd hit some light lift and I could actually climb a little bit, but the
edges were 400 fpm and the thermals were just not coherent. Nice air, not scary,
but not lifty either. We were right next to the trees.

Nobody was finding anything useful out ahead. My strategy was not working. I had
passed Manfred (who flew less than two kilometers) but that was about it for
glory points. I just kept on gliding hoping that someone ahead would find a
stray thermal soon. There were a number of gliders above me, but they didn't
have that much privilege, as they weren't finding much either.

About ten kilometers out from the launch (there was a five kilometer start
cylinder) the valley was no longer next to the hillside and we were faced with
going over a long stretch of trees to get to the first turnpoint, which was the
LZ. The higher lands in front of us were above us so it was unrealistic to
continue.

I noticed a dozen pilots had landed on the hillside below me in large cultivated
fields so I left the hills and went out over the valley, probably one thousand
feet over the valley floor.  The wind had picked up a bit from the east but
the landing was uneventful. It appeared as though about twenty five pilots (half
the field) landed in the neighborhood.

I was flying Dustin's glider, 2010 Wills Wing T2C-144. That boy makes stiff
glider. It was tight as a drum. It caught me off guard at first but wasn't a
problem afterwards. It has those nice carbon fiber down tubes. Larry Bunner is
going to fly it in the Worlds.

The first pilot to get high made the turnpoint at the LZ high and then just
glided until he landed back at the bombout LZ with Manfred Ruhmer, not making
the second turnpoint at our launch. Did I mention that I flew further than
Manfred did today.

No one made goal. No one made the second turnpoint (back at launch). One rigid
wing pilot made their first turnpoint (our launch) and didn't quite get to the
second one.

The sky cleared up a little later in the day. If someone had taken off later it
might have worked out for them. There was a launch close time at I think 4:30
PM.

As I recall I beat Manfred last at the 2009 Worlds in France on the last day. Oh
glorious day.