Air Sailing Day 4

Well yesterday was another day where I broke my personal best XC speed - 89mph. And that was with a slow first leg! I headed off on course looking for the customary 10+ kts, but kept finding 5 and 6 so pushed on. It looked good ahead and I had had 10kt prior to start so there was no reason I could see that they shouldn't still be around. Getting nervous I started taking the odd few thousand feet in weaker climbs, and finally connected with the good values about halfway down the first leg. I climbed quickly to 15,000 or so, knowing that I would need to go deep and over time to bring up my average speed. The clouds were rapidly overdeveloping into storms so I ran along the front edge and it worked well. Flew all the way to the back of the first circle and turned with 106mph required speed on the PDA (about 170km/hr) to come in spot on time. As I pushed back along the same line, lightning started sparking off to my right and the heavens opened. I managed to find a good line off to the left and avoided having to climb. When I got to the edge of the storm cloud I took a final climb to base in about 8 kt and then had a long smooth glide back towards the second area which was in the blue apart from a few wisps. My PDA showed me I would be about on time if I just nicked the area but I was above glide so I pushed deeper into the second area until showing about 15:1 glide, then turned for home. I was about 10 minutes over time which was just fine, but the day was won by an airforce cadet at his first comp! Here's a photo of the storm cloud starting to fall apart on the way home, and a shot of the signwriting on one of the Air Force Academy Discus trailers (they have 4 brand new Discus at this comp)

Today is a rest day, with 15kt thermals to 20,000 feet, as usual, but I am taking the day off.

Tomorrow is the final day of the comp and it looks like another great day. That's 7 in a row, including the practice and rest days!