Today was scrubbed due to a front approaching from the west that brought with it thick high level overcast and light rain. Although conditions were blue during the pilots meeting we could see the high clouds and gloom approaching – sitting on the grid we could feel the obvious cool damp outflow from the rain edge 20km away, knowing it was just a matter of time before the airfield convection was shut down. 15 minutes later the day was scrubbed and crews were able to secure or box their gliders before any rain or wind hit the airfield. We were all pretty much ready for a rest after completing our flight debrief and team pair flying review for the day.

All were looking forward to a good day in the cockpit today. Today the task is a 3hr Area task to the south and back again. Pre-flight task planning had us looking at maintain a start time driven by weather and not let the shorter (not 4-5hrs..) task time drive any nonsense with start time games compounded by PEV start limitations. This is particularly important as Ostrow is in the eastern part of the local time zone meaning the day tends to shut down earlier due to a later sun-time relative to the clock. To this point in the contest we haven't seen any extreme start time tactics but I expect this to change shortly.

The weather for the day is lower cumulus at first with a drying trend from west to east through the afternoon – cumulus fields south with expected bluer conditions for the return. Both our classes opted for a fairly early start to reduce risk in the return leg at the end of the day. As things panned out this was the right strategy – all our pilots started between 10 and 15 minutes after the gate opened with a few early starters ahead of them. Club and Standard class pilots were making good progress on the first leg south but the atmospheric conditions became much more unpredictable and bubbly when the drying occurred and many top teams suffered significant separation challenges in the drying conditions. Our teams were no different. Things were made more difficult by cirrus encroaching from the south. (see Jacob's photo)

Thomas had a particularly difficult time on the third leg when he was hit by 'Thors Hammer' and could not escape a wide long and broad cascade of heavy sink which pushed him down to less than 900ft agl before he could find some weak lift to survive in. It was difficult to watch with only sporadic OGN coverage in the area. The rest of his task was spent in damage control recovering from the speed hit. As it happened the German pilot ahead of him in Standard class had an even worse time of it so despite a difficult day Thomas moved up from 3rd to 2nd overall in the standings.

 

Our club class pilots have been continuing to develop their communications and flying techniques and though today they had a difficult time staying close enough to help each other they all made it home with David McMaster having a creditable 13th place for the day until he had more sink than expected late on his final glide losing 26 points to place 17th. David took a more easterly route home which allowed him to skirt the edge of the drying cumulus and find more reliable climbs as he made his way home- just not quite high enough.

Team USA put together a very popular table of pulled pork on buns and smores accompanied by the samplers choice of Jack Daniels, Coke, and other libations, organized by Justin McMaster and Jacob Barnes Sr. The camaraderie of this night at a Junior Worlds is very high and the young pilots and crew were soon swapping team shirts and having a great time. Our crews and pilots have unofficial but very colorful and patriotic shirts, issued to all the pilots in addition to their formal team uniform, were a big hit – everyone wanted one! Big shout out to Eric Tellmann (Steven's Dad) for providing these for the team.

Contest Day 11 has been a rest day – rain and thunderstorms were forecast and they appeared as predicted during the day. The party last night extended to the 'wee hours' last night as all the pilots and crew had to do today was sleep. Time to catch up on rest, exercise and reporting duties…

Today dawned with the promise of a good thermal and cumulus forecast but with the specter of high and mid-level cloud cover during the day. Aggressive AST tasks of 506km (Club) and 606km (Standard) were set. As the day wore on and the cirrus got thicker and thicker and the sky got darker and darker and the pilots were very busy just trying to stay airborne after the final turn – in the end all our club class pilots landed out (safely) and relatively close to home after 6 hrs. in the cockpit. Tom Greenhill made it round the 604km Standard class task but not without spending 40 minutes climbing in the last very weak convection of the day to squeak home. Only the fastest Club class gaggle made it around before the end of convection. Thomas moved up to 4th place in Standard Class today and within shouting distance of top 3. Today's pilot report comes from David Macmaster…

Today started as the previous two had, with the promise of a big flight. The last two days club class has flown TWO 500km flights and I knew from the moment I woke up they were going to give us a 3rd. The Q was popping before 9am! So we had our debrief from the previous days flight then went right to the hanger for the daily pilots meeting where they announce they wanted to launch us at 10:50 for another 506km racing tack… When the meeting ends at 10:20 that's not a whole lot of time to draw up a game plan. We all quickly got to the grid, and as we had done the previous two days made a plan on the grid.

Jacobs Land out – Fortunately this part of Poland is covered in runways!

High level clouds were thicker than we had anticipated but still thin enough to adequately heat the tasking area, and patchy enough for direct sunlight to hit the ground and cause some crazy good thermals. As such Jacob and I made good progress on the first leg and earned an achieved speed on 98kph (still 6 or 7kph behind schedule) at the first turn Jake and I had caught up to the gaggle and were content to sit with them the remainder of the flight. However, the gaggle was taking a very weird and inefficient line to the next turn and actually started to disband. In the confusion of the 40 glider gaggle Jacob and I got separated by 200m or so. The weather was still decently strong with thermals around 2.5m/s he and I were able to manage roughly 90kph through the second turn. The third leg was over 200k and it had very dynamic weather. After the turn I struggled pretty good and ended up behind Jacob despite this we maintained decent communication and at about 300m agl I was led to a 1m/s thermal that I stuck with as it built to a 4.3m/s thermal to 2100m! (9kts to 7,000ft).

After that I didn't see a thermal above 2.5kts for the rest of the day… the high level clouds thickened directly on course line and I had to really switch gears to sneak into the 3rd point. At just about best L/D I dove into the bleak dark point fully expecting to find nothing but a field. Just shy of the point I lucked into a 2-3kt thermal and stuck with that for as long as I could and dared the thought "I just might make it home after all". On my glide from the 3rd point I caught up to the Dutch, the South Africans and the US standard class pilot Thomas Greenhill. Now that I had company I for sure thought I was going to make it. We scratch and scratched in 1kt for a long while and eventually we moved on, I was still lower so when they caught a bubble of 2kts I found a whole lot of nothing. So I pressed on to the edge of the woods under more clouds and on the sunny side exactly where a flight saving thermal ought to be and I found nothing… so with no more altitude to play with I was forced to land in a field. I made it 485k… With another promising 500k day tomorrow my crew was quick to get me and pack up the glider so we could get back to the airfield and I could get some rest before another monster flight and another monster day. Thus far I have over 40hrs of flying and likely another 40hrs to go before were done.

Today's weather was a relief to all – no high cloud cover, high temperatures, low wind and a cooking thermal and cumulus forecast. The task was a 4.5hr turn area task for both classes. All our pilots made it around with our club class pilots having their fastest day so far in the 100 to 100kph range which was good for 700 to 870 points. Thomas in Standard consolidated his contest some more with 913 points and a move up into 3rd overall after the leader ( a German pilot) had an unfortunate airspace violation and got landed out for the day.

A quick reminder for the dear reader – when looking at the scores, bear in mind that a 700 speed point day in FAI scoring rules equates to an 850 point day in US rules as the speed points are not a 1:1 ratio of speed ratios to the winner.

Today's pilot report is from Jacob. "The days have been getting stronger and stronger and stronger. Today's task was as good as it could get for the day. An assigned area task with a median distance of 543 kilometers. The weather, ever improving here in Ostrow, was forecast to be 4 to 5 knots around the stronger parts of the task area with cloudbase being around 7500 feet msl. As for planning, David and I planned to push as deep as possible into the first turn in hopes of only needing to clip the last two turn points and maybe pushing into the second turn point about halfway. This plan worked for the most part and we were able to achieve a speed of 61 mph around a 4 and a half hour task. Our team flying is improving greatly as we have begun flying in much more manageable pairs rather than a large group of 4. With this change David and I noticed that our team flying has increased tenfold over the last two days. With that being said we know our weaknesses and plan to master them and press on up the score sheet. Thanks to all those at home who have helped us get here and we hope we are doing you proud!"

Contest day 6 task was a massive Area Task with a minimum distance of 460km even for club class. Maximum standard distance was over 800km! Needless to say an early start was called for especially for the clubbies. Good cu as far as the eye could see with some potential for weakening at the end of the day in the west near the final turn area. All our pilots made it around – our clubbies had some challenges getting separated in the strong but bubbly conditions flying as a group of 3 and were lower in the score sheet than they wanted – Remember that Club class in Europe and the Worlds is not an 'entry' level class in terms of pilot skill and experience – They finished close in the rankings between 30th and 34th.

Club class is extremely competitive and our clubbies are doing well considering their lack of international and team flying experience.  In Standard class, Team USA had a fantastic day, with Thomas Greenhill taking the day win. There is nothing I can add here except to hand you over to Toms pilot report for the day. Enjoy it – it doesn't get much better than this!

Day 6 Standard Class Podium – 3rd,Victor Malik (France) , 1st, Thomas Greenhill (USA), 2nd, Philip Jonker (S.Africa)

All our pilots started well, becoming more efficient and effective with the PEV (Pilot Event Marker) start system now employed at WGC contests. Today marked the second day in a heating trend under the continental high pressure covering central Poland, and very good weather conditions prevailed. Both classes were assigned a 5-hour AAT, with minimum distance in the mid-400 km range, and max distance north of 800 km. With a 9am US pilot's brief/debfrief on yesterday, a 10am official pilot's briefing and 10:50 first launch, everyone felt a bit rushed. Thankfully, the US team has world-class crew, and they took charge of getting the gliders in good nick for us while we were preparing for another long racing day.

I had a mixed bag of flights in the first part of the contest, a couple of decent days mixed in with a couple of really frustrating days. My analyses from the last 4 racing days highlighted something I never expected to see, especially in standard class at a world championships. On all three days with relatively strong conditions, those who started first, as a team, came out on top. Part of this, I think, is due to the fact that Poland is quite far east in the time zone, so whereas the peak of solar heating in Germany might be 3PM, here in Poland it is quite a bit earlier.

I got burned hard on the second contest day playing start games and waiting until late to start the task. Whereas I barely achieved final-glide with my last climb at 0.7 knots for 50 turns on that day, my South African counterparts outlanded just 20km from the finish. Being two of the smaller less well-resourced teams here, the South African and US teams have been sharing strategy and team flying when appropriate. Today, with an awesome weather forecast, we agreed we were not going to let a late start mistake happen again. We planned to have a PEV window ready to start the task as soon as it opened, and luck had it, we were in a great position and ready to start right when the window opened.

We started just one minute after gate open, along with the french team, and had a good first leg west with 2-2.5 m/s climbs and good streeting on course. There were still some blue gaps and points to not get low, but between me, the South Africans, and the French, we were able to make really good progress. By the time we turned the first turnpoint, our average speed was just shy of 130 kph. We had two problematic airspaces to manage on the second leg, and it seemed that the two best streets were aiming straight for the airspaces. We were able to finagle a good street while remaining clear, with only a couple of major jumps for realignment with courseline. At that point, we turned for the third leg, and started catching glimpses of the Polish team ahead. We managed to quite quickly catch them after they marked some really nice 2.5+ m/s climbs for us. Before we knew it, we were reaching the end of the third leg, with nearly 500km on the clock, and it was clear that the day was starting to slow down.

We turned for the final leg, and without great cloud alignment on course, we decided to dial the speed back a bit to make sure we didn't blow away 4+ hours of top notch flying by making poor decisions on final glide. In the end, we ended up taking a 2 m/s thermal for final glide, and with good bumps along the way I finished at almost redline. Most will recognize that this actually indicates we were too conservative, and I estimate we probably left ten to fifteen points on the table, but it was low risk and that's what we needed at the end of a day like this.

With all the scores in now and my official speed at 124.83 km/h over 641 km, I earned 1st place for the day on behalf of the US team. It's a real privilege to have what felt like one of my best flights ever, and for that sentiment to be reflected by the numbers on the score sheet against the best pilots in the world. It also feels really special to have Peter Deane, who taught me how to fly cross-country nearly a decade ago, here to witness my best performance as team captain.