Contest Day 6
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.