Day 1 - Someone has to be last.

Well, we made it through day one. Only 11 more flying days to go. The day started out with some anxiousness, but an overall feeling of readiness. We've done a lot in the past days trying to get everything ready, and we had the feeling this morning that everything had paid off.

We started by taking the gliders to the weigh station, to confirm that we weren't over the maximum gross of the glider, limited to 525kg in the standard class. (The class that Mike and I are flying in). The scale had been submerged in the ground, and the idea was to drive directly over it, letting the glider come to rest on top of the scale, without taking off any of the tow out gear -- tail dolly, tow bar or wing wheel. However, some of the gliders arrived over weight and had to dump water, which turned the freshly dug hole into a mud pit. Also, the electronic displays were in a large hole next to the scale, which I'm willing to bet, before the contest is over, a glider wheel is going to go into that hole, crushing gear doors. The point I'm trying to make here, is it's a total kluge, but it's Italy and we're not going to change it, so we've got to go with the flow.

We gridded and went to the pilots meeting. The standard brief regarding safety issues, flow on the airport, and the weather. Weather looks good, similar to our last practice days. Top of climb at about 3000m, and some scattered cumulus, especially in the eastern mountains. Looks like a good fun day. There's been a lot of discussion about the rule that states that all competitors must circle left before the start of the task. This is a very standard rule and is meant to keep pilots safe by reducing the possibility of mid-air collisions. During the practice days, especially the last day, when approximately 60 gliders were all flying in 3 closely packed thermals on the east side of Mount Terminillo, people were flying in all sorts of directions. The US team thought this was very unsafe, to the point that I was willing to start early in order to get out of these crazy "gaggles". Anyway, during the pilot's meeting on the 27th, it was brought up that this rule should be enforced, and there was lots of debate as to if the rule (which is many years old, and standard) is correct and actually safer. It was decided that for this contest, the rule would be changed, and whoever starts the thermal would select the direction, implying that a dual cored thermal (totally not uncommon here in the mountains) could have gliders flying in head on situations. We decided to revisit the dicussion, and Leo Brigliadori agreed that it is indeed safer to have all gliders flying in the same direction. But in the pilots meeting, it was almost like he was trying to aviod the subject and not bring it up at all. Two captains had to stand up and ask, before he begrudginly clarified that the rule would not be changed. Nothing makes sense here...

We programmed our PDA's with the 368.5km task, taking us first to Trasacco in the south, to Gualdo Tadino in the north, back to BGO S Pietro, near a lake about 40km south of Reiti, back
to the north for a steering turn and finish. The fastest pilots have all been finishing the tasks under minimum time, and Leo was trying in increase the distance so that the task time is about 4hrs.

I've made friends with some of the swiss team, and they kindly offered to come over and help with my ancient LX5000 since it doesn't have the turn points in it. But, it's so old and has never been updated that it couldn't communicate with the PDA's. Thanks to the swiss for being so thoughful, and obviously the owner of my glider never flies it since just about nothing works. Oh, the battery mount broke this morning as well. Oh, and I've been asked about 3 times how my glider flies since the gelcoat is cracked and crazing. I was excited to fly a nice new shiny LS8, but this thing really is kind of a piece. Its totally not worth the 600 euros a week we are paying to rent it.

Anyway, yesterday during the opening ceremonies, I lost my locket necklace that some of my closest friends gave to me just before I left. I spent about an hour this morning looking for it and i haven't found it yet. I'm pretty sick over it, and I'm hoping that it turns up. It really means a lot to me.

The launch gets delayed until about 1pm, to make sure that the day is really ready to go, and before I know it I'm up and flying. First, I'm just happy to find a good thermal that I can climb up in, given that on practice day 2, I wasn't able to get up and almost had to go back to the airport for a relight. I move towards Terminillo to get the highest climbs, and soon find myself in gaggles with about 40 other gliders. Even though everyone is circling left now, which is a big improvement, it's still chaos. Mike and I move to make the start, and I'm having trouble seeing my PDA. I have to change one setting, and as I do, I make a quick circle to avoid running into other gliders, which is in sink, and before i know it, everyone comes to join me flying in the sink. Pretty funny. However, I do lose sight of Mike, and I'm heading towards what I think is the start, and a few minutes later, and much lower I realize that I've missed the start, and I was flying toward a border in the Reiti airspace. Mike has already started, and I'm down to about 1800m now, and I decide to restart. This is going to take me about 45 minutes, and I'm really hoping and praying it's worth the gamble.

I head back to Terminillo, and start climbing. I notice that I'm the only glider there and all the others have started. This means I'll be flying alone. I finally climb up and decide to start, but when I cross the line I'm only about 100m higher than I would have been if I had just stuck with the original start. That sucks. The first glide is usually pretty rough -- it's long and over rough terrain, and you don't usually get a thermal for about 30 or 40km. I ended up about 200m agl in a valley near the Chelano valley. Since I'm much more familiar with the terrain to the south, I knew I could keep pushing into a valley just beyond sight with plenty of good landing fields. I get low enough that I've put my gear down, and I suddenly find some ridge lift on the east side of the valley. I start working it, keeping my landing field in sight, and I'm able to work back up the side of the mountain, to about 1700m. I look over the top of me, and see other gliders circling under a big fluffy cumulus and go zipping off towards the first turn. I head into the Chelano valley, and I know that I need to make a tactical climb to get across this valley, so I start working the hills. I'm having a very hard time, and I end up wasting about an hour there just screwing around trying to get higher. In hindsight it would have been much better to have just flown across the valley with what I had and then climb on the other side. Well, I finally cross, find a marginal climb on the other side, and cross again. I get back to Chelano with the same problem. I can't climb high enough to get over the ridge into the L'Aquila valley. Finally, I just get frustrated and dart around the mountain into the next valley. Very low again, (156m agl) I choose a field and put my gear down. All the time I'm thinking how much this sucks to be happening on the first day. Son of a *****. I'm spiraling at the end of my field, taking a good look at the sheep that inhabit it, hoping that they don't move into my path, when the variometer starts to sing. Sure enough, I'm in a thermal which I'm able to climb to 3000m, where I should have been all day. Its about515 now, Mike has finished the task, and I've got about 250km still to go. I'm starting to realize that I might not make it...

I'm in some really good streets now, and I'm high enough to take advantage of them. I head towards the north to Gran Sasso, but I realize that the sea breeze has already pushed far enough inland that Gran Sasso wont' be working for me. I line up on a ridge of mountians
called Norcia. I'm not as familiar with the terrain to the north, and I'm nervous about flying
that way late in the day when the thermals might be quitting, so I'm keeping myself within glide of Foligno airport as I go north. It's actually working quite nicely, and I'm enjoying the run that I have on the convergence between the mountain air and the sea air. There are low
wisps that I can fly through, with good visibility so I do. I finally make the Gualdo Tadino
turn at about 630pm, and head back towards Flaminio airport. Still working the convergence
line, I'm now 70km from Reiti, and I realize that I can make it home. At least I won't have to land out but I'm not going to be able to make the final two turns. I forgot to mention that I have seen one other glider with me, and I can't tell if he's part of the contest or not. It does make me feel better that there's someone else out there with me. I take a few more turns just to make sure that I'll make it home. It's much hazier than before and the cumulus over Terminillo have overdeveloped and it looks really flat. I finally get in touch with Richard, who's relieved that I'm coming home. As I'm getting ready to cross into the valley, I get hit with a wave of very humid air and suddenly I'm dripping in sweat. I come in and land, relieved to be home, and hoping that someone else has landed out, but really knowing that I'm in last place on day 1. A few minutes later, the scores are up, and sure enough, I'm the only one from standard class who didn't finish the task.

It's pretty stinking dissapointing, although I know I made the right decision. If I hadn't landed at Reiti, I would have surely ended up somewhere to the south of here without a landing field, probably with a smooshed glider. Still it stings. The pilots here are very very good, and the winners would easily give the top pilots in the US (not juniors) a run for their money. For some reason the US has never been a powerhouse in gliding (at least not in the last 20 years) -- I guess it's a bit like soccer in that way. Plus, I'm one of the least experienced pilots here. Most have close to 1000 hrs or more, and close to 10 contests. I have to remember that it's a great learning experience, and an incredible opportunity. But, it really sucks to be in last place, there's no changing that.

Kathy