1st task

All Aussie pilots are back in Piedrahita, safe. Ivan made goal despite flying with a faulty tracker, Felipe was about 37 k short. Geoff and Antje were somewhat short too !!! There should be a few get pinged for airspace violations and are now wishing they uploaded the airspace file. results will be up later.

Task 1 - Goal at 154 km - the view from the ground

Task 1 is running as we speak, and Felipe at 95 km seems to be in the 2nd Gaggle - go Felipe. Ivan's last live tracking point (see piedrahita2011.com) is at 45km out, I think he's on the ground, Geoff seems to have gotten washed off the pass at 31 km out (known Piedrahita difficulty #2 - sinking air behind the pass for several kms) and yours truly sunk out right at the start, scratching all the way to the ground (known Piedrahita difficulty #1 - it is after all a North facing, shallow slope, and I can verify that this is not conducive to thermal formation). It was windy on launch, but not as bad as yesterday. Good luck to those still on course. And for myself, I guess I'll be well rested for a new day tomorrow.


Antje

congested goal

Yesterday was a practise task which was short and succsessful with most reaching goal, ( all Aussies made goal ). Today is the official first task . The forcast looks good for a few days so expect some ever changing results to come flowing in.

Dave

The opening ceremony finished with most pilots tucked up in bed ready for the practise task with the exception of 50% of the kiwi team. at least someone is making use of the 2 story mobile disco .

Dave

Opening ceremony

Great opening ceremony, done in a typical Spainish/Piedrahita style. Its now 11:20pm and the town party has just started, the 2 story mobile disco thing is pumping out euro pop at an head splitting volume and i belive is suppossed to go on till 3 am. world champs Spanish style, Nice.

Dave.

Were here

Antje testing the new fai approved harness

The complete Aussie team are now here in Piedrahita and ready to do battle. All 3 blokes and 1 sheila have succsesfully passed all the very strict rego requirments. Additional to the team is myself as team leader and general dogsbody. My logistic skills were tested this morning at rego, helping some of the guys with there paperwork, there is so much paperwork and checking to be done it took about 2 hours to complete, then you had to go to another building to have your gear checked. The organisers seemingly had it all under control until the fai guys stepped in, and then the system all fell apart and instead of having your glider/lines, harness and helmet checked they just checked helmets and pilot weights !. All in all, cat 1 rego = organised chaos . Some have gone flying before having to return this evening for a mantatory pilot breifing and opening ceremony.

Dave Gibbs

1st day in Piedrahita

After a 10 hour flight 3 days in Shanghai another 10 hour flight 3 days in Germany one flight of 2 hours and 1 day in Madrid, I finally arrived in Piedrahita after a short bus ride. Got my accomodation sorted and a lift up the hill straight away in a BMW, it was good to arrive in style. hehehe
The french team is here and several other pilots are training for the worlds, yesterday we had a light westerly breeze and we set a 100km task out and return.
I was so excited to try my mew wing, I received it at about 6 weeks ago but the crap winter in Sydney didn't allow me to try it out. The sky was full of Ozone wings, and the R11 are really the best wing around.
we had a gaggle of about 10, 15 pilots and the only non R11s was myself with the new Tracer and a polish guy with the UP XR and and the black icepeak 5 of Jean mark Caron.
Piedrahita is amazing, powerful thermals and big air. it only gets dark here at 10:30 and yesterday at 6:30 we still had thermal of + 5.
Our task started with a ridge run, a turn point over the flats one turn point 44 km at west and them goal in Piedrahita.
The R11 are the wings to be beaten but the Icepeak and the UP are not too far behind. I think the Icepeak 5 climbs really well. My wing is completely different from last years, it's heaps more stable and easier to fly, more collapse resistant and when on glide I didnt feel the R11s had an advantage.
We flew for almost 4 hours and I was always with the leading gaggle, the begining of the flight on the flats we had super rough stuff, I think the thermals weren't well defined and I just couldn't find a good core, I think no one could really do. On the way back it was a differnet history, nice big well difined climbs.
It was hard to go down and land due to the abundance of lift.
All in all it was great to be in the air again and having the cofidence I have a good glider, from now on the plan is to train a bit more, rest and concentrate and be ready to the real deal.
We still have a few more days of training to get to know the area better and get to know the infamous convergence lines of Piedrahita.
The rest of the Team will arrive in Piedrahita today. It will be good to catch and hear the stories from the Nordic Open where they did really well.

Stay tuned.

Felipe Rezende