A Bad Call
The task committee gave us a large box around the valley to fly today. On a day with predicted heavy cloud cover. I'm just down and kind of pissed, so I'll make this short.

Nice high base, excellent start, everything shaded in as we hit turn-point 2.

Scratch
Maybe 50 gliders managed to scratch light-ass-shit up and drift back to the west (wrong) side of the valley where it was still working. They are up at base right now working their way around the course.

The bulk of us got shaded in.

Airspace...
A small group of us found a small bubble and where riding it up fairly well, but it drifted us into restricted airspace around the valley's sailplane airport. I was almost 200m inside the restriction when Semih yelled over to me that we were in violation.

Not sure what the rule is, but this may well zero me for the day.

Equipment Failure
First time ever I had a problem with my GPS/Vario. It failed to register turn-point 1, so I bounced around for a bit making sure I had the point.

Later, it made no noise when I hit the 300m buffer zone I set up around the restricted airspace.

Lessons Learned

• Pay strict f*ing attention to airspace


• Choose you ass-saving thermal with drift in mind


• Don't count on the instruments to warn you about restrictions


• A poorly called task can turn a race into a lottery and piss off a lot of pilots...

Photos at least
Got some nice photos while gliding to my doom. I'll post them when I get to decent Internet...

Great lift, strong winds
Today is our last day in Norma. Winds were not promising on launch--blowing in all directions, but the weatherman assured us this was normal--we just needed to wait for the sea breazes to overcome the prevailings.

He was correct, the winds turned and strong. The committee set a task an I hucked as soon as the window opened. It was strong but easily launchable. I left the hillside and beamed straight up. Clouds were good, lift was everywhere.

A few minutes after they closed launch for high winds I hit my highest altitude in Italy of around 2500m.

About 10 minutes after the closure they cancelled the task.

The 40 or so gliders already in the air flew around exploring the ridge and the flats out toward the ocean for at least an hour.

I took many pictures and will post soon.

But with bad weather predicted for Bustone, today may have been our last chance to fly.

4 more days to go—here's hoping for at least one more race day!!

Norma
With bad winds predicted in Bustone, we got up early this morning and road a couple of busses 2hrs south to the town or Norma—built on top a high ridge next to Roman ruins with a view of the Adriatic in the distance.

Fast Task
the committee gave us a fast 70k ridge run task. Zig-zagging along the ridge above Norma. I got stinking high at start but chose to positon myself in the flats. A group dove deep upwInd into the tall peaks, got a lucky, perfectly times thermal and sknked us to the start.

From that point there was little to do, just push the speed bar and race.

Waving to Anders
I had tightened my speed lines after task 1 and today i got a chance to try out full extension. Bottom line--I need to learn to hold it together on bar better. After three big asymmetric collapses and ensuing cravat fishing adventures, I slowed down. Anders watched one episode from below and told me: "that was a nice way to wave to me, with the right half of your glider!"

Rank
I managed despite my slowness to finish in the top half which moves me to 87 overall. My goal now is to creep into the top half at position 63. This won't be easy--that slot is currently Bruce Goldsmith, frmer world champion!

Cloud Surfing
Today looked nice. Winds were down and base looked a bit higher than yesterday. The course was set as a grand zig-zag. Up and down the west side of the valley, then crossing to the east side (avoiding the sailplane airport and restricted airspace), up and down, and then back across to the LZ on the west end).

I launched right into a thermal and joined 30 of my favorite insanely aggressive world cup pilots, fighting for cores right off of launch. We wiggled and swung our way up a few thousand feet and cruised north past the town of Poggio Bustone and a nice fat cloud forming on the peaks beyond.

It's against the rules, and generally against airspace regulations, to fly into a cloud—the you lose all visibility and the chance of collision is high. But with the right cloud, there is lift just outside on the edge and you can pass back and forth climbing higher than the base of the cloud, maybe even over the top—cloud surfing.

For the next 30 minutes or so the entire field easily climbed to base (~2200 meters) and then surfed the side of the cloud a few hundred meters higher.

Start
I lost some altitude waiting for the start, and headed out in the lower 1/3rd of the gliders—higher than many, lower than most. Not a stellar start, but good enough. I was with the lead pack, if a bit lower.

First Decision and Head Winds
The second turnpoint, south on the main ridge system, was pretty straightforward to reach. The only decisions where whether to stay in lift to climb while others passed, or to leave before the top and push forward.

I was moderately conservative. Taking height and falling maybe 30 gliders back.

At the second turnpoint we had our first real decision—did we continue south of the airspace restriction and cross the valley south of town, or turn around and fly the same ridge back north, crossing on the north end.

My guy told me that turning around was a good option. Base was high and there was lots of lift. But I didn't want to go alone and the lead gaggles had pressed forward (the southern route), so I followed.

Continuing on course meant fighting a headwind through a small canyon. Wanting decent height, I kept taking drifty lift that got me higher, but pushed me back the way I came. After wasting a bunch of time, I ditched the bad rides, smashed the speed bar and slammed through the head-winds to the hills on the far side.

At this point I was at least 60 gliders behind...

Change in Tempo
Looking to make up time, I kept on the speed and took only the strongest lift. This let me catch a few gliders. But as we turned around the airport to head for the third turnpoint, I realized the day had changed.

Large high clouds were forming shading in the sun. The lead gaggle was storming onward into the shade and doing poorly. In the end most of them landed.

One of the toughest mental challenges in a race is changing pace. Knowing when the day has changed from a race to a struggle for survival. I'm generally very bad at making this decision and was proud that I recognized the situation.

I slowed down, gliding at trim, maximizing all lift, waiting for the clouds to clear.

Patience...
Is not something I have a lot of. I knew I needed to slow down and take all the lift I could, so I joined a group of gliders flying in very very slow lift just beyond turnpoint 3.

But the lift was drifting them off course and after a few turns, I flew off toward turnpoint 4 all the time screaming at myself in my head "STAY! TAKE THE LIFT!"

Grovel...
I reached a small gaggle working even worse lift a few hundred meters over the ground halfway to turnpoint 4. I joined them and managed to stay up longer than several, but the clouds kept growing, the sun never emerged.

A few desperate minutes later, I was on the ground with Pete Schaefer and one other pilot.

STOP
A few minutes later, the task was stopped because of thunderstorms. Pete, the other pilot, and I waited out a downpour under a tree and limped back to the LZ in a retrieve van.

Validity
In the end the day was worth less than 1000pts for the leader, and about 700 for me (putting me in 75 place for the day and around 100 overall).

This means an additional discard, which is not a bad thing for me. Once we fly two more tasks, the first two days will disappear and I should move up.

l'Aquila
Wednesday we boarded giant green 'Forestale' busses and trucked about 2hrs away to a site outside of the town of l'Aquila called 'Campo Imperatore'.

The site was beautiful, but did not look promising. The launch is deep in a hole with some tall (7000ft?) ridges forming a big bowl behind and north. It looked windy and we were launching deep. Not a great combo.

As it turns out, people were able to bench up and report from the sky was that the winds were manageable. Unfortunately, winds came up strong and rotored on launch—after some close-call launches (Urban, parachutal; Regula frontal, turn, recovered maybe 50ft above the dirt; Jack popped, dropped, dislocated finger), the task was cancelled.

Those of us who hadn't launched rode the busses down to the LZ, on the edge earthquake devastated l'Aquila (read about the l'Aquila Earthquake).

We passed many collapsed houses, Red Cross temporary tent housing, and a new moble home development going up to provide more permanent housing.

At the LZ we had a small celebration with local foods—a show of support for bringing life back to the town.

Day 3, back in Poggio
Today we were back in Poggio Bustone, but storm clouds and high winds kept us on the hill. After several hours of top competitive para-waiting, the task was cancelled.

A few hardy souls punched off in strong winds to glide to the LZ. The bulk of us rode the vans down and are catching up on blogs!

Perfect Start
Day 1, Super Finals, the race for number 1. Pressure is on. Sky is blue with low puffy clouds. I'm pumped. I'm nervous. I'm on what people here would consider an 'ok' glider (nothing like the crazy prototypes the top guys are flying).

Launch is full of rocks and sticker plants and rocks and crazy European pilots.

Somehow I got of the hill without tangling any of the above and positioned myself for the perfect start.

Cloudbase 30 seconds before the start time, 300 meters from the start. Crossed into the cylinder about 2 seconds after the start, high, and the lead glider!

It's the Super Final and I got the perfect start.

I glided into the first turn point, turned to head back to the hill and tank up for the ride to turn point 2.

Brad Gunnuscio joined me and we led the pack to the first thermal of the race.

And that is where things started to fall apart...

Slapstick Ensues
So Brad and I are in a nice strong thermal when the other 130 gliders come to join us. It's the typical hyper-aggressive PWC crowd pushing and shoving in.

Brad swings a little wide, an evasive maneuver and I turn tight behind him to stay in the strong lift.

Whack! I hit his wake and take an asymmetric tuck. Not a big deal, but it sticks, cravated. I decide to fly straight out of the pack, planning to fish out the cravat, and duck back in. I will have lost height, but no big deal. My alternative, which turns out would have been a MUCH better idea, was to stay thermalling with 1.5 meters of my wing tucked in. Not efficient, but doable.

So I fly out a bit and start tugging the stabilo. And it's still stuck. I let go of the controls and start the hand-over-hand pull to get the tip out—a little surprised that I need to resort to this for what looks like a pretty simple cravat, but these new gliders have a lot of structure, and things get stuck good.

Finally the tip pops out, and hard. The stabilo pulls tight and wraps around my left middle finger. Now I'm literally stuck in the line, arm extended to the sky. What? This is ridiculous! I can't really believe it's happened, but it has.

I pull my hand out of the glove and am now staring at my glove flapping a few feet over my head in the stabilo. This is not a good configuration. My hand is going to be cold. The flapping will drive me crazy. And the stablio is a little shorter with a glove wrapped in it.

I take a calm breath, examine the wrap, figure out which way it's twisted, carefully untwist and recover my glove.

All good, comedy routine over. But now I'm very far away from the thermal and kind of low. I guess I could have turned back, but at that point I decided it was better to continue on course and take the first ride up I found.

The ride was a long time coming. When I was low enough to start spotting landing fields, I spotted a soaring bird launch from a tree. I joined it a few feet over the tree and rode a long slow thermal back to base.

In the meantime at least 80 gliders had passed me. From lead glider to 80+ in one serious of slapstick maneuvers...

Less than Perfect Ending
I spent the rest of the task essentially flying alone at the back of the pack. I tried to stay patient but could resist a few attempts to catch up the other gliders. I made up some time, and eventually ran into Bill Hughes who had suffered his own serious of calamitous events that put him toward the back (just not quite as far back as I was..)

The last turn point of the day was across the main valley. I knew I needed as much height as possible and some company to make it happen.

I found a great climb and hit my highest altitude of the day. Then I hooked up with another glider (Regula) and patiently set out to cross with her.

In retrospect, our positioning was not good. Winds were southwest and we needed to head almost directly into the wind to get the turnpoint. It would have been better to retrace our steps to the south along the hills and approached the turn from the southeast and quartered the wind.

Instead we took the direct route from our climb, hit the wind, and dropped.

I found a slow bubble half-way across the valley and patiently tracked it up. But I wasn't patient enough. Or I just lost the lift. I'm not even sure which. But I left too low.

Regula had missed the bubble and landed short of the point.

I reached the point, turned toward goal, and landed about 4km short.

In the end I finished 112th...

Fortunately, if we get two more flying days (very likely in this 11 day meet) I can discard the result...

Poggio Bustone
Denise and I arrived Sunday afternoon in Poggio Bustone, about an hour north east of Rome. The town is built about 2000 feet up a hill on the way from the LZ to launch. It's beautiful old stone houses, one small plaza, 1 restaurant and 2 bars.

Semih Sayer and a couple Korean pilots are staying the the hotel with us. The rest of the pilots are spread out through the valley in rented rooms, farm houses, and assorted hotels. It's a beautiful spot, but I wish we'd rented a car. It's a bit tricky getting around by foot.

Pre-Practice Day
Yesterday was a 'pre-practice' day, an unofficial day with no organization support, but plenty of pilots in the air.

I was able to get my glider out of the bag for the first serious flight since the PWC in Korea (several months ago). I remembered to replace my speedbar line, and everything worked well. All lines attached, I remembered what I was doing.

Andy Palmer, Brad Gunnuscio and I had a nice flight chasing maybe 20 other pilots up and down the main ridge, with a pop out into the valley to test the lift for a crossing.

I didn't want to be up too long—this is a long (10 day) meet and I don't want to fry myself before it starts. Plus I thought Denise was waiting in the LZ.

Turns out she hooked up with Kim (Bill Hughes' girlfriend) and Sue (Jack Brown's wife) and was planning on hiking. In the end, Jack went for an adventure off on his own and landed out away from the LZ so the women spent most of the afternoon trying to find him.

I spent my time at the LZ greeting pilots as they arrived and drinking some cool Italian beer.

Practice Day
Today is the official practice day, but I'm planning on taking it off. Denise and I will head into the nearest town and look for a scooter rental store. A bike looks like a great way to get around this place!