After about an hour waiting for the official 20R$ shuttle for the unofficial training day, four of the right on time pilots – me included – jumped in the first 4WD offering a 20 minutes ride to the take-off instead of the usual 1h+ for two mere additional Euros. That gave me ample time to stick my number on the wing, eat and drink and chat again at the Bar da Rampa. Plus some surf thanks to the very convenient W-LAN connection, plus some simulation with the latest beta version of the Compass firmware, which I am sure is not the last.

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Second training day in GV, different conditions. The sky looked good in the morning but during the bus ride to the take-off it changed dramatically. Almost totally overcast. And after one hour spent drinking and eating and chattting at the Bar da Rampa, rain curtains appeared upwind, east of the Ibituruna peak. I repacked by precaution.

Almost all the French team has arrived, so everyone minded his own business: Antoine goes airborne first, then Jojo, then another one… well, let’s look how they manage it. Some raindrops fall, Antoine flies away with ears, Jojo hids to come back a bit later. OK, let’s go now before the real rain arrives. In fact, it appears I took off to go meeting the rain personnaly. I experimented a new technique: after years of practicing turning on the edge of Cu’s with the wing-tip a bit in the fog for half the turn, now is time to try the wing-tip a bit in the rain for half the turn. Not easy, not pleasant, I go away. Wings are scattered all around the peak, let’s find a dry route and not drift too much with the wind.

After 20kms or so, a low save, a slow recovery, time has come to make it back to GV. My intention is to cross the blue cell towards the peak, Laurie wishes to experiment the cloudstreet terminating in rain pour. OK, girls first. Once under the dark cloud, over its shadow, I cannot grab her bubble and here we go again. An opportuniy to check that my bright R-Team Orange is not fading with the 30° washing program. I push the bar to escape, goes visiting a white but wet friend, checking how dry or wet is my gear before releasing the bar and touching my brakes. Strange how these seconds seem like hours.

I like to comptemplate rainbows. Watching one a bit too close and from above, I turned my head away and headed for the landing place. A 50km out-and-return was the right flying dose for today. Tomorrow, first official unofficial traning day for the 2013 SurperFinal!

First training day today. Meeting the buddies again, breaking a 5 months break, back in the air. The glider inflates easily, the right handles makes it turn right, same for the left one, the speed bar is free to travel, I’m flying and this is good.

I had prepared a small 30km task to put myself quickly back into the competition mindset, something I do no do usually. Just after I made my personal startpoint, I angled towards my first turnpoint, a waypoint called R01. And realised rather rapidly what the R was meant for in R01. Restricted. So I avoided going over the local airport and slightly changed my plans. Overall, the larger plan was to test this new thing, the Conical End of Speed Section (CESS for acronym lovers). So I did. And almost landed in my final glide. Lines of glide can be treacherous around Ibituruna.

After a very low save (thanks Klaudia for pointing me to the right hotspot) I climbed back to the take-off. While climbing my C-Pilot told me I had entered the 2.5 glide ratio angle to goal. Cool, even though some fields like « Altitude at goal » now display erratic values when gliding to CESS. I have been on the verge to publish some rant about CESS, well not about CESS concept itself, even if I could, but about the introduction of this untested system in a SuperFinal. But no, not now, not willing to eladorate, not strong enough to fuel controversy…

Top-landing can be tricky, So I checked myself. How did my mind behaved during the flight, did it wandered in some unwanted places? No. Good point. So let’s focus again and approach correctly that slope in order to land without twisting ankles or scratching butt. Once done, I could enjoy a snack, drink refrigerantes, and most important, reduce my brake lines by more than 3cm. The second flight was much better in terms of glider handling and turn control. New test of the 2.5 CESS: wow, that is steep!

Yesterday I rented a car to come from VItoria to Valadares and more or less midway made a 1 hour stop at Baixo Guando. Just long enough before a Cu congestus decided to pour some water it had in excess. The city is business as usual. No scars left by the strong rains episode. Not sure the track to the take-off still exist or is usable. No gliders in the sky to tell. Let’s hope they have all recovered well in the city.

Let’s stick to english for some more posts. That shall help me not to let emotions go through my words for the time being and to give a bit of fresh air to this blog. To write in a light mood, with 7 French pilots in the top 9 WPRS, here is another good reason to write in english: time has come to let the universe be given the keys of performance in free flying (a smirking smiley should appear around here – be aware, I do not use smileys).

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