Pribina Cup 2014
April 19 - 26, 2014 NITRA, SLOVAKIA

Competition - 24th Apr 2014

2014-04-24 19:36:00

Day 5

The day started with cloudy sky, mostly high level clouds, which disappeared around the briefing time. At that time we were quite busy making the tasks right for the weather and the airspace we have got for today. We met all pilots at the briefing where we announced the winners from pervious day and shortly discussed the yesterday's operations. Then Ivan, our Metman, took floor and described the weather outlook for today. Now we know his forecast was a bit pesimistic, as he expected cloud base at around 1300 metres and actual base was at 1800-2300m, the later in the mountains. Nevertheless, he did well as far as the wind and the rain forecast concerns. We started take offs at 11:30 as announced at the briefing and it was, according to me, just right time to allow gliders for a pleasant connection to not a very strong thermals at that time. Launching went fine with only one incident, which we will discuss about tomorrow  to avoid its reoccurrence. All gliders were airborne in about 70 minutes, 10 minutes longer than the previous days as one Turbine Cmelak was not available due to other duties. We were lucky, that it has been replaced by the normal Cmelak with 'radial' engine so all went quite fine even like that. After the start lines were open the airfield turned into a quiet zone with no flying machines around. Only occationally we were able to spot some other gliders in the vicinity of our airport. Arrivals started quite early, which was an indication that the most of the pilots did not wait too long for weather to deteoriate. It turned to be a right decision as those arriving earlier were high in the daily scores  later. The average speeds of up to 120km/h seems to indicate that it could have been a good fun in the air. Some pilots even did not need to circle much when on task which again prooves that it was not a bad day. Anyway, we had a few 'real' outlandings too and we hope pilots will get back soon for a drink and a chat with the others. That is all by now and I am looking forward for tomorrow, which we all hope to be another flying day. Have a good rest .....