Competition News

Yesterday was supposed to be the best day of the week, so the tasksetters decided to set the longest task ever done in a portuguese task : a pretty much straight line of about 150 km towards the East.
At first the conditions were very week with the thermals stopping around 1300m AMSL. A lot of people bombed out as we had to manage some pretty epic low saves.
After about 20 km the conditions got better and we could thermal to 2000 m pretty easily, and sometimes got to 2600 m.
Julio had some trouble with his GPS so he lost a lot of time and ended up bombing out about 25 km from goal. Diego tried to push forward of a gaggle alone and also ended up bombing out about 30 km from goal.
I flew in a group of 3 to 4 pilots for about half the task and we got to goal :)
In the morning we were discussing retrieve and thought it would be such a mess we just had to get to goal. We were perfectly right! Some pilots sat next to the road until 10 PM, and we got back in castelo at half past midnight.
After that the organizers decided to beat another world record: latest GPS download ! How fun to get that thing to work at one in the morning...

Today it seems the wind is not in the right direction and strong so maybe no task...

Today's flight :
http://www.xcontest.org/switzerland/fr/vols/details:ElieBourdilloud/20.6.2011/12:15

Some photos will follow later