Manilla XC Open, day 4

Today was an epic flying day, and I sucked! Skies looked great, and many people went 150+ km, but I bombed at about 30 km, in a remote valley to the NW of launch. I ended up walking about 6 hours to a main road, but which time it was very late and dark (9pm), and my retrieve was still 200 km away, coming back from picking up Will and Keith. Fortunately the Korean team came by while I was waiting, and took me back to Manilla.

Not a good day for me, and frustrating given that so many other people did so much better than me today.

Back to the flying…east winds so we congregated on the east launch. Due to the new rules (flying open distance along a specific bearing, to keep people together and keep an eye on the weather, a result of the day 1 fiasco), everyone was to fly to the NW of launch. Basically do a GOTO to Mt. Borah, and try to keep a bearing back to there of 113 degrees. This came about as a compromise to the protest that was submitted a couple days ago. The decision was to let the pilots decide whether day 1 should be cancelled, by a written vote of at least 50%. Every day a “safe” or “not safe” box would be checked on the sign in form, and for the 1st day, if more than 50% say “not safe”, then it will be cancelled. For subsequent days, if more than 20% of pilots say not safe, then those days will be cancelled too. So this way we won’t know whether the first day was cancelled until tomorrow, after all the day 1 votes are accounted for, when people sign in tonight.

So everyone launched from the east launch and it was easy to cloudbase at 2200m, and over the back to the NW. I was with a group of people and the going was a bit slow, but it was OK until the 30 km mark, where several of us got low in a small valley with no houses, and only a small road/track. Most everyone got out, but I didn’t, and I ended up landing in this small valley. Started walking and eventually came across a small hunting lodge-type affair, and the door was unlocked, so I went in. Since I was running low on water and the heat was atrocious, and my retrieve was busy elsewhere, I decided to stay in the lodge for a while for the sun to get less fierce and the day to cool off a bit (I was in contact with my retrieve via cell phone, and they knew where I was, but didn’t know how to get there exactly). Took a nap in the lodge for about 1 hour, then noticed the sky getting overcast and the winds were picking up, which meant walking would be easier and not so hot, and less water to drink.

The whole way walking I occasionally came across a skeleton of some animal, or an actual carcass of a sheep or cow, still decomposing. Rather sobering and I didn’t want to end up like them!

Started walking again and eventually came to a farmhouse, where the owners were just getting back from Manilla. So they didn’t want to go back, so I got directions from them on how to get back to the main road, and filled up my water bottles, and continued walking. It was totally dark by the time I came to the Manilla road, and my retrieve was still a long ways away, so I settled down to wait. Eventually got picked up by the Korean delegation and they took me back to HQ for our GPS downloads.

In the end I walked for about 6 hours and about 12 km straight line (but in reality about 25 km, with all the twists and turns in the road, walking about 4-5 km/h), and only had 30 km flying to show for it. Not good, so I’ll have to do better tomorrow. And I have to figure out why I’m sucking so much at this comp. But I got to see the “mini-outback” up close and personal, and it makes me appreciate how easy it is to overfly terrain!

Not sure how everyone else did, but imagine there are lots of 200 km + flights. Will, Keith, and Tom flew about 225 km. Apparently Jouni Markonnen (Finnish pilot) flew 270 km!

Nicole