Motegi murder

This morning was freezing. When it is this cold you have to hug your observer...it is in the rules.

A cold and cruel wind was blowing in from the north west, making pilots and crews shiver as we waited for the green flag at the Twin Ring common launch site.

One of the cool things that has been done this year is the distribution of pi-ball data and other messages via email to our phones. It is fantastic. There is an echo of phone going off and then pilots all head down in their phones checking the latest data.

The flight for the morning was a PDG followed by a Hesitation Waltz then Fly on.

The winds were showing 30knots (60km/h) at about 1000 feet but each subsequent wind reading showed it easing to a mere 25knots :)

At about 0710, the phone went of again informing us the launch period would start at 0720.

A last minute check of the winds and we were under way. There really was not much choice to be made with the PDG. Most pilots if not all had chosen the same goal and it was getting busy around it with balloons and markers going everywhere. The approach was a little challenging with the balloon going from about 30km/h into a slow valley wind at 90 degrees to the previous direction.

Watching the balloons ahead, most were mucking up the approach so I decided to make a higher drop and just fly straight at the target. It paid off with an 8.4m drop. This looked like about 7th place when we went back to measure but we are all very close and the median will be down the road a fair way.

On the way into the PDG I had found a narrow layer of wind that would take me to the western most goal of the Hezitation Waltz. The eastern most goal did not look achievable at all and even the western one was going to be hard to get to.

As soon as I dropped the PDG marker I climbed to the exact altitude I had recorded before and then stayed in the narrow band all the way to the goal. It paid off. Many pilots looked like they were hunting for it and were slowly slipping off to the east of the goal.

Another high drop at about 40km/h had the marker slide into the base ball field where the target was. As far as I can tell it was the only marker to get in the field and be checked by the measuring team. The distance looked like about 40m but I was not really checking as I was getting buffeted by mechanical turbulence from the high winds over the mountains.

There were a few special shapes going on out there as people got whacked dropping into valleys or hitting the wind shear.

I had chosen a fly on goal well down the track and had plenty of time to line up for it. Things keept changing and in the end I had real problems getting down to the surface for the approach. Every time I descended I was in very bad turbulence and when only 200 feet of the ground over houses and power lines I was unable to drive the balloon as low as I needed. There was a lot of burning and venting going on to get through the shear but it was too late. I slipped off to the side and dropped about 160m from the FON goal.

Even the landing had more shenanigans with turbulence. I flew out into a nice open area in the hope of getting it a bit easier and still got a huge shear only 100 feet of the surface and accelerated wildly during the last part of the approach. I lined up a dirt road and did a huge drag landing in the rice paddy beside the track and ended up dragging the basket up on to the track for a very easy pack up and retrieve.

So today was pretty good. It will be interesting to see the scores because most people took much earlier fly on goals but I don't think they would have been all that easy to get to.

Fingers crossed the winds settle down for the afternoon flight.

Motegi Flight 3 - AM
PGD, HWZ, FON - Flight from NW to SE