The good news first. After the first 7 tasks I am in 5th place and only 200 points from 2nd place and 600 from first. This is a good place to be.
The weather was fine again this morning. Unfortunately my flying was not. No Photos today either - it was all too busy.
The mornings flight was to be a Pilot Declared Goal, Fly In and another Pilot Declared Goal.
While only three tasks, the trick was always going to be the selection of the first and third goals as they had to be chosen before take off with the final goal being between 6 and 9 kilometers from the launch point.
The winds were generally from the north with some westerly component near the surface and even some southerly at times. It was very fluky and there was a lot of head scratching going on.
After choosing a launch site I got off to an early start with the intention being to use the higher and in theory more reliable winds to get into all the goals before it all changed. I was near the front of the pack and happy with that position.
At only 1.6km to a suitable PDG I had little time to correct and ended up at nearly 2000ft and still to far left of the goal. A quick calculation and I dropped the marker in to a rice field about 320m from the goal. Not a good result but as close as I could get from where I was.
The Fly In to the field was another limited scoring area and again I was approaching from high, sitting on about 3000ft to get a good run in. The surface winds were picking up from the south so I had to fly past the goal before descending into the lower winds and flying back to the north for the drop.
As can happen I got a little greedy and hung onto the marker in an attempt to make a correction as I was looking like being a few hundred meters from the goal again. I was also skirting the edge of the scoring area so a drop would have been risky as I was still around 1000feet up and had just watched a marker slide out of the scoring area right near me. It did not pay off as I did a big arc around the northern end of the scoring area and never made it back in. No result for that task.
It was then back up to 3000 feet again to see if I could get to the last goal that was chosen at the start of the flight. Sticking with the upper wind plan seem to pay off and I flew due south to the final PDG. Again, with a high approach and winds nearly 180 different on the surface it was hard to position the balloon exactly but eventually I got it down in more or less the right spot. As I flew towards the goal just above ground height, what little westerly had been there evaporated and I ended up 133m off to the west.
So, the last task may get some points but I don't expect much. There were lots of balloons hanging around fighting to get to something but you never know how they did until the results hit the wall. The same can be said for the first PDG. There will be some good ones but it was so fluky that you just never know.
The Fly In was may disaster for the day. I had the joy of watching balloon after balloon correct their approach after my mistake. Now I just have to hope that more than a hand full missed so I get some points.
I am off to find a decent coffee and some lunch...
