Finally we are off and flying.Despite the high winds I was talking about before the briefing, the event director David Levin sent us out for two tasks with the expectation that surface winds would remain reasonable until about 0830.
As this is an observer less competition there is no scope for pilot declared goals like we would normally have. As such all targets are selected by the director and in the case of this flight we had two hesitation waltz tasks with three goals available for each.
The goals all have a Marker Scoring Area (MSA) set that you can drop your marker in for a measured result. If you are outside the MSA your result is the 3D distance as calculated from your GPS logger.
All balloons launched from the main common launch point. Winds right in the surface were slow but quickly picked up speed as you climbed much more than 100 feet or so.
Approaching the first goal, the MSA was a soccer field (Goal 704). I was located a little to far to the left for a good approach so opted for one of the second two targets (705 & 706) where I could keep the approach nice and low. A small shift in the winds had me fighting to get to either of the targets which were located about 190m apart.
In the end I flew pretty well right down the middle of the two for a GPS scored result. Not really what I wanted while watching markers pile up on the other targets. The screen capture from my tablet shows it and the photo at the top of this post is it in reality with goal 706 in the foreground and 705 behind it.
Once clear of task one, I climbed into the faster upper winds to set up task two.
The first available target was rushing up and was off to the right of my track. A quick descent to ground level put me into a wind direction that took me right to the goal for an approximately 8m drop.
Was it a good morning? Not really results wise but bloody good to be flying after all this time. The full track log is shown below with goals 721, 722 & 730 making up task 2.
Austria 2008 Flight 1 - 17th August AM