We did another practice flight today. The organisers put ran a briefing and set two goal this morning. It was a great lesson in how the valley flows and changes as the morning develops.
We flew in from about 3.5km north west of the launch site and from the moment I was in the air it was obvious we were in the wrong side of the valley flow. I had set up near the center of the valley and as such had good speed and direction to a any other place than the actual goal I was trying to get to.
With that lesson learnt, I kept working at it despite being over time. Interestingly, the second goal proved to have the same issue for pretty well all of the other balloons. As the morning wore on everything in the valley stopped and went to waffle leaving only the gradient wind at altitude of any real use.
Weather wise it seems like we are in for another wonderful event in Austria with an amazing week of practice followed by a week of rain and wind during the actual competition. We are expecting it to turn bad on Saturday at this time but hoping to be proven wrong.
I am taking photos but so far the access to internet has been below average and with all the running around getting ready I have not downloaded any yet.
Also the link to the Worlds site for results etc. is now on the right or use this link.
