30 Jul 98

2 Contest Day

Moenchsheide Bad and return

Take off : 14:00

Girding for Second Contest Day

We started today after the club class was off. Being in the last row, we were one of the last planes launched. Before the gate opened, we noticed a short lost of GPS satellites on the GPS but when the gate opened, the logger was working fine.

Through the Gate 14:27

We caught our first thermal after the start about 8 Km from the start a Janus.

    First thermal on the way at the Windmills

The thermals were working good, this afternoon, with well-defined Cus, and cloud streets. The other planes in the field spread out, there were not many large gaggles along the way to Moenchsheide. We were able to dolphin fly a lot of the way, all of which made for an enjoyable flight with good speed.

    Thermaling with another Duo near Euskirchen

Our problem today was technical, the logger was falling out and not getting satellites, down to three, next no satellites, then 5 or 10 minutes later, 7 satellites and recording position points again for 3 or 4 minutes.

I was using a Garmin 195 GPS, and also it was experiencing similar problems.

At 1^st Turn Point Moenchsheide about 15:30

At Moenchsheide being concerned about the logger reliability, we took several turn point photos and called the tower for a visual identification and requested a tower log entry of our position. ( we were willing to try anything at this point, as we felt we were flying well today and needed a good finish position in the contest for the day.)

Heading back on the return leg, we meet up with BG and 49 in the first thermal. This reinforce our feeling we were having a good day, as 49 was in first place and BG was a previous winner of German Soaring Championships We continued to fly along with them and 4N, our companion from the first day’s outlanding field. Coming to about the half way point, a large blue hole was waiting on us. Far to the south over the hills were still clouds, but far off course and we decided to try the blue area.

Landing out again about 16:30

Picking another plowed field, we set the Duo Discus down (with a bump) and had a sandwich and started the normal pastime of watching the sky for any survivors. It did not take long this time, as BG landed, followed by 49 and then 5 minutes later 4N. ( This farmer has a valuable crop today, over 600,000 D-Marks of sailplanes ! )

Again checking, the GPS (all three of them), we found all had 5 to 7 satellites and were logging points. ( the GPS story is for tomorrow)