Pribina Sailplane Grand Prix 2008
Sailplane Grand Prix Quallification
September 7-13 2008 NITRA, SLOVAKIA

Competition - 8th Sep 2008

2008-09-08 23:06:51

Today, in the morning, only few pilots believed that they will fly. The dark clouds and huge tunderstorm in the night supported that expectation, but Nitra is a bit different to the rest of the area. There have been some indication on satelite already in the morning that we might have a task. The first briefing concentrated on yesterday procedures and actual weahter. At that time the grid for the runway 33 has been already announced. The second briefing held at 12:00 confirmed the intentions to fly. There were some beautiful Cu clouds to the north so Dominik, competition director, decided to extend the task by some 50km. This decision was not easy, but the weather development confirmed it later. The first launch was set to 13:30 and confirmed finally 15min before. In less than 30 minutes all gliders were in the air (865m above ground) with the help of our four towplanes. The start line openning was announced at 14:15. There were quite nice weather conditions everywhere around already. Online tracking confirmed its quallity and we could see the flight paths of all competing gliders. After start line two groups formed immediately. One taking track left of the course over the city and the second one flying right over Jelenec ruins. It was quite clearly visible that pilots did not circle too much and flew stright almost to the first TP Duchonka. After turn they had a tail wind which increased their cross country speed to the nice value. Later some pilots were a bit low near second TP Vrable, but they got a good thermal of more than 3m/s and continued further on course. The last circling was visible some 40km out and from that time the key part of the flight began. Pilot who managed to get the most of it was Sebastian Kawa. He was closely followed by Olli Teronnen and Petr Krejcirik. The others run in closely behind those three. Exciting, but safe finishes got a good chance to take nice pictures which are already published on our web. All present at the airport were happy in the end, organisers because they got a valuable day and pilots because they had a nice task they have not imagine in the morning. We are looking forward to tomorrow ....