Pribina Cup 2019
March 30th - April 7th 2019 NITRA, SLOVAKIA

Competition - 19th Apr 2019

2019-04-19 21:36:53

First Flying Day

First day of the competition started quite optimistic. We woke up into the sunny morning, it was nice and warm outside, so everybody was excited for the first racing day. Last checks, preparations, going over local procedures. Meteorologist promised us a nice weather with few cumulus clouds and high cloud bases so tasks were set for 300 to 370km. Launching procedure started at 12:00 and it took us about 1 hour and 20 min to get all the gliders in the air. At that time no cu clouds yet. There were some relaunches, but not any major problem (hopefully no chaos like it is usual for the first day :)). Unfortunatelly, the weather did not turn out to be as promised. Cumulus clouds did not appear, just blue thermals, sometimes hard to find. Accoarding to the pilots, the gliding conditions were better on the northern part of Slovakia over the hills, not that good at flats. Cloud bases were quite high though, max 2300m. The situation was also complicated by the wind, but some pilots were able to use wave flying over Zobor and over Martin hills. We were nervous for quite a while, because many outlandings had been reported and there were no gliders on the final. Luckily, pilots here are skilled enough to fight even in the harder conditions and landings started :) It was not an easy day, but we made it and it seems like the day will be valid for all classes. :)