Nepal Open Practice Day Feb 27th 2013

Taken on training day 1, 26th February, with Bella Messenger

Nepal Open Paragliding Cup.

Wednesday February 27th, 2013

Practice Day

My xc competition experience is somewhat limited.  I have participated in several weekend league meets with 40-60 pilots, one FAI Cat 2 comp, and been a volunteer/windtech for a PWC.  When I heard that tandems here in Pokhara would be closed for one week due to a FAI cat 2 comp I was interested, but torn between free flying during my vacation or flying tasks.  In the end I decided to take the opportunity to participate in a major, for me, xc comp, and learn more about flying efficiently.

After the general briefing we loaded busses and headed to Sarangkot.  Egor, comp organizer and friend, set a good dusting off task.  Sarangkot - Torrie Panni - Top of the Green Wall - East Peak - Antenna Peak - front Dicki Dande - Sunrise LZ.  While drawing out the task I assumed I would go back to the Green Wall and fuel up after front Dicki Dande.  The start time was open with an entry cylinder at Torrie Panni.

Egor doing his thing.

I tried to launched as soon as launch was open and soon was a little over the towers.  Pressure was high, with tight little thermals and an obvious inversion to break through.  On my way up a certain pilot in a red and black acro wing  decided to enter the thermal by fliying straight at me while I was turing predictably (apparently one mid-air collision is not enough to teach some people how to enter thermals).  I allowed this to irritate me and distract my mind from the task at hand.  I became in a rush to leave the house thermal and dived over to Torrie Panni lower then necessary, only to spend 20 minuets scratching and eventually be back in the house thermal.  Lesson one, a lesson I will have to relearn many times it seems, don’t get bothered by what happens.  Me being in the air and angry that this guy forced me to make a radical defensive maneuver does not help anything, and the only thing my anger changes is me, in a negative way.

While scratching I saw my friend Wil Brown make the perfect transition to Torrie Panni.  Wil collected the most leading points of the day, good job Wil.  He has been generally killing it here.  Flying new routes often and huge flights regularly.  He deserves this shout out.  Much respect Wil  

Pilots scratching up the to make the Green Wall turnpoint

So eventually I end up high over Torrie Panni and go on glide for Dicki Dande, with a gaggle of gliders following.  Short work on Dicki Dande to the Green Wall.  The waypoint was right at the top of the Wall with a 400m radius.  It was tricky to break thorough the inversion and tag the turn point.  I tried it from three different approaches, and was quite relieved when my Flymaster NAV told me I had tagged the cylinder.  Over on the east peak I took a great climb to 2,600m and set off, with a gaggle leaving 200m below me, Bimal Adhikari leading.  I was able to push a lot of bar and watch Bimal’s line.  I soon realized that refueling at the green wall was not necessary and I could proceed straight to goal, just behind Bimal.  I made goal, which is my daily goal, and had a good flight.  Relsults of the practice day can be found here: http://nepalopencup.org/

The day was a great day to fly, the high pressure meant only small cloud development in the big mountains.  Friends who did not fly task got over 4,000m above big snowy faces.  One group had top landed Korchon the day before and reached 5,100m today.  Big mountain adventure flying is what I dream about when I dream about flying, and Im pumped for all my friends.  I don’t regret flying the task, I had a blast trying to fly fast with gaggles of pilots, and Im looking forward to the next five days.