A super fast magnificent flight

This is a belated post (it was stuck in the blogg editor)

The beauty of soaring is also to be found outside of the contest arena - on the 2nd of February I was privileged to fly with Martin Gruenert on a training flight in a DG500M - we joined up with Alan O'Regan in hsi LS 8, X32 and had one of the most amazing runs I have ever experienced, straight from Worcester to Klawer 220km at 145kph, without turning once - Alan's trace is at http://www3.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=-520879654

We were only able to download the flarm trace later and i will post it separately
Play the two flights together and see how we rushed down the Klawer gutter at 200kph plus, 1000ft amsl (the surface is a little higher than sealevel ;-) and spot the mistake coming back (KS is right - "all ridge runners will face low energy / weak lift situations at some point in almost every flight ... never put yourself in a situation where your plan has to work." - see http://miffling.soaringweb.net/ridge.htm ).

We then had another amazing run down the Porterville ridge and spot how Martin races neck and neck with Alan. As Alan said, it was the best he has experienced on the front ridge. Speaking for myself: it was my first ridge flight to Klawer and it rates as one of the most memorable flights I ever had - we ended it off with some convergence flying on the way back from Ashton and (suspected) wave almost to 8000ft - advising X32 that the valley was working when the Witzenberg failed him (see his trace for his low energy point ;-)

EY