New year's Eve

Another solid practice day. Had all sorts of trouble getting up to start height; the only ones who did were those who contacted wave early. I ended up starting 200 metres low; not great but not a disaster. There were plenty of gliders lower. The first 40km or so to the north were tricky with choppy wave affected thermals but then the day got itself organized and it was a blast from then. Had a little rocket ride along a ridge at 3500 metres trying to stay out of the cloud that was below the top. Got final glide from about 120km out. There was a little sting in the tail; received a 40 second penalty for finishing 8 metres too low. I thought I was OK but it is hard to argue with data loggers. I will just have to set a slightly bigger safety margin as 5 seconds per metre is a huge penalty. But I was happy with the speed for the day, about 129kph. Tonight is new year eve party; I guess as I write this people are waking up in Oz with sore heads. Tomorrow there is no official practice. I am contemplating having a rest day. I reckon I have seen 90% of the task area and it doesn’t seem that they get many bad weather days here. Mark is trying to get his backside into a Nimbus 4DM so he can see what is so scary about this place. We'll go out tonight and have a good time and we will see how it all pans out. The Chileans we have met so far are just top blokes; they are looking after us extraordinarily well. Happy new year to all!!

Official Practice

First official practice day. Much clearer sky today; it was possible to see stuff, like mountains and other gliders. Grand Prix tasks are usually fairly short two to three hour affairs and this was no exception. 280km running the ridges, first to the south and then north. The first part was low and dirty, up against the rocks at not a great altitude. The ridges weren't working all that great. It is amazing how far some of the guys will push on before stopping for a climb. Up to the north it bcame a bit more routine for me; the ridges still weren't that great but the thermals improved. I was able to overhaul nearly everyone and was actually one of the first over the line at 121kph . But, you know, big deal. It was only a practice day; not everyone did the task and probably not everyone who did the task was going flat out. The TV/Internet people have arrived and tracking is installed in our gliders and is obviously working. As I rolled to a stop Mark told me about the ripper thermal I had on the last leg. (It was 9.5kts av) The big screen is up and Mark reckons the graphics are sensational. Pity it will all happen in the wee small hours for folks back home. Here is our tie down. All very civilisedTomorrow we get to do it all again. It is a tough life

Bit of an off day

Not much to say about today. Woke up with cough, sore throat and blocked ears. Went flying anyway. Conditions weren't all that flash and visibility was appalling. The photo below was taken from overhead Viticura, looking east towards the mountains.

They are out there somewhere! Slowly picked my way north but after two and a half hours I had had enough. Quiet night for me I think. And happy birthday to Danielle!!

Working out how to do it

Ventured a bit further afield today, about 100km to the north and a bit less then that to the south. Did a fair bit of back-tracking, seeing what works, what doesn't, and trying to identify the energy lines. The Andes are a very significant mountain range; about 100km from here is a peak of 7000 metres. We are really only fooling around in the foothills, little things of only 3000 metres or so high. But therein lies one of the difficulties of this place. A lot of the bits we are flying over look like hills; they are quite shallow and almost flat on top. The photo below taken at 8500 feet sort of demonstrates this:

It is quite tricky working over this sort of stuff. Mostly it is just anabatic lift so we are quite close to the terrain most of the time. It would be easy to become unstuck if you aren't paying attention. The whole task area is an eerie moonscape. It all looks utterly forbidding. I am treating it with great respect.

My oxygen bottle is still lost. I suspect I may never see it again. One of the locals has kindly lent me a bottle so we will get that fitted this evening. Otherwise, all good.

Flying at last

Both of us woke up this morning at about 0500 with our bodies trying to tell is it was late in the afternoon and only lazy people are still in bed. There were a few jobs to do on the glider; installing loggers etc. Eventually we deemed it fit to fly, about the same time the airfield shuts down for an hour every Sunday because there is a church off the end of the runway and we mustn't disturb them. Eventually we got in the air. The day was a bit overdeveloped and visibility was pretty awful. Mostly it looked like this:

Never really got into the high parts as they were cloud covered, but still had a nice 3hrs learning the area. My oxygen bottle is still somewhere in the Qantas/Lan Chile luggage system but everything else is going OK.

Getting there.

Well it has been a somewhat surreal 24 hours. I am not sure if I am paranoid or just have a heightened sense that they really are out to get me........................................ 0500 at Adelaide: "Are you sure you spoke to someone at Qantas about that oxygen bottle?" Of course we had, and requested a confirming email, to be told "No worries mate, it's in the system." Ha ha, heard that one before........................................... "Can't issue boarding passes through to Santiago as it is a Lan Chile flight." OK................................. 0930 at Sydney: "Sorry, you can sit at one end of the plane and he can sit at the other cos we gave your seats away cos we didn't think you were coming." "But our baggage is booked through to Chile" "Well how are we meant to know that?" ............................................. Hmmm! ......................................... Crying and rowdy children for the next umpteen hours............................................. 1130 Santiago: USD61 entry visa fee. Oh well, they must hate the Americans more; they pay USD130..................................................... 1200 Santiago: "Where is the oxygen cylinder" Missing baggage form filled out. It may arrive one day............................................. Car rental: "Excess for damage is USD6000....! Unless you pay extortionate insurance premium" Jeez.............................................................. Freeways: Actually tollways. 100 m out of airport, demands for pesos. We have no pesos as no ATMs in airport. Eventually settle for Euros that Mark luckily has in pocket. Then get lost in most complex flyovers and intersections I have ever seen. Even with talking GPS. Get stuck on road that talking lady says is 8km to next U-turn. Come off tollway, demand for pesos. Do U-turn, approach tollway, demand for pesos. Get lost again in very same set of flyovers as before........................................................... Eventually find hotel, shower, change, head to airfield. Get lost in very same flyover as before, find ourselves heading up road 8km to next U-turn. Do very illegal U-turn through barricades before demands for pesos can be made................................................ Eventually find airfield and glider. They managed to push my glider into a wall last week and trashed a flap; a new one was flown out and has just been fitted. Mark will have a good look at that tomorrow........................................................ We are completely knackered. Mark has crashed and I am on my way............................. Flying tomorrow!

Two weeks to go. Mark and I are more or less organised. I've been lucky enough to score an ASG29 that the Schleicher factory has in Chile as a demonstrator for the summer.

Here is the official Grand Prix website for results etc:

http://www.grandprixchile.org/

I will be carrying a Spot tracker, so you will be able to get a vague idea of where I've been here:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0VrX8yVGJo4H0E0YQhIg9h5cq879qKjqV

We will keep this blog updated daily.