11 years is the gap between my last World championship and this "come back", plenty of time to get some answers but also to open some new questions!
With years, sometimes you don't change, but at least you know yourself better and also accept what you are. This does definitely help to manage yourself, your temper, reactions and feel good enough to endure the 3 weeks of a championship. Yes this is long, with a bunch of frustrations, happy time, ...
Oh but first, our cultural moment : Prievidza it is here (red point) and Slovakia is border to Czech Republic (North West), Poland (North), Austria (West), Hungary (South) and Ukraine (East). It is a 5.5 millions inhabitants country, size is roughly same as The Netherlands, and they produce around 1 million cars a year mainly for german related brands. I met very nice people there, always open minded and relaxed, and living in the country means nice time, especially with children (lots of swimming pools and animations) and for hiking (lots of trails and nice landscape in northern part with various styles mountains).
Training and preparation
"We try to provide you a Discus-2a as same level as a private one" this is the commitment of my (french) national association FFVP. And I can only praise that!
I'm a quite picky pilot, everything needs to be perfect, especially on material. But I know also, and accept (privilege of my age) that you need to deal with an "acceptable level", I would say a "cut level" which could be below expected. There was few things like this during preparation of this European Championship : first frustrating step getting the glider, then adaptation of it to my taste would take much more energy than expected.
Calendar was quite clear : March training week in St-Auban with my team mate Lucas Delobel (discover his youtube channel here), May french standard nationals championships for fine tuning of the glider (it is forbidden to talk on radio so no chance to fly with Lucas), then European from 1st of July with one week of exploration of flight area and 2 weeks of racing.
I used winter time to think about my strength and try to dig up old times and championship reports to feel the championships, what I did good and bad, why I am there now. My wife prepared me a sport training program to build up a bit as I know it is hard for me to endure a long championship.
In my head everything was clear : March St-Auban, pick-up the glider, come back home, fine tune it... STOP! Reality is I can get the glider only one week before french nationals. This disturbs me a bit as I know it is a sensible glider to fly with, you need hours, and equipment inside does not fit my expectation, so a bit of DIY on it.
Training in St-Auban wa son the low side, with no good weather (wave...), Lucas only there few days, no possibility to scale the glider with me, but still we plan and define goals with Eric Napoléon, our coach and this is perhaps the most important. Both of us are "back from retirement", men for 11 years, Lucas for 2, so expectations must be realistic. Making top 10 if possible but mainly showing that we can perform on some days will be "enough" even if naturally we want to do "more than this". Expectations must be also low as the flight area of this European is in Slovakia, a place we know but not so much compared to Polish, Czech and German team. The airfield of the competition is Prievidza, well known for the "FCC" they organise each year. Personally I flew Nitra (60km south) 2 times in 2003 and 2005 but no fresh memories and competition changed after 11 years of retirement.
Ruminating is not a way to look forward so next step was waiting for the Discus-2a to pick it up a month later, reading manuals, asking other pilots to chose a center of gravity position. When finally I get the glider I start a list of "what to do" and it grew up rapidly... with no time to fix and we already drive to french nationals. It is still cold in Europe and I get a deep cold which I will enjoy all competition long, with strong cough during nights, flying like a zombie! It is still good enough to figure out more things to do on the glider, start to polish my profile on the LX9050 with support from Toni from LXNAV and other pilots. I finish 9th, far below any expectations, and with the sense that definitely something is wrong with the glider (I climb like shit...) : center of gravity!
Training without flying
Sometimes you don't need to fly, but to think, read, discuss, and then try. From my "very central CofG" after discussion with Matthew Scutter, Sebastian Kawa, and former pilots of french team on this type of glider, I simply went to "quite back CofG". Glider became more technical to fly at low speed but much more efficient in the thermals after a period of tuning of any own technic.
Limitations in the cockpit like where to put Naviter Oudie as backup moving map and where to put Nano4 as backup IGC logger had also to be checked, and my DIY toolbox would be out for quite a while before everything was "fixed", not perfect but good enough and, more important, usable in the air.
Also, I worked on myself to accept the new kind of championship we do now with full tracking and more "flarm based" tactics in the air. Not so easy...
This filled the month between end of french nationals and the day to drive to Slovakia.
My neat and tidy cockpit Discus-2a... ok, almost. Oudie by clubowze.com , safety seat cushion by deluxbygagula.com , Nano4 and gliding computer by lxnav.com , electric bugwipers fitted by my crazy crew team , canopy glove (makes headrest too) by soaringxx.com , last minute radio provided by SCAP, glider provided by ffvp.fr , and produced by schempp-hirth.com , pffff thanks all!!!!
1st period of Europeans
Training period went very fast for me, weather was "good enough" to explore the area, my crew Monique was just perfect with her husband Didier crewing for Lucas, so I had much more than a crew after all. And I know they are experienced, able to change a leaking sealing on the grid if needed. This does help a lot your brain to accept any technical failure on the glider, even a last minute one.
Then it was the rush to 1st official race, a bit of nervosity, but not bad result, enough to comfirm us we are not anymore in full retirement with Lucas. Our team work is not perfect at beginning but still good. This point will cost us the 2nd race, with a bit unsure weather on 1st turn point and with not enough team capacity to make the right decision after few kilometres : i.e. making a new start... This event started a period of frustration, not from our work but from the daily results, always a bit under expectations, day after day. Races become also a bit boring as possibilities to design them are limited by 2 big CTRs. But still we fly a lot and we can feel that we get more and more experience with the terrain, with our sailplanes, light is coming.
Point Break
"are you ok from now we do some big deviations?" ... "ho yeah!" ... "let's go for a bit of tourism!"
What a championship : bad weather occurred just on time, after 5 racing day we get a perfect 2 days rest. And then weather conditions went from fairly low to very good but technical. Idea was to push more and, at first, it did not work so well. Still same pilots were finishing with better daily results compared to us except one day where Lucas was able to fly with the gaggle, finishing 2nd, I took too much risk on first part of the race to make it as well.
10th race was the one : heavy spread outs on start and first turn point area, better clear weather coming from west. Our team mates in 15m class waited 2 long hours in local of Prievidza just maintaining altitude to use this window coming. We had a good opportunity just before heavy rain and took it with Lucas, making a perfect start for what it was and managing the spread out brilliantly but at one cost : we would have to make big deviations, enough to stay in the air and complete the task, not to win.
But anyway it was so good. So good to manage first turn point in bad conditions, so good to take the decision to stay in the air and deal with ultra big deviations, so good to glide from not so high to much lower and get the thermal who gave us the light to make it in the South, and so good in the South ro reach the 100kph average speed bar which was more than a dream after the first part of the race!
Just after landing I think it was first time Monique (and Claire my wife, coming for last week of competition) saw me with a big smile. Adventure of the day we shared together with Lucas made us even more deeply involved to each other for the last 2 days of this 20th EGC.
On fire
This day inspired us for the last 2, with still this type of unsure weather and a more plain designed task, much more suited to my taste. We don't win on second to last day but are very close, only very very top pilots beating us with a thin margin. Last day is, I know, the best opportunity for us, as leaders of scoreboard will stare at each other and weather is another time same style. A day to push. It is still quite moist on north part of the race, we make a bad start with other pilots but experience of Day 2 where we were not able to accept a new start is there, U-turn, new start gate, wait for better and go! Some other pilots do the same but we are "on fire" like said Howard Jones from British team, nobody can follow us in the air as we have nothing to lose up there. We do 1st and 2nd with Lucas, showing a +7kph average to the 3rd, and as all 3 classes of gliders involved on this EGC made almost same task this day, some pilots in 15m class will probably burn their flappy gliders based on what they felt in the air ;-)
Time to stop superlatives, and back to cold head. But what this last 3 days were enjoyable, far from typical gaggle days and back'n'forth on the mountains like before. Some new positive memories we will have to use in a next venue of this exciting and crazy sport we do!
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I would like to thank the FFVP for this glider. Special thanks to all the people who supported us during and before the championship : my wife Claire and parents Claudine and Jean-Claude, Eric Napoleon and his family, Monique and all the crews and people around, Toni from LXNAV for the technical and friend support, same Toni from Soaringxx for his ground equipment which are close to perfect now and clothing which are cool and very well adapted to gliding, Delux by Gagula for the comfort in the cockpit (first time ever I don't struggle with my back in a championship!), Benoît Pontanus and ClubOwze for the Oudie, Schempp-Hirth for accepting my absence and providing spare parts (for me and for all the competitors).
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