Brazil has been one of my favourite world cup tour destinations over the years. I had a look at my comp record on pwca.org and I was amazed to see that this is my eighth world cup event in Brazil since 2006 in Castelo where I started this blog. We also had a world championship in Governador Valadares in 2005 which was won by Steve Cox and Louise Crandal in a ten task festival of flying that was recently repeated in Macedonia a month or so back. This was new territory for me given that I was not at this years' world champs having represented SA for the first time in Portugal 2003. I was not sure how I would feel about it, but other than the absolute frustration of trying to follow a two week comp during work hours with nothing but live-tracking, I was fine if not even relieved. The longer comps are no longer desirable in the context of the priorities of family and work commitments.
I will now focus the occasional world-cup event in short form in places that grow olives. This rule was formulated by Andrew Smith some years back. It turns out that if the region of your selected competition grow olives, your chances of accumulating flying time is maximised.
Wikipedia explains it :
Olives like hot weather and sunny positions without any shade, while temperatures below −10 °C (14 °F) may injure even a mature tree. They tolerate drought well, due to their sturdy and extensive root systems.
The Olive formula: lots of sun + not much rain + dry unstable air = high cloudbase + strong thermals + many hours of flying
I am happy to declare that we will pass many acres of Olive groves on the way to the Pico do Gaviao launch every day!
I will try write every day.
1 comment:
There are olive trees 100 m before the take off entrance. So the olive formula works in Andradas
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