Marko Hrgetic, winner of  Croatian 2010 Istra Open Buzet National Championship

Marko has won the 2010 Istra Open Buzet National Championship using LK8000.  He has kindly sent us the following report. Well done Marko!

I am writing this report on my experience with LK8000 on recent national championships where it helped me to take first place in the overall results, and helped me to fly better and with more confidence.

Other instruments that I used on nationals were Brauniger IQ Basic as my vario and Garmin Geko200 as backup for tracklog. Both of the instruments were not connected to LK8000 so I said I'll have to trust the MIO very much, and it was a perfect choice.

First task we had 72 km with half of race in the flat. I was flying Mantra 10.2 so I was all the time in the front followed by others. Instrument was showing nicely distance, requred altitude, GS, wind.

At one point we were low in blue hole and the thermals were broken so I had to watch thermal map to always come to best lift. Also thermal averager and thermal gain were stuff that were interesting me most. 10 km before the goal instrument BEEPed, „above the final glide“ so I was now relaxed for goal arrival. Climbed little bit more and pushed full to goal.

Second task got me alone again in one blue hole as I was 5k in front gaggle.
Driffted thermals were making me problems to climb so i had to use thermal map again. Finaly I climbed and made 10k glide to TP and back and coming back was based on the map in LK8000. I was watching where I can glide with current altitude and I saw that I can make it back on the ridge withot thermaling. That made me first that day.

Last task 97k with very crazy final glide. As it was late we could not get more altitude for finish so I went with LK8000 showing me –55m at goal line 8 km before. I had to have 7,7 glide ratio (Req E) to make it into the wind.
Weak convergence line and back wind into the goal at low altitide got us in.
All the time I was watching instrument will I make it or not. When I saw 0 m I knew I will do it.
At that point I was really suprised how the instrument had precise calculations based on current wind.