Ride the Wind Lines
Today was a much better start than yesterday. The sun was out, there was Cu in the sky early and everyone was looking forward to a great day. It is funny to see the airport early in the morning. Dogs were gleefully taking their two legged friends for a walk, letting them get steps in and providing them with stretching exercises for their backs. Some pilots love to get their ships ready early on. Henry has Romeo on the grid before I’m even thinking about getting up. Everyone has a process to get ready for the day. That is a very good thing. It prevents big mistakes and gets you into a rhythm for the flying day.
The weather forecast was more straight forward for the day, but higher than normal winds aloft were going to be good and a challenge during the flights. Open, 15 Meter and 18 Meter had very similar tasks. However, I did send Open Class for a large upwind leg to stretch their wings a bit. The first leg was down to Tifton to the south. This was a crosswind leg but usually a good beginning for the task. Then they went west to Pinebloom and down the wind line to McRae for Open and Richter for the others. Then back west along the wind line to Leesburg and home. Sports Class kept their task inside this area, but they still had the same good wind lines.
The task took longer to get produced this morning which caused a slight delay in getting the launch started. We never want to push to get the first task out or rush pilots to get in the air. The view from the cockpit must have been nice. Clouds streets going into the distance and cloud bases that were above 4,000ft at launch. It was an efficient launch with the ground crew being run by Murry Forbes. He has been doing this for a while, and you can see that from the results, a smooth and safe launch. Soon all the ships were in the air and on their way. I took this time to go into the airconditioned trailer and have lunch. It’s always nice to talk with Sandra our Scorer and keeper of my emotional support kennel.
The first leg south was a bit of a challenge for all the competitors. Weaker than expected conditions challenged the pilots to get through this area and connect to the streets that awaited them. Blue conditions also invaded the Tifton area and most turned early. The legs west were not too bad and hope was on the horizon. Soon the next turnpoints allowed everyone to ride the wind line and increase their dismal speeds from the first leg. Smiles replaced the “I’ll kill Rich when I get on the ground” feeling, as long stretches under nice streets became the norm for the final legs. Final glides were, for the most part, stress free. I cannot say that for the recovery. The winds favored runway 6, which puts the ships at the far end of the airfield and a difficult retrieve to the trailer area. The first groups of gliders, returned without issues. Then we started to get more ships in the pattern, and unfortunately, the patterns looked more like JFK International airport than a glider field. When pilots started deepening their finals or flying slower than normal downwinds, everything started getting interesting. Soon we had aircraft littering the grass areas around the runways. The great thing was that almost everyone got their ship well clear of the runway safely. Concordia is always a challenge to push on the grid, fly and return for a landing. If it wasn’t for the skill of a fellow Auburn grad, I would be worried. Today, there were so many ships in front of DB in the pattern, he elected to land on runway 10. Thanks to the skill of Erik Nelson and Sean Murphy who were landing on runway 6, this was easy. Erik proceded through the intersection while Sean pulled off before the intersection allowing DB a clear path to his crew Rick Sheppe waiting at the end.
The recovery was completed safely, and we only had two landouts. The funny thing was I picked up another Auburn alumni to give him a ride to his truck. Unfortunately, it was with his son who went on a retrieve. You have to love Dads that have sons that are into aviation!
However, the dust hadn’t settled at all when the ships were in the box. In the scoring trailer, Sandra was wrestling with WinScore to get all the flights tabulated. There was a scare at the Los Compadres Mexican restaurant when most of the scores for Open Class showed an NVS under the remarks. That means “No Valid Start” and zero points for the day. Pilots descended on my table asking WTF! Sandra, in her dogged fashion, worked through all the impediments with the program and fixed all the issues. Smiles were seen across the room.
In the National contests, Open Class, Sam Zimmerman finished in third, Jim Lee was in second and Dick Butler took first place with a speed of 75mph over 272 miles. I guess that long leg into the wind slowed him down. In 15 Meter Class, Robin Clark from the Florida Team took third with Dave Springford flying the oldest new glider in the fleet was in second. Dave received his glider a long time ago and is just now flying it. See him for the back story, it is pretty good. In first place was Mike Sorenson (any wonder where he gets his genes), with a speed of 71mph over 216 miles. For the 18 Meter Class, Ken Sorenson was about 6mph behind his son (guess Dad buys dinner tonight) and finished in third. In second was Steve Vihlen with a speed of 71mph but .04mph behind the winner Jim Franz over the 217 mile task. Jim, Steve came to my talk last night so I expect he will pick up a few mph tomorrow. Finally, in Sports Class, Wally Berry, another Auburn grad, finished in third with Kevin Anderson in second and Greg Shugg was the winner. Greg flew the task at 57mph over the 142 mile handicapped task.
Great flying by all our pilots, you only have 11 more days, so conserve your energy. Well, I better get some rest and get ready for tomorrow. See you at the field everyone.
Rich