Saturday - No Contest Day

Today was to be the official practice day for the Regional and the first contest day for the Nationals. But with a grim, gray sky this morning and the forecast of strong thunderstorms for this afternoon, the day was cancelled at the Pilot’s Meeting. Everyone is putting their gliders away and trailers are being secured. We will reconvene early this evening for the welcome party.

We have several new-to-Dansville/new-to-competition pilots here this week…a good thing! Uncle Hank held a briefing yesterday and will give an encore performance later this morning.

If you are familiar with Dansville contests, you know that the CM gives out “Best Effort” awards. This requires the wearing of a flamingo hat as the unfortunate pilot tells his tale of woe. Ann announced two awards for yesterday and, ironically, both involved landing gear. Tim Hanke [H2] had his gear down but not locked and proceeded to have a nice, but short landing. Luckily, it was on grass, no damage, and plenty of strong dudes were around to lift the tail. Hank Nixon [OH], who does not typically fly his ASW-28, thought his glider was flying a bit slow until he realized at the end of the flight that he had flown the entire task with the gear down. Hey, if that’s the worst thing you do during a contest that’s not too bad!

Janine