What Does St Maarten and Hobbs Have in Common You Get Blown Away
In the Caribbean there is a sleepy little island that is perfect for a vacation. Beautiful beaches, shops, cruise ship port and lots of jewelry stores. Most airline pilots know this island very well since we get to watch the tourists hang onto a wire fence while we run up our engines to full power on takeoff. Most stay on but many are blown across the 2-lane road, across the beach and into the water. One year, I went to the island for a vacation and sat at the Sunset Bar and Grill right at the end of the runway. While sipping a cocktail I was amazed at the total foolishness of their endeavors. Who would risk broken bones and possibly serious injury just to hang from a fence. Well, here we are in Hobbs New Mexico where every time you open your canopy could be the last time you see it. For the last few days, the wind has been blowing 20-30mph on the ramp. Even I tied down my trailer which is probably a first for this Florida boy. When you stage your ship on the grid and venture to the pilots meeting, you do not know when you return if you will see a scene from Twister, the movie. Best to heed the advice from the contest staff, tie everything down!
I just found out tonight that I am writing the reports for this contest, and I could not say no to my partner in crime from the Seniors. Kerry Huffstutler is a good friend and Co-Contest Manager for the Seniors so I can fly. Tonight, it will be a little short since I was not taking notes for the last two days of operations. I do have some insights into what has been going on.
There are a lot of Mexican restaurants in town, and we have been eating in a different one almost every night. Team 98 is paired up with AG in an Airbnb near the airport and all of us will eat Mexican or Tex Mex every night. It is funny though watching Keith ordering a special margarita that involves the entire wait staff and the manager to come by the table just to see what this Gingo wants. Of course, when the final product arrives, it never lives up to expectations. In just a few days, Jeanette arrives and the problem with finding a great margarita will be solved.
We have had three flying days since we arrived in town. I have only flown one since I could not get my oxygen bottle filled until last night. My flight was below 8,000ft and we basically just practiced the altitude/speed limited starts and final glides from different directions. Here are a couple of points made by those who went out on task. The lift on Sunday was not all that great and flights were just ok. Yesterday, if you launched early and left the gate soon as you got up to the start altitude of 10,000ft, life was great. If not, your day was not fun. We had 7 landouts and a few engine starts to mark the day’s end. We did find that with the wind, FES power was not enough to get you home before dark for one competitor. Gary Ittner flew a great flight that beat the second-place finisher by many mph. Today, Bif Huss flew a tremendous flight that saw speeds in the mid 90’s. Bif had done a good amount of recon for this contest. He has flown here 3 times and he overlayed all his competition flights into one view. He was a little disappointed at the number of times he has landed out here. This level of preparation paid off today. It seemed the key to the good flights was to try and stay in the upper end of the height bands, but if you got low, these pilots were able to climb out quickly. I’ll try and get more info from the classes and maybe get a guest writer from the other two classes here.
Our contest staff is made up of the SSA main office personnel headed by Denise Layton. We will introduce everyone as the days go by. Our CD is a good friend of mine, John Lubon who supports the Seniors every year. John is no stranger to the CD job and we are looking for good things during this contest. Our launch crew is run by Melissa Indrebo and her 10 little Indians. Well, one of the girls is 6’5” tall and a fantastic wing runner. Now all of them have call signs just like fighter pilots. Too Tall is one of them, guess who that belongs to? Dalton is called Baby Hands and Jackson is called Skittles. When you are on the grid tomorrow, ask them what their call sign is and use it during the contest. Melissa, as a Marine, knows how to forge a bond in a small group. Help her out with this very young and inexperienced crew. Remember, she has a pilot to help get ready also, if you have a crew member here to help you, consider loaning them out to Melissa when you launch early. She will greatly appreciate the help.
Tonight, we had a wonderful bar-b-que dinner provided by the Lea County State Bank. This bank was one of the only financial institutions that would finance gliders in the good old days. If they did not take that risk in the early days, we might not be having this contest this week. Thank you for what you have done and continue to do for the soaring community. Of course, Papa 7 Brewery was on site to provide my favorite Pale Ale, Miss Turnpoint. Of course, I had to have some Gear Czech Pilsner when the Miss Turnpoint ran out.
Well, the night is getting on and tomorrow is the first contest day. It looks to be a very tough first test and the next few days look not too promising. However, when have weather forecasts been completely correct? We will see you tomorrow, if I get the code to post this tonight, and we will try and keep you informed of all the action.
Goodnight and stay safe,
Rich Owen
ZO, but will still answer to Team 98 Backseater 😊