And the Rains Came, This Time

Today’s pilots meeting did have a couple of twists in it.  The usual briefing from the scorer, retrieve desk and operations went really quick.  The weatherman did tell us we may have some rain showers late in the day, but it should not affect our flying very much at all.  The winners’ speeches were the best.  Greg Shugg had landed out the previous day and told us his story.  Seems like while he was getting low over some farmland, a boy watching the glider race on an app happened to notice a glider was over their house.  He told his parents, and they went outside just in time to see Greg land on their property.  They were by his ship in under a minute to see if he was ok.  The boy’s name was Cash, and he will be coming to the airfield to take a ride with the local club.  Greg was his friendly self and took pictures of Cash in the cockpit.  Mike Sorenson told us another landout story.  On a practice day he happened to land in a farmer’s field and Tony Condon and Danny Sorenson came to retrieve him.  Of course, Danny had to, but Tony is a pro when it comes to being retrieved or volunteering to be a retriever.  Mike did suffer some minor damage to his wingtip on the glider.  Andy Brayer helped Mike on the first rain day to get the repair work complete so Mike could continue in the contest.  The glider community is full of stories like this.  Today is a perfect example of everyone pulling together to get everyone home safe. 

All the classes had similar tasks.  The threat of rain was in the front of everyone’s mind, including the CD’s.  The 15-Meter Class had Start B, Morton, Portales and Finish.  The Club Class was sent from Start B, Muleshoe, Portales and then Finish.  The 18 Meter Class went from Start D, Hereford, Portales and then Finish.  Guess where the storms ended up going? 

On the start, the first leg for the 18-meter boys was not bad.  The west side of the course did have some Cu that had good lift.  Down track, clouds filled in on the east side of the course, but I do not know if that helped the pilots.  Lift became weak about 40 miles from Hereford, requiring a gear shift to conserve altitude.  After the turn, you could see the rain in the distance.  The closer you got to the weather, the better the lift and higher the cloud bases.  On the shelf cloud, we had 11kt lift to over 14,000ft, the highest altitude gained during the contest.  However, there were 3 storms that surrounded Portales and every class had to navigate the weather.  Chaos in the retrieve office started around 5pm as the calls started coming in.  We had gliders scattered all over the final leg.  Airports, farmers fields and ranches had a representative of the Hobbs contest dropping in for a visit.  All the ships and pilots are fine and having dinner at places they had never been to.  I just got a call from Greg Shugg, they are having dinner at a brew pub in Lovington.  You just must know how to make lemonade out of lemons in this sport.

We did have one aircraft get damaged today.  My 8 week old AS-33Es suffered a gear up landing on return.  The ship can be fixed and my hurt pride may take a little longer to recover.  Worst thing was, I had put the gear down on the upwind leg in the landing pattern and got distracted by a ship that finished the same time as me, but I did not see him.  I broke my habit pattern and moved the gear on short final thinking it was up.  I will be leaving tomorrow morning for Williams Soaring where Danny is waiting to repair it for the Worlds.  Sean Fidler is breathing a sigh of relief since I put the first scratch on it.  The key to prevent this from happening to you, think before you move a gear handle and do a good landing checklist.  Funny thing is, I found out the gear warning system didn’t work yesterday.

The scoresheet is a mess and with the total number of landouts, Tom Pressley has done a great job sending out the latest results.  In 15 Meter Class, Mike Sorenson finished in third place but retains the overall lead in the contest.  In second place is Aland Adams.  Winning the day is Jared Granzow with a speed of 86.11mph, the fastest in the contest of all the classes.  Nice job Jared!

In Club Class, Marco Raaijmakers finished in third place.  In second place was Tony Condon who is also in the overall lead in the class. With I believe her first day win at a Nationals, is Sylvia Grandstaff.  She completed the 189mile task at a raw speed of 61.15mph.  Great job young lady and GO ARMY!

In the 18 Meter Class, only 9 of the 22 pilots were able to complete the task.  In third place was Gary Ittner who is now in the overall lead for the Nationals.  In second place was Robin Clark, with Dave Springford winning the day with a speed of 78.20 over the 289mile task.  In the 18 Meter Class, there are only 33 points separating the top 3 pilots and 96 points separating the top 5 pilots. 

It has been my pleasure to provide you, your families and friends with an insight into our sport.  I am sorry this will be my last report for this contest.  In August, I will be doing the reporting from the Uvalde World Glider Championship.  If you would like to provide a short write-up each night, talk to Chris Carter, our CM now. 

Well, I had a lot of fun with all of you at the field and I hate to leave.  Until the next contest, stay safe and have fun.

Cheers,

Rich Owen
zo (she is a little lower to the ground now)