2019 1-26 Championship, Day 1

Operations Report

Daniel Sazhin:

Today is when you get actual, real points. You know, it's time to get to business. So, we're really excited!

All right, first we'll start with a couple contest announcements. We will fly today. The conditions ought to improve quite a bit, to the south. It's going to be a tricky day, but it looks like it ought to get pretty good down to the south, and we should have a pretty interesting contest day.

Some folks asked for contest related resources to be put on a Google Drive. I have done so, and I have put it to this link. So, it's tinyurl.com/126Champs. So that's where you can find the pictures and things like that. You can see the Grid Sheet. I'll try to put the Task Sheet there in case you lose it. That's where all the documents are going to go. 

With regards to retrieves, I was asked to clarify exactly what the process is. If you land out, the first thing you are going to do is call the Retrieve Desk. Next, when your crew is leaving the airport, they should check in with the Retrieve Desk. When the crew has connected with the pilot, you should check in with the Retrieve Desk. And lastly, when you get back to the airport, you should stop by and check in with the Retrieve Desk.

Okay, Grid Time today is at 11:30. And please be there promptly. And we're going to talk about the grid. It's going to be a little bit more complicated today. 

Low Performance Winner

Bill Snead 6W from Fault Line Fliers in Austin:

Just really quickly, we always try to do the task on the practice day, just kind of go through the whole routine. You don't want to land down on the practice day, makes Nancy very angry.

Yesterday it was able to kind of stay high, to go into the second turn point, I think it was almost all on the field here, so. But it's really good to go through the whole routine, load the task, fly the task, turn it in, make sure everything's working. It was just kind of a matter do, not much risk, just got to get really high and stay high. All right.

1-26 Winner Report

Ron Schwartz:

Okay, well, thank you much. Beautiful. Yesterday's flight, for those of you who believe in signs and things, I loitered to the east of here on the east side of the circle, watching the virga come in and Moriarty disappear down there, and the start gate opened, and I climbed up and made the start at 1400, at 14,000. What more do you need of a sign that a flight's going to be good. The clouds were good all the way down to Willard on the east side of the Salt Lakes down there, so I just followed the big clouds down there.

The hard part of the flight came at Willard, to the east of it, there's a big, big overdeveloping cloud down there, and I had to pass underneath that, I had some good lift to begin with, and then it crapped out at about 14,500. And then I started the final climb across Willard across those big circles that Bill was talking about yesterday, thinking "Well, maybe," then I caught something about 9,500, that was my low part of the flight. Then there was good clouds coming back up, then it got blue all the way up to Big Sky, and I tried to make it up there. Couldn't do it. Came back there for my time was run out, but I said no, and I caught another thermal and tried to make it anyway. But that was it. Easy flight for me, and I hope all the rest of you guys find flights like that during the contest. Lots of fun.

1-26 Team Winner Report

Steve Beer 692:

Well amazingly, it's somewhat similar to Ron's. I think I launched first. So, I released at 1500 west of the airport... this is my first contest ever by the way. So, I thought oh 1500, I got it there, almost started climbing, but then I realized "oh, I'm on the wrong side of the airport for the start." Anyway, the thermal got better and better. I got very high at 14k plus, was able to scoot over to the start circle and then just had to wait and wait and wait and wait and then I thought maybe everybody launched already, and they're all in the task started, and I'm just sitting here forever. But eventually, I left and went south, it was basically high the whole way just like Ron described it.

And, just like he described coming back from Willard, I got low... maybe 9000, I'm not sure... but found what looked to be good clouds. By the way, all my experience is on Condor, so this is my first time ever, I mean on these type of flights and this area. So, this first time I'm translating computer imagery to reality, and it worked, it went really well. I could really help, deciding which cloud is going to work, which is not, it was all very, very useful. And then I got again, super high. And I could see the airport down there. 

And I could see reasonable clouds up ahead but then I got chicken and I said well, you know "Daniel said it's only for advanced to go through the last level." So, I say "oh well, I'll call it a day." But I'm pretty sure it continued in that direction. But, which, stupidly I didn't because I was just so high, I had to put full dive breaks and everything for the air which was very stupid, I know. Throwing away money. 

Weather Report

Bill Hill:

Good morning. If you see Verga underneath a well-developed cloud with a clearly defined cloud base, in all likelihood there'll be lip. No guarantees on that, but in all likelihood, there’ll be lip.

When you have that well-developed column of rain hitting the ground, that's not something to fool with, but late in the day you can probably find lip or something like that. So, I don't want to scare anybody off in flying underneath that sort of thing. 

I should probably start with the rain, simply because this is what Skysight says is going to happen. Last night, when I looked at this, we had a sheer line that was running northwest - southeast, from about Vaughn up to Cochiti Dam. And I thought, "Boy, if that's working today, these guys could seriously do some rock and roll." 

I don't know if this is going to happen or not. But that's what Skysight says will happen. But as we move a little further in the day, you can see it's moving east as well. So, having said that, let's go to clouds and the thermals.

You can see how stuff is working here. It looks really promising down here. If you believe Skysight, you’ll get a fifteen-five there. Here at Moriarty at one o'clock, you're going to get to ten-five. Bottom line is, if you can make it down to this you can, again, be able to do some serious rock and roll. 

And we'll move this out a little bit further...by about four o'clock or thereabouts to see where it is. You can see that things are not looking so good at Moriarty. So, what that tells me is that you want to make a relatively early start. This is not a good day for start-gate roulette, that's for sure. 

The thermals... I'm not sure how much good that's going to give us. But thermal strength and boundary sheer ratio, you see at that late in the day there's an awful lot of stippling out there, which says that things are not going to be all that shock and sharp.

Let's back up to around two o'clock. It looks better at that time of day. I think that's the big thing. 

The winds. All right, we'll get to those. Assuming we can get to, say 14,000 feet, that should give us some winds. Or not. Let's try this. Here we are. So, you'll be fighting pretty good headwind, going south, twenty-five knots at 14,000 feet.

Contest Manager Report

Ridge Moreland:

Tomorrow night, not tonight. Tomorrow night, 6:00 PM, right here, barbecue. Remember that. Larry Richardson is going to come here and he's going to talk about the parachute world. That with good description, and operation and use of the whole spectrum of that. You probably want to add a comment or two about that.

Larry Richardson is a local from Illinois. He used to pack for the Gemini and/or Apollo programs with their actual recovery chutes. He knows parachutes inside out. After we get through meeting here, he'll give a classroom discussion for those of you who are interested not just about parachutes, but how to get out of a ship and then in a ... All that kind of stuff. And then for those of you who have never been actually suspended in a parachute harness, he'll take you over to the club hangar assuming that the winds will allow us to take the 233 out. We've got a training rig there where he will help you get into a rig, and understand how it works. And then finally if the winds are still cooperating, he will take you outside, inflate the canopy, let you get in the harness that's tethered to a truck, and let you see what it really takes to get one collapsed when you land.

Task Report

Daniel Sazhin:

In order to accommodate the possibilities in the weather we have created some flexibility in the amount of minimum time. Right now, we're at task A which is three hours. Should our launch get delayed we may push this back. So, task A is three hours, task B is 2.5, task C is two, task D is 1.5 hours.

We're going to use the same task for both classes, however the low performance group uses SSA rules. You will have a maximum start height of 15,000 feet and a minimum finish height of 8,000 feet. 1-26ers do not have the minimum finish height or a maximum start height. Well, it's 18,000 feet. 

Here's a task. First turn point. So, the start is going to be to the west. First term point is Manzano, second is Lucy, third is Sedillo Hill and back to the finish. This is going to be a somewhat interesting day. It's going to be somewhat of a technical day because it's going to be quite good in some places, and it's going to be possibly washed out in others. And this may be a challenge even from the perspective of getting the gate open because it's a question of whether people will be able to stay up in the local area early in the day.

But the way we set up the task is to give you the greatest possibility of getting to where the weather will be good. There are some notable challenges, one is the start gate is now west of the airport. It has to be this way because this is where the weather is going to be better. If we put it anywhere else, you're not going to be able to stay up. But especially for the beginners, pay a lot of attention this. 

And, also, some of the beginners may find that the transition to the stronger and better air is going to be quite challenging today. And that's just the nature of the day. So, use your judgment and recognize that it's a more technical day. And if you get out there, if you connect with a line it should get good. 

One point I want to mention is air space. We had an extensive briefing yesterday on the traffic routes and the traffic coming into Albuquerque and such. But when you are making the run back up along the Manzanos, recognize that you're going to be pretty close to the Class Charlie. And if you're in the low performance that you're not allowed to overfly the air space even if you have a transponder. 1-26s don't forbid it, but it's highly not recommended because it's not legal to do so. I strongly advise against overflying the Charlie. 

Chuck Lohre
513-260-9025
chuck@lohre.com
Google Drive tinyurl.com/126Champs