Day 2 Update

Hello Race fans,

Well after the practice day round robin task and yesterday’s round of hazy hot and humid, followed by thunderstorms, this morning dawned bright and remarkably cooler. In fact the air was cool enough today that I left my house with a light jacket on.

The pilots meeting went off without a hitch but the real chore of the day was to figure out what the weather was going to do. The models were as confounding as anything most have ever seen. The upper winds were out of the southwest but on the ground they were 020 at 11 knots. This made the gridding a little more difficult as at Mifflin the easy end of the field is the 24 end.  Not many contest days have to launch east, but alas, that is what we had. Usually an east wind means conditions are bad or deteriorating. Only one of those was true today.

We gridded at 11:45 and launched 3 sniffers at 12:15. When the tow planes landed we all unbuckled and got out intending to have to wait. To our surprise the first call back from XC was going through 3800 at 5 knots. The launch quickly re started and never stopped again. Also to many peoples surprise, including the CD, there were no re lights.

Now to say it was an easy day is not the case, but even late and under a very murky looking sky, there was still lift to be found. Most of the class made it around the de- valued task which was a 2 turn event with 15 mile circles on each turn point with only 1 glider returning to the field in a trailer but a few more that did not complete. All involved admitted that the day surprised from what the sky looked like.

John Good wins the day with a handicapped distance of 92 miles at 49 MPH. Second place was Eric Mann and third place, former Harris Hill Jr. Andy Brayer. Andy is back flying contests again after 5 years away for a career change to the right seat of an Embraer Regional Jet. We are glad to see him and his infectious smile again.

After flying we were all smiles over beer and a homemade meat loaf dinner. The food was excellent and the beer cold and after a race day, what more could we ask for?

We are in the first race day of a 10 day meet and I will be reporting to you from a ring side seat of all the action.

Brian Glick