MM Report Day One
Contest Day 1 Report – If you thought yesterday was wild, you haven’t seen anything yet!
Good evening race fans,
Our first contest day at the 2022 Club Class Nationals is one for the history books. At the morning pilot’s meeting, we were told to expect some rain and OD out on task. That turned out to be an understatement.
Most pilots left shortly after the gate opened to head towards the first turnpoint on the Manzano Mountains. I found the first leg to the southwest reasonably straightforward, but like many, started to get low when I entered the turnpoint cylinder. That was when conditions started to get interesting. Unable to find a climb over the Manzano Mountain ridge, I deviated west towards the sunshine over the Albuquerque valley. I quickly found an approximately 3 kt climb, enough to keep me in the game for at least a little longer as I tiptoed north. At the same time, the dark cumulus clouds over the Manzano Mountains OD’d, leading to heavy rain that boxed in most of the fleet between the Class C airspace at the Albuquerque airport and the mountains. The lucky ones eked out enough of a climb to steer around the OD. The unlucky ones proceeded to land out. Three pilots even landed out at Albuquerque! (And to add insult to injury, not only did these pilots face an airspace penalty, but they also got hit with a $35 landing fee!)
I somehow squeaked through the gap (although if you look at the scoresheet, it looks like I experienced some unfortunate logger problems), tagged the second turnpoint, and found a climb back up to cloudbase under pouring rain east of the Sandia crest. Thanks 99, I owe you a thermal! That thermal gave me a comfortable glide back to Moriarty. At this point, I assumed I’d be landing at Moriarty before another round of storms blanketed the airport, but I found a 5 kt climb southeast of the field that got me back up to cloudbase, and with it, enough altitude to get to the Leyba turnpoint. I nicked Leyba and planned a final glide home. Instead, I found reasonably good air and continued on to the next turnpoint back near the Manzano Mountains. At this point, rain was obscuring my way back to Moriarty, so I decided to continue on towards my alternate landing option: the Sandia East Airpark. By the time I nicked the last two turnpoints, the rain had cleared over Moriarty, but it was not to be. I ultimately got caught 600 ft below a marginal final glide as the day died. I decided to finally call it quits and made an uneventful landing at Sandia East. (Side note: Sandia East’s runway is narrow, but I landed on the centerline and was able to stay clear of the runway lights. Caveat emptor.) Upon landing, several locals greeted me, helped me push my glider clear of the runway, and offered to park my glider in a hangar while I waited for my crew. What a phenomenal way to end an epic flight!
Two pilots completed today’s task: Greg Shugg and Gary Ittner. I came close. 22 gliders landed out. All told, I think we all had a little more adventure than we bargained for today, but if you keep the glider in the air, good things happen.
See you at the airport,
Michael Marshall