Today dawned nice and clear, so I didn’t have to worry about being lynched at the airport. The popular forecast was, you guessed it – HOT and sunny.
At the morning meeting, I gave the safety talk on how to successfully un-ass a damaged glider and hit the silk (well, ripstop nylon these days, but we digress). I have survived a little over 3000 skydives including a half-dozen or so reserve rides, so CD Ray Galloway keeps bugging me to do this talk. The talk is simple – “Once out of the glider, look at the ripcord handle and focus on it intently. Then grab it with both hands and pull it like your life depends on it, because it does”.
The weather forecast was for clouds in the 5-7000msl range with good lift, with very little chance of thunder-bumpers. The tasks for the day were a 3hr 4-turn TAT for 15/18, and a 3hr MAT with 3 assigned turnpoints for Sports class (the Std Class Nationals is now being reported on separately now by Henry Retting). Grid time was set a bit early today, at 11:45 in anticipation of an earlier start, but this was not to be. At grid time and for an hour thereafter, we searched in vain for those little white puffy things, but they stubbornly refused to put in an appearance until very late in the day. The 15/18m task had us all going well south on the first leg, and conditions kept getting softer and softer as we got into the first circle. This day definitely did not live up to the high standard set by the first two days, as speeds were 10-15mph slower than yesterday, and many pilots came home without water ballast (I know I did!). Dennis Linnekin (DL) won the day in 15m with 61.37mph moving into 2nd overall. Frank Paynter (TA) was 4th of 5 but moved into 1st place overall (by 1 point!) because Fernando Silva pushed too hard and landed out. After 3 days, the 15m class is still up for grabs as the top three places are within 53 points. In 18m, Steve Vilhen (SV) won the day with 60.09mph, but George Green (5) still has a commanding lead due to his spectacular win on day 2. In Sports class, Wally Berry (WB) won the day – again – with 51.81mph raw/50.93mph handicapped. Wally now has a 143pt lead over second-place Steve Taylor (EA).
The day concluded with the traditional catfish-fry at the rec center, and everyone seemed to have a good time. More racing tomorrow, as the popular forecast is calling for “Sunny, with a high near 95. Calm wind becoming east around 5 mph”. I’m not sure I can handle all this good soaring weather after enduring several rained out/winded out contests so far this season, but I’ll do my best! ;-).
TA
