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Woke up this morning in the micro-castle at 0645 – yuk! (have to get out early and assemble, water, and grid before the sun gets too high and starts to melt everything). No clouds, so I thought we were going to be forced to deal with another blue day. However, by meeting time, there were low clouds in all directions, so things were looking better. At the meeting the weather guy said we should have good cu’s in the task area, and so did my BMapper layout.
Grid time was 12:00 and first launch was planned for 12:30. I was gridded #4, so I knew I needed to be ready to go at 12:30. Thanks to Dennis Linnekin (DL)’s help, I got myself squared away and ready to go just in time. Dennis slightly dinged his brand-new ASG-29 yesterday trying to squeeze an 18 meter glider into a dirt strip that was, unfortunately, only 17.9m wide – bummer! Anyway, he dinged a winglet and although ace repairman John Murray of Eastern Sailplane was able to do a quick repair, it wasn’t flyable for today’s task, so Dennis volunteered to be ‘Crew for a day’ for me – neat! I tell you, after having a great crew at Logan, and now being pampered by Dennis, this could get habit-forming ;-).
Anyway, by launch time there were cu’s in all directions, and we all had the idea this would be a good day. Initially I had trouble climbing above 5000′ msl, but by the time the gate opened we were getting good climbs to 6000′ msl. Once again I had the wonderful opportunity to fly with the U.S. 15m team and watch them work together, and once again they walked (well, more like zoomed) off from me after the second turn. I swear they *look* like stock gliders, but they all obviously have major performance enhancements (can’t be me, after all!).
Out on course, conditions continued to improve throughout the day, and by the time we were close to final glide we were seeing 8-9kt climbs to above 8000′ msl – wow! And for dessert, we got the famous downwind final glide from Big Wells to Uvalde. I’ve heard about this final glide phenomenon at Uvalde ever since I started flying cross-country, but today was the first time I have been able to experience it first-hand. So the idea is, you are supposed to start from near Big Wells at about 2000′ below final glide altitude, and then not turn again for the entire final glide, winding up having to fly 120kt or better just to get down at Uvalde. Of course I was much too cowardly to try this myself (having tried it unsuccessfully a couple of times in my two previous contests here), so I started out north of Big Wells at about 1000′ above final glide altitude. Halfway home I was 2500′ above final glide, at redline, with my hair (what’s left of it) on fire, my eyeballs bulging, a big grin on my face, and unable to get down – I wound up finishing 2000′ above the minimum finish altitude – ouch! And, just to add insult to injury, Erik Nelson (5E) was in the crowd around the scoring table and recounted to me how he had done it exactly right ;-).
At the end of the day, there were big grins and tall tales in abundance. In the Open class, Wiktor Kozlik (HW) turned a speed over 96mph, and it was only good for 3rd place! Ron Tabery won for the second day in a row with 101.16mph – smokin! In 18m, Jerzy Szemplinski (XG) won with 152.9kph, and in 15m, Peter Trotter of Australia won with 142.5kph.
After two days here, “Uvalde weather” appeared in force today, and the weather guy seems to think it might continue that way at least for a while. If this keeps up we’re going to have to paint our gliders with asbestos to keep them from melting from air friction! ;-). Stay tuned
TA
