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I’m writing this from the McDonald’s in Uvalde on the morning of August 15.  The 2011 Uvalde pre-worlds is over, and I’m getting ready to pack out and head for Llano.  We had an amazing run of great soaring weather here, and some fantastic flying by our current and previous U.S. team members.  Based on what I saw here, we have a very strong team in all classes, and this contest allowed them to work on their team flying skills (absolutely essential for world competition) under realistic conditions.

At the end of the contest, we had two U.S. team members on the podium in both the 18m and 15m classes (John Seaborn andMark Keene in 15m and Gary Ittner and Bill Elliot in 18m), so if this is any indication we can be optimistic about next year’s WGC.  If we are ever going to do well in a world competition, this is definitely the time and place to do it! ;-).

Other impressions from the  contest:

• The contest staff here did a superb job, on a minuscule budget.  In particular Ken Sorenson never lost his smile and wit even under lots of pressure from whining pilots (that would be me).  John Good did a superb job as task caller, and Leo Buckley and his able assistant Dave Martin (BV)  successfully wrestled SeeYou’s contest scoring monster to the ground (although it was touch and go for a while).  Linda Murray worked her magic as Contest Manager to make the whole thing move smoothly, and by and large it did.
• The airport grounds this year were much improved from previous contests, with a lot more green and a lot fewer thornbushes in the trailer parking area, and with a brand-new road extension (finished on the second practice day) that allows pilots to drive to/from the trailer parking area without disturbing the normal work flow around Sierra Industries and Miller’s paint shop.  More improvements and more irrigation is planned for next year, so it should be even better then.
• FLARM works, and I hope it is here to stay in the  U.S.  The portable PowerFLARM units are big, ugly, and they eat batteries (you only get one long flight from a set of 6 AA batteries), but they WORK!  As we get more gliders equipped with PowerFLARM units, I hope that we can, within a few  years, make FLARM units just as mandatory as parachutes.  After all, parachutes are required in competitions due to the real possibility of mid-airs in contests.  How much better would it be if could instead reduce the potential for mid-airs and avoid the need for the parachute in the first place ;-).  Hopefully the next generation of FLARM units will be smaller and less power-hungry, but I’ll gladly buy another K2 Energy battery just to keep my FLARM unit happy.
• The pilots who fly at the world competition level are incredibly skilled, and they are nice guys, too.  When I decided to fly here this year, I told myself – “Its just a super-regional, how bad could it be?”.  Well, I found out how bad (and how good it could be) when I turned in what I thought was a pretty good flight, only to discover that my score was a heck of a lot closer to the  bottom of the scoresheet than the top!  And, it stayed there, day after day, even as I tried harder and  harder.  My best placement in the entire eight days of competition was 12th, and even an 85mph  run on the last day was only good for 15th – wow!  The good news is, I was learning a lot – you can’t fly with these guys (however briefly as they passed me by) without learning a little bit more each time.