Back at home after Mifflin 15m Nationals

I’m writing this from the comfort of my home in Columbus, Ohio.  I trailered back here yesterday after the day was called, as the weather forecast for the last possible day (today, Tuesday) was just as bad if not worse than yesterday.  Besides, there was no way I was going to leap from 14th overall to the podium, so I didn’t have a whole lot to lose ;-).

All in all, the 2012 15m Nationals at Mifflin was interesting and enjoyable.  We got in 6 flyable days, although we never had a ridge day during the contest (we had 2 ‘cracking good’ ridge days just before the contest started), and every flyable day during the contest was a struggle of some sort.  Of the 6 official contest days, only one (Day 6) was a 1000 point day – all the others were devalued for one reason or another.  Many of the luminaries I noted in one of my earlier posts found themselves in fields or at other airports, and so the eventual winners were more the ones that didn’t land out than the ones who went the fastest.

John Cochrane (BB) showed us how a world-class pilot responds to adversity.  John landed out on Day 1 (along with about half the fleet), only to come back and win Day 2, catapulting from 18th to 2nd overall in one single bound.  He was 2nd for the day on Day 3, but then landed out again on Day 4, dropping to 7th place overall.  However, he then proceeded to win Day 5 (unfortunately devalued to 764 points) AND Day 6 to capture the only 1000 point day, and 3rd overall for a place on the podium.  Now *that* is a class act!

Another class act was Erik Nelson, who got a ‘bagel’ (zero) on day 1,  only to work his way up to 5th overall by the end of the contest.  John Seaborn (A8) and Chip Garner (CG) won their places on the podium (2nd and 1st, respectively) by not landing out any of the 6 days, even though they both dipped into double-digit day placements on a couple of days.

The names on the bottom half of the scoresheet reads like it should have been the top half.   Allan Barnes, our Aussie guest and WGC team member bound for Uvalde, was 15/16 (guests aren’t ranked numerically).  Erik Mann (P3) was 16th, Roy McMaster (1) was 17th, Hank Nixon (UH) was 18th, Tim Welles (W3) was 19th, and Karl Striedieck (KS) was 20th!!!

FLARM:  I believe the Flarm guys have finally gotten the range problem fixed with U.S.  units, and all the ‘brick’ units installed at Mifflin worked great (as did my partially modified portable unit).  I grabbed the last ‘brick’ unit for myself, and will have it installed in time for the Ionia contest next week – yay!

CONDOR:  I  discovered while talking to Aussies Allan Barnes (Aussie standard class champion and Uvalde WGC contestant) and Dave Holbrook (Allan’s crew), that the Aussies have made great strides in using Condor for area familiarization and for practicing team/pair flying techniques.  I spent a couple of hours yesterday before and after the morning meeting interviewing Allan, and hopefully this will be published as my September 2012 Condor Corner article.

I have a few days at home, and then I’m off for Ionia Thursday or Friday for the Region 6 North contest, and from there to Cordele, and from Cordele back to CCSC for the XC Racing camp and the Region 6 South contest.  Stay tuned!

Frank (TA)

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