12 June 2012
99 Soaring fans, this is Bravo Zulu with a report from Ohio.
I am writing this from Waynesville, OH, the home of Caesar Creek Soaring Club. CCSC is the host of what I hope will be the first ANNUAL cross-country camp. This project is the product of some very smart men, John Lubon, Jim Garrison, Frank Paynter and the board of directors of Caesar Creek. Frank is the Contest Director and Rolf Hegele is the contest manager. John Lubon, Jim Price, Jim Garrison, John Murray, Rob Cluxton and Scott Manley have volunteered as “mentor pilots” for the 20 flying participants and 6 auditing participants. The basic concept is to have lectures in the morning, fly in the afternoon and more lectures in the evening. Those who are auditing will fly a Condor task and will benefit from Scott’s mentoring. The plan for a rain day is for all participants to fly the Condor task. More details are available on the Caesar Creek website. The days are full and Frank warned us to be “ready to drink from a fire hose”.
In starting my blog for this event, I would be remiss if I did not mention the facilities here. Caesar Creek members put in many hours of hard work to get ready for us and the results are fantastic. They have 100 or so acres of grass mowed, and flowers planted everywhere. Some CCSC members rented their RV units to participants, other members are providing two 2 meals a day because the schedule does not allow time for us to go to town. Even water for drinking is delivered to the glider port since there are no good wells or water utility. Several members told me that credit belongs to the new President of CCSC, Dan Regan, for gathering support from the many volunteers who did the work. I am sure that all of us who are guests greatly appreciate their efforts.
Day 1: The rain that followed Frank from Mifflin, to Ionia and Cordele arrived at CCSC today. We could send him off on a long trip but then who would do all that he is doing to make this thing a success? Because he had thought it likely that rain might happen as it did last year, he saw the opportunity to take advantage of Condor and design our own weather. If you have never seen 26 guys in one room with enough computer equipment to launch a space shuttle, you have missed a sight and should come to the next XC camp.
Frank, as the Contest Director (CD) gave us a task 163 miles long and Andy Kriz “RY” turned in the winning time that was close to 2 hrs. Most of us finished and I believe we all learned something about flying cross-country. One important lesson that Scott made is that we should not do anything in Condor that we should not or would not do in our own airplane. He is right; as one saying goes, it is not practice that makes perfect; it is perfect practice that makes perfect.
These days will be long so I cannot promise a blog every day but I will try.
As an aside, one of the notable members of CCSC, Don Burns flies an ASW 28 with the contest number “NC”. Don just completed two 100 mile flights to capture For readers who might be new to contests and contest numbers, “NC” in normal pilot speak, would be enunciated “November Charlie”. However, here among the members of CCSC, NC is known as No Chance”. Don told me that he dubbed it so; perhaps to lower the possibility of someone offering a moniker he would not like. I know of another glider “5 Uniform” that is affectionately called “5 Ugly”. So in that framework, it was Don that dubbed my Bravo Zulu, the “bug zapper”. I rather like that and may well use it.
Bravo Zulu “out”
