It’s 12.20 and three tow planes move to the field. The sniffer will go up soon to see in the very blue skies, if there are any good dry thermals there. Chief steward Dick drives his yellow bike to the field as well. Sniffer on tow now at 12.30.
5540 MSL…. cu’s popping up in the Hills and to the S and SE.
FIRST LAUNCH postponed to 13.00 .
First launch at 13.10…is the message to the tuggies. One nice good l0oking cloud OVER the field.
Tuggies march to their tugs at 13.05.
And…at 13.10 sharp the first gliders went up in the air for soaring day 7 with in the back of the pilots heads and maybe their whole body… the long day from yesterday but also…the knowledge that they have a day off tomorrow !
13.45 : Uvalde skies over Garner Field—2/8 of nice high CU’s; 4000 ft; 5 kts. Nice to hear pilots say thank you to the tuggies. HUGE dust devils !!!! It looks good for today, but…I hear that some struggle to stay high. Others mention 10.000 ft. and check with the CD the start height for today! Do not see any start times at 15.15 so tactic-games are played .
15 m. task opens at 14.24
18 m. task opens at 14.57
open class task opens at 14.21
GOOD LUCK ALL!
A NEWS helicopter flew over the field. Papers spend enough pages on the UVALDE WGC as well. THIS IS GOOD!! Just read a real nice article in the Early Sunday Edition of the San Antonio Express-News.
On the picture above Conrad H. with one of the the lucky silent bidders on the P 51 flight.
Tasks from open and 18 m. class above and from 15 m. under.
While waiting ….the promised story from a long retrieve by Jos Jonkers.
Werner Danz (OX) Antares retrieve on August 10.
I decided to combine a bit of work with some leisure time during one of my many trips to Houston, to visit the WGC in Uvalde ,TX and catch up with some old friends and acquaintances.
First impressions of the event in Uvalde were hot and dusty and impressed with the way the operations were managed; very professional!
Second impressions were : Look at those cu’s!
Third impression later in the day was: Hang on to your hat due to developing storms.
Caught up with Ritz de Luij (who I have known from the 70ties and early 80ties) and my “old” instructor and good friend both from Holland and Canada, Willem Langelaan who happened to be the TC for the Swiss team where Werner was flying Willem’s Antares.
Around 6pm Willem said he was getting concerned about the overdevelopment and the day dying with the likelihood of a possible retrieve. Of course nothing beats being “pressed into service” after many dormant years on the glider retrieve front. What can be so hard about a 20 mile retrieve in this day and age of GPS technology?
We received final confirmation from Werner Danz that he was down at the Westwind Ranch private airstrip about 20 miles south and programmed our GPS and hit the road right at sunset around 20:15.
Arriving at the marked location Ms. Garmin pointed us to turn into a gravel road closed off by a big locked gate. Hmmm…
Having paid attention to some verbal driving instructions from the helpful “adopt a foreign gliding team” Uvalde family with local knowledge of the geography we soon were back on track with plan B. At this point it was now pitch dark on a moonless night and we were not able to see any features or lights close to the location. OK we better ask and yes a local fellow coming out of a small convenience store had heard of the ranch and confirmed the presence of a runway. YES! 5 miles down the road to your right and you will see it.
That maybe good advice during the daytime, but during the pitch dark night there was nothing to see close to where he directed us and Willem parked on the side of the road to try and phone Werner. No reception bars! More hmmm….
While we were parked on the shoulder with our 4 way flashers on a beaten up Neon pulled up and 2 kids came out asking us if we were alright and needed any help. We explained our predicament to the 2 young adults who smelled of booze in a big way and they promptly offered us a beer. We politely and tactfully declined pointing out we had to retrieve the pilot and needed to disassemble the plane and drive the car and trailer, but they knew the Westwind ranch and if we could just follow them. Off we went until we came to a turnoff into the Westwind ranch with off course a big locked gate. After some discussions with the 2 locals we brought up the fact that the airstrip was where we needed to retrieve the glider; quite a novel thought to these 2 locals, but hey it was after dark on a Friday evening after undoubtedly a very tough week for them and they were already into the “sauce”.
Oh, the airstrip, yeah my dad uses it sometimes and I know the combination of the lock on the gate. YES, bring it on guys! Backtracking the highway for a few miles and making a wrong turn we show up again at another gravel side road (yes these ranches are quite big) with the locked gate with no visible light, let alone an airstrip.
Willem said this can’t be right and I don’t trust these guys and wanted to leave. All this can be very intimidating in the dark at night in the middle of nowhere and we decided to first let see if they can actually open the gate.
Indeed after some stumbling and fiddling the gate swung open and Willem suggested he hop in their vehicle before driving car and trailer down the narrow path to see where it leads. I stayed behind on the highway with the car and trailer.
15 minutes later indeed Willem comes back and the airstrip and pilot had been found and we carefully drive down the narrow gravel road to pick up Werner. He was actually quite comfortable and had pushed his glider into an open spaced hangar and had turned on all the lights. There even was an unlocked pickup truck with keys on the dashboard!
Next we went to work and did our thing in 15 minutes, turned off the lights, drove to the highway, closed and locked the gate behind us and got back at Uvalde around midnight.
First thought that came to mind was: Just like the old days.
Second thought: What if these two helpful locals had not stopped to help us? I think in that case Werner would have had a sore back till daylight the next morning from sleeping in his glider….
Moral of the story: Thanks! local Texans for your helpfulness and friendliness! It must make them feel special realizing that they were the key in trying to help two lost souls on the highway and one in the glider.
For my part, I was thrilled to be of help and realize that not so much has changed in glider retrieves for all these years.
Jos Jonkers
