No Contest Day at New Castle (Region 4 South)

Woke up this morning to a complete overcast – huh?  The popular forecast for today was for sunny conditions, right up until I went to bed about 10pm.  Looked at the forecast again, and now it said “Partly Sunny”, and the forecast discussion started with the NWS weather pro saying “Apparently we have an overcast this morning” – wow, he looked out the window! ;-).  There was some mumbo jumbo about the easterly wind upslope flow, but it was clear the guy was making it up post-hoc.  Anyway, by the time I had finished my run there was some sun peeking through, so there was still hope for the day.

After my run, I drove my trailer down to the traditional south-end grid and assembled on the grid.  Interestingly enough, assembling on the grid is quite popular here at New Castle – no clue why.  I was in good company with KS (Karl Striedieck), SM (John Seymour), QT (John Godfrey), QV (Richard Kellerman), X (John Good), 8H (Al Tyler) and others.  Unfortunately, by the time the morning meeting rolled around at 10:00 am, the southerly winds had picked up to the point where the CD was contemplating an ‘elephant walk’ to the other (north) end of the runway.  The decision was put off until about 11 am, which resulted in what looked like a used glider parking lot, with everyone hooked up to their tow-out gear, but with nowhere to go.  Eventually the elephant walk was called, and so I had to unhook my truck from the trailer, drive to the south end, hook up the tow-out gear to my glider, and do the transfer to the other end.  In a way it was a good deal, because we had also been handed a revised grid sheet at the pilot’s meeting, and so my glider was in the wrong spot anyway.

Eventually everything got squared away, and John Good (X) was launched as a sniffer, but wasn’t able to find much.  More sniffers were launched periodically, but the best anyone could report was about 2kt to 4700′ msl.  Now we would kill for 4700′ msl on many days at CCSC, but here at New Castle that didn’t meet the CD’s launch or gate opening criteria of 5000′ msl.  If you have flown here at New Castle you can understand why this is – in many places the landout opportunities are few and far between, and there is *lots* of relatively high terrain in all quadrants.  More sniffers were launched, and eventually the entire 18 meter class was launched in the hopes that the cloud bases would rise enough to at least let one class go out on task.  The much larger FAI class was held, and then eventually cancelled.  While many of us in the FAI class were preparing to launch for some fun flying, the CD was still working with the 18 meter class to see if the gate could be opened.  However, the CD’s conditions were not met, and so he courageously (and correctly IMHO) cancelled the 18 meter task as well.

Dinner tonight was another really great meal – this one was mexican style soft tacos and either chicken or beef filling (I took some of both).  This was some of the best I have ever tasted, and the company and conversations was great too.  There was also a “mexican dessert” that tasted suspiciously like a cross between baked sweet potatoes and carrot cake – and was absolutely delicious.  It was all I could do to restrain my hindbrain from taking the rest of my body (and unfortunately my spare tire) through the food line multiple times.

On a different subject, Janine Acee (aka SM crew) and I have been conducting semi-hilarious testing of my el-cheapo gap seal tape.  I buy this stuff 40-50 rolls at a time from R.A.S. ads, and it works great for me.  It’s 1″ wide, is very flexible, and doesn’t leave a whole lot of residue *assuming* you remove it every day.  Janine is always on the prowl for better gap tape, and when she noticed mine at the Dansville (Region 3) contest she was interested.  I gave her a roll, and she said she would evaluate it for use on SM’s ASG-29.  Now Janine is *very* particular about everything associated with “her” plane, and has a very rigorous qualification matrix for such items.  I, on the other hand, am known to be more than a little cheap and lackadaisical about things that I don’t consider important, and wing tape is, after all, just wing tape!  So, Janine tries my tape on SM the next day, and really liked it.  Janine bought 4 or 5 rolls from me for $5 (ooh, a profit!) and said she was going to give it an extended test.  Over the next few days we joked back and forth about the tape, and I thought all was well.  However, it turned out that SM decided to leave his glider assembled for several days at Dansville, with my cheap tape still on the wings.  When SM was next de-rigged, Janine told me she found a huge amount of tape residue, which took her several hours to remove – bummer!  Well, of course I immediately offered her a money-back guarantee (easy to do, as she had paid me all of $5 dollars for 4 rolls, I think), but I think Janine is now planning to take me to small-claims court for glider abuse and tape misrepresentation.  I’m hoping for mediation, but it looks grim ;-).

Anyway, popular weather again claims that tomorrow will be mostly sunny (that’s what they said last night, too!), so we’ll see.  We only have two more possible days, so we need at least one of them to pay off to get in even a 2-day contest.  Ah well, at New Castle the friendship, food, and spectacular scenery are just as important as the racing, so we won’t lose no matter what.

Stay tuned,

Frank (TA)