The “Senior Nationals” (and yes, I *do* know that its not a real Nationals, and the SSA management takes great pains to point this out – to the extent of changing my post titles when they gratuitously copy my Soaring Cafe posts to the SSA contest reports site without my permission) has a number of unique rules, and one of them is a mandatory scheduled rest day.  The contest management is free to choose which day to schedule the rest day, but there *must* be one, and it must be scheduled at least a day in advance.  As it was last year, this rule is sometimes stretched a bit, but never broken.  This year the scheduled rest day was a no-brainer, as today was forecast to be cloudy and rainy all day – and so it is.  I awoke this morning to the sound of rain on the roof of the Micro-Castle, and as I live in what is essentially a pop-up tent, my first thought/action was to scan around the side-walls, looking for leaks (there weren’t any – yay!).

I was up pretty late this morning, as I had gotten back home very late after a fine dinner with the Jim Garrison/Ben Johnson team (T) at their rented  house off Rt 27.  My pair-flying partner John Mittell (BZ) is also bunking in with them, so they invited me over for a steak and salad dinner.  I also took the opportunity to run a load of dirty clothes through their washer/dryer (just in time as I was contemplating whether I could manage a laundry run, or just go to Wal-mart and buy some more underwear!).  Anyway, we had a good time, swapping lies and looking at Ben Johnson’s incredible collection of Seniors photography.

The next thing I did (after making coffee, of course) was to go over my secondary log from Day 1 to see if I could reduce/eliminate the 13 point finish penalty I had acquired by crossing the 1-mile finish cylinder below the minimum height of 900 msl.  I took the alternate flight file over to the office and consulted with ace scorer and IGC rep Rick Shepp.   Of course, we had to also pass the time talking about everything soaring under the sun for a while, so after three hours of enjoyable conversation on a rainy day, I had managed to reduce my finish penalty from 13 points to 10 – about 1 point/hour ;-).  John Earlywine was also in the office, and it transpired that he had been on the same mission (reducing/eliminating penalty points) but had been much more successful than I – he had managed to completely wipe out a 25-point penalty (there may have been a bribe involved, but I never found out).  One notable quote that came out of the BS session involving Rick, CD John Good, John Earlywine and others was when, as I was leaving I apologized for taking up so much of their time and causing them (Rick and John Good) so much trouble.  Rick looks at me and says “That’s OK Frank; it’s marginal, but on balance you are slightly more of an asset than a liability” (or words to that effect) – ouch! ;-).

Next on the list for today is to update the Hawke Tracking database of SPOT tracker links from last year to reflect who is actually here, and to help pilots add the proper links for their new equipment.  I’m a bit behind this year, as I was told the SSA was taking over this function via a contract with another SPOT tracking vendor (Tip-Top software), which essentially put Hawke Tracking out of business.  Alas, the SSA/Tip-Top service didn’t come through in time, so we (Mark Hawkins and I) stepped back in and set up a tracking page at the last minute.  So, now I’m behind the 8-ball, but the rest day should allow me to catch back up.  While I’m on the subject, it does seem a bit odd that the SSA board of directors saw fit to reward our little Hawke Tracking company for donating our services to two different WGC venues (Uvalde and Chavez), for being instrumental in setting up the wildly popular SSA SPOT tracking list, and providing popular tracking services for almost every SSA contest over the last four or five years by essentially wiping us out by offering a free competing service.  Mark and I weren’t in this to make any money, just to cover our server equipment costs, but it still rankles.

Anyway, David Pixton (9X) showed up for a cup of coffee and to chat, and Henry Retting (R) came by with his new SPOT tracker, so I stopped rankling and started helping Henry get squared away.  After they left, I’m back to updating the SPOT list and looking out the window at the rain and fog – sigh.

Late afternoon update:  Done with SPOT tracking updates.  Now all pilots with a valid publicly visible SSA “Track a Sailplane” entry for their tracking unit (SPOT or Delorme) have been added to the contest tracking page.  As an aside there are two of the new Delorme InReach devices at this contest.  One is my loaner from Paul Remde of Cumulus Soaring, and the other is Sean Fidler (F2)’s unit.  The interesting thing about my loaner unit (with 1-minute tracking updates and altitude/heading/speed reporting) is that I also have a SPOT tracker, so interested viewers can immediately see the differences between InReach and SPOT performance.

Tonight we are going to have another fine dinner at the hangar, and a before that we are going to have a SRA-sponsored town meeting regarding current rules – oh boy! ;-).

Frank (TA)