The 2013 Seniors contest got off to a roaring start today, with great (although a bit windy) weather.  At the morning meeting, intrepid weatherman Richard Kellerman (QV) told us that we were definitely going to have problems with wind, and that we *might* have problems with either high cirrus coming in from the west and/or stratocumulus coming in from the east.  He also said that we might see a few clouds, but he expected them to dry out and the day to go blue.  However, at the very end of his forecast he mentioned in passing that if the clouds didn’t dry out and the high clouds didn’t materialize, we could have a very good soaring day.  This particular day, contrary to all odds, the stars and the planets all aligned such that we didn’t get the overcast layers, we *did* get the clouds, and the winds weren’t so high as to cause major problems, and we *did* have a great day of Florida soaring.  The winds were from the east at 15-20kt, but we had good clouds in all quadrants with bases at around 4000 before the start, going up to 5000 and even higher in some places later in the day.

The task for today was a simple south-north-south two-turn TAT.  First south to Alturas with a 20-mile circle, then north to Montgomery with a 20-mile circle, and then back south to Seminole.  The launch went pretty much flawlessly, managed by a great ground crew.  Most pilots found good climbs right away, but I did hear one pilot returning for a relight.  By the time the fleet was off the ground and the gate was open, clouds were plentiful (almost too plentiful) and it was looking like a great soaring day.  The gate was opened at about 1:45 or so, and with the strong winds out of the east, many pilots elected to start out of the extreme east side of the start cylinder, thereby giving themselves more mileage and a more upwind position at the start.

In the first few miles after the start, I thought conditions were a bit spotty, and BZ, LBL and I were down to below 2000′ before we were able to connect with a decent thermal.  However, after that low point, conditions improved significantly as we went south, and continued to get better for the rest of the day.  We were treated to lots of great looking cloud streets, but unfortunately they were aligned more or less perpendicular to the course line, so we couldn’t really exploit them as much as we would all have liked.   Also, because the condensation altitude almost coincided with the inversion height, the clouds didn’t have quite enough depth to them to allow us to easily distinguish the good ones from the bad ones.  Several times we flew under beautiful clouds with dark flat bottoms that didn’t seem to yield anything, and then we’d find 8kts under something that didn’t look anywhere near as good.

BZ and I were able to make good time down past the center of the first turn area, flying in the company of Ed Hollestelle (A1) for much of the time.  We found a good thermal to anchor the turn, and as we were just getting it cored up, in comes Karl Striedieck (KS) with his Duo.  After climbing to the top of this thermal, KS also left going north, so BZ and I, no fools we, went with him.  For the next 80-100 miles, BZ, A1, and myself were treated to a master class on energy line flying by the man himself, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.  I don’t know who was flying with Karl today, but I hope whoever it was appreciates the extraordinary talent on display today – I know I did!  The only time in the flight (other than the low point near the start) where I was a bit worried was as we were approaching Leesburg from the south, working our way into the Montgomery turn area.  Leesburg sits at the northern end of a large lake, with even larger lakes to the south and east, and these are large enough to cause significant lake-shadowing effects with strong winds from the east.  We were all down to about 3500′, and I could just see us all getting trapped in the lake shadow and having to grind around in 1-2kt thermals forever.  However, about the time I was writing my own obituary, KS pulled up into great 6kt thermal that we all rode to 5000′, and that was basically the end of the task; we did have to climb a couple more times, but it was pretty much a sure thing from then on.  The only gotcha after that was an area of sink on the upwind final glide that forced me (and many others) to slow way down from the warp-factor six we were doing in order to cross the 1-mile boundary above the minimum height of 900′ msl.

As often happens at the Seniors, the arrival and landing was almost more exciting than the flight itself.  When we arrived, our group of 4 or 5 gliders added to an already congested pattern, and everyone was doing there best to sort into an orderly flow.  Of course, even after CD John Good read us the riot act about clearing the runway, there was at least one glider pilot who managed to stop their glider in the exact middle of the runway, both east-west and north-south.  Fortunately some alert by-standers pulled the miscreant off the runway before he was lynched by the rest of the fleet trying to find places to land.

At the end of the day, Karl Striedieck won the day handily with a raw speed of 67mph (60.13mph handicapped), followed closely by Tim Wells (W3) with 71.18mph (59.43mph handicapped) and Baud Litt (LBL) with 64.41mph (58.94mph handicapped).  The top 10 places were all occupied by pilots with raw speeds in the 60’s – quite respectable for a dry contest in Florida.

The day was capped off by a welcome dinner featuring lots of food, beer, good conversations, and live entertainment – doesn’t get much better than that.

Two other stories of note coming out of the contest so far.  First, Flarm is here in force, with the overwhelming majority of pilots either with their own units, or rentals.  There are too many stories of pilots being alerted of close calls to tell here, but Don Kroesch (DK) and I had our own ‘Thank you Flarm!’ moment on the practice day, where we were mutually alerted of a pending head-on collision in time to do something about it.  The practice day was mostly overcast conditions with poor visibility, and we were both right on the other’s horizon in the worst possible position for visibility.  I got an alert in my cockpit and immediately went heads-up, but mistook another glider as the source of the alert, until DK pulled up and to the left to avoid me.  As he did so, his glider ‘just appeared out of the mist’ from my point of view, but Don later told me that he was able to pick me up almost immediately when the alert went off.  In Don’s (and Don’s wife’s) words “Flarm just paid for itself”.  If you are thinking of flying in a competition, please do yourself and everyone else a favor and either purchase a Flarm unit, or arrange for a rental unit.

The second story revolves around the new rule specifically allowing pilot-pilot communications for the purpose of team flying.  The Seniors is often the proving ground for new rules and developments, and this year is no exception.  Although there is some minor grousing about cluttering up the airwaves with team chatter, in general it is going OK.  There are several teams competing here, with varying degrees of success.  The team of John Mittell (BZ) and TA made a statement today with a 4/6 finish (it was 4/5 until Sam Giltner tied BZ for 4th, dropping me to 6th place), but who knows how it will all turn out.  BZ and I started this team flying thing on a lark last winter, thinking we could use the Condor soaring simulator to play around with team flying concepts.  The lark turned into literally hundreds of hours of wing-to-wing flying, culminating with flying here at the Seniors for the first real-life test of the concept.  Whatever your particular belief about the pros and cons of team flying, there are now two indisputable facts; Team flying works in real competitions, and team flying can be learned and practiced in Condor.  As BZ and I found, it is also more fun than a barrel full of monkeys, and a great way to encourage more pilots to enter competitions.  Full disclosure – I am a rabid proponent of both the team flying concept as a way to possibly improve the performance of our U.S. Soaring teams at team-dominated world meets, and an even more rabid proponent of using Condor as a cross-country mentoring tool.  You have been warned! ;-)

The popular weather forecast for tomorrow is calling for mostly sunny with a high around 80, and southeast winds 5-15mph.  I am told by the locals that southeast winds are usually a good thing here in Florida, so we may have another great day of soaring tomorrow – stay tuned!

Frank (TA)