Day 1 is ‘in the bag’ at the Eagleville, TN GTA race. The day started out cool, crisp, and sunny (too sunny – there were NO clouds!) as the morning went on, the day got warmer and nicer, but not necessarily better for soaring. A sniffer was sent up around noontime, and promptly returned. However, after about 30 minutes we could see that the buzzards and hawks were gaining altitude, and so the sniffer was thrown up again, and this time he stuck. Soon thereafter the launch was started and,with two towplanes it didn’t take too long for everyone to get up. The gate for the ‘A’ (experienced) class was opened about 2:15 or so, and off we went, into the blue blue blue.
The task for today was a 2-hour MAT, with a mandatory first turn about 10 miles to the northwest, and a mandatory last turn about 10 miles to the northeast. We weren’t actually getting very high – about 2500-3000 agl, and the thermals (with the exception of one 6kt whopper) weren’t all that great – generally in the 2-3kt category. I managed to start with a pretty high-powered group – Bill Elliot (WE) in his JS-1, Dick Butler (DB) flying his ‘little airplane’ (ASH-26E), and Francois Pin (FP) flying an ASW-27. We got out to the first turn in good order and made the turn to head west, and I was actually doing OK. As we headed further west, we were all getting a bit low, until hitting a huge 6kt climb to 4000′ msl over some hilly ground (as it turned out, this was my last good climb of the day). We all tiptoed into and out of the Murfreesboro airport circle, and then were milling around over the town unsuccessfully trying to find something to climb in. Abandoning that, we all headed east again back toward the home airport, but I was unable to find anything and wound up landing at a small (and very nice) grass strip. As I rolled to a stop and got out, I was greeted by a group of RC enthusiasts who were just finishing up a day of RC flying, and so I was able to hitch a ride back to the airport and do a self-retrieve.
There were actually quite a number of landouts, but no damage to gliders or pilots. However, one pilot had to leave his glider in a muddy field, and so several of us are going to get going at 0730 tomorrow morning to go help him with a muddy over-the-fence retrieve – oh boy! Actually, I’m looking forward to this, as it just *has* to improve my wing/retrieve karma significantly ;-).
After soaring, we were all treated to a fantastic hamburger and hot-dog dinner by the Eagleville club, complete with wild-game cuts courtesy of ace (and unfortunately also ‘ex’ for the time being) Michael Poe. Michael is a local boy who has unfortunately had to severely curtail his soaring habit due to the demands of a successful international business and spending time with his family. Michael confessed that he did steal some early morning hours to hunt down and kill the wild boars we were eating, but said that he could do it because “I’m out the door at 0530 and back by 0730, so nobody misses me”. Michael might be towing for us at Perry, but even if he isn’t, I’m sure he’ll be back in the saddle with us at some point before the heat death of the universe ;-).
Egads! I just looked at the soaring weather for tomorrow, and it is one of the worst soaring forecasts I’ve ever seen when it isn’t actually raining. XCSkies is calling for top of lift at less than 1000′ agl, with average lift values in the 2-3kt range, winds out of the south at 15kt, and B/S ratios of less than 2 everywhere – ouch!
Well sports fans, with a forecast like that, I think BZ and I will execute ‘Task B’ tomorrow, and simply pack up at a leisurely pace and beat feet for Perry. We had planned to go at least part way Sunday evening anyway, so this will allow us to get through Atlanta much earlier and get to Perry before dark on Sunday, hopefully avoiding some traffic in the bargain. Tows are available starting Monday at Perry, so hopefully we can get some decent soaring there (I refuse to consider the fact that Perry is directly east of Eagleville, and so will probably have tomorrow’s (really really bad) weather on Monday – urrrkkk).
Stay tuned!
Frank (TA)
