Not quite Day 3 at Moriarty Region 9

This morning we arrived at the airport to a curious sight. The windsock was pointing straight out, showing an East wind! As i collected my USB drive from the day before I commented that “wasn’t the wind here supposed to blow from the west?”. Mike the Strike didn’t have a lot to say about that. We decided to wait until after the pilots meeting to rig as I was pretty unsure about the forecast and the wind was very strong blowing perpendicular to our trailer.

The meeting was eventful. Winners from Day 2 gave their speeches. I gave the safety talk. Local pilot JD Huss gave a short talk as official duty from his job with the FAA. Ex-ATC Billy Hill showed a cool time lapse of yesterdays Albuquerque Center radar screen that showed all the gliders squawking 1202 and the airliners that they were routed over the task area inbound to Albuquerque. They have been nice enough this week to keep them above 18,000 feet as the pass by.

The weather forecast was quite unsettled, so Tom called a second pilots meeting at 11:30. We rigged, taped, loaded, etc, and the girls went off to get lunch while I finished up and got the latest update. At that point Tom seemed optimistic that we may have a window to get at least a short task in before the sky went ballistic. The plan was to launch the smaller FAI classes first so they could get out on task and then if time allowed also launch the Sports Class. I believe the additional benefit to the plan was that the Sports Class has a shorter minimum task distance than the FAI classes. Anyway it sounded good to me but he was going to update us at noon about any grid times. In the meantime, the girls were back so we ate lunch. At noon, another delay until 12:45. At about 12:30 however it became obvious that it just wasn’t going to work out. We were standing on the ramp watching thunderstorms build in 3 quadrants, so Tom called the day. So we put Kate back in her trailer and headed over to the Southwest Soaring Museum.

I enjoyed the walk through the museum, haven’t been there since the last SSA Convention in Albuquerque. They’ve added not only a lot of gliders since then but also additional display cases. Leah and Amy seemed to enjoy the visit too.

Tonight was the scheduled pasta dinner with the local band Los Radiators providing the entertainment. We had a good time and even did a little dancing. The forecast for Thursday has been pessimistic all week but I’m hopeful that we’ll get a day in, otherwise Friday and Saturday seem to be good. I managed a 3rd place finish on Day 2 and am sitting at 2nd overall.

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