May 29, 2011.

It was arrival day at C62 Kendallville for the 1-26/PW5 contest and as seems to be the case up here in Indiana, the weather was the big issue.  We’ve had rain, rain, and more rain up here.  Getting the grass cut and ready for the contest has been a tremendous challenge.  It looks like at least for the first part of the week the flying will be off of the pavement.  The grass is simply too soft for glider operations.  Land outs better be at an alternate air strip, or we’re probably going to see some pretty muddy retrieval crews!

Tom and Mimi McKnight were the first to arrive at Kendallville with their PW5 and were actually happy to see some green grass.  They’re having a drought in Texas.  We’re all hoping they brought some of that dry weather up with them!

Things were going pretty well for the arrivals….until late afternoon when sure enough, the weather turned ugly and the tornado sirens went off.  We managed to get everyone’s ships, trailers, cars, trucks, and one RV safely into the big hanger before the storm hit.  We all retired to the terminal office to watch the show.  Horizontal rain isn’t really what you want at a glider contest, but luckily no tornado struck our area.

I’d like to make mention that Cathy Williams spent the entire afternoon in her bare feet, which, when the rain hit, I guess wasn’t all that bad of an idea!

It looks as though all of the bad weather has cleared our area and the weather forecast is for clear skies and some hot temps.  Let’s get things dried out and have a contest!

Tomorrow is a practice day and it will be great to see all the ships together and out on the field.