Day 1 at Wurtsboro (Region 2 North)

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When I woke up to run this morning at about 7am, the Wurtsboro valley was shrouded in thick mist.  It was pretty interesting running down the taxiway with a cool mist on my face.  Another nice thing about this morning is the runway slopes a bit to the north, and there was a very gentle breeze from the south.  So naturally I ran as far as I could to the north (downhill and downwind) and then walked back ;-).

Bill Thar’s (G8) weather report at the morning meeting was for 2-3kt lift to around 5000msl, with maybe an early end to the day, and light and variable winds.  The taskf for both classes was the same – a 2hr TAT – south to 25 Monument with a 10 mile radius, north to Ellenville with an 8 mile radius, southeast to Middletown with a 10 mile radius, and then northwest out over the high ground to Sullivan with a 15 mile radius (the larger radius meant the edge of the cylinder was only about 5 miles from the airport.

Out on task, there were lots of very good looking clouds and even some cloud streets, but I couldn’t seem to make them work very well for me, and other pilots were saying the same thing.   There were a couple of landouts, but AFAIK everyone is OK and crews are on their way to pick them up.  We don’t have scores yet, but I suspect the speeds will be in the 50’s rather than the 60’s  – we’ll see (I’ll try and update this report later this evening or tomorrow morning when we have scores).

Late report – In Sports class, Ryszard Krolidowski (RW) won the day with 53.67mph raw/50.50mph handicapped, more than 10mph faster than the second place pilot!  In FAI class, local boy Robert Templin won the day flying an LS-3(!!) with 53.35mph raw/49.99mph handicapped.  I think we will see more older gliders flying (and doing well) with the big boys now with the new handicapped FAI class rule, especially when the contest is declared ahead of time to be a non-ballasted contest.

The terrain up here is pretty interesting, and not a little bit scary for a flatlander like me.  One thing that really struck me yesterday and today is the sparseness of the towns and houses up here, and the huge number of small summer resorts.  Everywhere you looked on the plateau to the west of Wurtsboro you would see a small clearing in the woods with 8-10 cabins in a semicircle or other arrangement.  All those millions of people in New York city have to have someplace to go in the summer, I guess! ;-).

Dinner tonight was a wonderful spaghetti and meatball spread, complete with hand-grilled garlic bread,  prepared by Jeff Short.  A good time was had by all, and soaring yarns (i.e. lies) were heard up and down the table.  Tomorrow’s weather forecast looks a bit dire, so we may not fly – stay tuned!

TA