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I’m writing this the following morning, as the days run so long here that it is almost impossible to get everything done, get some food, and get to bed before midnight. The way things are going here, we’re going to remember the 15m nats more as a survival/endurance contest than a flying skills contest! ;-).
Yesterday’s original task for the 15m nats and for the regional FAI class was a 3hr, 2-turn TAT to Thompson Peak with a 30-mile radius, then to Wagner Mountain with a 30-mile radius, then home. Now the MINIMUM distance for this task was 178 miles for the 15m guys and 173 miles for the regional FAI class (due to different start circles), the nominal was 250, and the max was 342! Just to nick the edges and come home required almost 60 mph for the regional guys, and they were flying dry! Then comes the real kicker – Task B, the task we would go to if the actual weather looked to be worse than forecast, was the SAME TASK only with a 2.5hr minimum instead of 3hr, and task C, the task we would get if the weather really went to pot was the SAME TASK only with a 2hr min time. Now, I may not be much at math, but even I was able to figure out that task B and task C made no sense – you still had to fly the same min distance to get any points, but now you had to do it FASTER, not slower! When I pointed this minor fact out to our task advisor (Tim Taylor, TT), he said he thought that task C was supposed to be something in the Cache valley – and he and the other task committee members got together and came up with a completely different (and slightly less suicidal) task for the 15m nats, which we got literally as we were strapping ourselves into cockpits.
As it turned out, a huge cloud street set up well to our north over Sherman Peak running horizon to horizon east-northeast to west-southwest that ran right through the 15m task area. “All” we had to do was get to Sherman Peak, connect with the street, run it for 80 miles out over completely unlandable (and uninhabited) terrain, turn around and get home, and all but one 15m pilot was able to do this in some fashion or another. When I wasn’t scared out of my gourd, it was actually quite spectacular! Dave Mockler (2xx) won the day with 74.12mph, and the rest of the field wasn’t far behind.
At dinner last night I was talking to my fellow CCSC club member John Lubon (JL) who is flying in the Region 9 FAI class, and discovered that he and the rest of the FAI class wound up flying the original 173 mile minimum task out to Thompson peak and back (the min distance task was essentially a 90-mile out-and-return). John said they were also flying over mostly unlandable terrain, but much more mountainous unlandable terrain than we had in the 15m task). However, it was very fortuitous that the cloud street over Sherman peak also extended east-northeast for 100 miles or so, so the FAI guys were able to run it out, nick the Thompson Peak circle 90 miles away, and then run home along the same street. If that street had not set up, there would have been FAI gliders strewn all over Idaho and Wyoming! As it was there were two landouts in this class, fortunately both at airports.
Region 9 Sports Class had a smaller task, but they had at least 5 landouts at airports and probably another 1 or 2 in fields that haven’t gotten back to turn in scores – not a good day at the office for them :-(.
Today’s weather looks pretty much the same as yesterday, but maybe a little warmer. Hopefully we’ll have cu’s again today, as that is the only thing that makes these crazy tasks do-able at all. Maybe the task committee will buy a clue today and make sure we at least have backup tasks that are easier and not harder than the primary task!
Off to the airport – stay tuned!
TA
