Day 7 at the Logan 15m Nationals – another mass landout day

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First, my apologies for not getting this report out earlier – I know there are many who depend on these reports to follow the action.  I can only say that by the time I got home last night (about midnight), I couldn’t even find my bed, much less my keyboard ;-).

Yesterday was Day 7 of the 15m nationals here at Logan, and the 3rd mass landout day.  Only at Logan can you landout on 3 of 7 days and still be in the top 10 (or maybe even in the top 5!).   The call yesterday was the big “Jackson Hole Tour”, only the weather didn’t support the  call.  Mike the Strike was hopeful that the monsoon moisture in the area would give us clouds but not OD.   However, the National Weather Service thought it would OD – unfortunately they were right and Mike was wrong.  Based on Mike’s optimistic take on the weather (and IMHO) a large dollop of wishful thinking, the CD committed to the the Jackson Hole tour call.  And when I say “committed”, I mean there was no backup plan in case things went wrong.  It was either the Big Cahunah or nothing.

At grid time, things were looking good in all quadrants (too good as it turns out), and the sniffer was soon reporting 4-5kt to 8500′ msl off tow.  The launch started soon thereafter, and we were all able to (eventually) climb with full water.  Unfortunately, it turned out that cloudbase was only 10,000′ msl,  an altitude we had been told was not enough to comfortably get to Meade Peak from the main ridge, and certainly not enough to get back to the main ridge from Meade Peak.  However, no amount of reality was sufficient to stop the train, so off we went into almost certain oblivion.

Most pilots got east to the Salt River range and, once there, it was an easy run up to Thompson Peak.  It was also a spectacularly beautiful run, especially at the north end where you could see the Grand Tetons and into the Jackson Hole, Wyoming valley.  I can see why Tim Taylor (TT) was anxious to showcase this particular part of the Logan soaring area.  However, as we all turned south again, it was obvious that the way home was not going to be easy.  The clouds had OD’d and there were numerous rain showers moving from west to east across our path south to Wagner Mountain, where we would hope to get a climb to get home.  At the end of the day, only four pilots made it around ( one of whom was Tim Taylor (TT)  who made a spectacular low save in the Afton area and somehow managed to find a way home), with the rest of the fleet scattered across Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming.  I landed at the Afton, Wyoming airport along with five other pilots, including Tim Welles (W3), Bruno Vassel 4th (B4), Rick Indrebo (YC), Nick Bonniere (ST), and Peter Alexander (98).  Three pilots elected to aerotow home, and three of us elected ground retrieves.  My trusty crew Mark Hawkins was the first to arrive after a 2-1/2 hour drive from Logan.  We got back to Logan around midnight and had no chance to do anything but inspect the insides of our eyelids for a few hours before we had to get up and do it again.

The day winner for the day was Francois Pin (FP), who figured out early that the task was a  broken play, and flew conservatively and well.  He elected to come home early and sacrifice some speed, but getting home at all was a major accomplishment.  We found out later that part of his motivation for getting home was that he and his lovely wife Dottie were planning a 25th wedding anniversary dinner, and he didn’t want to miss it ;-).

TA

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