A friend suggested to me that I should write up a summary of my 2011 soaring season, so here it is:
12 contests total:
- Clermont, FL (Seniors): placed 4th overall – best I’ve ever done there
- Perry, SC (R5N): Landed out on 1st day, wound up 12th out of 19
- Chilhowee, TN (Sports Class Nationals): Landed out on 1st day, wound up 10th out of 21
- Mifflin, PA (R2): Landed out on 1st day (notice a trend here?), wound up 12th out of 16
- Ionia, MI (R6N): Landed out on 1st day (will this ever end?), wound up 11th out of 15
- Cordele, GA (R5S): Yay! broke the curse! Not only did I not land out on day1, but I won the day and the contest!
- Waynesville, OH (R6S): Rained out
- Wurtsboro, NY (R2N): 3rd out of 9, but at least I didn’t land out
- Logan, UT (15m Nationals): 5th out of 23, and was happy to leave Logan with all my body and glider parts intact!
- Uvalde, TX (Uvalde glide/pre-worlds): 16th out of 21 – ouch!
- Llano, TX (R10): Won 3 of the 5 days, and 1st overall by almost 500 pts -felt good after getting hammered at Uvalde!
- New Castle, VA (R4W): Rained out.
Other notable things from the season
- Attended both the first (Seniors) and last (New Castle) contests of the season
- Went to contests in 11 states (two in Texas)
- Put about 20,000 miles on my new F-150 pickup and ‘Micro Castle’ pickup camper
- Landed out on the first day at four contests in a row – you’d think I’d learn!
- Won 2 regionals, and placed 5th in the 15m Nationals, earning a 97.5 pilot ranking
- Put about 330 hours on the Ventus in about 100 flights.
- Stayed married – an accomplishment in its own right ;-).
Thoughts:
- I have been doing lots of contests for about 3-4 years now, and I don’t think I’m getting burned out. I really like the routine at a contest, especially since I now almost always camp right at the airport. Prior to this season I had been camping in a Honda Odyssey van, which worked but was a bit cramped to say the least. This year I got a new F-150 pickup and new pickup camper, and the ‘Micro Castle has made the whole experience a lot nicer.
- Contest flying is the very best way to get better at XC racing. There is no substitute for the pressures and range of conditions found in contest flying. Each contest gives you a few more tools to put into the toolbox for the next time, and eventually you have a set of ‘tools’ that can be applied effectively to most contest days. Contest flying is also great fun – the infrastructure (line crew, tow planes, management, food, task planning) is all done for you, so you can just concentrate on the flying part.
- Condor flying in the winter helps. It’s not exactly the same as real-world contest flying, but it is close enough so that the same problem-solving and flying skills are exercised. It might be that it takes several Condor races to equal one real-world contest, but since I fly 10 or more of Condor races each week or about 100-150 races each winter, I might be flying the equivalent of 20 or 30 contests each winter.
- The Seniors this year was the first one run totally by the new owners of the Seminole soaring center, and it was a tremendous success. There was every indication that the ‘Seniors’ will be the premiere start-up contest of the season for the foreseeable future.
- The Llano Texas (Region 10) contest gets my vote this year as the best all-around contest. Great weather (we flew all 5 days), great management, and a great contest group. Doesn’t hurt that I won 3 days and the overall trophy. And speaking of trophies, the Region 10 travelling trophy is HUGE! (the permanent trophies were pretty nice too).
- The Logan 15m Nationals and Regional contest was by far the worst managed and most dangerous contest of the season. We were extremely lucky to get away from that contest with *only* 3 broken gliders and no serious injuries or fatalities. After the first contest day, my contest strategy changed to “please let me leave this place with all my body and glider parts in the same order in which they arrived”. They got just about everything wrong, with the topper being their decision to censor my commentary from the contest. Too bad they spent so much time getting wound up over my use of the “Unlandable” word and not enough time figuring out how to run a safe contest in the Logan soaring area. These guys really ought to get a life and enjoy the sport a little more ;-). My vote would be to never hold another nationals at Logan either – it is just too technical, and there are too many temptations to literally bet your life on the outcome of a tricky transition. it would be a great place for a soaring safari, with it’s spectacular scenery and great soaring potential, but not a good place for a serious contest.
- I enjoyed writing about the contests I went to this year, and I really appreciated all the positive feedback I got from readers. The most often repeated comment was “it makes me feel like I was there myself”, which is sorta what I was trying to do. This sometimes got me in hot water with the contest management (i.e. Logan), but I never pretended that my posts were anything but the personal observations of a somewhat wimpy contest pilot ;-).
I’m already planning the 2012 contest schedule, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to top the 12-contest 2011 season. This may have been truly a once-in-a-lifetime “season in the sun”.
Frank (TA)
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