March 12 at Seminole – Day 1 of Seniors ‘in the bag’

Well, we have officially started the 2012 U.S. glider racing season, as Day 1 of the Seniors is in the bag.  The call for today was a 3-hr TAT/AAT with 4 turnpoints – two in the south, and two in the north.  First turn was Frostproof, 48 miles south-southeast with a 20-mile radius, then 35 miles due east to Midway Lake with a 5 mile radius, then 55 miles northeast to Bob White with a 10-mile radius, then 28 miles due east again to Cheryl Lane with a 15-mile radius, then home.

As we all got our gliders out on the grid, the weather was looking pretty good.  The winds here were still out of the east southeast at 10-15kt, but there were clouds a-plenty (more on that later) and definite streeting.  Cloud bases were being reported in the 4000′ msl range, so things were looking pretty good.  CD John Good lost no time getting the launch started, and by 1:15 or so, all gliders were off the ground and the gate was opened at 1:21pm.  I was in the back of the grid, and as the launch progressed, it appeared to me that the spaces between the cloud streets were getting a little thinner as time went on, so I was thinking that a reasonably early start was in order. The weatherman didn’t mention anything about overdevelopment, but I had seen an earlier sounding that showed the dewpoint line and the air temperature line getting within a degree or so of each other at cloudbase, and that is never a good thing ;-).

Most pilots reported a good run down to Frostproof.  This was a crosswind leg so we couldn’t really take advantage of the streets, but there was plenty of lift.  I went about 10 miles into the Frostproof circle and turned when I had streets lined up with the south end of the Midway Lake circle (actually what happened is I got down to 1500′ about 10 miles into the Frostproof circle, and managed to find a decent climb to dig out.  At that point I decided to make lemonade out of lemons and designate the low point as the turn point, thereby making the long climb part of the downwind leg.  However ‘lining up a cloud street’ sounds ever so much more professional!).

The second leg was pretty much directly downwind, and many pilots reported having even better second legs than first ones.  However, the party music suddenly came to a crashing halt as we all turned north again.  The aforementioned forecast meeting of the dewpoint line and the temperature line had indeed happened, and now we were faced with a 50-mile crosswind slog under an almost completely overcast sky.  This was kinda like an old-fashioned musical chairs routine – if you weren’t all the way up at cloudbase at the Midway Lake circle, you were in “a heap o trouble, boy!”.  For once in my racing career, I noticed this happening while I was still on the way into the Midway Lake circle, *before* I was totally screwed, so I  made sure to end that leg right at cloud base, and then proceeded north at pretty much max L/D.  Fortunately for me and many other pilots, there were plenty of markers struggling down low, and there was actually a fair bit of lift under the overcast – it was just very hard to figure out where it was.  Many pilots reported being saved or helped by soaring birds marking thermals, and the birds were actually much more visible under the clouds.

Things opened back up again a little bit once we were north of Seminole, but it was clear that the game was to get just enough mileage to run out the time, and get back to Seminole in good order.

At the end of the day, the (very) preliminary scores show that Wilfried Krueger (K2) won the day with a raw speed of 60.90mph, 53.59mph handicapped, with Doug Jacobs (flying John Good’s Duo Discus) 34 points behind with 57.88mph raw, 51.75mph handicapped, and Chip Garner (CG) only 2 points behind Doug with 55.87mph raw, 51.68mph handicapped.  I wound up tied with George Green (5) for 8th place with 913 – which is great as far as I’m concerned ;-).

There was a welcome dinner last night with great food, beer, and friends.  There was so much food that Andreea announced today on the launch grid that there would be a “second welcome” dinner tonight to deal with the leftovers – nice!

Tomorrow (and the rest of the  week for that matter)  looks to be even better than today, with decreasing winds as the week goes on.  I’m hoping that the decreasing easterly winds will mean even better soaring, with hopefully reduced chance of overdevelopment late in the day.

Stay tuned!

TA