Today is Saturday, March 14, the start of two ‘official’ practice days here at Perry. However, some of us have been fortunate to get down here a little earlier, and enjoyed more like a practice week than a practice weekend.
Perry is typically the largest contest of the year, by a fair margin. Where other contests enjoy thirty or forty contestants in a good year, Perry is almost always maxed out at 62, and always has contestants on a waiting list in case someone has to back out at the last minute. If you are lucky enough to be ‘in’ region 5 (Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and North Carolina), then you can generally get in no matter what your U.S. pilot ranking. However, if you are ‘out of region’, then you basically have to be a regional champion or better to get in, or be so low in the rankings that the Sports Class reverse ranking preference system comes to your rescue. The only other way to get in is to be a ‘foreign guest’, and we typically have a number of Canadians participating. I have been coming down here for the last 5 years, but this is the first year I haven’t had to suffer the agonies of the waiting list.
Perry ‘International Airport’ is a 5000′ grass private airport situated just outside Wagener, SC (Perry’s namesake town is a much smaller no-stoplight village just to the east) owned by Al and Rhonda Tyler, and it is one of the most beautiful soaring sites known to man. When you drive into Perry, you see manicured trailer parking areas, accented with flower beds mulched shade tree groupings. There are vast areas for trailer and camper parking, high-pressure water outlets every 100 yards or so for ballast, and there must be 50 or 60 electrical hookups for campers. Due to the dearth of lodgings in the area, almost everyone here ‘camps out’. Over the years, Al and Rhonda have managed to create a huge network of locals who bring their own campers and motor homes here for the week and rent them to contestants to address this issue.
The social center of the soaring site is the ‘Cookhouse’ – a combination kitchen, internet cafe, and shower/toilet facility. On a typical contest day, the open-air porch will be filled to overflowing with contestants and crew checking their email, downloading waypoint files, and uploading flights to OLC. During the contest itself, the Cookhouse is augmented with a huge canvas tent that will handle the entire contestant body for dinners and pilot meetings.
Of course, the real reason Perry is such a huge success is that the soaring conditions down here are often quite good, due to the dry sandy soil of the region. Perry can get a lot of rain, but the sandy soil percolates extremely well, so even heavy rain drains off the surface quite rapidly. The sandy soil, coupled with copious sunshine, can result in some awesome soaring Uvalde-like conditions. For instance, yesterday we had 5000-7000′ cloudbases, cumulus clouds in all directions (and streeting in the norther part of the area), with honest-to-god 10kt thermals for at least part of the day. The area is also quite benign in terms of landout opportunities, with lots of small grass strips and regional airports dotted around. There are some challenges, like the very-active North Airport 10 miles to the east with its parade of C-17 cargo planes practicing combat approaches, and the Savannah River nuclear storage facility 25 miles to the south (you can land there, but you will be immediately surrounded byM16-toting 17-year old army troopers who have to be convinced that you aren’t a glider-born terrorist!). Also, there are some pretty big stretches of trees and more trees out to the northwest, where airports are really the only landing option, but hey – when you are at 7000′ climbing in 10kt you aren’t worried about little things like landing out! ;-).
Practice week here has been pretty awesome. I got here last Sunday evening, only to find that I wasn’t the first guy here (Sam Zimmerman (SZ) and Sam Giltner (5U) had arrived a few days earlier). I have flown every day since then (one day was a pretty short flight due to high winds and pilot stupidity, but I *did* fly!). Every day until yesterday was bluer than blue due to a very dry airmass in the area, so we all got lots of solo blue-day soaring practice (we tended to go off in different directions, so we each were flying solo). Al has a friendly agreement with a local pilot (Kurt) who showed up each day around 12:30 to tow us off, which makes things nice. Each day, a few more pilots would show up, so the ‘grid’ got a little longer each day until about Thursday, when people really started streaming in. Yesterday we probably had 30-40 gliders on the grid, and we had three towplanes operating – not too shabby for the day before the official practice days start! ;-).
Yesterday’s flight was once of the most awesome soaring days I’ve ever experienced east of the Mississippi. By the time I launched at about 12:15pm, there were flat-bottomed Q’s in all directions and the sky just looked gorgeous. Off tow I climbed in about 3-4kt to 3500′ or so, wandered around a bit, and then hit an honest-to-god 10.4kt bottom-to-top average thermal to above 7000′ msl (If you don’t believe it, check out my OLC post for 4/13/12). At my home club (Caesar Creek Soaring Club in Waynesville, Ohio) if I ever tried to claim a 10kt thermal, I would be immediately sedated and checked into the nearest mental facility – I mean how many flatland soaring places do you know with that kind of soaring potential? The rest of the day was (mostly) just as awesome, with 20-40 mile runs without stopping, even running at 100kt (full ballast, of course).
Today starts the ‘official’ practice weekend, and the place is already fully packed. The grid today will probably contain more than 50 gliders, most filled to the gills with water. The forecast for the day is basically the same it has been for the entire week – sunny, high in the mid 70’s, mild winds, 5000′ top of lift, probably blue conditions. I’ve got to end this post now, as it is 8:00 am and time for me to get assembled, watered up, and out on the grid! ;-).
It looks like I’m going to wind up being the ‘official scribe’ again for this contest, as Scott Alexander (who was going to do the blog posts and daily reports) had a medical emergency and had to back out at the last moment. So, I hereby provide the following disclaimer for all following posts: “These posts are provided by a mentally deranged soaring pilot, and may or may not have any relationship to reality. The poster has been known to lie, cheat, steal candy from babies, and otherwise demonstrate lack of honesty, culture, and soaring talent. If you read these posts your life as you know it may take be degraded forever more. Specifically, the poster has been known to us the ‘U’ (Unlandable) word on occasion”.
Stay tuned,
Frank (TA)
