Boy did we have a wild day today! Actually, I think we had *several* wild days today, as the weather and the soaring conditions seemed to change minute by minute as the day progressed.
The day started with dense ground fog, to the point where I wasn’t quite sure how to find my glider trailer. Finally I found the trailer and started assembling, along with other pilots in the gloom. By the time I had the wings on and was pushing the glider down to water up, I could just barely see the fire truck (we use a fire water truck at Mifflin for ballast water). By 8:30 am or so, the fog had lifted, and we could see clear sky above, but it was really freaky there for a while.
At the 9:30 pilots meeting, weatherman Richard Kellerman gave his usual masterful analysis of the soaring potential for the day. There was a front moving in from the west that was supposed to actually pass over us some time during the day – but exactly when was unknown. Apparently there wasn’t a huge amount of bad weather associated with the front, but there would be enough clouds and rain to shut down soaring if it got here earlier than predicted. If the frontal passage was delayed until this evening, then we would be able to get a day in before everything got shut down. So, CD Jackie called for a 11:00 am grid and an early launch to hopefully get us out on course and back home again in good time.
Unfortunately, a number of things combined to delay the launch and gate opening, and this, combined with a front that started moving a bit faster than expected, gave us the wild ride I mentioned earlier. First, there is apparently a tradition here that tows are made to the southeast toward Jack’s mountain, rather than to the northwest toward 7 mountains. There is also a contest tradition that all tows go to the same general area, to preserve an even playing field. Unfortunately those two traditions combined to cause a lot of relights in the Sports class, which happened to be on the front of the grid today. Meanwhile, those lucky few gliders that managed to eke out enough altitude at 1kt over Jacks to get over to 7 mountains found 4-5kt to 8000′ msl. So, instead of switching the tows to 7 mountains, gliders continued to be dropped off over Jacks, which kept adding to the population in the relight pattern. This was all pretty interesting to me, as I’m trying to learn as much as possible about contest directing prior to my going into the barrel at the Region 6 contest at CCSC. As it turns out, there is no specific rule that says you have to tow everyone to the same place, but it is recommended for fairness.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, many of the 15m pilots dumped partial ballast to be able to stay up on Jack’s mountain and get over to the real lift on 7 mountains, where we found 4-6kt climbs to 8000′ msl, AND streeting (not in the right direction, but you can’t have everything). Unfortunately, for one reason or another, the start gate opening time kept getting pushed back, so half of us were hanging around at 8000′ and the other half were still struggling to stay aloft over on Jack’s mountain. The upshot of all this was that the 15m start gate didn’t open until 2pm, about 30 minutes too late to keep us out of trouble with the encroaching front. Most of us left within 5-10 minutes after the start gate opened, and the first leg to LockHaven was actually pretty good. After LockHaven we aimed at Mid State airport, which is up on the plateau to the west of the Bald Eagle ridge. Traditionally the plateau (about 2000 msl) has higher cloud bases and stronger climbs, and so the run from LockHaven to Mid-State *should* have been a barn-burner. Unfortunately today the weather gods got the dice all scrambled up, so the plateau wasn’t delivering quite as nicely as hoped. In fact, I wound up down around 3500-4000′ msl (1500 – 2000 agl) scratching around for lift. I finally found and centered a wonderful 6kt thermal, only to have the eventual day winner John Cochrane (BB) come in below me and steal my thermal! I paid him back for this later on that same leg, when he missed a 6kt thermal that I caught behind him – he went on and had to turn out off the plateau early, while I was able to continue for another 10 miles or so, until I ran into rainshowers associated with the front. The next leg was south to McConnelsburg, and this leg was a true nightmare. The winds had picked up to over 15kt from about 260, and the buoyancy to shear ratio must have been well below 5 – it was just about impossible to find and/or stay in a thermal, and there didn’t seem to be much connection between ground features and clouds. As we progressed further south, even the lying clouds started drying out, so we were left with only lying ground features to deal with. My trace for this leg looks like the path of a drunken sailor, with right angle segments up and downwind as I searched for lift. I eventually was able to nick the McConnelsburg circle, and started the downwind run (more like a downwind drift) into the last turn, all my ballast gone, looking for likely landing fields and praying for a ‘mercy’ thermal. I finally found a thermal just before the last circle, and took it up to +1500′ over final glide at MC3.0, while drifting downwind into the circle. I was determined to get home for speed points, and I had 30 miles and three ridgelines to cross on the way home and a solid overcast in front of me, so +1500′ was not at all excessive, at least in my mind after all the effort required to get to this point. Anyway, off I went, pretty much at best L/D, hoping that I wouldn’t run into too much sink on the way home. About halfway home I heard BB call “4 miles on the ridge”, and I suddenly realized that must mean that Jacks mountain was ‘working’, so I deviated left about 30 degrees so I would cross Jacks at right angles about 8 miles south of Mifflin, where I then turned north along the ridge and zoomed home at 130kt – whee!! I got home just as a rainshower was crossing the field, but I didn’t care – I had made it!
Turns out there were a *lot* of landouts, including Karl Striedieck, Tim Taylor (the current 15m champion), Dennis Linnekin, Hank Nixon, and many others. Suddenly my drunken sailor’s walk didn’t seem so bad after all – sometimes even a drunken sailor makes it home ;-).
The weather forecast for the next few days looks pretty good, so maybe we are done with the craziness for a while. It would be good to have real, honest-to-god soaring weather, with real thermals and clouds that don’t lie through their teeth. Stay tuned!
PS: I got an email from Baude Litt (LBL) asking me where he could find the contest SPOT tracking map. I normally post the links to R.A.S., but he doesn’t frequent that forum. So here are the links again. There are several different display formats generated, so pick the one that looks best on your display device.
The tracking page URL’s are:
Google Maps – http://www.hawketracking.org/
Google Maps Large – http://www.hawketracking.org/
Mobile – http://www.hawketracking.org/
Google Earth KML – http://www.hawketracking.org/
Frank (TA)
