Richard Kellerman (QV in the regional and weatherman) had his swan song this morning at the pilots meeting, where he delivered two widely divergent forecasts. The first one was for today, where he forecast the possibility of a fairly high boundary layer, possibly as high as 8000-9000′ msl out over the plateau, with winds out of the east at about 10kt. The second forecast was given for tomorrow and Tuesday by his T-shirt, which has a map of the continental U.S. with different colored sections, with the word “Shitty” as the weather forecast for each and every area. His forecast for today turned out reasonably well, and unfortunately the clouds are rolling in from the south and east even as I type this, which probably means his T-shirt forecast is coming true as well.
Interesting soaring day today. The task was set up so we could play on the plateau if the high cloudbases and cumulus forecast worked out. The first turn was White Pine (near LockHaven) – 20 miles, then southwest along the plateau to StripMine – 20 miles, then northeast again to Nisbet – 20 miles, then home, with a minimum time of 4 hours. Most pilots tried their best to get going as soon as the start gate opened (I was out of there like a shot myself) by climbing up through the top of the cylinder to 6000 or so, and then gliding out toward the first turn and the plateau. The big challenge was to get over to the plateau high enough to find the first big climb up to the 7000-8000′ cloudbases, which would then allow you to run the plateau down into the second turn. Some were more successful at this than others. Rumor has it that Karl Striedieck got a little too aggressive and landed out going into the first turn, followed within a few minutes by Dennis Linnekin who made the quite well-reasoned judgement that if anyone knew what they were doing in the Mifflin soaring area, it would be Karl – fail! ;-). Erik Mann (P3) told me he tried and failed to get up on the plateau, and so had to dribble down the valleys to get into the circles. I managed to find a climb or two and get up to near cloudbase, thinking that I had it made, but unfortunately the thermals were pretty narrow and broken up. If you could manage to snag a real core, you went up like a rocket – otherwise, you went up more like a hawk with a bad hangover.
After getting my rear-end kicked by John Cochrane (BB) on the second leg, I was trying to figure out how to get into the Nisbet circle and then home. The normal route for a good plateau day is to retrace the course back up to the LockHaven area, and then come off the plateau headed southeast toward Mifflin. However that direction was starting to look really blue, and besides I was tired of fighting with those gnarly cores. I was looking at a nice cloud street heading from the StripMine circle to the extreme southeast portion of the Nisbet circle, and I happened to notice that that particular area wasn’t very far from the Three Barns turnpoint, which marks the extreme northern end of the Jacks Mountain ridge. The wind was showing about 110 degrees at 12 kt, which *should* make Jacks backside work for a quick trip home. So, I started off with this a tentative plan, and darned if it didn’t work exactly that way – can’t remember the last time I formulated a plan for a competition task leg and actually had it work! The only fly in the ointment was that since I wasn’t really sure the ridge was going to work, I hedged my bet and turned a little early in the last circle, winding up getting home 12 minutes early when Jacks mountain worked like gangbusters.
After putting everything away, I finally got to take Dave Ritting (W3 Crew) and Tim Welles (W3) out to dinner to repay Dave for coming to get me when I lawn-darted 17 miles outside the start gate on Day 2. We went to the ‘Original Italian Pizza’ place, otherwise known as OIP, and had excellent Italian food, and good conversation too. I keep telling Dave that he is really wasting his talents on W3, and he would actually be a lot better off crewing for me instead – it doesn’t work, but I keep trying! ;-).
Popular weather for tomorrow and Tuesday is – Shitty and Shitty, so the contest may already be over. At least I did manage to work my way back up to the top half (barely) in the scoresheet, after two disastrous landout days. I finished 4 of the 6 days, and placed in the top 10 on each day. Now if I could just get rid of those pesky landouts!
Stay tuned!
Frank (TA)
