True to the predictions by weatherman Richard Kellerman, the day was again cancelled here at Mifflin. However, it wasn’t quite a ‘clean kill’ as Richard put it at the morning meeting, as CD Jackie held out hope by setting an update meeting at noontime, where an up or down decision would be made.
In the meantime we had the usual raucous informal rules committee ‘town meeting’, where a wide range of opinions were heard on all the current and proposed competition rules. The new rule that effectively lands you out if you cross the finish cylinder boundary more than 200′ below the minimum finish height (the minimum finish height is usually about 500′ agl at 1 mile out) came under particular fire from many top competitive racers. The reasoning behind this rule is to eliminate the incentive to attempt very marginal final glides to the finish airport by removing the huge point bonus for just making it over the airport fence. There is an abundance of historical data that competition pilots do extremely stupid and dangerous things for a few hundred points and bragging rights the next day, and at least some recent data from this season (the first season where the rule has been in effect) that removing this temptation has had the intended effect. However, there seems to be a feeling in the top echelons that extreme risk is part and parcel of being a racer, and if they had to accept those risks to get where they are, then so should the rest of us.
From my point of view as a committed coward and an old pilot – not a bold one, I had a first-hand interaction with this particular rule on Day 1, where a large part of the fleet landed out. I had started a long marginal final glide from about 25 miles out, maybe +500 at MC 1.0 (where 0 ft meant that I would arrive precisely at the minimum finish altitude at the 1 mile cylinder boundary). As I continued the glide at best L/D, I saw that I was continually losing on the glide, to the point where I was about 15 miles out and -200 or so on final glide. At this point I realized that even if I could maintain -200 for the rest of the glide, I would still arrive at 200′ below minimum altitude (i.e. 300 agl 1 mile from the airport), and would be scored as a landout even if I made it over the fence. This made my decision pretty easy – I had effectively already landed out, so I was free to pick the best landing alternative, starting from a completely safe altitude. As it turned out, I landed at Mifflintown airport along with a bunch of other gliders. In other words, the “minus 200 ft landout rule” did precisely what it was intended to do, by removing a large temptation from my mind and facilitating a safe, conservative decision. I don’t know about you guys, but that sure sounds like a winner to me! ;-).
Dinner tonight was in the maintenance hangar, and dinner music was provided by David Bargainnier playing his saxophone – if he flies as well as he plays that horn, he’s going to be our next 15m champion! ;-).
We had the normal run of maintenance work going on, and in addition a volunteer party worked on painting the new Mifflin clubhouse with a fresh coat of sealer – you sure can tell the difference between the unsealed and sealed areas now!
The popular weather forecast for tomorrow is calling for 50% chance of showers and thunderstorms, with 10-15kt winds from the southwest. Going to be an interesting day for sure, if we get to fly. Stay tuned!
Frank (TA)
