It was another exciting race day at the Region 5 South contest in Cordele, Ga.  CD Mike Smith was determined to not repeat his ‘mistake’ of calling the day too early yesterday.  Personally I’m not sure how it was a mistake to keep us from trying to fly with thunderstorms in at least two quadrants and with 35 Kt+ winds on the ground, but I just work here ;-).  Anyway, with T-storms already on the radar to the west and northwest, we assembled and gridded on Runway 5 for a minimum-length MAT with single mandatory turnpoints to the south (Ashburn for Std & Sports, Sylvester for 15/18).

At grid time we all pushed onto the runway, and got our first thrill of the day.  Winds at this point were out of the west at 10-15kt (yes, that is indeed a tailwind for Rwy 5), and the self-launcher sniffer (Hartley Falbaum?) couldn’t get the down wing to come up before exiting stage left off the runway.  Fortunately there was no damage, and Hartley was able to get off the ground on the second try, albeit with some additional drama.

After that excitement, it was decided that the tailwind was a bit more serious than anticipated, so we were told to do the ‘Elephant Walk’ down to the Rwy 23 grid.  Now for those not familiar with the Cordele layout, the grid at the 23 end of 5/23 is in a different time zone than the one on Rwy5, and may even be on the other side of the international date line.  Consequently one does not ‘walk’ a glider from Rwy 5 to Rwy 23 – it necessitates the full kabuki dance with tow vehicle and tow-out gear.  Unfortunately, since we were already gridded and  packed in like sardines, we had to first UNpack (slowly, as this had to be done from the front of the grid toward the rear), then get the vehicle in place, then hook up, then slowly drive down through eastern Georgia and out to sea to get to the other end of 5/23, then tow off the runway so everyone else could get by.  All this time, Hartley is reporting decent but not great climbs through 3500’msl, but also reporting major buildups headed our way from the west.

And right at this point, the day-winning move  was made in a daring fashion by veteran racer (and SSA president) Al Tyler (8H).  Rather than joining us in the elephant walk, Al went the other  way, just a few hundred feet back to his trailer, and  put his plane away for the day!  Al gets 1000 points for the day AND an additional 500 for doing it while everyone  else just watched!

Meanwhile, back at the Rwy 23 end of the runway, we’re all just unhooking our gliders from the tow vehicles, when a number of things start happening in pretty short order.

• Hartley lands – either having been shot down, or retreating in the face of clearly visible oncoming rain.
• It starts raining on us.  At first it looks like maybe its just a passing shower, but then it REALLY starts raining as if to say “I’m not fooling around here!”
• The towplane pilots stage an en-mass defection, taxiing back to their tiedown spots.
• 1FL and TA (task advisors) try to reach the CD by radio to suggest that discretion might be the better part of valor, but get no reply
• Weatherman Scott Fletcher shouts across the runway to me that his iPhone radar display shows yet more ugly stuff on the way.
• The rest of us defect – running to get our gliders hooked up for the trek back across the international date line to our trailers.
• Dennis Linnekin (DL) is heard to say “I think the CD should call a 5-mile Safety Start” (think about it)
• Francois Pin (FP) is trying to stem the retreat, saying “It’s going to cycle – it’s going to cycle”!
• Now it starts REALLY (the previous REALLY was apparently just a warm-up) raining – to the point where my windshield wipers are going full speed and can’t keep up

On the reverse Elephant Walk in the rain (Tim Larsen photo)

So, needless to say, the day has been cancelled, although AFAIK, we never did hear anything official from CD Mike.  Maybe he was doing the decent thing and committing suicide in the contest trailer, so we wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of stringing him up ;-).  As I write this about an hour later at 2:30pm or so, it has been raining hard for at least 45 minutes, with accompanying sound effects and wind.   I’m afraid to look outside for fear that I’ll see my trailer floating by.

Someone pointed out to me via email today that Ionia had great weather while I was at Mifflin, CCSC (my home club) had record-setting weather while I was at Ionia, and Ionia is now having great weather while I am here getting rained on in Cordele.  I don’t know what I’ve done to piss off the weather gods, but it must have been a doozy! ;-).  I just got an email from Jim Garrison (T) threatening me with “a long ride in the Duo Trailer” if I continued the practice of bringing bad weather with me wherever I go – man, this is a really tough audience!

Stay tuned for more exciting tales of rain, hail, sleet snow (snow?!!) and other interesting but non-soarable weather phenomena from Cordele, Ga.

Frank (TA)