Well, the Region 3 contest is over, and what a contest. We flew 6 out of a possible 7 days, and every flying day was great! Helga Gertson (the late Kai Gertson’s wife) who was the registrar for the contest, told me that in all the 40 or so years she and Kai flew the Region 3 contests, this was the only time she could remember where contestants flew 6 days. So, Dansville gets back on the contest map as a ‘good weather’ venue, and more importantly, yours truly gets OFF the hook as a contest jinx. I have now been to two contests in a row where we flew 6 out of 7 days (well, one was the Region 6 contest at CCSC where I was the CD, but I claim that it still counts), so I should now be sought after by contest managers to bring good weather ;-).
Today was another good weather day, but not without its ‘quirks’. The winds today were out of the south southeast at about 10kt, just enough to create streets over much of the task area. The fist two legs could be run under cloud streets, and most pilots did just that, with some pretty amazing speeds. My first leg was 56.1 miles long, with 15% thermalling at an average vario of 5.4kts, 62mph (into a 10kt headwind), with an average L/D for the entire leg of 110 – woo hoo! The second (downwind) leg was even better, 66 miles at 77mph, with an average L/D of 140. Unfortunately, the average climb rate for this leg was only 2.8kt, as the streets (and most of the clouds) ended just inside the second circle, and then it was a real struggle to get into that area and out again. The third leg was only 49mph, with a mean L/D of only 40 – talk about a let-down! Until I hit the soft stuff, I was already practicing my day-win speech – but had to settle for 2nd for the day.
At the end of the contest, The Harris Hill and Dansville crowd pretty much swept both classes. The FAI and Sports Class winners were both Seymours – John Seymour (SM) won the FAI class, and his nephew Matt Seymour won the Sports Class contest flying a K-6 with a paper map and a stop watch as his only navigation tools – how ’bout that!
Unfortunately, we were also saddened to hear of yet another apparent stall-spin fatality; Jim Rizzo, Finger Lakes club president and FAA Designated Examiner for the area was killed when his glider crashed into a farmer’s field not far from the Dansville airport. Jim was not part of the contest and was just flying locally when the accident occurred. All we know is what the farmer said (and this is 3rd hand to me) that apparently Jim was trying to thermal away from a low altitude and spun in (sound familiar? – it should – this is the 3rd almost identical fatality this season here on the east coast).
I’m staying the night here at the Dansville airport, and then it’s back home for a few days and then (probably) off to Chilhowee for their 2-weekend regional plus a XC camp in the middle. The theme for the XC camp is pair flying, and John Mittel (BZ) and I may give it a whirl as a pair. Pair flying is not something you pick up over a weekend or a week, but it should still be fun.
Stay tuned,
Frank (TA)
