Rain Day 1&2 at Fairfield (Region 4 North)

Didn’t post anything yesterday, so I’m writing for two today ;-).

Yesterday was a classic rain day, with low temps thrown in for extra emphasis.  It rained on and off all day, topped off by a very good lasagna dinner under the tent.  Everyone was bundled up, but there was a lot of companionship and good banter to keep us warm.

Today was *supposed* to be a good day, but Mother Nature decided that we needed some more rest and relaxation.  A thick shield of mid-level clouds is streaming in from the southwest, and the satellite view shows that it isn’t going to be stopping anytime soon.  So, we are all pretty much clustered in the MASA clubhouse, trying to keep warm and telling each other glider stories (i.e. outrageous fabrications that get better with time).  As I was wandering by the relief map on the wall, I overheard Erik Nelson (5E) recounting the one ridge day we had two years ago, where he landed at Chambersburg on the way to the ridge, and I managed (with two other gliders) to make it onto the ridges.  Erik was telling the others that as he was sitting by his glider on the ground, he was able to watch TA and LBL’s SPOT hits going up and down the ridges – talk about adding insult to injury! ;-).

The other interesting activity here yesterday was the latecomers trying to find a good place to park their trailers.  The southwestern side of the field is more than a bit wet, so the traditional parking area at the northwest end of runway 33 is a bit iffy.  John Godfrey (QT) evidently got stuck over there, but eventually managed to extricate himself.  I almost got stuck in the same place when I parked over there Saturday evening, but attributed that to the fact that I still had my camper on the pickup.  However, during my morning run yesterday, I noticed that Baud Litt (LBL) had vacated a parking spot on the east (high and dry) side of the runway, so I quickly moved my trailer out of the bogs and over into the vacant spot.  After hearing of Godfrey’s travails, I am now patting myself vigorously on my own back! ;-).

Last night after dinner, I gave a short demonstration flight in Condor.  My friend John Mittell (BZ) set up a short task in the new and beautiful Omarama, NZ scenery on his PC in Alabama, and I connected to it from my laptop in the MASA clubhouse.  I was surrounded on my end by a large crowd of glider pilots, all trying to tell me how I was failing miserably to core that thermal.  One of the critics was Karl Striedieck (KS), a Condor pilot in his own right.  I offered to let him fly and show me how it was done, but he declined with a smile ;-).  The task took us north from Omarama to the mountains just north of the big lake up there, and with the 7kt or so wind from the WNW, the mountains worked beautifully.  We only needed a couple of thermals to get there, and then it was just playing along the ridgetops all the way around.  In the end, BZ beat me out by about 10 seconds, due to the higher VNE of his ASW-27 versus my own Ventus 2b.

Tomorrow (and for that matter, the rest of the week)  is supposed to be a much better, and hopefully flyable, day.  However, that’s what we said about today, yesterday, so I’m just going to wait and see.

Stay tuned,

Frank (TA)