When I got up this morning, I wouldn’t have given a plugged nickle for our chances of flying at all today, much less the idea of getting a contest day in.  Low fog and overcast – no chance.  However, when I emerged from the Micro-Castle at about 0800, there were already glider trailers out on the runway with pilots assembling their ships, including LBL, the glider belonging to ace weatherman and even more ace competition pilot Baud Litt.  My first (and second) impression was that CD Erik Mann was carrying on the tradition of the late Charlie Spratt, whose motto as CD was “if it ain’t actively raining, we will assemble and grid”.  And besides, I needed the assembly practice with my new ship anyway ;-).

At the morning meeting, CD Erik Mann announced that he was indeed going to try and get a day in, no matter how improbable it looked at the moment.  Weatherman Baud Litt (the same guy I saw assembling earlier) did hold out some hope that thermals *might* get high enough to allow a short task, so we all started getting our game faces on.

Grid time was 1200, and everyone was ready well beforehand.  At noon, we all pulled up onto the runway, and did the normal Fairfield shuffle to compress the grid (I say ‘normal’, because there is another and much more complex ‘Fairfield shuffle’ used when the winds are heavy out of the west and the normal grid takes up too much runway length).

And then the waiting started.  The airport area and all points west were covered up with a significant overcast, but just to the east sunlight was hitting the ground and nice looking cu’s were visible.  Sniffer Danny Brotto (P6) was launched and reported that he could sustain – just – at release altitude.  The edge of the overcast moved back and forth a bit, and the cu’s came and went.  Finally Danny reported a decent climb to about 3000 ft msl (Fairfield airport is at about 560 ft msl), so the CD decided to launch at least the first class (18m, and I was second in line to go).  So off we went and soon the entire fleet was milling around, at first getting consistent climbs to around 3000 ft msl, but then later we all wound up down around 2500 ft msl and things were (literally) going downhill.  CD Erik Mann held on as long as possible, but then at about 3pm cancelled the day.

Since we were already all aloft, several of us decided to continue flying, and even did some mild cross-country.  I happened to hook up with John Seymour (SM) and Karl Streideick (KS) for a lesson on weak, blue weather cross-country flying.  For about an hour I was out-climbed, out-banked, out-flown and out-thought – and it was WONDERFUL!!

After our short little XC flight, we all milled around the airport for another hour or so, participating in an impromptu ‘last man down’ contest.  The last three gliders flying were Erik Nelson (5E) in his super-light Ventus 2ax, John Seymour (SM) flying his ASG-29/18, and me in my ‘new’ V2cx/18.  Eventually span won out, and Eric landed.  Then SM and I battled on for another 30 minutes or so, and he just flat outlasted me.  So SM won, I was 2nd, and Erik was 3rd – woo hoo! ;-)

All in all it was about the nicest day you could have without getting a contest day in – it didn’t rain, we all got to fly, and nobody landed out (at least not that I know of as I write this).  Tomorrow’s weather looks a little bit better, so maybe we’ll get a day in – stay tuned!

Frank (TA)