Tag Archive for 2012 US Open Nationals

Three and a half hours of unedited JOY

Being back in Pennsylvania doesn’t mean that I’ve seen the last of JOY. A week ago I went back to Ridge Soaring Gliderport on a fantastic looking day. Mike and I reassembled the Nimbus-3DM and headed out on a flight to points west (see flight track here). For those of you who are fans of towns […]

A brief history of India

Meet i (pronounced “India”), or N824T, our Schempp-Hirth Mini-Nimbus HS-7. Since construction in 1978, India has had several notable owners. Here are the ones I know about: N824T was imported into the United States by Graham Thomson, who by that time had gotten pretty good at that sort of thing. I’m told Thomson was the first to import a […]

July, and epilogue

It’s been ten days since the end of the Nationals, and a little over a week since I stumbled out of Mike’s van at Grove City and drove myself back home. In that time, I’ve managed to shake off the bug-eyed wandering prophet’s stare that I had going for a few days—oh, you think, these […]

Cross USA nonstop

Check the SPOT/APRS links, folks. Looks like we’re set to make this cross-USA trip a nonstop run (except for gas stops, and a trailer tire that went flat just west of Evanston, WY). Hours ago: Now: PS: Special thanks to Big-O Tires of Evanston, WY for getting us back on the road so quickly. Also: […]

Day 9 at Minden

Gridding up: it’s the final day of the 2012 US Open Class Nationals. For the first time in the contest, our task took us north: This modified assigned task (c.f. Day 0) had numerous turnpoints, many of them intended to steer pilots east around Reno and its busy  Class C airspace. After heading up and […]

2012 Open Class Nationals — Day Eight

The day was called because the gliders were not finding adequate lift to stay up; some of the gliders didn’t even launched. The highest any glider achieved was 11,000. Bill Gawthrop in the ASH26E flew along the Pinenuts without finding any lift. The gliders and crew were out on the ramp for over two hours…

2012 Open Class Nationals — Day Seven

Ray Gimmey in the ASG-29-18 won the day with 229 miles at 70 MPH. He is also the overall leader with 6480 points. It was a Turn Area Task with turnpoints at Coleville, Dayton, Sweetwater, and Tiger Field with a minimum time of 3:15. Ray said the day looked like gangbusters at the start, but…