Day 7: Well another Nats is in the books. What a fantastic way to end a comp!

I should mention that going into day 7, Fred and I were tied for second place in the Standard class with Martin 15 points out in 1st. Greg was just 10 points back from Fred and Me. Randy was way out of contention with about a 45 point spread! LOL. If you’re getting the idea that it was anybody’s comp… you would be right! It was down to a 1 thermal comp for us in the Standard class. We had a really good laugh about game face earlier at the pilots meeting and I told each of the top 5 contenders that I was gunning for all of them. A healthy dose of competition is really fun and very exciting.

Day 6: Wow! What an impressive Hang Gliding Task. Too bad we were all in Paragliders! With a strong cross wind and a turnpoint that was positioned upwind after our climbout on the mountain; Many gliders sunk out on the way to TP 1. After 3 thermals and an increasing upwind distance to the turnpoint I resigned myself to try going further downwind and around the blue hole. With over 8 km to the 1st turnpoint and 6km/h penetration headway I knew that there was going to be no chance. My day ended after 1:33 in the air. It’s fun to fly with all these gliders again and now that the weekend has arrived we’re sure to have more locals showing up to share the air with us.

Day something (5 I think? Thursday anyway)
Well we actually left the hill/Mt. today! It was strong west on launch. Basically today started as a ridge soaring event. A few thermals came through but the general feeling is that we were all pretty boxed in by the other gliders and therefore less able to take full advantage of them. Since it was so windy, most thermals seemed to be blown apart just at the point of decision to run back to the face or risk a low trip over the back. Many of us tried several times, each time returning to the front of the ridge. Finally I ran into a 2 m/s with no other pilots to box me in. I started turning and watched plenty of gliders come to join. We committed to climb and rode it to cloudbase as we blew over the back. Several pilots enjoyed a little time in the white room (some even pulled big ears and continued to turn!!!). Over the back, we all raced on course hopping from cloud to cloud. The sky was filling with clouds quickly (OD) and began to shut the lift down. I made a critical mistake and spent the next 1/2 hr trying to recover from it. Finally too low to get over the lake and surrounding trees I played it safe and landed upwind of the lake. Strong winds on landing made for a bit of an exciting approach through tree rotor but all worked out well. Check out the scores as today will surely mix up the standings a bit.

Made it within 10 km of goal yesterday... Picked a downhill LZ and landed in a bad area (ant hill about 1 1/2' tall). I flared a bit high and held it, dropped in about 5 feet and broke my ankle. Finally a good flight and good weather and my meet is over...

That's flyin'
Bruce

Day 1: 122 km task was called, 2 turnpoints then a cross/headwind goal. I made it just over 80.5 km then landed rather than chance a 4 km glide over forest from 300' above the ground. I tried to make it up over but it was so windy that I would have to commit from way too low. The upwind glides just killed my height. My max alt. today was about 1500 meters (or just over 5000'). I'm quickly learning that you can't get too low in Florida or your day will be over. Especially in 25 knot winds!

Most of team Canada was scattered throughout the couse line with Brett in goal (of course),I landed just after the second turnpoint on the way to goal, Scott and Ralph were at turpoint 1, etc. I think Rob Clarkson made it between tp 1 and 2 as I suspect Jim Scoles as well. I suppose we'll see when the results go up.

I just talked to Bruce and he, Scott and Tim are just getting across the border into Florida. They've been driving non-stop since Saturday at 1PM from Calgary and he said it's been without incident! They are looking forward to getting to Quest with the 8 gliders they towed down there.

The other Canadians have been working on getting their aerotow ratings since they arrived on Saturday and are eagerly awaiting their own gliders to fly (Bruce has them all).