Rat Race – Task 7 Cancelled

Today’s task was eventually cancelled after 25 folks were in the air. Like a couple of days ago it was going to be later in the day before the lift started to appear. However, today’s forecast was for stronger lift and higher altitude than any of the previous days. Consequently it started to get a little rough around launch and eventually it got to the stage where the thermals were ripping though too strongly for anyone to take off. By this time some of the early pilots had already established themselves above at around 9500 ft above launch. Reports are that one person even got to 13500ft!

So everybody left on launch packed up and drove down to Longsword winery where all the other pilots in the air had been asked to go and land. We all ended up having some bubbly and a nice relaxing end to the comp.

Mike and Gail had organized an end of comp party which was great and handed out the prizes. A lot of personal bests were set this week and the Seattle pilots all fared well. Another rat race ended and I was a little sorry to leave.

Thanks to Mike and Gail for organizing a great comp once again this year and to all the volunteers who made it such a great event!

LeAnn and I headed back to the hotel to finally wind down after the party as on Sunday we had decided to go via Crater Lake on the way back and that was a sight not to be missed!  Wow, absolutely amazing. If you ever get that far south be sure and make the journey out to the Crater. You will not be disappointed!

Rat Race Task 6

67.5Km – Woodlz-Grants-Gold Hill – Naval – Cemeta – Dark Hollow

Had a personal best today regards height. Got to over 9600ft, which was enough to let me glide almost to the first waypoint. Didn’t make goal so those famous last words of “…should be relatively easy to make goal tomorrow..” didn’t quite pan out. However, I did catch up and beat CJ for once, so that was pretty cool!. Sorry CJ!

Again today I left later along with a few other pilots including Sam Mulder whom I have met quite a few times now. Sam wanted to stay back and follow the leaders and that was my game plan too. As we started late, a lot of the other pilots were already across at Rabies getting high so we wondered if we had left it too late. However, again off of launch we got up quite quickly and headed out across the valley to Rabies. This time there was enough lift going across to get us there above the ridge line, As normal, the thermals were strong and quite ratty but once in it was non stop all the ay up to 9600 and pretty quick. I didn't top out this thermal as I could see a cloud starting to form above me and headed off.

By this time the lead gaggle were way below me pushing out. I went on glide and followed the ridge line around Rabies and over to Mount Isabella and beyond. I should have tanked up around Bald mountain but looking around me I couldn't see anyone else get high they were just sinking out.

Flying over the ridges into a headwind, my tactic is always to cross the ridge first and then turn into the lift. You always get lift behind the ridge, but turning here into a headwind makes you go further back with little height advantage. 5 other gliders were doing exactly this, and at one point one of the turned back downwind and I had to move out the way to avoid him hitting me as he flew back. I pushed on I watched the 5 of them sink behind the ridge and land out.

My downfall wasn't that much later. Instead of turning in the minimal lift that there was just short of Grants, I pushed forward. I saw Sam hold back and circle not getting much lift however, his tactic was the right one. He circles for around 15 minutes in 100ft per minute which was enough to take him up another 1000ft and let him push on to Naval. Arun and John Mann also did the same and they did very well getting to Gold Hill. Talking to John later, he told me he could see me at Rabies and then just disappear into the horizon as I hit the speed bar. Looking at our Google tracks later it was interesting to see that our glides looked very similar between the 2 and 2/3 but the 2/3 had the speed to make transitions quicker.

As I searched for lift, a bunch of other gliders caught  me up but they were much higher. I eventually realized i would need to land. I headed ip the valley and into the wind. It was pretty poppy coming into land and around 200ft over the lz I had picked out I saw power lines running right across the middle. Yikes. I also then noticed that the fence surrounding the field was electric. By this time I was committed. I kept getting popped up and dropping down quickly. In the end I had to do a tight turn downwind low over the ground and cam around and landed. A bit like a death spiral landing. Not quite what I wanted! However, I was down safe and sound. I saw another glider later trying to land in the same field and radioed up to him about the power lines. He obviously heard me and headed off to another field. My good deed for the day!

As it turned out, the house I landed next too belonged to an American who not only knew what a Glaswegian was, but could also understand my accent! This was too good to be true! Yaba Daba Doo I thought to myself. Even better, he had a book called The Patter, which is a phrase book of Glasgow phrases which I also have. After we chatted, he gave me a lift all the way back to HQ. Thank you Dave Lorenzen!

All in all a pretty good day and my best of the week for sure. Still too impatient when I fly and maybe next year I might just windtech instead. We shall see!

Today, I will try and test my patience and see how far I get!

Happy July 4th folks!

Rat Race Task 5

55.5Km – Woodlz-Burnt-Bald-H-Porma-Donato

What a great day and it all started with a fart! On the way up to launch we were following a plumbers van with the logo of Fast Action Response Team on the back and that made me laugh out loud. Fart jokes seem to be a guy thing and LeAnn couldn't see the humor in it. I’ll let you be the judge!

It was forecast to be a day for flying high but that the start would be delayed. Sure enough the start for today’s task was set at 3:15.

To pass the time we went to our quiet shady spot and John Mann joined us. Here we watched the gliders boat around launch for a while. Then a yellow glider took a little tip collapse, the pilot over corrected, took a surge and then pulled the reserve. We were all wondering why as she had plenty of height to sort things out. She landed on the side of the hill not far from launch in a bush and was quickly out her harness and walking around.  Dave Wheeler hiked down the trail to help her out. I had never seen Dave Wheeler in shorts before but what a pair of spindly legs! Dave thinks he also got a little poisoned oak so we shall see if he is one of the few percentage of folks who are immune!

Around 2:30pm the gliders boating around started to get high and the task was called. It was a great start to the task with everyone that took off getting high to around 6000ft in smooth lift. Today I wanted to tag along with some of the leaders to figure out their race start tactics and picked Bill Hughes glider to follow. With a few minutes to go at the start we had set up about half way between the start cylinder and Burnt on the upwind side. When the race started I was among the first to tag the start and Burnt and head across to Rabies. Got to the ridge to see Brian Webb, Bill Belcourt and Dave Norwood below me sinking out fast. Brian and Dave landed up the gulch and other pilots seeing this made a turn and headed down the ridge a little. Just before this I need to manually set my Garmin to the next waypoint. I had the brake handles in one hand and was just about to press the button on the garmin when I took a huge whack on my left hand side that was violent enough to make me loose the left brake. I  went up to grab the left hand side before it all went away from me and managed to grab it. Wow. My first collapse on the Triton. Not too bad though really so no real worries at this point. At launch I had 2 small knots on my trailing edge which even after the whack they didn’t come loose so today I need to make sure I get them out before launching!

I was sinking too at this point now along with a bunch of other gliders. I saw a couple get up in the valley  and decided to move out there. Once again, I should have stayed with the gaggle but following folks is not that much fun to me, almost like a horse being led to water! Of course that violates all the rules of consistency in a task and I haven’t been doing that well for that very reason but not making goal doesn't bother me, so all is good.

At Rabies it was really pretty violent in some places. I took my first major asymmetrical on the right hand side. Around %50 disappeared. As I looked up to see how it was recovering the glider dived to the right and then the wing re-inflated. Pretty cool I thought. However, I thought this may be a bit tough.

I pushed out along the valley and was getting low behind the fingers. I ended up surfing a couple of them and getting to the south of Wellington Gate before the big hand from above came down and said no further dude! I got pushed down into the strong valley winds and landed a few miles up the valley from Ruch. Looking up I counted 47 gliders in the air getting high! The folks I had left at Rabies got a great thermal that there that took them up to 8000ft. Oh crap I thought..looks like CJ smoked me today. Dave Byrne will be smirking for sure!

I packed up got a lift back to Fiasco winery chatted with Pam and Dave Palmer and Pam’s sister Laura and had a great time. In fact so much so that leAnn and I got invited back to the house to swim in the swimming pool! Awesome. Of course I had no swimming trunks so ended up just going in with my Ex-Officio underwear! All good. :-)

In all, 27 folks made it to goal today including John Mann for the first time! Good job John. 35 miles and a personal height record of 10200 feet. More importantly CJ didn’t do that well either and is now only 16 points ahead so next 2 tasks I need to be boring and follow the leaders to get a few more points! :-)

I had a great start yesterday so today I am going to follow Bill Again but this time do a little pimping and hopefully get further along the course. I expect I will make goal today since the weather is looking good and if I just follow folks which I hate doing, I expect it should be relatively easy. We shall see!

Rat Race Task 4

30.5Km – WoodlLz-WoodLn-Burnt-Rabies Peak-Cemeta-Donato

Weather forecasts held high expectations for today’s task with top of usable lift forecast to be around 7500-8500ft. The inversion layer was expected to lift a little later so a long distance task was set initially  of 67.5Km. This later changed to 57.5km as the time ticked by and finally a task was set of 30.5Km as the inversion failed to lift early enough. Launch opened at 2:35 with race start at 3:15 and there was an initial panic of gliders rushing into the air as the launch window opened.

Of course it didn’t really mean a lot as most gliders were only around 500ft over launch. I launched around 2:00pm as the gliders were just starting to spread out a little.

I got up to around 5000ft just as the gate opened and headed out to the start waypoint. Pretty good really as I was probably in the first 20 pilots.  Turned around and headed back to launch. Big difference on a 2-3 making transitions as the sink rate is much better compared to a 2. There were gliders below me as I climbed up and headed out to Burnt. Again I got to Burnt around 500ft-700ft over the peak. I had  seen CJ back at launch so today she was not going to beat me!. :-)

As I got to Burnt I started hitting some big sink. 4 gliders below weren’t making much progress either.

I thought of going along the ridge for a while but was losing height. I didn’t want to land into Poorman’s Creek valley so decided to head back to Launch and get up from there. BAD CHOICE! Another tactical error. I got back to mid launch and then started benching up towards launch. Then it was yo yo’ing up and down between launch and mid launch waiting for something big to kick off. There were times when UII though I may make it and it was fun thermalling with Dave Palmer on his hang glider for a while.

As I scratched over mid launch a beige glider with black leading edge and letters AM it looked like on the center came straight towards me. After a full turn he was still heading towards me and after the second full turn he was now on my left side which was pushing me out the zero lift I was in. I shouted for him to turn left but he blocked me from turning which annoyed me. It looked as if I could see a smile oh his face and this pissed me off big time.

He headed out straight out into the valley so my pararage took over and I followed him out. When we landed he was in for a Glasgow Kiss for sure! Asshole. As I followed him out he got a little /zero lift and we targeted the house at the bottom of rabies ridge below the antennae's. Real low and the valley wind was strong so I was hoping to  just creep over and gt some lift. However the nearer I approached the tip of the ridge the stronger the valley wind got. My ground speed registered 4Kmh. Oh crap.. not good. I turned around and headed back to the slope behind the lz. At this time I was flying downwind at around 65-70kmh.

This was the peak of the day for landing in the Lz and we were warned there were dusties in the LZ and to keep an eye out for thermals kicking off on the ground by looking at the grass. Sure enough there were thermals kicking off. It took me quite a while and a number of approaches to keep up front in case I got blown back as I descended. There some big pops as I got close but eventually came down safe and sound.

I saw CJ had already landed and this I hate to say was the only thing that kept me from going into a deep depression! I looked up and could see all the gliders above Burnt getting high. What a bummer. This was the first time I actually felt bother by not doing so well. Hmm. Need to stick with some folks today I think.

Around 20 gliders got to goal including Matt Cone, Cj Brockway, Rich Hass, Arun, Mer, Chris Amonson. Awesome job by these folks. Very impressed with matt this week who has been flying out his skin and with the consistency of Arun. 3 goals this week! Very impressive. John Mann on his 1-2 Mamboo got further down the course and I think when he gets back he is moving up to a 2 for sure!

Rat Race Task 3

30Km – Woodlz-Woodln-Burnt-Flyari-Cemeta-Donato

Getting better by the day! At last I am off the bottom of the ladder in points, not by much though, but CJ Sturtevant and I now seem to have a personal battle going on to see who will beat each other. Ah, the battle of the old folks is on! I think she got news early in the week that my personal goal was to beat her this year after she beat me last year. Some folks back at Tiger gave me a bit of a ribbing for that, shame on them!. So now each day after race she enquires as to how well I did. Bring it on CJ! :-)

Today I decided to launch after the race had started! Yes, after. The last 2 days folks have been flying low over launch and a flush occurring just before the start. Not the recommended tactic for sure  but after speaking with a few other pilots the day before about that we thought it could be a good option. Turns out only Roger Marsh and I decided to stick to our guns and try it. Roger launched just before start and I saw him sink out. Oh no not again I thought. I waited a little bit longer and launched at 1:35, 5 minutes after the start. Looking above at the gaggle I saw them get higher and all start to move out. Oops. Looks like I may have mistimed this.

It was quite funny and a little spooky being the last one off the hill. No crowds watching you, only LeAnn, and a few of the RatRace staff to see you off. Winds were light and it was a running reverse to get off but all  went well.

As I got into my harness I looked up to see the whole field heading out to the first waypoint which was just the LZ, and some of the leaders were coming back already. Gee Whizz maybe this wasn't the best idea… thoughts of “Yer No thinkin wae yir dipstick Jimmy” came to mind. However, all was about to change.

I got a good thermal just below launch and being a right hand day I was forced to turn to my inefficient right even though I was the only one around. It was completely stress free having no one else around as I climbed in the thermal. Yeah baby..I’m a likin it! I got up to around 5200 and headed off to the start cylinder. The Dodgifly vario has been working well this week and I may have to revert to calling it Digifly again. There was a 800m cylinder around the start waypoint but my Dodgifly seemed to let me get to within 200m before it registered to go to the next waypoint. Maybe I programmed it wrong, anyway I was off!

Got back to launch and head off to Burnt pretty high. Now I could see I was above quite a few folks who were struggling to make ground. John Mann was below me scratching in the gully below Burnt ridge. Turns out poor John’s speed system broke just after launch and he had to fly the task with no speed bar. Kudos to him for how far he got (turns out it was the same as me!)

I got up high on burnt and headed across to Rabies to see the lead gaggle of 5 flying slightly below me. Easy to spot Bill Hughes, Bill Belcourt and Brian Webb’s wings. They were about 5Km ahead of me I guessed as I had about 2.5 Km to Flyair. Most of the gaggle were now also coming back from FlyAir as I headed out and getting up above Rabies.

The wind direction was really weird as I was in the convergence zone. Every direction seemed to be a headwind. As I got over Rabies I should have stopped and tanked up a little more but I thought I could do that on the way back as I would have a tailwind behind me, After tagging Flyair I head back to Rabies ridge. Another headwind. What the frick I said. What’s going on.  A glider to the left of me started sinking like a stone so I moved a little off the ridge and kept going. Now I stared sinking too..850ft/min. Oh crap Got to Rabies ridge but didn’t want to be in the lee here for sure. Looking at the LZ there was a definite valley wind in the valley coming from behind me. I decided to cross to the slope above the LZ and see if I could soar up to mid launch and get a thermal from there. Unfortunately there was too much sink getting across and I landed once again back in the Lz.

However, there were quite a few others in the Lz who got skunked by the winds around Rabies and the convergence zone. I was pretty pumped though as I flew better than the last 2 days and I covered the distance in just 45 minutes from launch. Later I found out Roger Marsh got to goal, one of only 9 pilots, so the tactic we had of launching late was pretty sound I think as Rich Hass told me later he had 2 near mid airs and after taking evasive action had to deal with a cravat. Very stressful up there it seemed.

So what about CJ. Well she also got to FlyAir but had gone onto Burnt and was too tired d to continue so came back to land at the LZ. Thank goodness I have age on my side! Ok CJ..today your butt is mine!

Arun flew well again today as did Mer and Chris but they all missed goal by just a little as lift out near Cemeta wasn’t that good.

Today’s weather is forecast to be much better with ceilings of around 8500-9000k so I expect a linger task to be set. Its also a left hand turn day at the start so I am looking forward  to the challenge today.

All scores can be found at http://flyxc.org/2009_Rat_Race.html

Rat Race – Task 2

39.5km Woodln-rabies-woodrat peak-burnt-cemato-dark hollow

 

Another high pressure day with a forecast ceiling of around 5500ft.. oh bollocks I thought to myself after I saw the forecast. Ok.. must do better than yesterday when almost everybody kicked my butt..oh the shame of it! :-) Anyway its all about fun down here and learning to fly in a technical valley system and land safely.

The wind techs have been having a ball of a time getting up early and flying all over the place. Of course they don’t have to wait for the start or fly a fixed course. However, Mr Wheeler again showed the lift over the Burnt area. A note for all of us methinks that we should have headed off there sooner.

I took off and it was soon apparent that there was quite a lot of ratty lift,  expected in high pressure days.Typical surges and a lot of active handling to keep the glider on track. I got up to around 5000 ft where most folks were hanging around waiting for the start.

One glider in front of me took a frontal, then a negative spin, dived and pulled the reserve and landed  at the back of launch.  He had to get ambulanced out which took a while to reach him down the slope. In the end he suffered minor damage that we were all thankful to hear.

About 7 minutes to start I decided to move out to the edge of the start cylinder.

Woodrat above launch

I was around 4800 at the edge and thought I was in a good position until once again, a major flush came through. This time it was worse than the day before. I saw most of the field head out after the start to join me but we were mostly sinking. I got into a thermal and managed to get a little boost up and though what the heck lets go out into the valley and see if there was any more lift.

 

Heading out across the valley I turned once to check wind direction and it was coming from the Jacksonville direction. Hmm..the prevailing wind on launch was NW. I had the wind in my ears and then it all went silent and butter smooth. What the heck. I looked up and the wing was flying fine. Looking at my vario I was on a glide ration of over 350:1. Convergence zone? It was a sweet little glide but short. Soon I started sinking heavily as I got low to rabies ridge. It  didn’t take too long to figure out I was in the lee of rabies. Ooops. I got drilled down to the LZ and then hit the valley headwind. A little speed bar and I made it safely to the LZ.

There within a short time over half the field landed out too. It was a low scoring day but 19 pilots did have the patience to fly around for an hour after the start around launch area waiting for it to get better. Once again Arun and Chris Amonson made goal and even got into the local newspaper as they landed at dark hollow.

Today I think I will wait until start before  launching to avoid having to wait until start.

Rat Race – Task 1

29.35km - Woodln-Rabies-Woodrat-Burnt-Flyair-Purcel

 

After finally fixing my wing at Tiger and getting everything sorted out I had a great drive down to Woodrat with no delays and arrived on Saturday at 3:30pm.  Passing by Grants Pass I saw around 7 gliders in the air on a blue sky day and was happy that even in the high pressure conditions folks were managing to get high and fly far. After a great nights sleep in the Holiday Inn Express at Central Point I headed to HQ.

There are around 15-20 pilots from Washington state here with 12 or so from Tiger representing 20% of all the competitors so it was fun to see everyone in nice weather and having fun.

On launch, conditions were light and the inversion layer was around 5500ft, 1200 over launch, so they set the launch window to open at 12:30 with a start time of 2:00pm with a 1km start cylinder. I got in line around 1:15 and was in the air by 1:25 after waiting in line.. A lot of pilots were at their first comp so I was curious to see how the gaggles would be. The air was punchy in places for sure and you could see folks getting a few collapses. It took around 20 minutes for me to get up to the main gaggle circling at around 5200ft.

Just as I got to the gaggle I saw one wing slightly below take a 40% collapse, cravat and then spiral for 4 turns before the cravat was undone and then it rook a big frontal and recovered…wow! Scary to witness this for sure.

I was now circling in the gaggle turning right with around 30+ other pilots and it wasn't that comfortable, especially being a right turn day. Then the lift start to disappear and we were all sinking about 7 minutes before the start gate opened. I couldn't believe it , within a couple of minutes the flush had taken a lot of pilots to around 200 ft over launch and we had all now bunched up. Flying low to the ground with everyone scratching was not to my liking so I decided to take a different approach and head out to mid launch where I saw 1 or two others getting lift. My tactic didn’t pay off! There were bullet thermals kicking off but real hard to try and stay in them. I seemed to get kicked high and then sink lower than where I started. Inevitably I sank out and my day was done!

Looking up I could see quite a few gliders coming down to the same fate as me. In all there were 15 or so from the pack that sank out immediately after start. Above, I could see Arun and John managing to stay high and heading across to Rabies. As it turned out, Arun made goal for the first time in a comp (well done laddie) along with Chris Amonson and John came close, getting to the last turnpoint in the task.

For me the best save of the day came from Matt cone, who somehow coming in for a landing managed to get back up from around 300ft over the lz. He got back up to the launch height and decided to just turn and go on glide down the valley as a reward for all the work he had done!.

15 pilots got to goal this day and a lot of others were spread out across the course. Minimal distance points for me was 139 with John picking up just over double that for all his effort. So feeling not too bad for today’s task given its a left hard turn day.. rock on!

Rat Race...yeah baby!

Well the Rat Race is almost here. Driving down early tomorrow, the 27th June, the 465 miles to Medford for registration, with the race beginnng on Sunday.

So I thought yesterday I would get my glider packaged up since I hadn't flown it since Whidbey last week and it was detached from my harness. Oh dear oh dear..what the heck happened to all my lines! It was a rat's nest in there...I could not for the life of me get all the lines untangled. I spenty a total of 2 1/2 hrs trying to unravel them and could not. They seemed locked in the middle with lines over someplace.

This of course all happened on Whideby Island where I arrived to find it very flyable indeed. As the time passed, the wind picked up and became unflyable. In the end, I packed up my wing and headed back across the ferry and got some help from Ross who seemed to have been drinking a little!. After hitting a few of his golf balls into the sound from his driveway, we started to untie the lines. Not sure if his initial attemepts of unravelling were good or bad as after a short while he admitted defeat and wanted me to untie the lines from the manions. Not for me, especially on a windy day at this house with rain approaching. So I headed home and proceeded to try and do the unravelling in my house.

I eneded up having to undo the lines on the left hand A riser 1 at a time and get them cleared. The B lines took a while but I could see the cause of the fankle. The lines from each side had managed to form a loop and then get tightly knotted around a whole bunch of others. Clearing this I managed to get the left and right side risers into two separate bunches with the left hand side all clear.Now to work on getting the right side cleared. Thanks goodness I found this out before going down to Medford! Phew!

Stay tuned for stories and photos folks.,,I am looking forward to flying and hope the weather is much netter than at WCPC but with LeAnn, Rich Hass, Arun, John Mann, Mer, Steph and Matt Cone and even Noah (now from Portland) going to be there, good times indeed methinks!

WCPC – Race Day 3 – last day for me

It rained overnight and the air was damp. After 3 nights in the tent I realized I am getting old and Mer’s rule of" “.. will camp but not fly or fly but not camp…” started ringing in my ears and sounded like a real good rule to live by!

The day started out great with a pancake breakfast at the Fiasco winery where I had landed out before and the Palmer's put on a great breakfast in a great location. Even the pilot’s meeting at 9:00am was pleasant as it was held outside in the back garden with blue sky and sunshine. I was feeling confident after flying my wing the last couple of days in some ratty air and also getting up to the start gaggle. However, even at just after 9:00am you could see it was going to be a real unstable day as CuNim’s started sprouting up in the distance.

We all headed up the mountain but there was a general feeling that this was going to be a real short race to try and beat the thunderstorms that were forecast to hit early afternoon. The task committee called another 40+ km task of Woodrat-Grants-Applin. Basically heading North up the valley and landing up the valley so that we would not be near the thunderstorms when they arrived.

However, by 11:00am things weren't looking too good to me with CuNims to the East, South East, and heavy overcast skies to the North. Safety Director Jeff was telling me it was going to be fine since we weren't going to be flying in the direction of the clouds and that the air was smooth. They set the start time 45min early, beginning at 12:45pm with launch window opening at 11:30.

By 11:30 folks started to take off. Launch conditions were light but cross winds from the North East. A nice Cummie formed directly over launch and folk got about 1500 over launch and boated around waiting for start.

Myself and a few others were a little hesitant given the size and rate at which the clouds were coming in from behind. Out front looked fine at this time just like the last couple of days but there was still 1 hr to go before the race started. I decided to hang back and see what happened.

At the same time as everyone being a little concerned over the weather, a Russian/Canadian pilot was getting major grief from Mike Hailey for flying in the race the day before and not being part of the meet as well as not being too good a pilot. Seemingly a few pilots had already complained about his flying. Tensions rose and it added to my anxiety levels. Mike was right to point out that he needed insurance and to sign the waiver and couldn't fly at this regulated site, however the shouting just added to the energy levels on launch. It was sort of funny to see Mike follow the guy about the launch site with steams coming out of his ears and adamant that this guy would not fly and getting on the telephone to the local sheriff letting him know there was a person trespassing.

By now there was just myself, Matt Cone, Sam Mulder and Doug Mullins left on launch and it was around 12:15pm. The other 3 got ready to launch however I still was spooked at the size of the Cummies forming over Rabies, directly in line with the first waypoint. At this point I was still being reassured by Jeff but by now heads games were playing around in my head and my instincts told me was it worth the risk, after all everybody else had launched, must be safe right? However, I “woosed” out and decided nope, I had had it for the day. I informed Mike and Jeff and stayed on launch for a while to see what unveiled.

About 5 minutes before the start of the race, the cloud above disappeared and folks started to descend. What a bummer for them after flying high for the first hour. As folks headed off, a lot of others flew over launch about 200 ft over my head and descended into the valley and landed out. Others took a line for the wineries and landed out at Longsword. Quite a few comp wings made the transition and got high in the valley while 1 pilot was right under the CuNim above Rabies. Mike was constantly getting weather reports from a few selected pilots in case he had to stop the task. There was a definite convergence in the Valley as pilots headed up it. They just got higher and higher. However, by now black skies were just about to arrive at launch and CuNims were popping up everywhere. As I headed down the mountain the rain started and I heard Mike stop the task, 1 hr after the start. I believe 1 person landed in a tree and another up high on the mtn. I felt quite happy not to have launched. Talking to Dave Wheeler afterwards he said it was a good call.

I had a glass of wine at the winery and looked at the forecast for the next few days. It was looking to be similar. I decided that more nights in the tent were not for me and made the call to drive back to Seattle and have a weekend in Chelan where the weather was looking to be much better.

I set off towards Grants Pass but got stopped by a tree that had fallen across the rd so had to double back. On the way back to Jacksonville I passed a Jeep that had swerved off the rd also. Things were looking Ominous for me to get out of here. I left Jacksonville at 6:00pm and out on to I5. The scariest part was still to come!

About 100 miles South of Portland the heavens opened and lightening lit up the sky. The roads became like a river and I was aquaplaning going 55mph. 2 lane rds with 3 trailers trucks were in convoy and passing 6 in a row was frickin scary. At times I couldn’t see anything at all except the wheels of the trailers next to me which luckily gave me the line to drive on as I couldnt see the road at all. The car was aquaplaning at times too and I thought how long will this last for. 45minutes was the answer!! 45minutes of the most scariest driving I ever had to do. After that the rest was easy and I arrived home at 1:30am, 7hrs 30min drive non stop.

I hope the weather is much better for the Rat Race, as Woodrat is a great place to fly. Here’s hoping!

WCPC – Race Day 2

More thunderstorms were forecast for today and the task committee would have to work hard to try and get a task in. Today the sky was overcast most of the time and you could see the large CuNums rolling in from the North West and South West. It forecast to overdevelop earlier than usual so we were all told to be on our toes as the race may be stopped mid flight.

Today my DodgyFly powered up fine and all waypoints were in tact. That was good news for once. A 42km task was set of Woodrat-Bald-H-Rabies-JacksonvilleLZ. Basically a straight line out  Northwest and back. Problem would be getting over to Rabies from launch.

Launch windows opened at 12:30 with race starting at 1:30. The Wind dummies launched about 12:15 and actually started to do pretty well. By 12:45 there were quite a few gliders in the air. Again today I decided to launch later against all the newbie rules of getting out there first, but the thought of flying for an hour before launch in light thermals wasn’t much to entice. I launched at 1:11 and within 12 minutes I had joined the start gaggle which had topped out at around 5200ft, just 1400 ft over launch. The gate opened and we were off. I saw everyone leave and decide to follow suit. The transition across the valley is always the toughest here. It is much better to leave around 2k over launch but given the conditions I thought better thermals may be found across the valley. Not so. At least for me. I got to rabies ridge quite low down and only had a short time of fishing before I got too low and had to head to the LZ. Total flight time of about 32 minutes today. However, there were many comp pilots and others who sunk out too. Those who did make the ridge fought hard for over an hour before eventually managing to get up. Even Matt Cone bless himself fought to the end and flew for almost 2 hours making pretty patterns in the sky. His wife Stephanie on the telephone later after looking at his track asked that maybe next time he draw some hearts for her! :-)

Eventually a bunch of folks managed to get up on to Rabies ridge and head off to the first waypoint but the skies had now become a little ominous with massive CuNums starting to roll into the valley and the weather up North West looking black and ominous. Reports came in that Matt Farmer made goal (the only one) but that the race was stooped at 3:15 as there was rain on the course. People started landing out. Eric Reed landed safely in a tree about 1k short of goal trying to squeeze to the finish. Roger landed way out on Sugar Loaf. Better safe than sorry.

I felt pretty happy with myself overall. It was a better day of flying than yesterday. I got up and joined the start gaggle made the transition but sunk out with some of the best around. All in 32 minutes! Minimal distance points with minimal effort as opposed to minimal distance points with maximum effort and putting myself in risk.

All in all a happy sort of day!

WCPC – Race Day 1

The day didn’t look too good as I popped my head out of the tent. High cirrus and a bit gray. With all the rain the night before, my expectation was that it would overdevelop early. As it turned out it brightened up by midday and a task was set. A 43K task from Woodrat-Rabies-Burnt-Grants-Trovine. The clouds over the cascades and to the South of launch were booming by midday but West and North look a just a little overdeveloped.

With not that many pilots in the comp, around 40, the skies were not going to be that busy. I decided to launch later as the thermals were really light and folk were boating over launch for a while not getting high. In fact it turned out that the start was going to be real tough for many. As I prepared for launch and turned on my Digifly vario once again the useless thing had lost its waypoints. This was on a brand new unit that Digifly had sent me after the same thing had happened on the previous unit. I went to my quiet place and reprogrammed all the task waypoints  by hand. However it did not save them. Totally pissed. Something really weird about this thing. It is now dubbed the Dodgyfly unit!

I took off and tried to get high in front of launch but it was yo-yo day today. Up and down for 20 minutes along with 3 other pilots with bullets of 1500 ft/min ripping though every so often and not even any of them good enough to take you out the crap bowl and above launch.The race started and I still hadn’t got above launch. It was a 1km start cylinder but that meant just getting above the launch area and back a little to tag Woodrat. A short time later I looked across the valley only to see people scratching real low…comp wings included. Ah frick it…I felt real comfortable in the stability of my new Nova Triton though and decide to call it a day. Even leaving just below launch  I chose my target of the winery 2 miles down the valley, Off I set!

There was a strong valley headwind as normal in these parts in the afternoon but I was making reasonable progress until I got about 1000ft over the ground then the wind picked up. Now I was going down rapidily…My iniital choice of winery Longsword turned out to be a god blessing cos I landed at Fiasco instead and the wine there was great!   But more of that later. As I sunk out it became apparent that I wouldn’t be able to cross the power lines which meant landing in a field where 2 dogs were barking like hell and running across to meet me. I moved off to the right and saw them scampering back to their house. Great just need to land now, but my location wasn’t that good being behind some treelines. By this time I was less than 75 ft over the ground and it had become pretty turbulent. I could see the grass bend over flat as if a helicopter was about to land. Down I went..off with the speed bar about 10 ft off the ground, went backward and dropped stone dead to the ground landing flat on my back without getting out my harness…stupid bugger that I was. Opps..I felt that I said to myself. But no damage. Just felt my spine judder. Hmm..Won’t be doing that again methinks!

I bundled up my glider and walked down the cart path I had landed near. Just about getting to the gate out comes a guy and waves me to come across the creek. I walked over and looked down the bank. There was a plank across the river about 12 ft long and 6 inches. wide. So here is me with wing bundled over my shoulder sweating like a pig balancing on a piece of wood crossing a creek. Idiot..Anyways..it went smoothly and I was soon inside the air conditioned tasting room at the Fiasco Winery where Pam and David Palmer were superb hosts to me. Helps that Pam's grandmother was Scottish also!  :-) Ah the Scots..what a race we were to sow our seeds worldwide in the old days! People love us!!

So I dished into a food platter, tasted all the wines had a glass of the fantastic Zinfandel and we  swapped stories. Turns out Dave is one of the early Hang Glider pilots from the 70’s and has been flying over 30 years! Really nice guy and his wife too. Turns out that Ruch Hass is staying at is house in a B&B so I have an invite to go over for drinks later. Yaba Daba Doo..

Dave gave me a lift back to HQ and I turned in my flight. Turns out I got minimal distance along with another 17 pilots, tested out my new wing in nasty air and felt real comfortable on it and had a great afternoon drinking wine! Sweet.

Only 7 pilots made it to goal. A lot of them got stuck 7km from Grants pass. Kudos to them for getting that far in a strong headwind.

Looking forward to to tomorrow but the thunderstorms are getting earlier.

WCPC - Ruch Oregon - Pre-Race Day

Well I decided to drive down after all and attend the competition even though the forecasts weren't looking too good - Scattered thunderstorms forecast for all week - probably lifty air according to Dave Wheeler!

I left Seattle at 7:45am and drove at a leisurely pace of 65mph most of the way stopping just for 30 min at a Denny's to get some grub. 465 miles on the button from Duvall and so I arrived shortly after 3:30pm in the afternoon. The drive was absolutely gorgeous once you got past Olympia.

As I approached South Oregon, you could see the CuNim's exploding over the cascade range probably 10-15000 ft in height. I took a deep breath when I saw these and wondered what it would be like when I got to Woodrat.

The skies were already overdeveloping and arriving at HQ I was met by Rich Hass who had flown earlier in the day. The flying earlier was pretty good it seemed. Most of the comp pilots headed up to Grants Pass and back- around a 36mile return flight as the crow flies. Matt Cone had a great flight up towards the Pass and turned back - a personal best I believe he said. Rich and Dave Wheeler flew triangles around the area and both reported conditions as being good.

I checked in and Rich came and helped me put up the tent at Cantrall Buckley park a few miles down the rd. A lot of the pilots were camping out there. With a new shower block its not too shabby a place for 12 buck a night - Unless of course it starts to rain!

And rain it did. After the mandatory pilots meeting and dinner put on by MPHSports (which was excellent!) Rich and I headed into Jacksonville to get some cash and a beer. After about 40 minutes we stepped outside the restaurant to be met with heavy heavy rain and thunder. Rich drove back slowly as you could hardly see the rd in front and in places little mud slides had started to cross the rd. The dark sky lit up every few minutes with lightning and a couple of dears were started at the side of the rd as Rich put on the brakes. Amazingly, as we approached HQ the rain stopped and by the time I picked up my car and headed a few miles further on, the rds were dry and so was my tent!. Woo Hoo..I had visions of it collpased and in a heap as if it had just came out of the washing machine.

Forecast for all this week are to be similar to pre-race day - thunderstorms in the afternoon. With the rain at night and the heat during the day, it may overdevelop more quickly than on saturday. Will be interesting to see what tasks will be set. It may be they could be shorted than normal so that folks are out of the sky by 3pm. We shall see!

Its Over!!!

  What a week and what a great last day! This time everything seemed to work fine regards equipment and flying, Task was set for 70.4 Km and I flew 40Km of the task before landing at Escasle. I was first of the launch today at 11:07 and managed finally to beat by arch nemesis – the Penon! I left launch lower than any day, 2500m, as the inversion layer was pretty low but I managed to find some lift lines that took me to the Penon about half way down. This time I gave it a body swerve and continued to the foothills of the wall to get some lift off the spines.There wasn;t much lift and after benching up the spines for a bit I was forced to go back to the Penon and get some lift. I honestly thought I was going to be scuperred  again as I was really low but with al the practice of flying it a couple of days ago I managed to get up to about 2/3 the way and headed back to the wall foothills where I eventually got up onto the mesa. By this time there were quite a few other pilots in the air and the comp pilots had established themselves above the crazy thermal location. I got a screamer off the G-Spot, very sharp edges and rough that took me up to 3200m where I joined the main gaggle waiting for the start gate to open.  It was rough up there and having to just circle for over 25minutes seemed like an eternity. Eventually the clock ticked down and as the start opened I found myself facing exactly in the direction of the first waypoint.  I was off first!!!

I headed over the valley towards 3 kings and I wondered how long it would be until the comp wings caught up and it wasn’t long at all! Amazing to see them pass you. I was on 1/4 speedbar averaging 50Km/hr on the transition. These guys must have being in excess of 60Km/hr.

You sink quite a lot of the transition so I got to Maguey at ridge level and then just soared the ridge for a while until the gap at the 3 kings where I got a stonker of a thermal that I topped out with folks joining me like bees to a honey pot!. At this time I actually could see Randy and Gordon below me in the same thermal and for once I managed to stay on top of them. I got to Divisa high, tagged the waypoint and headed back to Maguey. I got quite a lot of sink flying back and ended up low at Maguey where I found Mer scratching below. It sure was rough in there and being in leeside of ridges at a low level is not recommended. Thoughts of Kostantine went through my head and I got out of there as soon as I could, Mer and I scratched for a while and I waited for a while until a thermal kicked off. Mer went fishing elsewhere but was unlucky to find lift and landed out.

My thermal was another screamer and I cored it well I thought but comp pilots joined me and I heard them screaming tighter tighter as I climbed higher. However, it was starting to get a little stressful and after I started hearing the beeping geting weaker I left and went on glide towards Cerra Gordon and Escale. getting towards Escale I was getting low so I turned towards Cerra Gordon to go find lift. By now the convergence line was setting up and Cummies  were beginning to form.

I glided right into the convergence quite low. Wow was that something. I circled once heard a whack saw my right wing disappear and the rest frontal. In a split second I had about 25% of my wing left and I was diving. Big weight shift left a little left brake right hand up..BANG..the wing exploded back to its proper flying form. Wow, That was something else. I decided not to reenter but go on glide to Escale. There I saw a nice ranch, 4 trucks 10 people and landed. Put on the charm and within 10 minutes got a ride right back to town. Awesome!

Went to headquarters handed in my gps and found out once again I had a mis start! :-( I jumped the start gate by 45secs. My digifly was telling me I was still to fly to the start cylinder and my Garmin was telling me to fly to the next waypoint. I couldn't see the proximity circle on my garmin and I didn't trust my Digifly due to all the issues I had the previous day. No matter, I had finished my first comp in Valle de Bravo safe and sound with tons of new experiences and learning's under my belt and the longest distances I had ever flown as well as meeting tons f new friends. Next year for sure! Butterfly sightseeing tomorrow!

Race Day Task 5 – Non starter

  What a frickin day today. Every day it seems something goes wrong. First there was the knot in the wing when I launched, then the mid air collision, then my sunglass lens falling out, then I lost my Ipod then my digifly vario starts acting up losing all waypoints when i was entering the task and today it finally gives up the ghost as I waited in line to launch. It lost all coords again. I replaced batteries rebooted and then it stuck beeping constantly  at me. I left the line and went to try and fix it. No way I could get it going again and my little sonic vario backup I had left in the hotel.! C’est la Vie. This just wasn’t going to be my comp. The first day was great but it hasn’t been good since.  I was so frustrated in disgust I packed up my wing and got a lift back to town and immediately sent an email to Digifly.

Now I have vented, it was another tough day today but a little better than yesterday. They delayed the start until 1:00 with launch window opening at 12:00pm. of course this was the strongest part of the day of the day and even the top comp pilots has some launch difficulties. In the air you could see penetration was a problem but watching from the launch they got good lift out towards Penon and beyond.

The task was 71Km and folks did make goal. However, A lot of folks got flushed coming back from the first waypoint at the Penon area or at launch including  John and Arun. I haven’t yet talked to anyone else to get an update.

However as I write this little blog I see the Tiger bridge is washed out again on both sides..What a start to the year! Please let it get better.

Race Day task 4…Not one reached goal!

What a day it turned out to be. I was so rested and eager to fly well today to make up for the poor last couple of days. Got to launch pretty earlier around 9:15 and laid out wing , bundled up and went to relax. When they called the task it was a whooper, 82.5Km! Given the high pressure the previous day they must be expecting some nice weather today I thought.  Yeah baby!. A left turn day to boot..my preference! Lets get going. Powered up my gear and another gremlin strikes. All my waypoints from the Digifly had evaporated! There was only 20 minutes before the launch opened and then only 15minutes before the comp ranking launch order came into effect. What to do , what to do. I really only use the garmin gps for loggin my tracks not actually navigating. So I entered all  the waypoint coords of the task by hand. Sweet I thought. That wasn’t long. However, when I came to enter the route, the waypoints weren’t there. Crap! I deleted all the waypoints and entered them again. By this time the novice window had closed and i now had to wait for about 100 pilots to take off before I got to launch. Bummer. I was more worried that the thermals were going to get too strong to even launch but those thoughts were far from actuality. When my turn came there was no wind on launch at all!. Very Light. I watched a number of experienced pilots bring their wings up, overfly them and then they barreled down the hill.  It took 2 attempts before I could get off. By this time the gaggle had spread out but they were all very low. Looks like I hadn’t missed much. I climbed to about 9000 squeaking every bit of lift I could and headed to the Penon ( the rock  in the background pic above). There I spent the next 1hr 15 minutes trying to climb  out. I flew 15Km back and forth in front of that frickin rock today. John Mann and I looked as if we were trapped but somehow John managed to get a squeak more lift than me after I had turned and when I came back there was nada. there has to be a good way to soar this thing. Sure didn't work for me today. I was very conscious of flying to close to the rock cos if I took a collapse that turned me into the rock I would be toast. Thanks to all that Whidbey flying I was fine. However my race day was done again along with many others who landed out here. Those that did get up and go over the back didn't get as far as they wanted. Of course the comp pilots did well but it was a hard task. John Mann did really well getting further than Arun, Mer, Chris today! Nice job John!

On the up side I had a great trip back on the bus met a whole new bunch of folks and ht the tequila later in the afternoon to celebrate our sink out!\

Tomorrow is always another day!