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.