Rat Race - Task 7 37km

Woodln – Mt Isabel – Cemeta – Dark Hollow – Donato

Today looked very similar to yesterday’s weather and we arrived on launch to find the same familiar conditions,  although there were more blue spots appearing in the sky and the wind was a little lighter.

The same task was called as the previous day when it was cancelled so there was little to do in terms of programming the gps. The free flyers and wind techs got up and the wind was strong in the vicinity of launch and especially if you got behind launch so the trick today was to stay out front.

Again they gave us enough time to launch and get established today although that wasn't going to be a problem! There was a lot of instability in the air and there definitely was going to be some big air out there.  As the time ticked by, the wind on launch picked up and it was important to pick the right cycle to launch in. It was clear there were a lot of pilots out there with insufficient ground handing skills in higher winds as many gliders were overshooting and taking frontals on launch. I watched on and chuckled to myself thanking the time I spend at Whidbey.

Windy Launch

With 30 minutes before start window opening I was in line and sitting next to Gilead on launch. He was still beat from the long task a couple of days ago and wanted as much rest as possible. Ralph was also waiting a little. About 5 minutes later I decided to go.

I took off and got high pretty quick and moved out across the valley. Today was a 3Km exit cylinder so people would be spread out. Getting near the edge at the start would be ideal. I didn’t think this was going to be a problem but the wind was pretty strong at around 5500 and it was slow going. Thankfully the instability made it easier to get high. The problem now though was staying out the clouds at around 6500. Looking ahead I could see gliders with Big Ears and others spiraling down over Rabies. I took a more conservative route across and kept around 5500. As I got above Rabies gliders heading out to Mt Isabel were sinking and I was on a nice glide path although it was pretty rough in places, especially under the edge of the clouds. I was thinking this was going to be a real easy day. I climbed to over 6k and headed off towards Isabel. Sink!. As I sunk along at 500 ft down I heard a couple of beeps from the vario and then pegged! Wallop!. Some big cloud grabbed my wing from above and took me skywards quickly!. Looking at my vario afterwards I went from 300 ft/min down to 1300/min up in a heartbeat. That was a rush but the wing was holding together well. I put on speed bar and headed for blue sky. Thoughts of Wheeler’s cloud spiral video came to mind for a second.

I got to the edge and continued on. Everything felt smooth the another wallop but this time I was falling. I looked up to see a small rectangular patch of wing left flying above my head about 6ft in length and I had swung out a little in front. This was going to be fun.  Both ends of the wing had folded in completely then bang out they came with the inevitable surge. I jammed the brakes momentarily as the wing flew forward. No problems. For once I didn’t seem to be nervous for some reason. Don’t know why but this comp I have felt pretty comfortable on the wing. Ok now let’s just tag this sucker and move on.

As I worked my way up the ridge it was my turn to sink. The other gliders that had been in front had turned back and were looking for climbs. I pushed on. With the headwind I knew as soon as I tagged it I would be flying fast back. I got to within 250m of the turn point and was too low in my estimation to make it out safely. I decided to turn back and found more lift. In retrospect this was my downfall. I could have tagged it and gotten back. But since it was the last day I wasn’t taking any risks.

My thoughts of flying quickly back dwindled as I lost even more height and wasn’t flying that fast. Oops. That was a miscalculation. I looked at landing options. oh oh. Everything was leeside. Stupid bugger I thought to myself. Only good option was the large field in Forest Gulch but this was directly in the direction of the wind and in a tight valley. However, the top of the hill was quite a ways up and I headed out to land. I didn’t get much turbulence as I head down to land but it was buoyant. I could see a flag lightly blowing on a house below and said to myself phew!. I came into to land and spotted power lines running alongside the field and then across the field as I sunk at 1:1. I spoke to myself saying keep calm Iain everything is fine. I passed over the lines and gave a sigh of relief. I moved forward into the field and came down gently between 2 trees.

My task was over and I had landed safe and the comp was over!!! All was good! I walked to the road and radioed in my position. 3 miles up Forest rd.

39 pilots made goal that day including Jeff Smith for the first time and Gilead for the 2nd. He has way more patience than me! Overall though I was pretty pleased at my performance this week and had a fun time in a comp for probably the first time throughout the week.

I left wanting more! Until the next comp folks Aw Ra Best!

Iain.

Rat Race Task 6 - Cancelled

Today it was looking to be a great day but when we arrived at launch it was pretty windy and just got windier. After a few hours the task was cancelled for the day and we all headed down the hill. So instead of blogging more about an uneventful day, here are 8 inflight pics from task 5 yesterday of a low save I made as I came into land to try and get the van back up to launch. Instead I was treated to a 8 minute ride to 5500 ft. Each picture is 1 minute apart.

Rat Race Task 5 - 49Km

Rabies Start 1K – Rabies – Flyair – Burnt – Squires – Rabies Peak – JVilleLZ – Dark Hollow – Donato

At last the weather was looking to be very good today for a longer task and they set one. Kudos to the task committee as it was a 997 point day – almost perfect! They also heeded the comments from myself and backup from Conrad and Rich Hass and gave us 1hr 20 minutes after the launch window opened to get everybody off launch and time to get established before the race started.

Everybody was getting high at launch for a long time but when I got to launch there was a huge sink cycle in progress. Almost all the pilots were sinking back down to launch level with the exception of a lucky few who had gotten over to Burnt to setup there. I decided to wait a little before launching. Good decision. Soon they were going back up and I launched. I got high pretty quick and decided to head out to Burnt also to set up for the start there. I hit lots of sink on the way over and decided to bail and head back to Woodrat to tank up. I arrived at my arch nemesis mid launch and had to work up from there again before the start to get high. However today I had that sucker nailed! Over the day I had to get climbs from there 4 times and all went really well. I found that you really need to turn tight on the ridge to keep on the lift band before the thermal let’s go near launch. All was good!

The race started and I headed out…Huge sink. I tagged the start cylinder but had to head back to woodrat area to tank up. the mid launch wasn’t quite working yet and I thought I would be better landing out and going for a relaunch. 15 others were of the same thought. I started to spiral down to the Lz to land but about 250 ft over launch i caught a thermal that I cored all the way up to over 6k! Oh baby…what a save! That set me in good steed for the day.

I tagged the Rabies first waypoint and got high and headed out to Flyair and back to Rabies again to tank up. It sure was rough in there in parts and I took a small collapse and at other points was getting tossed around the air like a rag doll. However patience worked and I got high again to transition to Burnt. As I thermaled up in the valley the lead gaggle were already on their way back from Squires. The were racing across the valley in a row and I was in the middle thermaling up. I was not amused when one pilot got object fixated on me and headed right for me. I had to eave the thermal to give me. Bugger him or her! No need for that at all.

It was a strong headwind and I arrived at Burnt ridge reasonably high but looked for lift. I found it got high and headed back to Woodrat to tank up before going to Squires. Arrived at mid launch again and worked it to get high.  So far so good!. Off to Squires and then over to Rabies to work the ridge lift band getting to Rabies peak. All was working well but now it was decision time. Do I get high at Rabies peak and go straight to Jacksonville or go back to Burnt and go from there. I decided to go back to Burnt as there were limited landing spots on the direct route. However, a lot of folks I spoke to later took that route and it worked for them. That saved some valuable time.

I headed back to Woodrat arriving at mid launch again and got high. On the way up I saw Ralph re-launching and he joined me for a short time.I headed off now to  Burnt to tank up and again big sink getting there. Found lift that got me to cloudbase and then headed towards Jacksonville. It was great being up around the clouds and soon the air smoothed out. This was the first time for me flying in this area..and I felt good! I got to Jacksonville not too high and could see quite a few gliders sinking out ahead. I passed over Jeff Speer and managed to get a nice little thermal that took me high. I let out a woo hoo as I started gaining height. I felt that today would be my turn for goal – especially since I had told Leann this flight was dedicated to her for her upcoming birthday. However my joy was short lived as the weak thermal died. I surfed down the valley for a few Kms and landed short of Dark Hollow.

The landing was fun! I picked a nice large yard with a house  that had a flag flying on it. Wind direction was not going to be a problem for setting up. I made my final approach and a thermal kicked off, wind switched and I was now flying very fast downwind. My wing was bucking and I managed to skid in to land only to get a big wedgie from my leg straps that then crushed my bollocks. Ouch!!!! That did hurt. After landing I looked up to see the retrieval van stop to give me a lift. Brilliant. I was tired but felt great I I flew pretty well today.

Looking forward to tomorrow. LeAnn’s birthday and hopefully getting to goal as a present for her!

Rat Race Task 4 37.1Km

Woodlz – Rabies – Rabies Pk – Burnt – Woodrat – Cemeta – Dark H – Donato

Today was a very eventful day for more than a number of people from  happy to frustrating and then to unfortunately tragic. The day was calling for overcast skies and a NNW wind of around  8-10 mph with stronger winds of around 15mph up at 6k. However it started to clear just before 12:00 and the task was called as the free flyers were already getting up. The skies looked to be setting up to be a wonderful day and I was looking forward to the day.

The launch window opened at 1:06 and the start was scheduled for 2:00pm. After a few days of only having just about an hour to get everybody off launch ( 105 pilots ) it is clear that the task committee need to allow more time for all pilots to get established before the race starts, at least 30 minutes in my opinion. I got off 6 minutes before the start and Rich Hass and Conrad both launched after the start!

I launched  in a flush cycle and got drilled back down to the car park before I got a screamer that yanked me up at over 1500ft /minute with a peak of 1700ft/min to over 5500 in a short time. By this time the race had started and other pilots who had established themselves well over Rabies were off and running! I didn’t top out the thermal and in retrospect I know I should have as it cost me later. I headed out to tag the start and got drilled in huge sink. I made the enter start cylinder at 1km radius and then continued on to tag the inner first waypoint at 0.4Km. However I was now low and needed to get back up so headed back towards Woodrat where I tanked slowly back up before heading back out.

As I got high I saw a glider take a collapse above Woodrat and enter a tight downward spiral. Ok, throw I said to myself..more turns…throw dude…more turns THROW for Fxxx sake…tighter faster turns...FXXXing THROW. By this time I was screaming at the top of my voice. I saw him pound into the hill side which was very steep. I was stunned! For this comp we banned all PTT miles and my radio was in my pocket that I could not get to easily as I was getting well worked in the valley. I heard a calm voice report that a pilot had gone down and then the emergency folks set into action. They didn't move off to the emergency frequency for some time so while you were flying you heard everything that was going on, It was unnerving. By this time I was still on course thinking that enough people would be able to help that were already on the ground and there was little I could do. I flew on and tagged Rabies and Rabies Peak and headed back to Woodrat to tank up.

However, I couldn’t get the vision out of my head of what had happened and decided to spiral down to the LZ. I landed and was an emotional wreck. I bundled up my wing and went and packed it up quietly and had a little quiet time on my own.

Jeff Smith was already on the LZ and landed for similar reasons. We met one of the ground rescue staff who asked if we could go up and help out. For sure!. We also found out at this time the pilot seemed to be ok, was talking and in not too bad shape. I was completely amazed and immediately felt relieved. We headed up to the top of the mountain where there were around 20 helpers. Jeff being a fireman immediately started helping out with the Applegate fire rescue team putting ropes and pulleys in place. Soon we were hauling the rope and bringing up the pilot. Many hands made fast work and soon we had him at the top of the hill. We carried him down to the car park where a waiting helicopter whisked him away to hospital. I was talking to him on the way to the copter and he was in good spirits and even making jokes! I wish him a fast and safe recovery.

Some of the frustrating things that happened occurred to Gilead and CJ. They made goal, Cj for the 2nd time this week and 2nd in 8 years!. However, their joy was short lived as they were within the start cylinder when they tagged it. Ouch! That must have hurt for sure hearing that news. However, once again the Seattle crew all did well making goal in fast times. Kudos to Ralph also for making goal at his first competition and he did it in a fast time too on his 1-2 sprint.

Hopefully today there will not be any incidents and we can all get back to having flying day.

Rat Race Task 3 25.8Km

Woodln – WoodlZ -  Burnt – JVilleLZ – Cemeta – Dark Hollow – Donato

Today the pilots meeting would be held at Fiasco Winery courteously of Dave and Pam Palmer. Dave is currently the president of the local club and I met him and his wife 2 years ago and we have become close acquaintances each time I visit. I love his wine, his winery and he is a really friendly person to get to know.

I arrived with my room mate Jeff Smith to find quite a large line already waiting outside. Inside Pam was serving up the food cooked by none other than Rich Hass! Quite funny to see him flipping pancakes behind the counter. We all got pancakes, Gary West smoked Ham, fruit , coffee and  orange juice which  once again was  a great way to start the day!! Thank you Pam and Dave!

The weather was gorgeous sitting outside in the sun at the pilots meeting. However, there was a wind surge forecast for later in the day and a lot of the pilots wanted to get up to launch and get off quickly before it came along. We got to launch and very quickly a task was called that put us all on a downwind glide path after getting to Burnt. I honestly thought this was going to be a relatively easy day however it turned out not to be the case.

I setup and joined the line pretty quick today. In fact I was in line before the launch window even opened. A first for me for quite some time! I decided to get inline behind someone I knew flew well to help me get out and established. I choose Wheelie Bob, or Dave Wheeler better known to others!

The launch window opened and off we went. Tom the launch captain had a well oiled machine today and we all got off the west launch quickly. Ok..how is this going to be today I thought and I found out damn quick. Rock n Roll dude! The wind was already strong and there were large lift and sink bands with gliders wildly circling in elliptical orbits at angles of around 45 degrees. I initially got above launch and then slid off the side of the thermals. Being on the north east side of launch was not fun. I drifted back with the mini gaggle and did not like the lee side position. It wasn’t going up as quick as I liked and I knew I would be fighting a strong headwind and potentially big sink if I went too far back making it difficult to get back over the ridge.Sure enough as soon as I headed back in the direction to cross over the ridge I go big sink. Once passing the ridge.. BOOM..up again. This yo-yo effect continued for quite a while I felt. I decided to push out further down the spine and see if it was any better. Nope! Here I found myself first thermaling with Conrad and Randy and then with Meredyth and Jef Farel as we continued the merry up and down but none of us making much progress to get higher. I looked around and didn't see many people getting really high. I could only count a handful of folks getting to maybe a couple of thousand feet over launch. The wind was picking up. I quickly calculated that this would be a low scoring day and wasn't worth the effort and potentially dangerous situation of flying the route low over Burnt with a strong tailwind. I thought I woudl go and land like many others who had already decided this plan of action,

I headed out in the direction of Fiasco winery assuming I would sink soon and I could turn and go and land in the Lz. However, I found a nice lift line and pushed on into the valley on full speed bar making only 10mph!. I guessed the headwind was probably around 15-20mph! I eventually managed to land at Longswords winery and was a happy man.

it did turn out to be a low scoring day after all, only 296 points. Cliff Curry came in first and again Chris Amonson, Dave Wheeler, Frank and Meredyth making goal. I got 105 points for minimal distance and  flying to the winery so was pretty pleased. All the rest of the field either landed in the Lz or just over the other side of Burnt ridge or near Cemeta around 5-7km from the start.

Tomorrow looks like it will be partly sunny and the wind still strong with 30% chance  of rain, I expect a similar task called as today. So may be another low scoring day. We shall see!

Rat Race 2010 – Task 2 30.2Km

Woodlln – Woodlz – Rabies Peak – Woodrat – Burnt – Cemeta – Dark Hollow

Results are at http://flyxc.org/2010ratrace.html 

Today we arrived on launch to find it socked in!. Yes we were at cloud base before even taking off! :-). I wasn’t too sure if it would clear but lo and behold Rick Ray local pilot and weather man was indeed correct. He had spoken to Hayden Glatte and they both agreed there would be a task called, we would get to 5k and everyone would fly, He was pretty much right on the money. It started clearing around 12:30 and by 1pm we had a task called. Start time was set to 2:40pm. I wanted to get off a little earlier today but seeing a lot of people initially not getting high I wasn't too sure. However I stood in line with around 30+ people behind me and eventually got to take off looking at blue skies and puffy skies with another good flying day ahead. By this time, the gaggle that had been floating not too high above launch had got to around 6K in height (2.2K over launch). Hmm. Had I left it too late? The wind looked to be picking up and there were more botched launches delaying even further the time it was taking to get airborne.

I finally managed to get off and immediately had issues getting into my pod harness. This year either I have grown in height or the harness has shrunk!. I hooked the speed bar with my heal trying to get in and crushed the speed bar full on. Not good! I wriggled into my harness and then used my hands to get the neoprene cover over my legs. I then looked for lift and managed to find a nice little thermal that took me above launch height. It was a right hand turn day but I felt very comfortable. But then the lift disappeared. I was confused. Big sink and I was now loosing height quickly, I got to mid launch and started looking for more lift. Not a great deal. I looked up in envy at the people high above me. Damn. I got below mid launch and then got drilled again. Soon I was about 300 ft over the lZ. Damn again!. I was not going to be beaten!. There was one glider below me scratching who i found out later turned out to be Jeff Farrell from SuperFly. I worked nasty bubbly lift and managed to start gaining height. I could see the glider below following me and soon we had got back up above mid launch. Yabba Dabba Doo I though to myself. Now we are talking. I started flying with another couple of gliders but soon my dreams of getting high evaporated just like the lift. Sink alarm started screaming at me and I lost all the height I had gained in about 30 seconds and was now back about 300 ft over the lZ.

I looked up and could see a massive flush in progress throughout the valley. People were falling from the sky big time. I came into land and found it to be very thermic and the wind pretty strong. I landed and very quickly there were around 40 gliders who had joined me, About 10 minutes later there were over 70 gliders in the lz.

The day was done. 11 gliders managed to make it to goal with the score being posted of only 220 points for the leader. I got 93 for just landing in the LZ!. What a crazy scoring system indeed. I don’t think it is fair but then again was happy that it wasn’t all down to my bad flying to land so quickly.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better!

Rat Race 2010 – Task 1 32.1 Km

WoodLz – Rabies – Burnt – Woodrat – Rabies Peak – Ruch – Purcell

Results are at http://flyxc.org/2010ratrace.html 

Today was forecast to be another high pressure day with some stronger winds up above. However, it turned out to be very similar to yesterday. The  task was called  with a start at 2:00pm and the launch window opening at 1:05. That happened at 12:45 so there was only 20 minutes to get your kit together and launch! Needless to say I was a little slower than the others and by the time I was getting ready to suit up the line was backed up. So as usual I decided to wait and see how things transpired before launching.

Gilead took off pretty quick today compared to yesterday and hooked a thermal soon after launch and within a few minutes was up around 7000 at cloudbase. And there were a few clouds today for a short time. I watched along with Jeff Smith and Ralph as the Seattle crew took to the sky!

I was in line around 1:30 and managed to get launched by 1:47. The main gaggle had setup right above the woodlz start cylinder perfectly place tangential to the next 2 turn points – Rabies and Burnt. I was informed afterwards that they tagged the first three waypoint in less than 10 minutes. In fact this whole task was completed in 40 minutes by Jack Brown flying his Ozone R10.2 wing…pretty sweet to see him launch.

Ok enough about them back to me!. At launch the thermals were coming right up the spine to launch and splitting on each side so you could launch on the West launch or the main launch. It was light though and you had to wait for a cycle. I got off at 1:47 and tried to find lift. It was very very rowdy from launch down to the midpoint launch and it felt like ages before I  started to get properly established in a thermal. Eventually I managed to get up to around 5600 and headed off to the start.

I found the convergence line across to rabies and got there still high which I was happy about. Climbed up to 6600 and headed off to Burnt. Other pilots were still climbing but I decided not to top it out. The Triton has great speed and glide and I took advantage of it as I went on glide from Rabies to Burnt and back to Woodrat area on a glide with about two turns.

However, when I got back to the Woodrat area I was back where I had found it to be really rowdy when I launched and I was not looking forward to it. I saw a Tandem wing thermalling above mid point and went down to join them. And what a great decision that was! We thermalled together in smooth smooth air all the way up to around 5500 ft where I saw Heather flying her Rebel as a free flyer. The three of us got up to around 6500 and I headed off to Woodrat Peak. I tagged that waypoint and just turned and headed back across the valley for Rabies again. By this point I had finally managed to catch up with a lot of the field whom I could see gliding across the valley. I decided to see how fast this little baby of mine could go and crushed the bar as I flew the convergence line. Thoughts of that stupid office depot commercial came to mind as I said WOW!. This flies fast. WOW! This flies really fast. I passed people gliding across as if they were standing still. I got a rush out of that for sure. I certainly get more a kick out of trying to fly efficiently and fast rather than high and slow and I love to see my flight track with a small number of climbs and straight glides rather than spaghetti tracks.

When I got to Rabies I managed to climb to around 6250 again and flew a lift band to Rabies Peak where I turned around and now was at last on a straight line to Ruch and goal. However my glide ratio to goal read 14:1 and my current glide ratio was 12.5 to one. I needed more height but thought what the heck it may be buoyant going across the valley and I had a strong tailwind now. I decided to go for it. I kept to the left of the valley and I thought at one point I had it but 2km short of goal I knew I needed more lift and tried to scratch for a short time. But it was not to be. I glided over other poor unfortunate pilots who had tried to squeak into goal also and finally landed 1.2Km short of goal!! No sooner had I landed than the pick up van stopped by and gave me a beer for trying! I packed my wing up and a nice lady with Conrad in the passenger seat stopped by and took us back to HQ.

Turned out there were 41 pilots who made goal today with another 10-12 landing just short. For me, it was a personal best at Woodrat and I think the points I got today were more than what I got totally for the last comp! I even got a few lead points! A good day! Chris Amonson came in 2nd today with a time of 43 minutes on his Boom 5. Awesome job. Meredyth came 3rd. Very impressive. All in all the Seattle crowd did us all well.  Tomorrow looks like it will be overcast so may be a late start if at all!

Rat Race Practice Day – June 12th 2010

After a 7hr 45min non stop drive down from Redmond on Friday 11th , I arrived at Grants Pass to have a not so hot sizzler grill dinner and then headed to the Holiday Inn Express where I had a very restful night.

I headed off after breakfast to sign in at HQ where I was pretty surprised to see a  large  group of people already in line to sign up. Weather was beautiful with temperatures in the mid 70’s expecting to reach the 80’s by midday and a nice cool breeze blowing through. The mandatory pilots meeting took place which covered the ground rules of the competition and then we headed up to launch.

Today was pretty laid back and they set a short task of 23Km of Launch to LZ (start cylinder), then to Rabies, Burnt, Rabies Peak, Woodrat and Longsword to complete the task. The challenge today was that most gliders were boating about 500-750 ft over launch around the12:30pm mark, with the start scheduled for 1:40 and getting high looked as if it would be  a problem.

Talking about problems, Gilead repro’d the problem I had been having on previous years with the Digifly Cartesio plus. His lost all waypoint before the start and he was not too amused. However, his expectations were that the damn thing probably wouldn't;t work anyway when he got here so he wasn't;t that too perturbed. However, we shall be letting Digifly know they have a serious problem with that unit. Was I bummed too? No, as I had purchased a Flymaster B1 Nav a few weeks back and it worked like a dream during practice. It seems to be a popular unit too now as there were a lot of them being used at this comp and many units being sold during the day. Even Frank and Chris were thinking about getting one to use this week.

So now on launch, I got suited up and stood in line and boy was it a big line! It took me the best part of 45min to get near the start due to the fact that we could only get 2 people off launch at a time from the North launch as the wind was a little squirrely when it did blow or non existent at other times. You could see the nerves of folks on launch…took me back a couple of years when I got here for the first time.

Today however I felt pretty good. I took off and joined the folks trying to get up.I had medium success. It was a right turn day and I am not efficient turning that way. I stayed in the thermal with a few others but one of the pilots was a little erratic flying in and out of the thermal in front of me and turning back in sharp which bugged me a little so I headed off and towards Rabies.  I saw that folks who had taken off earlier were already getting to Longswords and I could see they had a headwind, so a convergence must be setting up somewhere between Launch and Longswords. I thought I would head out that way and see. Sure enough there was a lift band heading towards Rabies. I took that but slid off it and got drilled. Hmm, I turned around and headed back towards the hill on the other side off launch but by now I could see most folks who were in  that vicinity sinking out. Ah well, glad it was a practice day. I landed and headed off to Fiasco Winery where I spent a nice afternoon chatting with Pam and the lassies sipping wine and eating a chees and fruit platter.

A nice way to spend the first day here. Tomorrow the actual comp starts and its a left hand turn day so I will plan to get high and stay high tomorrow. We shall see ow that works out!