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!