So, I am sorry it has taken me so long to keep my blog updated. Being on the road, and just always trying to catch up with personal details back home, it seems the time just passes me by.
I thought I start with the US Nationals week long competition in the Provo, Utah area. The site we flew for the whole week is called Inspiration Point. It sits about one quarter the way up Cascade Peak, with a west facing launch. What makes this area so appealing is a north to south mountain range with 11,000 foot, plus peaks. Winds are generally westerly, so it makes for great flying since the front side on the mountains face directly into the prevailing wind. From the valley floor to the top is approximately 7,000 vertical feet.
Arriving a day early to get a training flight in, we were greeted with the weather wet, stormy and wild. Not a good start to a week long competition. Unfortunately, I had flown this site only once about 12 years ago, so a training flight was not in the cards due to the weather. I always like to familiarize myself to a new site just to get the feel for how it works. Fortunately the weather looked like it was going to be great, at leasrt for 5 days or so during the comp. Seldom do we get several flying days during a comp when in the mountains due to the ever changing weather. Maybe this one would be different, and it was. We had 7 total flying days. The comp lasts seven days.
So the first day, I was focused on getting familiar with the site, and was hoping for easy conditions to fly. I also had only about 7 flights on my comp wing, which is enough to get a feel for the glider, but not enough to really dial it in. After launching I was surprised that the climb outs weren't easy. I turned left right off launch, as a few pilots were actually climbing out, but later I found out the house thermal was to the right of launch. I sunk out to this hill that has a gazebo on it, which really isn't far from the bombout. I trusted that the gezebo was going to work for me, and it did, but it left me really far behind from the gaggle and start. Again, I was taking this flight as a training flight. Finally climbing out to about 2,000 feet over launch, I began the task. It was about a 70 km task to the south. I was thinking that the front faces of these big mountains as rocky as the were, would really work for lift, but I was unpleasantly disappointed. I worked and worked, scatched and scatched, much more closely rock faces then I like on a comp wing. I groveled to the first turn point, and tweaked my way to the second turn point, and sunk out. Disappointed, but it was a training flight, and I was happy with my comp wing, conditions were weak climbs with turbulent conditions, and the glider handled beautifully. Crisp, responsive handling, and probably the most soild comp glider I have flown to date.
The second day turned out to be another nice day. Still under the high pressure influence, I was looking a little more forward to the task, as I had a little familiarity on the site. About a 68 km task to the south was called to a little airstrip called Nephi. I had a rough start again with a botched launch. Conditions were light, and I tried to run hard on the uneven launch terrain, but tripped. I had to untangle my glider etc. Finally when I got everything sorted out, I was one of the last pilots on launch. I had an easy takeoff the second time, and climbed out alone in 500 fpm lift. Being so far behind, I reall didn't wory about catching up, but I surprising ly had good luck, and got to 11,500 feet msl, and went on course. Even though the task was a straight line, the mountain range made a 45 degree curve. You had two options, one to follow the mountains and the dogleg, or go across the flats. Terrain seemed like the obvious choice, and consequently all the pilots took that option. I was happy with my progress, as I was catching up to a few pilots as I was going. I was also noticing several pilots landing out, and so I was thinking I was making some headway. Goal was supposed to close around 7:30 pm so I was making progress and observing that I would make goal at around 7:15 pm. before the dogleg we had some flats to go over, and may pilots were getting low. I came over this spine with about 250 feet agl. I worked down the spine and found a weak climb at about 200 fpm. Working it I began to climb out, and finaly another pilot comes and joins me and it's none other the John Van Duzer who always flies serial class, but makes goal much of the time. as we worked together, we ended up climbing and helping each other, topping out on this climb a 4,000 feet agl, we went on glide, Trey, joined us as well, so the three of us could work together nicely, and got the climb of the day to 13,000 feet msl, which was about 8,000 feet agl. From the top of this climb we had the coolest final glide I had ever had in the evening light. My GPS was saying I was going to make goal before 7 pm which was good, but had plenty of time to spare. The glide turned out to be about 15 km, and I still had 3,000 feet of altitude when I got to goal. an awesome flight, one of the best of the year, and happy to be in goal.
Stay tuned for the next few days of the comp.
