Last Comp Day

Well, today was the last day and it turned out to be awesome. Blue skies, a few scattered cumies, lots of pilots having great flights, and I bet more then half the field making goal.Task today was about 60+ km. The task committee usually makes a shorter task on the last day so everyone can get done early to have a big party, and have awards to the winners on the podium. I think it's also awesome that a shorter task makes it doable for the pilots. More pilots in goal, happy pilots, makes for a great party.


Launching at about 1 pm, the start time was the usual 1:30 pm. The start was the Burnt mtn again. I decided today to go to Burnt to get high for the start. I get there and Burnt was not working as well as Woodrat was. Most of the pilots decided to stay at Woodrat. Go figure, the day I go to Burnt it's not working great.

Getting the start, all of us had to get to Rabies Ridge go west toward the Murphy turnpoint. Good climb out on Rabies, and then looking for the convergence followed the ridge toward the turnpoint. It worked well. What was interesting about this task was you had to go into the valley to hit the turnpoint, come back to terrain to climb out. After getting back to the terrain, it was not easy. There were about 4 of us working broken bubbles and trying to find a core. In and out of the bubbles gave us a net climb, but it was hardly substantial. As we worked together we got enough altitude to make a move to the big valley crossing for the second turnpoint. On the way there I got to hook up with about 3 other pilots and we got a great climb before making the go ahead across the valley. It was fun to see glide and performance on the gliders as we made the crossing. It was smooth and all the pilots were pushing full bar.

Once on the other side, working up the ridge to the turnpoint broken climbs got me to the top of the turnpoint Tallowbox (sp?), and then a Bald Eagle comes over to check us out. I got excited hoping he would show us the way, but he just checked in and checked out. After climbing out with pilots, I decided to follow my friend Luis, and Brian decided to head straight to Rabies. This was another valley crossing. Getting to the terrain on the other side, Luis found a bubble and began to get a little climb, but the air turned out trashy. This bowl and area is called China Gulch and is famous for rotor and reserve tosses. Luis got enough of a bubble to head to higher terrain, I got the trash and rotor and got the big flush. Trying to find something I headed into the bowl of Rabies Ridge, and finally found a bubble to sustain me to the ridge. I then got the best climb of the day and my highest altitude to 8400 feet msl. Could not have come at a better time.

In China Gulch two pilots I was flying with ended up on the dirt. I was the lucky one that got out of there. I remembered the words of Nick Greece. Never give up. Boy I was close, though.

Finally on glide to the last turn point, I had hooked up with my friend Chris on an Icepeak 6 and we glided towards Johns. Close to being there we found a slow climb to guarantee making the turnpoint and then heading back into the headwind which wasn't that strong, it seemed like we hit the seam. With an easy return, made goal with 1500 feet agl to spare. Goal finally.

Results will be in the next post.

Today turned out to be a beautiful flying day, albeit, with a little more wind. Even though there were blue skies, there were still a few cumulus popping up at different locations along the course line. Thermal tops were also a bit higher then yesterday. I climbed to 7487 feet msl on my highest thermal of the day. So the xc should have been easier.

Unfortunately, I got a late start today and ended up with the last gaggle after the start. Once on course I got a fair climb over Rabies Ridge and then began to look for the convergence line which seems to set up along the spine to the first turn point. It's great at these events because there are lots of pilots working together and flying the course so you can actually see what is working, thermal and convergence wise around you. Once on the spine I got a great line and was able to glide for while between thermals. Halfway to the first turnpoint I got a great climb to my high point and was able to glide most of the way to the turnpoint. What was good for me was pushing more speed and was able to catch the second gaggle.

Arriving higher then pilots at the cylinder, I saw pilots working down low in weak lift. I circled a couple of times, but felt I could follow a ridge back on course and find a thermal along the ridge. Big mistake. Once over a saddle and along the south face. I got drilled into a south facing bowl with strong winds. I had company of about 5 other pilots and we circled in broken lift, frisbeeing with a marginal net climb in and out of the thermals. With the strong wind, the lift didn't seem to get organized and I dirted soon after.

I always learn tons at these events. Tactics, patience, and flying with a group can be key to being successful. What I should have done is waited and circled with the large group near the turnpoint even though I was higher then everyone. I could have climbed out with them and stayed on course. Many pilots that were there made goal. It's great to learn.

Enjoy the pics. Cheers

It was a great day Thursday with conditions being close to ideal for a challenging task. Thermal tops were not much above 7000 feet msl. Weather was sunny with a few cumulus marking thermals. The task was an 80+ km loop that took us from Burnt to Grant Pass area, then east to Gold Hill, back to Burnt, then to Jacksonville, and finishing at Donatos.

I found the task very challenging with my top height at 6700 feet msl. Not as high as I have been previously. On the training days I was climbing to 9000 feet msl.

After the start we headed toward Grant but with a strong southerly wind I found it difficult. I kept being pushed into the north valley, so had to push up wind often to stay on course. This made the first leg slow. After tagging Grant, I retraced my line along the ridge and then headed into the north valley toward Gold hill. This is where climbs were more difficult to find and broken. Trying to fly the sunny faces and staying on ridges, There were many scattered pilots working together in small groups to maximize the climbs that were there. One of the thermals had my wing talking to me, but the glider held up and finally after topping out at 6500 feet msl I tagged Gold Hill and the proceeded to head toward Burnt. Still working to get a little higher with a few other pilots we headed toward Burnt across some remote areas. About halfway from Gold Hill to Burnt I found a decent climb and made my highest gain of the day to 6700 feet msl.

I got quite a bit of sink toward Burnt and found myself at ridge height when arriving there so I was unable to tag the turn point. I had to continue and ended up super low 400 feet agl just above the bail out LZ. Finally found a good climb and was able to get back up to 5300 feet msl. Hoping Burnt would work I went a tagged the turn point, but climbs were barely there to non-existent and I was on search mode for a long time and actually losing altitude. I went back to Woodrat and got back up to the 5000 foot height and headed to Burnt again. Got a weak climb and then headed to Jacksonville. Getting the Jacksonville turn point and being a little low I saw two pilots thermaling on the way to goal. Arriving about 300 feet below them, I found broken lift and couldn't get a net climb and began to sink. I decided to work toward goal and try some of the small ridges and points, but just found small light thermals that really just maintained my altitude. At this point there was a headwind and being low ended up landing about 15 km from goal.

Still enjoy these comps as I always have my best flights of the year. Ended up with about 66 km and over 4 hours of airtime.

Today is sunny and hot. looks like there will be blue thermals all day.

Cheers

The rain has finally stopped and this morning dawned partly cloudy with drying out to occur through the day. Yesterday (Wednesday) turned out to be a long day. We had rain and drizzle through the morning and then intermittent drizzle through the afternoon. By 3 o'clock clouds started to dissipate somewhat, but the cloud base was just 300 feet to 500 feet over launch. The Rat Race crew decided on trying to get a task in, but we new it would be difficult with such a low cloud base.

The task was an elapsed time with 3 start times that the pilot could choose to leave for the task. I launched about 5 pm and had a slow climb with about 15 other pilots to cloud base. I got the first start time and slowly made it to the first turn point. You couldn't really race hard and had to be patient as the thermals where sporadic, broken, and light. Made the first turn point and then flew toward the second turn point. I found a great climb to cloud base and since cloud base was so low it was difficult to stay out of the clouds. At times clouds would began to form around you and slightly below you as you climbed. Once the second turn point was made, I began to fly toward number 3. Interestingly, there was no sun and just a low dark cloud 500 feet over launch between the 2nd and 3rd turn point. Flying over to a ridge (Burnt) I got low and had to follow the ridge toward Ruch as I was too low to climb over the ridge. I continued to look for some lift, but there was none. I thought I was going to dirt at the bailout LZ, but found a light thermal that got me high enough to get over Burnt and toward the 3rd turn point. I was with two other pilots. But, as thought, there was no lift and we ended up landing in one of the few fields on the back side of Burnt.

I got a big 17 K, but there were many pilots dropping out. It turned out to be a low valid day. Today looks great with top of thermals forecast to be around 8K. Let's hope for a good day.

On Saturday we had great weather and a training day with all the pilots that wanted to dial in their instruments, gliders, and bump tolerance. It was blue skies and a few clouds, but on the horizon there was a storm brewing with stronger winds on the way and a forecast for rain. Since the day was a practice task we were able to download a route and launch at your convenience since there was no scoring. Many pilots launched early to beat the approaching cloud cover and winds.

I took off and had a decent climb to 6250 feet msl with start across a small valley called Burnt mountain. From there the task took us west for about 25 km to turnpoint 1 and then cross a huge valley to turnpoint 2. There was a head wind going west and pushing speed was the best way to make some distance.

From Burnt I crossed over to Rabies Ridge and found a broken climb. The thermal did not seem organized so I flew a little to the east and then found a nice climb to with 1100fpm lift to a nice height of 8600 feet msl. I was with a couple of pilots and on the transition toward the next turnpoint one pilot found a cool convergence line and we flew for about 6 km with no loss of altitude. In fact we gained some. I continued on glide for another 6 km and found another thermal which brought me to a top height of 8972feet msl.

Winds started to increase and from the first turnpoint decided to cross the big valley rather then take another tactic. The glide was smooth, but no lift was encountered on the way to the other side. Prospect Mountain was the next turnpoint, arriving there fairly low with strong valley winds the thermals were quite broken. I groveled for a little while, but ended up sinking to the valley floor and landed with 4 other pilots. It was still a great flight and I was happy enough for the training day. A few pilots made goal, but most pilots did sink around Prospect. One pilot had to throw her reserve. She shared the story with us at the morning meeting the next day. Check out her post on her blog.

www.nicolemclearn.com  . We also had one pilot that landed somewhere behind the third turnpoint and the landowner came out on his ATV and was angry the pilot landed on his property. The landowner decided to drive over his glider and do 360's ripping the wing and catching the lines on the drive shaft and axles of the ATV. The landowner then wanted to take a knife and cut the lines to disengage the glider from his vehicle. Luckily the pilot talked him out of it and was able to slowly untangle the mess. The landowner also had a gun mounted on the ATV. Needless to say there may be a price to pay for the landowner.

The retrieve bus arrived and by the time we had scoped the fields for pilots we had standing room only. Nevertheless it was a fun day for me and still some of the best flying of the year.
Cheers

Rat Race 2013

Hi Everyone,
Well you have all been very patient. I haven't posted in this blog for a couple of years, but it is fine time for me to get started again. It's great being back on the road flying different sites and competing a little bit. It's always a great learning experience to travel, meet new people, fly new sites, and enjoy some cross country flying with friends.

I decided to attend the Rat Race this year again, as I feel it is one of the best reunion of pilots, infrastructure, and flying conditions that the US has to offer. The conditions seem consistent year after year. Usually we will have at least 5 flying days with it not being to unusual to fly for the full seven days during the comp. Mike and Gail Haley are the meet organizers. They open their house to over 150 pilots, basing the headquarters on their property. The Ruch, Oregon valley has several wineries, a great campground, close to a town center (Medford), with streams and lakes close by for boating and other activities if you are not flying. The cost of the event covers lunches for the full seven days, retrieve, ride to launch, dinner for a couple of nights, some swag and other goodies.

After being here for a couple of days before the comp, I have already had the best flights of the year, with some fun cross country, and great reunion with friends that I haven't seen for a couple of years, and some that have been out of the picture for 6 to 10 years. It's a small community of pilots that compete, so there is a lot of camaraderie amongst the group.

Arriving on Thursday night after a 20 hour drive, it was good to get out of the truck. I had great driving companions with Dan Bruce and Mike Benzie. Dan was the work horse on driving. Since it was his truck, he manned the reins for the full 20 hours. Awesome Dan. We did spend the night in Winnemucca, NV in a nice 1 star hotel scary to get under the covers in the bed, but they did have an awesome shower with hot water. At least the shower was 4 star :-).

Once in Medford we tanked up with food from Safeway, arrived at the campground and proceeded to erect tents and gear. The campground is great. Usually there are about 50 percent of the pilots staying there. It can be quite festive with evening camp fires and chat about the flights of the day. It is well shaded. The big issue in the area is the abundance of poison oak. Shiny three leaf small shrub like plants. Good to carry remedies for the itching and blistering if you're allergic.

We all fell asleep early after the long drive hoping that Friday was going to be a great flying day. Friday did dawn a beautiful day. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, and went to headquarters to check out what was happening. It was nice to see HQ kind of chill before the mass of pilots were to arrive. We did manage to get Mike to use his short bus to drive several of us to launch arriving around 11:30 am. Conditions looked great. It was Benzies first time here, the rest of us had flown here several times. A comprehensive site orientation, no landing zones, favorable landing zones, trigger points for thermals. While at launch there were pilots that had been soaring for an hour already. This site can start working at 10 am. It always seems to be on at Woodrat.

We (us pilots) proceeded to get prepared for the flight. Conditions were looking great and we launched around 1:20 pm. It was an easy climb out from launch, 3750 msl, and I found myself an easy 3000 feet agl over launch boating around. Soon the other pilots launched and pilots were climbing out nicely. After the climb out from Woodrat I flew west to northwest to Rabies Ridge which is a well known trigger point, I found a nice climb just west of the ridge and was able to climb to 7500 feet msl. Proceeding up Rabies Ridge I encountered quite a lot of sink, but not far from Rabies Peak I found an awesome thermal and climbed to 8000 feet msl. I then decided to fly southeast toward Woodrat and see what the other pilots were up to. On the way back I hit big sink was found myself back around 5200 feet msl, however, once over Rabies Ridge I found the best climb of the day with 1150 fpm lift with a climb to 8570 feet msl. I continued to fly west to Old Blue Mountain with not much sink. Once there I heard my vario make a funny noise and then completely shut off. I thought that was a bit unusual so I turned it back on. It then told me that both battery banks were dead. I remembered then that the batteries had been in the device through the winter and had been used up completely. I was surprised as they were the lithium type batteries. So, no vario and already 1 hour and 40 minutes into the flight I decided to glide to one of the local wineries which is named Longsword. I did have my altimeter watch which worked well to tell me if I was in lift or sink to the way there. It was cool to fly with out sound and joyed the quiet while being up high. Once over Longsword a few spirals and I was on the ground happy with the first real thermal flight of the year.

It's nice to land at the winery. Every pilot that lands there gets a 3 oz glass of wine with the choice of red or white, and super social atmosphere as most of the pilots that flew that day landed there.

A great first day. I plan on blogging daily. I hope you get a chance to follow the blog. Sorry it's taken so long to get this blog back up. I wish you all great flights and blue skies.

Cheers, Greg