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

Task 5 and 6 PWC Chelan

So, I have been back in Vail now for a couple of weeks, trying to get back to working the tandems and lessons. I have great memories of the US Nats and the PWC in Chelan, and now I will try to update the last two tasks. On day 5 we had alot of wind, and the task was cancelled. It was a good thing because most of the pilots were quite tired from the long day before with some pilots in the air for over 6 hours. Even though you sit in your harness, there is still a lot of physical, and copius amounts of mental stimulus going on in a flight that long. Most of us either hung around the lake or by the hotel pool on the day off.

Day 6 dawned nice, and we all headed up to launch for task 5. The task was set as an out and return with a 50 km cylinder as the distance every pilot was to fly away from the start. This format allowed the pilots to go in any direction they wanted. The task was still over 100km. And why not, Chelan always sets itself up for long cross country flights. I launched at the end of the pack as usual and had no trouble climbing out, and had over 15 minutes to wait for the start. Winds again were forecasted to be lighter then they turned out to be. Once on course my track took and easterly direction away from the start as I thought that was the best direction to go on my outward leg. Crosswind the whole way. I kept getting pushed to the south as the winds again had a strong north component to it. Once I got clear of the out cylinder, a big northwest wind kept pushing me south and made it difficult to get back to the butte. There were several of us yoyoing again trying to make upwind headway. After numerous attempts to find a decent climb, I dirted after about 60 km. I was pushing more speed, but it just wasn't enough.

So, day 7 task 6. One more day of cross country flying. And, no, really, a short task under 100 km. The task committee called about a 77 km task out a return again. This time they took the north wind component into the task direction. We were to head north for 30 km, back to the butte, and land at the usual goal the soccer field. However, and ironically, the winds turned out to be strong south. Another great climb over the butte. Once on course I headed north on the east slope of the mountains with the whole group. Another couple of climbs and several of us crossed the Columbia river. We got drilled. Catching the rim several of grovelled 150 feet over dirt. 4 of us landed 2 climbed out, so I was in good company with lots of pilots around. My girlfriend retrieved us with my truck, and on the way back toward Chelan we ended picking up 13 pilots and gear on my truck as the organizers did not send out a van to the location close to the 1st turnpoint. So, we limped back towards Chelan and we finally got the organizers to send a van to meet my truck about 3/4 of the way back. Amazing!

The result party is tonight after the 6th task. Josh Cohn wins the event. Go USA! Nick Greece our USHPA magazine editor got 2nd. Our own Melanie Pfister got 2nd in the womens division. So cool.

A pretty impressive event. I figured that I was able to get over 600 miles of distance in the 13 days of the US Nats and the PWC. A record for me in such a short time. I had my longest duration flight of 6 hours and 5 minutes. The best thing about being at the comps is the camaraderie, the cross country flying, the retrieve and safety infrastruture, and personal bests that everyone gets. No need to be overly competitive at these events. You can always get want you want out of the comps, whether it's serious scores competing with the big pilots, or just achieve personal bests in the distance and duration of the tasks. Hope to see you all at the next event.

Cheers

Task 4 PWC Chelan, WA

So Task 4. We have an ambitious task committee as they have a called over a 150 km task today. The weather for today looked great, but winds were forecast to be around 12 mph from the northwest. This made the task mostly crosswind, but it turned out the winds had a more northerly component and getting to the first turnpoint became very difficult. Most of the pilots landed in the vicinity of the first turnpoint. Jack Brown was the only one in goal before the 8pm deadline. He flew the task in a little over 6 hours.
I launched at the end of the pack today, but it was no problem climbing out from launch as I topped out at 8,300 msl and still had 30 minutes until the start. Once on course we crossed the river and ended up about 1,000 feet agl above the flats and several of us worked together to climb out and get established on the flats. Ironically we were south of the course line at this point, and fighting the north to northwest wind component we kept south of the course line for a long ways. We had some nice cumulus in the flats, but some of the climbs were broken and small cores. Cloudbase was around 12,000 msl. The first turnpoint was Barker, and Leahy was the town just before. Pushing into the wind I made ok headway, but at Leahy I got stuck, found a couple of climbs, and frisbeed back away from turnpoint 1. While I was climbing out of Leahy, several pilots were to the east, and I noticed one pilot having some action. Was it to be? Yes, another reserve deployment, as I watched the pilot have about a three minute ride from about 4,000 feet agl. I was worried he was going to land in the lake to the east, but ended up on land and ok. I would push into the wind and end up low where I had started the last climb. Around Leahy there is a big gap, and you go into areas where there aren't many roads. Not being high as I approached the gap and fighting the wind, I chose to stay near a road. After about 45 minutes of pushing and sinking. I landed near a retrieve van.
I got 50 km, and another great flight, and still learning alot about the new glider U4 2010.
Overall the US pilots are still doing well and there are around 7 pilots in the top 15. The top 15 pilots will go to the superfinal in Turkey. Josh Cohn is in the lead. Results and info here at http://www.paraglidingworldcup.org/ .
Today the 22nd of July was cancelled due to wind, but the next two days look fairly good. Stay close for more excitement from Chelan.

More pics from Task 3 PWC

We got to meet some great pilots from Germany, Jakob Hummel, and Gunter Klaus. Jakob took some pics from task three of the dark clouds and the rain. I will post them here!

Task 3 PWC Chelan, WA

Yes!!!! Another 100 km plus task. Another several hours in the air, and another great abdominal workout. Today dawned with some clouds overhead. The forecast for Chelan was supposed to be mostly sunny today, but it turned out to be over 50% cloud cover most of the day. On the NWS forecast discussion they did mention a chance of thunderstorms and showers over the eastern slope of the Cascades, and the central Columbia river valley. That just happens to be where we are. I was curious to see if it would overdevelop, because where I come from if it's like these conditions, usually is over by noon with big cumulus. There were cumulus around noon, but it did seem it might make for a great x/c day with some cloud flying.
So, they called the task and it was 129km triangle. We were to fly north to Brewster, then southeast to 'bump in the road". then southwest to Goran Peak, and then back to the Chelan LZ.
Since I was very low on the priority list, I decided not to suit up for a while, which was the right decision since it turned out to be another slow launch day. The line was getting shorter, and finally decided to get ready, and then everything shut down. No one launched for 45 minutes, since there was little wind, and what there was was coming from the northwest. Finally, there were cycles coming from the lake side launch, and a few of us went over there. I got laid out, tried to pull up once and had a ground tangle. Tried a second time, and not enough wind, then the third time got a decent cycle and got off. I surfed the front of the west launch, and then sunk, so I headed to a saddle to the south, and hook a great thermal of about 800 to 1000 fpm. I was pretty psyched since the task had already started and I was 15 minuted behind. As I was climbing out there was another pilot to the south climbing. At about 9,000 feet msl I am circling and he takes a full frontal, glider goes behind him and then surges asymmetrically and he gets a big cravatte. His glider immediately starts to spiral and he then goes through the maneuvers of stalling to get the cravatte out. After two tries with no results, he hucks and is under reserve for a long ride. He gets on the radio and says he is ok, and another pilot lands next to him. Whew!
So I eventually climb to 10,000 msl over the butte, and I am trying to decide which way to go. The flats or the mountains. To go north to Brewster you can go either way. So I stay over the hills as I go north and find a great climb with two other pilots near the Chelan airport. We climb to cloudbase at about 11,000 msl. The two pilots stay in the hills, I decided to cross the river onto the flats. There seems to be more cumulus developing there. Once over the flats I see other pilots and find a great climb to cloudbase and go on glide toward Brewster. About 9 km from Brewster a few us find this climb to this huge cloud and to stay out of it we have to take a detour toward the Columbia river. Once on the edge of the cloud we made good headway to tag the turnpoint and head back. There was a lot of blue near the turnpoint and there was some sink, but on the way to the second turnpoint there was some great climbs with a big darkening cloud overhead looming. Since cloudbase was about 11,500 msl I went on glide at 10,000 feet msl and was climbing about 400 fpm. At about 10,500 I pushed 3/4th speed, the fastest I had pushed so far, and maintained for quite a ways. About 8 km from the second turnpoint began to sink, and I was concerned because now almost the whole flats were in shade. Once at the turnpoint I headed to the rim and was getting low, below 5,000 feet msl. I saw a dust devil and decided I would go towards it. I found a weak climb that got me over 7,000 feet and then headed 0ver the river to the third turnpoint and then, with all the dark cumulus looming overhead, and fairly overdeveloped it began to rain. I got over the river, and began to climb out in thermal in the rain, and the organizers called the task for safety reasons. So I made over 70 km.
It was an interesting flight having to stay out of big clouds, and pushing more speed, with the added bonus of flying and landing in the rain. Andre Rainsford from South Africa won the day with Yasushi Kobiashi getting second and our own Josh Cohn getting third. Overal Josh is first with Nick Greece being in third for the US. Stay tuned for more excitement from Chelan.