Ontario Weekend Race Series

I am just home from the first event in the new Ontario weekend race series ably hosted by the Toronto Soaring Club.

The weather on Saturday, did not cooperate so everyone participated in a day of winch launching.  For some it was a first, and for others it was a first in many, many years.  My last winch launch was around 1981.

The weather on Sunday (16 May) was great, with 7500 ft thermal tops and 5-6 kt average thermals at the peak of the day.  The original task call was a 3.5 hour area task, but after aborting a take-off with the club Puchacz due to a rather soggy runway, our launch was delayed while we arranged water-ballasted gliders and empty gliders into two lines on the runway for the 180 HP towplane and 150 HP towplane.  We managed to start the launch just after 1300 and at 1400 opened the gate on a 3 hr task.

The task had minimum/nominal/maximum distances of 145/ 308/ 474 km.  I had a great flight and won the day at 103 km/hr, covering 309 km.  A pretty good day for SW Ontario.

The website www.sailplaneracing.com shows the rest of the events planned for the 2010 season.  The next event is scheduled for the May long weekend at Gatineau gliding Club near Ottawa.