18 M US Nationals -Sunday

Very hot today and blue ,but we found some Cu's on the sky.

We had 3 hours area task today. Thermals were broken reaching 4,000' agl , because of strong wind I was able to connect a little wave and climb above cloud base. I started as one of the first pilots and went for the blue alone with some Cu's on the horizon I was able to connect with them, but after 15 minutes they were gone and I was in survival mode again.

Around 25% 0f pilots landed out today , I finished second for the day and moved one place up overall.

No flying today (Sat)

We awoke to overcast skies again today and the forecasts said  60% chance of rain in the morning and the afternoon could go either way.  The rain appeared during the pilots' meeting and there was a chance of CB's in the afternoon, so everyone was told to rig and stage near the terminal, but not to push out to the grid in case a CB appeared.

After checking the weather again at noon and with no sign of CB's on the radar, we gridded and launched a sniffer as a band of towering Cu moved over the airport.  As the sniffer was on tow he reported rain and soon the rain hit the grid.  It poured for about 30 minutes and all the gliders and many of the pilots were soaked.  The ground at the edge of the runway had about 2 inches of standing water.  Meanwhile, the sniffer who was able to climb away and move out of the rain found good conditions away from the airport.

With the amount of rain that fell and all the drenched pilots, the day was scrubbed at about 2:30.  I towed back to my trailer to dry the glider off and de-rig, and as soon as I had it nicely dried, another shower came through, lasting about 20 minutes -so I dried my glider for a third time today (see rain during pilots' meeting in the morning) and finally got it put away dry. 

As the rain was falling around the airport, a good field of cu could be seen to the east and southeast and nice cu lasted until about 7:30 pm, unfortunately with the rain right over the airport, we could not get launch and get everyone to the cu.

The forecast looks great for the next few days, and if the airmass we saw after the rain today sticks around, we expect some great Saskatchewan conditions.

Dave

18Meter part III

Third valid contest day -3Hour area task maximum distance around 280km some of the pilots were calculating where to go to have maximum distance as they planned to fly fast. We had a little Cu's but rest of the contest area was blue. Task was survival flight and the winner's speed was just above glider stall speed . On average we had 2kts thermals and couple times around 3. I finished second for the day and recovered some of the lost points.

50% of pilots landed out, some of them just short of finish cylinder.


Saturday - day was cancelled due to rain in the morning and strong winds, blue sky with some Cu's are 30km west of the airfield with low cloud base . Sunday should be good soaring day.

18 Meter part II

We lost first day of contest due to weather, in addition plenty of water on the fields.

Second contest day gave us chance to fly two hour Area Task .

Weather improved substantially during task, but large holes slowed some pilots.

I finished 3rd with 15 points loss to the winner.

Second valid task was assigned 315km triangle , but due to high cloud coming from East and West task was changed in the air to 3hours Modified assigned task with one turn point.

Cloud base was low and clouds didn't work very well . After compulsory first turn point I went to wrong point and I had to change decisions where to go several times due to changing weather conditions .It cost me a lot I finished on the bottom of score sheet. Personally I don't like this kind of task with one turn point, luck plays big part on the results of such task . Good that we don't have such tasks during World Championships.

18-Meters US Nationals

I had hard decision to make between Canadian Nationals North Battleford SK and 18Meter US Nationals Caesar Creek OH

Due to limited time I decided to drive 8hours one way instead 0f 35.

I gave up first day of training to cut out of office time and flew only one day in marginal conditions . There was a lot of rain in OH recently, no good news for soaring. Due to very soft field CD decided that we fly without water untill conditions will improve.