[LASS Soaring] "Waaaa I Missed Two More Landings! SWC Final Report :-)"

[GordySoar at aol.com]

Woke up, got out of bed, combed my hair and got my hat.....

When I  got to the field, the officials just walked up and gave me some wood, 
said  something about 'resistance being futile" when it comes to anyone 
"beating  Gordy" ever again....
 
Okay that part was before I woke up.
 
It was warmer when we got on the field today, light breezes again.   The 
breakfast vendor had fresh scramble eggs and crispy bacon to die for as well  a 
some of those light carbon homemade biscuits (er okay so they didn't  have any 
carbon and a little overcast.

George Joy was part of the winch  team so he tested each one with his Escape 
Xtail.  Launches were big and  the air looked like it could support a 8min 
round, very buoyant with some  activity, even being only about 8am.  That gave 
all the pilots a feeling of  optimism, and got all the activity of putting 
planes together at full  speed.  I don't think I saw one plane being put together 
must after 8:30,  so the tone was "we're READY!" :-)
 
Today the tasks started with a 5min which some found a little nerve racking  
but I think most got it.
 
The second task was the finish round for the Addem-up.  10min max, but  since 
the goal was 34mins in 4 rounds, each of our score cards had our  specific 
Target time calculated.  Some were fortunate having hit their  9:50somethings in 
each of the three prior rounds, others were not so lucky and  had to get all 
of the 10 to do the do.
 
My card showed 5:51, which of course I whined about for nearly a half hour  
prior to my group launching.
However no worries because I had the new old guy from west Cleveland  calling 
for me, and a super launch and my Volz Powered Sharon was in sweet form  :-)
 
I ended up making all the right choices so had air to spare.  I  brought her 
in for a nice 15 point landing.
 
Did I mention that not only was there 3 time World Champ Darly Perkins in  
attendance, but also Multi-Nats winner Mike Smith, F3J World Champ Ben  
Cleveland, Current F3J Junior Champ Cody, and the entire Junior F3J  team...course 
can't forget Skip Miller when it comes to Nats etc :-) Among the  other big dog 
champs we had George Joy, Mike Regan, .....heck it was a who's who  of great 
sticks there to have a great time and to lay down some points!
 
Short Winch lines.....they were long 'enough'...but they were short enough  
to cause the lines a tremendous about of supersonic start and stop  abuse.   
Steel stakes broke, winch frames cracked, brake assemblies  went hay wire....and 
the action never stopped!  Talk about a crew of great  men!
 
I would have bet that sailplanes would have been popping all over the place  
with the power that was thrown at them by ...us.  But remarkably the  
crosswind/downwind direction to the winch lines took a lot of force off the  planes.
 
Don't get me wrong, the set up worked and we all had best contest we'd had  
all 2007!  It was great.
 
The last round after the Addem-up was to decided to be a 5min, instead of  
the 8 originally hoped for, because of the time slipping away and a cold front  
moving in fast.
 
My launch left a lot to be desired to get that 5:51 for the target, but  
Sharon she headed out and guided me into smooth sailing, with some air again to  
spare.  The wind had now begun to kick up crossways to the landing zone,  but 
it was manageable.  I brought Sharon in on the usual right up the pipe  
approach, bopped the spot at a nice low speed, and the plastic nose ring skeg,  bent 
sideways and kicked the nose about 10" off the center of the 35 spot (at  
least that's the way its gonna be for this story:-).
 
I was really bummed and while that nose skeg is excellent and  convenient, it 
cost me two of the three missed 25's....by bending sideways  and kicking me 
out.  :-(  So mister nose ring skeg will  be gone before Sharon leaves my shop 
next visit.
 
I think that most of the guys who didn't need more than 7mins of the  last 
Addem-up round, made it.
 
The final round was called for 5mins, starting  with group Foxtrot (F ;-)  
and the air seemed decent.   Turns out it was too.  So I began my usual sweat 
about what the air was  going to do by the time they got to group Kilo (K).
 
The air actually improved along the way, and when they called me up, so did  
Mike Smith head out to the winch with that whacky super star DP as caller.
 
Who would have figured that right at that moment my shoe lace would come  
untied, and I needed to tuck my shirt in (didn't want any plumber's butt on the  
field after all!), and dang those surfaces, they sure could use a little  
tweaking,...... :-)
 
Only one winch was open at the time and the line was pretty darn long  (phew, 
and I mean phew! cuz the winds had come up, and there was nothing but bad  
omens settling on the field!)
 
Like true champions, Mike and DP shifted over.  I saw DP indicate that  the 
plan should be to launch turn and get behind as it sure looked like the best  
possible chance to catch the next cycle...the guys in front were sinking like  
rocks.
 
Made sense to me and was my guess too, which I had indicated to my  caller.  
Mike launched and followed the plan, I chickened out and decided  to punch 
straight out crosswind and hope that my Sharon would cruise the cross  wind 
energy.  That worked  and in fact I caught a tight piece and I  started aggressive 
wrapping, fighting the turbulence all the way around each  turn, like as if I 
had a battling bass on the end of the line...it was ugly but  I gained big 
chunks with each turn.....AND got pushed further and further  downwind!
 
I managed 3mins then decided to bail to make the run back, only to find  
serious sinking smeg....I put in the secret 'speed' preset and turned on a  
diagonal again, and just let her move back at her own pace.  About at the  edge of 
the field when was now at 1min, it was either gonna be get lucky with a  bit of 
energy or die.  Luck was with me and Sharon kicked in her after  burners and 
litterally lunged forward toward the landing area.
 
I set up my usual 30 over my head, 180 at 20, dive out a bunch of altitude  
with some aggressive landing flap to let the clock run down, then off the flap  
to about 30 degrees to let her approach to the sound of Larry's voice "get 
her  on line, right up the center!"..."drop down some", "that's it, you got it  
nailed"....only to punch the big spot again, see the skeg bend to the side and 
 BOING! out the edge of the box. :-(
 
Way too many points left in the landing area for the amount of talented  guys 
in this game.
 
It was then that I had heard that the move Mike and DP chose correctly,  
ended up with them robbed by a burst of changing climate, hooking the air away  
from the way it had been intending.  Mike was down wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy short  on 
time.
 
As I was walking back the wind went nuts, a huge dust cloud came thru  
sending everyone scrambling for sailplanes that were threatening to fly with  radios 
off!
 
Chico and the mostly silent Darwin Barry (CDs) had to make the hard  call.  A 
pilots meeting was called the situation explained that on the  basis of 
safety, a vote would be asked for to end the contest without the final  5mins 
flight added in.  I would say that more than 60% lined up on the  weenie side, 
(just kidding, you had to be there to hear the razzing going on  between the two 
groups:-)  In fact though, the side that didn't move to the  'end it' side had 
already gotten their 5min flights in! :-)
 
Being the class act that this group is, they went to the rule book which  
mentioned 25mph max gusts....the best the wind meter had seen was 15...so the  
contest continued.
 
Ballast was flying everywhere as pilots scrambled to be ready for their  
flights.  Ben's group launched and Ben got out, alone in his decision along  the 
far tree line, keeping a diagonal tact to the wind, and really doing  well.  
The others in that group thought to stay in close and hope to float,  surf or 
circle for max time knowing that not many before them had made landings  in the 
crosswind approach.
 
Ben easily out lasted them, but before the task was completed, another  group 
had launched.  Guy Russo's Perfect ran to where Ben had been,caught a  sweet 
wave cycle and would easily put the 5 in.
 
About half way thru that task, the wind kicked to a gust that tipped more  
than the 25, dark clouds were coming and ...the contest was called.  Guy  stay 
up the sweet calm that followed that gust, put up 10mins of fun flying and  
missed the crosswind landing by a mere 4 or 5 meters :-)
 
Some grumbling got squashed when the rain hit after the awards and raffle  
(which included a 9303, Stylus,Sharon, EZ Retriever...and yipes there was good  
stuff there!
 
You can find the scores, but on top 10 it was Supra, V tail, Extreme,  
Sharon, Perfect, Sharon, Sharon, Perfect,Sharon, Escape, Perfect.
 
And out of 119, only 5 managed to beat Gordy :-)   Wood is fun  :-)
(and yes there is an investigation into how much local pilots were paid to  
throw the contest to make me look good!, Hoping to show all of you Chicago,  
Michigan, Florida, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, TN, TX, OK, KS, Iowa, Ohio, and  
ESL timid types that if Gordy could do well, you guys would have no  problem!)
 
Next year it looks like relocation, as this field got woo'd away by events  
with a lot more money.
 
Was it MOM?  Nope.  Was it worth the money to  attend/compete?  YOU BET!
 
Gordy
working on processing a huge rack of beef ribs  :-)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://localhost.localdomain/pipermail/soaring/attachments/20070211/d77edf54/attachment.htm