The flight and task on the
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Results.


With the standard August North Texas weather having returned yesterday and
forecasted to stay with us during the competition, we get back to calling tasks
that take advantage of the reliable and consistent lift. The task committee
can't decide between a large (160+ mile) dog leg and a 98.6 mile triangle. We
propose a vote of the pilots, and they decide for the triangle.


I forecasted thin cu's, moderate south winds (10-12 mph), no overdevelopment,
600-700 fpm lift, and comparatively warm at cloud base - 54 degrees.


Responding to pilot requests we put a twenty five mile entry start circle around
the first start point off to the northwest. This allows for a little strategy
and I take advantage of this.


I'm off first, which used to be part of my strategy, which I seemed to have
relaxed a bit on the first three days. I got off high at 2,500' AGL under a
cloud, and low an d behold finally there was good lift under a cloud near the
airport.


Now the tug pilot was very kid and took me to the west of the airport in the
general direction of our start and first turnpoint. Since I was high and getting
higher I had the chance of heading due west and escaping my compatriots, perhaps
unseen. With the strong south wind, the ticket would be to get twenty five miles
due south of the start point before the start window opened. Since I started
early, I had a chance to do just that.


I snuck off to the west. I knew that others would figure out this strategy, but
I thought that if I got our of their view I wouldn't be an attractive nuisance
and I could disappear. The only problem was this would put me out on my own, but
I needed to win big to catch up, so taking chances was what I needed to do.


This strategy worked, and I jumped from cloud to cloud staying reasonably high
and not seeing any of my flying buddies. Just before the start time at 1:30 I
got a glimpse of Jim Yocom and another rigid wing pilot, but they were down wind
of me, so I had the advantage.


The winds were strong out of the due south and the cu's were scattered and thin
but the lift was good and that meant it was quite possible to run down wind to
little wisps quite a long ways away. Fortunately many of them were working.


After I got the first turnpoint I saw Mark Stump coming toward me and I got the
feeling that my strategy had not worked at all. Where were all the rest of the
rigid wings? Were they already further out on the course line?


The second leg was almost straight east, so it was cross wind. But again the lift
was good and this made it possible to punch ahead into the wind while gliding.
The cu's were thicker and closer than on the first leg so the probability of
getting up improved even with the cross wind.


Half way out
Mark and I were joined by a flex wing pilot and I was thinking, oh my god, are
we really that slow that the pilots who started half an hour behind us have
caught us? Geez. We were screaming up in the best lift of the task, averaging
800 fpm, and then the flex wing pilot pulled in his VG cord and headed in the
opposite direction. Whoa, he hadn't gotten to the first turnpoint yet and was
way too far to the north given the south wind.


The strong lift allowed for me to leave Mark behind and get to the second turnpoint
with little difficulty. As I approached the turnpoint I noticed that there were
lots of clouds on the way back to the airport. It looked good. Once I made the
turnpoint I realized that these clouds formed a cloud street, a very long cloud
street that stretched south and north of me. I'd seen this cloud street before
in previous meets at Big Spring.


The cloud street didn't exactly go back to the airport but to the east side of
Big Spring. Still it was a great little lift highway and I used it for all it
was worth. I stayed under it until I was almost due northeast of the airport and
would have mostly a cross wind component going into goal.


Climbing at 400 fpm I left when my 5030 said it is 9.8:1 to goal. Gliding at 42
mph I headed across the town of Big Spring from the refinery and got a very good
view of it as I came into goal with 250 feet to spare after an eight and a half
mile glide. That was close enough for me. I was the first pilot into goal, much
to my surprise.


Eighteen minutes later Mark Stump and Jim Yocom came in. Campbell and Oliver
came into together about half an hour after I came in just as the flex wing
pilots started to come in.


Andre Wolf was the first flex wing pilot followed by Attila, Brett, Kraig,
Jonny, Bruno, Chris Smith, Mario and Leo (see the results above). A few pilots
landed a little bit short, including Nene, Bubba (whose on the task committee),
Robert Reisinger, Phil Bloom, and Gerolf.


David Glover had the top thirty pilots (at least) start the task at 2:15, and
all but one pilot, Jim Prahl, who made goal, started at that time.


The single surface task was a sixty mile task out to the north, northwest with a
turnpoint at La Mesa. The winner, and the only pilot to make goal was Anne-Odile
Thomas on an Icaro Relax. She told me before going out to fly the task that there was no way that
she was going to make it and that she'd probably just land a short ways out from
the airport. Wow!


The Sport Class was sent 90 miles north to the goal at Town, an airport just
south of Lubbock. The top sport class pilots haven't returned this evening, so
we assume that they made it.


Roberto Nichele had a discussion with a dust devil that he lost. He told David
Glover that he tried three times to enter into a dust devil at 1000' AGL and got
spit out all three times. He tried one more time and the dust devil tiring of
this foolishness tossed him about bad enough that Nick through his chute in
order to soften his landing. If you see dust here in Texas you can be assured
that the lift is a bit too strong. This is not Chelan with its very powdery
soil.


Tomorrow looks like even stronger south winds so we might be going long down.
There were multiple long thick cloud streets over Big Spring late this afternoon
and well into the evening. We would all love to get under one of those clouds
and just glide for as long as the cloud lasts. That takes a good weather
forecast in the morning.