http://ozreport.com/2007santacruzflats.php

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

http://jonnydurand.blogspot.com/

http://hang6.blogspot.com/

The task and the flight.

If you look at the task above you'll see that we do a little bow tie or figure eight task off to the northwest. Dustin feels that the weather if there is any could come from Tucson to the southeast so we want to stay away from there, unlike on Monday. The forecast does call for 10% chance of rain and blowing dust, which I assume means gust fronts associated with cu-nimbs. We can already see cu's forming early in the morning way off to the southeast.

The forecast was again for 15,000' top of the lift at 800+ fpm. Dustin may not believe this but apparently you can get a lot higher than he is used to around here. There was supposed to be a cu or two in addition to the cu-nimbs from the southeast.

We (this is a very informal and fun meet, so there is no real formal task committee and everyone has a say if they want) decide on a task to the northwest as per Dustin's feelings about the weather. He cautioned us about a green area in the middle of the task that may have weak lift. We are tasked to go 104 km (a little shorter that yesterday's 130 km task after pilots were on the task for three and a half hours).

We started launching at noon and maybe it was a little weaker than the day before when we started later. A few folks were relaunching. I got down to 500' AGL and went for one last search west of launch and found 200+ fpm. Jeff O'Brien was above me climbing and Jonny came over.

We climbed out to 7,100', (the ground is 1,350') and when the lift petered out I followed Jeff who was 1,500' higher and Jonny north. North of the course line, but still in the 8 km start circle. This turned out to be a key move. Going north of the course line will get us out of the weak lift area over the irrigated fields.

We (Jeff, Chris, Jonny and I) waited around at near 8,000' as we watched Scott Gravelle and Dustin way down below us turning but not climbing. They will start the task much lower than us.

At 1:15 we head northwest toward the turnpoint at Mobile 44 km from the Francisco Grande launch area. There are still lots of irrigated areas between us and the turnpoint but we are trying to go around the northern edge of them.

We weren't getting that high, as you can see and we got down to 2,600' AGL before we found a set of dust devils and climbed out back to 8,000'. We were all together and spread out on glide. Jeff and I were down to 1,700' AGL when we started working really light lift just to stay up. We were almost to the little foothills before the turnpoint.

Jonny and Chris came in just 100 feet over us but that was enough for them to move to the north and find better lift. We were holding on and finally saw Chris and Jonny and joined them.

This thermal was change the day. It averaged 500 fpm to 11,000'. It wasn't too cold up there. Jonny and Chris left at less than 10,000' as Jeff and I continued to climb. This gave us a great advantage. Dustin came in under us as we climbed up in this thermal. He was low but he was climbing.

Jeff and I headed out for the turnpoint and lost track of Jonny and Chris. There was plenty of lift out to the turnpoint and back. I got out in front and got back to the same point that we just climbed up at. Jonny came over to me just above me. Chris and Jeff a bit below.

After climbing back to almost 11,000' I headed out with Jeff and Chris a good ways below toward the second turnpoint at Maricopa. Jonny was 1000' over me.

Chris found a thermal past Maricopa and we all joined him. Jonny was higher than us mere mortals, the lift was really broken and not all that good above Chris and Jeff so after a few turns he headed out. At that point he was only 300 feet over me.

We spent ten minutes in this ugly lift, much weaker and broken than what we had been experiencing, but we were back by the irrigated fields. Dustin, who had found some strong lift and almost caught us when Jeff and I were low, came in over Chris and below Jeff and I.

We didn't exactly thermals in circles but surfed the lift changing directions often. Jeff, Dustin and even Chris were climbing faster than I so when I got to 10,500' I headed south toward the last turnpoint. Jeff would stay around for a minute and climb a little higher. Dustin stayed around even longer and got to 11,300'.

There was no lift going over the irrigated areas to the south. Even though I did see one dust devil. I faded west a bit to see if I could get lift from the dust devil but no luck. Jeff took a route closer to the course line and got ahead of me. Dustin was charging from behind.

Making the turnpoint it wasn't clear whether anyone other than Dustin could make it in. He had at least 500' on Jeff, Chris and I. Jeff was in the lead but felt that he had to stop to get a little lift. Dustin, now almost a thousand feet over Jeff and will goal in hand took a couple of turns also for no good reason. We didn't see Jonny.

I was right behind Jeff and took the lift that he found also and that was enough to get all of us home. Dustin, Chris, and Jeff got to goal within four seconds of each other and I was a couple of minutes behind. I should have stayed with them in that last thermal and not gone out in front.

Speaking of out in front, Jonny had gone out in front on his own and got low. He had to find lift to stay up and this slowed him down. He came in fifth. Scott Gravelle was the only other pilot to make goal much later.

Most pilots stayed on the course line and were brought down by the weak lift in the irrigated areas.

I forgot to mention that the Flytec tug is here along with Russell Brown's favorite Bailey Moyes Dragonfly. Both these Dragonflies have the four stroke engines, so we get high very quickly.

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