oliver gregory () writes:

I have an new respect for what it takes to get this stuff out after a long day. I'm tired but very pleased and happy to be involved with such an incredible bunch of volunteers and pilots. I have a few things attached and hope you can link them in. Jeff Nibbler has a C pilots report on yesterday with some pictures. Lucas Ridley has a YouTube video of his first ever XC where he made it to goal with his buddies helping him along and caught a quarry dust cloud explosion!

Sure are having fun here! It is impressive how smoothly things are going. We have a bunch of nice people all having a fun time and helping each other out. The seminars here have been truly exceptional with Mike Barber and Kevin Carter teaching our eager Cs, Bs and A pilots as much as they can absorb every evening.

We have a neat format with every team supplying task and safety committee members. Glider performance, pilot experience and number of team members are all weighted to keep the emphasis on A pilots helping the Bs and Cs get to goal. Local pilots just give the task guys the weather forecast, and suggest fun options to run. After a little discussion they choose what they want to do for a task and everyone gets going. It's been fun with good weather the first 3 days. See the Jeff Nibbler's report attached about day 3's task.

Today, day 4, we had an incredible Blipper forecast, but we saw lots of clouds to our south that looked like it could move to us and sure enough it did. We had a cloud deck with a few tiny holes move over us. Launch conditions were sweet, but it sure didn't look like a soaring day. Terry Presley (T2), Mike Barber (Litespeed S), Alain "Frenchie" Azurmendi (Talon) and Steve Lee on the VR were our super wind technicians. They proved it was soarable with a little ridge lift and soft thermals blowing through. Several teams got someone off with the E-Team launching their entire team, Kevin Carter launched with some of his guys and other teams sent a few competitors. The Cs and Bs that launched were smooth and generally making good decisions, but pilots that didn't hop on every opportunity to climb above the ridge in the light thermals were soon in the Whitwell LZ. Bryon Estes (E-Team) on an antique Ram Air made it out a few miles to score some XC points!

It was light conditions, but the lift was soft and friendly. We had sweet launch winds all day. Sure looked like fun till the cloud deck started dropping a patch of drizzle here and there. Mike, Terry and Steve went out to land at the Church LZ not wanting to land out and get wet, but wiley old Jim Lamb on that new beautiful VQ, wiley old Dave Hopkins on my first old ATOS, Stan Roberts on the Phantom, and Kevin Carter on the T2 hung on and moved away from the Whitwell launch area. There were very few holes in the cloud deck, but it was obvious that the deck was generally thin with only had a few scattered areas dropping the light drizzle. Unfortunately a couple of spots with the moist stuff lined up on launch and forced a lot of pilots to wait.

We have such a helpful group of pilots. While the little drizzle line moved through, Steve Larson noticed a problem with one launch assist loop on his Exxtacy. Mark Stump and a few others jumped on it and had a new system set up quickly. Steve finally launched ahead of the next line of drizzle and made it out 6 miles to land just past the Gaps to the north of Whitwell. There were more little wet patches scattered around here and there.

It seemed like it was all over, but it was better than it looked! We were all watching for a sign but it was almost completely overcast. However we heard from some of the big dogs on course that it was light and smooth, but doable. Eric Donaldson an A pilot on the Pig Sticker Team flying an old Concept got his guys motivated, and sure enough a few swallows started climbing right in front of launch. Eric, Alex Holsted (B) on an S2, Peter Kane (A) on his T2 and Lucas Ridley (C) on an UltraSport launched into some super smooth, super light air. Peter chose a little different line and ended up at the church LZ. Lucas missed a bump and had to leave his brothers and land at the church LZ. We all gazed in amazement as Eric and Alex flew smooth circle after smooth circle and moved very slowly down the ridge and out of sight. Sure looked like fun! Kinda looked like magic! Alex was really getting everything possible out of the S2, "I had the VG all the way on and heard the vario beep now and then, but it was the smoothest lift I've ever flown in!" Eric got only 4.6 miles out, but no one on launch (except maybe me!) Thought anything but a sledder was possible. Alex was milking everything and made it out 8.2 miles for a great score!

Meanwhile, the A pilot leaders who had survived long enough to watch their Bs and Cs land were moving on toward the first turnpoint to the north 11.5 miles away. Dave Hopkins landed at 7.5 miles. Stan Roberts on the Phantom landed at 9.6 miles. Kevin Carter was running with Jim Lamb with the VQ. Jim was a little higher and sitting pretty. Kevin said, "He took me along till the gaps, then left me in nursery school!" Kevin had a great flight and landed at 10.8 miles.

Jim was able to get out and ahead of the cloud deck. A few miles past the gaps he found some less shady and eventually partly sunny sky and nice lift in the 200 to 400 fpm range. He made it to Sandifer's field for a great flight of 33.6 miles. The day was over called by the task committee with goal for A's to come back from Sandifer's to Dunlap. Jim decided to land at Sandifer's rather than go back under the cloud deck. This was the B pilot goal called this morning when Dr Jack was making everyone think the day was gonna be incredible.

It was an incredibly fun day at the TTT Team Challenge!

Tonight we've enjoyed another great talk from Mike Barber. Kevin and Mike along with our local experts have been so generously sharing their knowledge! Incredible stuff every day so far!

After 4 fun days, here's how it stands. The Air Hogs from AR are in first place in the how much fun and how much can I help my buddies competition! Soooiee!!!

With the weighting for their 4 member team helping them, the T-51 team led by Jim Lamb and his super C pilot Jeff Nibbler are in first place! They've had only 3 pilots on day one and 4 pilots since then. We've tried to prorate for teams with fewer pilots which in some ways favor the smaller teams with a hot shot A+ pilot and a solid C pilot.

The second place E-Team has been flying well with As getting good scores on the first couple of days and Super C Byron Estes scoring every day. Their As were holding their own today.

Third place is the "Pig Sticker" team from Lookout. They are all king posted except Peter Kane on his T2. I don't think they have anything against the Air Hogs! . With only 4 pilots and super C Lucas Ridley kicking butt the prorating seems to be helping them too!

Forth place team is the Romantic Sheep lead by Mark Fink and his super C Craig Stanley.

In fifth place are the Leaky Radiators led by local Jeff Laughery on his Talon and Ben DeGaris on his Litespeed.

In sixth place are my favorite team the Arkansas Air Hogs. Mark Stump and Barron McKinley are helping Walter Jordan (B Pilot), Keith Atkins (C) and Steve Prater (C) get XC experience. Walter had his longest flight yesterday, flying 13.6 miles to GOAL!!! The day before the entire Air Hog team and their driver Colin Hodsdon helped a local land owner put out a big grass fire resulting in everlasting good will for the Tree Toppers!

In seventh place is the KC and The Sunshine Bandits team. Kevin Carter is the hardest working A+ pilot here for sure. I hear report after report of how he's trying his best to help his guys, but they have had some bad luck even though Kevin had done his best. After his team mates have flared, he's run on for solid scores.

Here's a report on day 3 from Jeff Nibler. Jeff is one of the C's in the meet. He's on Jim Lamb's team and doing very well. Very bright young man.

Day 5 is a rain day with light sprinkles mostly and a nice shower now and then. We've had so many clinics and talks, it is like going to soaring college!

Tuesday, Day 3 by Jeff Nibler

The wind was forecasted to be less than Monday which was a good thing; about 6-8 knots from the East and the lift about 450fpm. The Skew-Ts showed a substantial inversion at about 4k and that seemed to be accurate from what I experienced during my flight. The task called was 13.6 miles for both the B and C pilots. This was due to the lack of available "officially designated" Lzs in the down-wind direction so the first available was chosen. "Officially designated" simply means the club has received specific, recent permission for a large number of pilots to land there. Aside from the official Lzs, many fields dot the valley making landing out generally very easy. The A-pilots had to fly over the B and C goal then fly back to land at the LZ below launch in Whitwell.

Pilots launched a little earlier today, the first in the air at about 12:15. Two out of the first five got up to the right (down wind) and the other three sunk out to the Castle LZ. From what I saw, nothing was working right out in front of the launch; pilots had to glide a long way to the right before they seemed to hit the first spot that was working. The rigids seemed to have the easiest time, arriving in the lift with decent altitude. Some other pilots tried to reach it but failed as the spot was cycling and not always on. There was no ridge lift today due to the crossed wind direction so if you didn't get up in a thermal, you couldn't rely on the ridge lift to buy you time.

I backed away from launch twice thinking I wouldn't be able to make it to the lift with enough altitude to work. Finally a thermal cycle came right through launch. I got back in line behind Richard Milla from Fort Worth Texas. I watched him launch, shoot up into the lift, then head to the right. The thermal was too close to the ridge to circle, but hopefully it would be enough to stretch out my glide to the working portion of the ridge. I launched seconds later and headed for the gaggle. Along the way I hit a few small bumps and some zero sink, but thankfully no huge areas of sink. By the time I made it to the active thermal, I was just below ridge level.

Three or four of us worked that thermal to about 1k over launch. At this point the inversion was obvious…. A thick brown haze on the horizon. I never broke through it and it seemed only a few other pilots were able to. Steve Larson was my escort, flying an Exxtacy. Because he is on the safety committee, he was required to launch last on our team. Steve caught up to me in this first thermal and we climbed together to the inversion.

Most of the pilots seemed to hang around the lift at the bottom of the inversion, possibly hoping to break through it. Since the lift had given up on me at the inversion and since I didn't have clear radio communication with Steve, I decided to go on glide at only ~1200 over. As I looked back, I saw at least eight gliders gaggled at lift I left behind.

This was my first real XC so I spent most of my glide time eyeing the fields trying to determine the best and safest LZ, and the rest of my time looking out for other gliders thermaling ahead of me. A few minutes later, I saw a topless and a rigid pass me from above. I recognized the rigid as my team-mate Steve Larson. He must have seen me go on glide and wanted to continue escorting me toward goal. Up ahead, just past the next gap, I saw two gliders carving hard and going up incredibly fast. Steve and the topless ahead of me made it and joined him, but I got there too low and too late. It looked like it was all over for me so I turned out to the valley, unzipped and started my approach over a nice looking field. I luckily hooked a nice tight thermal 500' over this field and rode it back to ridge level, then lost it and found another closer in to the ridge. That took me to 2k over the ridge. By this time Steve assumed I landed out so he had pushed on. I was on my own, though I did notice a yellow and white topless circling above me. I later found out this was Jeff Laughery.

I continued on, climbing and going on glide several more times without getting below ridge level. During my fourth climb, I could see what appeared to be the goal. I was using a GPS and radio generously loaned to me by my team-mate Tom Primavera from Ohio. I wasn't used to the GPS so about all I could tell from it was that I was nearing goal. The description given of the goal matched what I saw so when I hit the inversion again, I pointed out toward the valley and went on final. As I neared the field, I saw one glider on the ground and another on approach so I knew I'd made it.

After an almost eventful landing (eight feet off the ground, a thermal moving through the LZ kicked my right wing up quite a ways), I joined Eric Donaldson and Lindsey Chew in the LZ. Shortly after I landed, Lucas Ridley landed as well. Two C-pilots achieved their first XC today, Lucas Ridley and myself; making goal made it all the sweeter. My total air-time was one hour and twenty two minutes. Two other C pilots made goal today including Bryon Estes and Lindsey Chew, both from Ellenville NY. All the commotion in the LZ was too much for the locals; a couple of friendly law enforcement officers showed up along with a local news crew who interviewed a few of the pilots.

Kevin Carter impressed quite a few people by repeatedly sacrificing a ton of altitude to dive down and help the B and C pilots on his team who were struggling down low.

At 8pm, we gathered back at Henson's to discuss the day's events. Topics included how accurate the forecast was, what tactics worked and what did not, as well as a play-by-play of Kevin Carter's flight log projected up on a screen and some comments from other pilots. Dr Jack's forecast ended up being just about spot-on. After the talk, pilots gathered to share stories and the B and C pilots hounded the A pilots for tips and tricks. I have probably learned more in one day here than I have in six months of recreational flying. The information and feedback you receive about the day and your flight from the A and B pilots is invaluable to making you a better pilot.

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