The flex wing results.

The rigid wing results.

The Swift results.

The blogs of pilots here:

http://skyout.blogspot.com/

http://www.goflyxc.com/

The RUC forecast, which hasn't been doing all that well, called for a bit more lift, climbs to 10,000', and light winds. So the task committee gets excited again and calls a 70 mile triangle, like the first day, but a bit bigger.

The day turned out weaker than forecast and only six flex wing pilots, made it back to goal. Only two of the rigid wings (and, of course, Brian, on the Swift - commenting when he got to goal, that it was hard and that no flex wing would make it).

Lift was good at first and we got over 6,000' right away. While at first it looked like we'd start at the first start time, it turned out to be a false start and many pilots went back for the second time. We were circling just south of the airport (not controlled airspace).

A bunch of us headed off at 1:45 PM east toward the intersection at Valley. Down to 1,000'I found lift over a dust devil and a bunch of us were there for the ride up.

It was basically easy to get to the first turnpoint (see the results for the task), and then we headed south twenty two miles toward Eds south of Interstate 10. This is the leg were most (3/5th's) of the pilots went down.

The lift was weak and sporadic. Pilots were spread out. We struggled as we headed south. I was in contact with Jeff Shapiro so we flew together most of the way.

Three quarters of the way south Jeff got low and headed into a powerful looking dust devil having a hard time with it. I could see the dust devil from a long ways off and when I got there at Jeff's altitude the lift was weak even though the dust devil appeared powerful.

We took off when the bad lift got worse. Then things really got bad. A pilot who was with us but lower landed after we went on glide and I was bit over 300' above him working unorganized heat coming off the bare field where he was soon breaking down.

The lift was there, and a bit more than zero, so I stayed with it, ready to land with this unfortunate pilot at any minute. Jeff was just west of me in weak lift, but I was too low to get to him.

I slowly climbed out of this imminent landing and started looking for better lift as I got over 200' AGL. I saw a small feed lot just south of the freeway that looked black. Going over it and searching I found the lift that I had been hoping for and climbed to 7,200'.

Rounding the turnpoint, I was able to catch up with Jeff Shapiro. Dustin Martin was just over our heads, Chris Zimmerman was nearby and so was Greg Kendall. Jonny was just a few miles ahead.

The lift was weak and disorganized and while it helped us move along it didn't get us up much. Jeff was able to get over the nearby hills and landed three miles short of goal.

Andre Wolf also had a few low saves, one down to 500', and went on to win the day, once again.