I thought we'd never beat the fantastic soaring weather and the great line up of speakers we had for Team Challenge 2007, but we did. BY A LOT!
We stayed at Henson's every day. Only Wednesday was called due to high winds, but high wind aficionados flew for fun. Every day was soarable and good for XC for those with solid thermal soaring skills. Camping was so pleasant! It never felt too hot. Fall is wonderful in Tennessee Tree Toppers land!
We had fine meals on site made by Tennessee Tree Toppers volunteers. Aldonna had breakfast ready for us right on site every morning. The dinners for affordable donations were a big hit. I'm hungry for some of Jeff's cooking now! Jeff Wilson fed us like kings and queens. Dinner menus included ribeye steaks, pork butt, chicken and gourmet burgers and fantastic sides.
I can't say enough about the Tennessee Tree Toppers volunteers. The place looked great. The hand outs were excellent. The launch crew was top notch. We had excellent help all week! Tennessee Tree Toppers supporters were very creative this year. We had homemade Tennessee Tree Toppers soap, cologne, stickers, magnets, gift boxes, Tennessee Tree Toppers license plates and cards for sale to help with fund raising for our Whitwell LZ Field of Dreams project.
I want to thank those industry supporters who contributed items to award to our pilots. Steve Kroop of Flytec USA, Wills Wing, Kraig Coomber of Moyes USA, LMFP all helped out with great hang gliding bling. And, of course, we want to thank you, Davis, for getting the word out on the Oz Report!
We went high tech this year with video and Power Point presentations! Every evening and all day on the windy day we enjoyed great seminars. Our great A pilots were helping out in every way possible. Mark Stump led the Arkansas Air Hogs and did his hilariously funny talk on assessing the air and one's personal skills in the context of the micro meteorology of the day. Mike Barber became our most professional wind technician, did several excellent talks ranging from XC decision making, to landing video clinics and safe flying. Boy, Mike pulled us this year! Thanks Mike!
Hang gliding author, Dennis Pagen led a team, led a wonderfully effective video launch technique seminar where every launch was analyzed. Dennis promotes the prolonged grape vine launch technique and it works great. My launch technique certainly improved due to this unique seminar. Dennis also did a great "Scratching" seminar for soaring in light lift.
Jim Lamb led the Ohio Flyers to second place, did a fantastic "Soaring 101" that explained polars, thermal soaring efficiently and using the MacCready function correctly. For a lot of the C's, this talk was a little over their heads, but all the A's and B's were nodding and smiling enthusiastically as Jim made points we put to use the next day.
Terry Presley substituted for an absent A pilot, pulled a C to goal, made goal himself so the team scored big that day! (They won overall!) Terry also did a seminar on "XC Landing Field Assessment." We learned to read the terrain, look for hazards and set up good approaches over unfamiliar fields. His seminar also included short field landing techniques. I didn't hear of anyone needing to use the short field techniques, because the Sequatchie has so many big fields, but the guys were ready. Kevin Carter led a team and gave a great "Gettin' Ready to Race" seminar addressing the unique skills needed to move up to XC racing.
We followed the format set a couple years back. We called conservative tasks for C's, B's and challenging tasks for A's. The scoring system is designed to heavily handicap A pilots on super ships, but our A's were so good, they were scoring more than the C's who made their goals. C's who were making shorter goals got big multipliers of their milages. In the spirit of Team Challenge, we made a big adjustment mid week. The adjustment resulted in all pilots at every level getting a score of 100 when they made their goal. We made this scoring format retroactive to the first day. The handicaps were simply accomplished by the progressively tougher tasks for the 3 classes. A's still got bonuses for "really, really" helping their C's make goal. This put the scoring emphasis back on the C's and turned the scores around and away from teams loaded with A's. At any other comp, fist fights would have broken out, but everyone at Team Challenge welcomed the adjustment which rewarded the C's for their flights.
Courses always overlapped so the A's could help their team mates make their shorter goals before the A's took off for their more challenging task. We usually did race track or out and back, and repeat tasks so the A's could stay with their team and help the less experienced pilots. A good example is the last task. We called a C pilot goal to Galloway Airport 5 miles into the valley on a light wind day. B pilot task was to fly to Galloway and back to Henson's LZ for a about 9.5 miles. The A pilot task was fly to Galloway, back to Henson's, back to Galloway and back to Henson's to land for a task of almost 20 miles.
This format keeps the A pilots flying with or overlapping their team and allows the A pilots to get a section of their task done while their C's and B's made the shorter goals or missed it the first time. We allowed as many reflights as possible as long as the landing was in one of the designated LZ's. Actually all relights got bonus reflight points.
This is what happened to me on the last day. I love my Pale Glider Team, but they had a tough last day. I launched right with most of my C pilot buddies but they all missed the light thermals and landed. I got up and ran the first lap with my free flying buddy James Stinnett. When I got back to Henson's after lap one, I waited around in yo yo mode till my team set up again to re-fly.
I spiraled down to take off height when they got close to the front of the launch line. This allowed me to fly with them a second time. I helped as much as possible, as did one of my VR flying friends David Giles. I know it was kinda cheating to have Dave on his VR space ship spiraling down with me to get below launch and help out, but that day, my guys needed all the help they could get!
We did everything but throw 'em a rope! Unfortunately, the guys still didn't get their climb tickets punched, so I ran the second lap of the task with my friend Dave. Lots of fun, but it would have been even sweeter if we'd pulled some of the boys out to their goal.
This meet was all about the C's and B's. I want to thank all the A pilots who spent the week working with their less experienced team mates. I'm happy to say that all 4 of my C pilots made their XC goals at least once this week. I believe all of my guys had their longest XC flights this week! It was clear all 52 competitors had a blast and many pilots had personal bests this meet.
Here's how the teams ended up after a 6 days of Team Challenge flying:
In Tenth place were Team Mountaineers with A pilots Will Jenkins on a topless, A Jim Rowan on a double surface. A pilot Patrick Brooks on a double surface. A pilot Patrick Brooks on a double surface, A pilot Pat Halfill on a double surface, A pilot John McAllister on a topless.
In Ninth place were the Arkansas Air Hogs. They had 6 and flew 5 a day. They were loaded with A+ pilot and my best old flying buddy Mark Stump on a VQ, A pilot Barron McKinley on an ATOS C, B pilot Walter Jordan on a double surface, B pilot Butch Pritchett on a topless, C pilot Steve Prater on a double surface, and my old buddy Miller Stroud making his comeback to hang gliding on an ancient wing, the Manta Fledge IIB! The last time I flew with Miller, I was on one too! On that last day, Dave Giles and I were spiraling down to get with my C's when Miller launched. I asked Dave if he'd ever seen one of those funny looking wings before. Dave said, "Maybe in a museum!"
In Eighth place were The Leftovers with A+ pilot Bruce Engen on a VX, B pilot Kinsley Sykes on a topless, C pilot Jonathan Small on a double surface, C pilot Rodger Tubbs on a double surface, and C pilot Kevin Sheridan on a double surface.
In Seventh place were Team Colorado with A pilot Jeff Laughery on a topless, B pilot Fred Kaemerer on a double surface, B pilot Shawn Banks on a double surface, B pilot John Wilber on a double surface and C pilot Rick Maddy on a double surface.
In Sixth place were my boys! The Pale Gliders had 6 and flew 5 a day. Our team was full of talent with C pilots Colin Hodson on a double surface, Jake Mitchell on a double surface, Jeff Bozart on a double surface and Ricker "The Ringer" Goldsborough on a double surface. My old buddy A pilot Larry Snyder flew in from Seattle WA, rented a Sport 2 from Lookout and had a blast. I was on The Pale Glider VR and am ranked A+. We had a so much FUN!!!
In Fifth place were Team B'Low Me Again with A+ team leader Dennis Pagen on a topless, A pilot Stephen Krichen on a topless, B pilot Jesse Fulkersin on a Topless, C pilot Donald Campasino on a double surface, and C pilot Edward Jowett on a double surface.
In Fourth place were The Comp Concepts with A++ pilot Kevin Carter leading, B pilot Jeff Nibler on a double surface, B pilot Bryon Estes on a topless, B pilot Peter Kane on a topless, and C pilot William Estes on a double surface.
In Third place were The E Team with A+ pilot Dave Hopkins on an ATOS B with a tail and modified spoilers, A pilot Stan Roberts on a Phantom, B pilot Lindsey Chew on a double surface, C pilot James Donovan on a double surface, and C pilot Gavin Riley on a double surface.
In Second place, was Team Ohio led by "The Man" Jim Lamb A++ on an ATOS VQ that my old buddy Miller took home with him after the dust settled. The rest of the Ohio boys are C pilot Terry Mull n a double surface, C pilot Mark Thogmartin on a double surface, C pilot Christopher Thale on a double surface, and B pilot Crain Hassen on a double surface
Winning it all, a team with some local boys leading was Team Thermal Underware. The Underwares were made up of A pilot Eric Donaldson on a WW T2, A pilot Lucas Ridley on a Litespeed S, C pilot William Baker on a double surface, B pilot Keith Smith on a U2, and Bob Belshan on a double surface.
I can't wait to do it again next year. Team Challenge is evolving in a very interesting and healthy way. Just don't miss it next year! The winning Thermal Underwear team was led by super duper A's Eric Donaldson and Lucas Ridley. They were the coolest team leaders beyond a doubt! Here's the story of the Thermal Underware A leader and prototype Team Challenge pilot Lucas Ridley. Thanks Lucas for all the help with the write up! In Lucas' words:
My Team Challenge history begins one year ago, the day before the meet started was the first day I thermal soared! I went into that meet a new H3 with only ridge soaring under my belt. Now, a year later, I am a leading a team with Eric Donaldson. Because of that one week of flying a year ago I was propelled into another dimension of hang gliding that would have taken much longer to find on my own, if at all. After Team Challenge 2007, I flew all winter and spring and got up the nerve up to go to the East Coast Championships. I was hooked! Only two months later I went to the Big Spring Championship. All this within less than a year of Team Challenge.
I credit Tennessee Tree Toppers's incredible meet with motivating me to fly a lot and teaching me cross country skills. Otherwise, I think I would have puttered around my home site for another year or two before I built up the courage to venture out.
Encouragement is where Team Challenge really excels. Team Challenge like meets can do a lot for our sport by creating opportunities for those pilots in H2 purgatory who have not had a formal introduction to cross country flying or competition to try it out in a welcoming environment. Heck, Kevin Carter's first competition was a Team Challenge and he went on to be a World team member and comes back to help give seminars and lead his own teams. Ollie's H2 driver even learned a lot just from listening to the seminars and the radio each day and plans to come back next year on a team.
I have new respect for what A-pilots do and what Mike Barber does all the time when helping out lower air time pilots. It adds a new dynamic to not only try to make your goal, but fly as a team and help others along. Many times that required spiraling down to be at the same level with those you were trying to help and sacrificing altitude that you've struggled to achieve.
One of the best video seminars featured Dennis Pagen critiquing everyone's launch! Not to say you can't pop your nose with the grapevine grip, but the worst launches I witnessed were using the bottle grip. I think everyone took something away from the talk, and here are a few example pictures of what we saw:
The first and second photo sets show how easy it is to pop your nose with the bottle grip where the only contact with the glider is through the hands, not the shoulders. The next two photos show what most people did at the meet: start with grapevine and transition to the bottle grip during the launch sequence. Dennis called this transition 'unnecessary' and felt it still allows for an opportunity to pop the nose. Bottle vs. Grapevine:
The last two sets of photos show holding the grapevine grip throughout the launch sequence by allowing the hands to slide down the downtubes as the glider begins to lift above the pilot. The shoulders lock the glider to the pilots body as it continues to lift, enabling three axis control during the entire launch sequence.
That is just one example from the many great seminars that were given by the pro's that came out to volunteer their knowledge, many thanks to them! I hope to go to more competitions in the future and it all started at Team Challenge where I continued to learn so much this year. I would encourage all H2's to try to get their H3 by next Team Challenge so you can get signed up early. It filled up early this year, and I anticipate it filling up even sooner this coming year. See you there! Lucas Ridley
Below are some of the comments made on our club email list after the event and links to videos from the event:
There is a loss for words on how to express my deepest appreciation for all who contributed to this years team challenge. I am blessed to know that there is NO where else in the world that you can go to learn at this level from the best pilots ever. (This is history in the making)
The level of knowledge at this event was unprecedented. We had the top pilots there to teach us what they know. It is one thing to be a great pilot and another to have the ability and willingness to teach others. The best pilots in the world were there and ALL of them knew how to share their knowledge with passion and a genuine loving spirit.
I THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING SO GENEROUS WITH YOUR SHARING AND TEACHING. The knowledge base was HUGE! Even our drivers were amazed in what they learned.
Ollie, I have to give you thanks for keeping a tight hold on the leash. Even when you are stressed out you have a rather calming nature about you. You are truly blessed with many positive personality traits that I hope to obtain in the years to come.
Congratulations Bill for clenching the "C" pilot Rookie of the Year award. You truly earned it.
