Big Spring US Nationals
Ah, here we are in hang gliding paradise. It is not a beautiful wilderness. It is not a romantic valley near the Alps. There are no mountains. It is as flat as it gets. It's hot. It's dry. It's great for flying hang gliders.
The local folks (those who can handle living here) are very helpful and friendly. They seem to truly love having us come back to Big Spring and go hang gliding. We have great facilities, which the pilots very much appreciate. And unlike King Mountain, you don't have to risk your life to do well (this based on my experience flying in the Nationals there, and from comments made to me by a pilot who flew in the co-Nationals there this year). It's a style of hang gliding that rewards making strategically correct decisions, not being able to stay up in white knuckle conditions.
The forecast was similar to the one for Sunday. The south winds were forecasted to be a little lighter than the day before, but in the morning we were getting 18 mph winds gusting to 24 mph. The forecast was for 16 mph at the airport by 1 PM.
Yesterday we had a forecast for the dry line to effect us from the west late in the day. It in fact did come toward us and some pilots who were very late were put down as the shade came over the course line going to the Town and Country airfield just south of Lubbock air space. The forecast for Monday contained the possibility of the dry line effecting us again reducing the lift from the west. So the task committee looked at tasks that would keep us a ways away from these effects and maybe wouldn't be quite as long.
Even with the 15 mph predicted south winds through the boundary layer we decided again to go for a zig zag task, to provide a better test for pilots and to make it so we didn't have to drive back so late from goal. We chose to send people north up to highway 87 to where it turns northwest, then back (like yesterday) to Welch northwest of Lamesa, our western most turnpoint from Sunday, then to the Tbar goal, an airfield on highway 87 south of Town and Country. It was a 138 km cross wind task (or so we thought at first).
We set the times the same, launch at 1 PM and first start time at 2 PM. The clouds were already forming off to the northeast at noon, but nothing was forming over the airport. The pilots staged their gliders again south of the hangar on the interior grass (dirt) around 12:30 PM. There were clouds forming all around, but not at the airport.
We waited to see if the cu's would start happening nearby. None of the pilots wanted to be the first ones to go. By about 1:30 PM there were a few cu's not too far to the west of the airport. Chris Zimmerman came out from the hangar on his private cart and got in the launch line. I got in right behind him with Derreck Turner right behind me. Suddenly the launch line that was empty was full with Zippy and the Jeffs rushing out of the hangar and into the line, and Larry Bunner who set up next to me, had to slide in behind Derreck.
With three tugs, Chris, Derreck and I were towed up first and formed a little triad. We all climbed up in the same thermal over the airport and then went over to the east to get south of the first turnpoint, which was only 22 km away. There were plenty of clouds in that direction and we climbed out with Chris a little lower.
Derreck and I headed north and silently made the decision to fly together (and with Chris if he could catch up). I was on the radio with Zac, O'Brien, and Shapiro, and essentially flying as a team, but I was out in front and could radio back the required information. They were going to wait a bit at the edge of the 15 km start cylinder. Derreck and I were going out in front.
We headed down highway 87 and found lift at the first turnpoint which was just 7 km past the cylinder edge. There was lift right there at the turnpoint and plenty of cu's around. We were racing along.
After flying in the cu's for 13 km past the first turnpoint, we head west northwest to get under a line of clouds to our west. We had been right on the course line and now we were heading up wind of the course line. The winds were actually right down the course line, but the cu's were to the right.
We got under the cu's and stayed up but the lift was not great. We wanted to stay way out in front of the rest of the US National team (Derreck didn't have radio contact with them). On the previous day Derreck had found much better lift out in this area and won the day. It wasn't working as well for us on Monday.
We were still working to the northwest but we were now 7 km southwest of the course line while our buddies were hanging closer to the course line. We got south of Lamesa and got under a dark, thick cloud street, the best so far and climbed up to over 7,000'. This is where we split up.
I headed out first but went further west not going under the north/south cloud street which headed back toward the course line. Derreck saw the relatively poor prospects for cu's to the west and took the cloud street to the north and got back near the course line. He said that he didn't have to turn until he was within ten miles of the second turnpoint.
While I knew that the wind was out of the southwest I really didn't understand that well enough and that I didn't need to go west any more, especially as there weren't that many cu's lining up to the west. They were there but I had a much more difficult time relative to Derreck, finding lift.
I did find lift and came up 12 km south of the turnpoint with a 15 mph south southwest wind. I was able to glide over to the turnpoint coming in low at 1,400' AGL while I watched Zippy, Glen and O'Brien high above me. They also soon caught up with Derreck.
I dug it out from the turnpoint and went over to join John Hesch. Jeff Shapiro was just south of us and radioed to me that he was climbing. I went toward him and we climbed to 8,400', the highest of the day. We were 36 km out from the goal. We faced a cross wind task. We had a northeast leg and a southwest wind.
Fortunately there were still a good number of cu's and good lift associated with them, once you found it. All of us made it into goal with two more climbs.
Lots of folks made it to goal. The National team, Derreck, Soderquist, Pete Lehmann, John Hesch, many others. The results will be up soon.
http://OzReport.com/1249959755
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