The Event

Okay, I let this go for too long. I meant to have been posting all along during the event, but it was just too intense. And then once home ... my hard-drive crashed ... life goes on.

It was a great experience. Clearly well organized by the Haley's (three cheers for Mike and Gail!!); well supported by great volunteers (Tom Chestnut, Jim Macklow, Hayden Glatte, and many others, MAHALO! ); we were welcomed by the town and perhaps a bit begrudgingly by the RVHPA (I don't blame them, I know it would be tough on Hawaii having a hundred-plus pilots descend upon our site and fly-in); and I met many warm wonderful helpful people; too bad the weather was a bit cranky.




I had one of my top five most dangerous flying experiences ever (more to come below later); but also had three of my top five XC flights ever.


Just for fun to get this started, here's the animation of my last flight of the comp flying with Bruce Goldsmith (sort of).

It was a fishbowl type task where we flew around the Applegate valley twice, then crossed over the back toward Medford.

I got started a bit later than Bruce, so he's already gone around the bowl once without stopping for lift, while I am just working my way up above launch. Just when he gets back to launch at 13:55pm and starts tanking up for his second go around, I'm off to the races, heading for Burnt and Rabies Ridge.

Getting close to the Rabies TP (turnpoint), I see people groveling near the TP and others off to the west working a nice thermal. As I'm heading for the TP, it just doesn't seem like I'll have enough to make it there and reliably get to the thermal, so I make the conservative choice to go tank up in the thermal. I work the thermal for about 15 minutes netting 500 meters. Just as I'm leaving the thermal at 14:15pm, Bruce is picking it up just 300m below me. Could I have actually helped Bruce find the thermal?!? Well, I guess there were a bunch others there, too.










Of course, it took Bruce less than five minutes to top the thermal whereas it took me ten (plus another five wasted floundering around trying to squeeze more out of it than it had to give). And his climbs were so smooth!! Look how smooth his vario altitude readout is compared to my jaggedy graph.

Meanwhile, I had departed to go back northeast to tag the Rabies TP. Just as he is topping out his smooth climb at 14:20pm, I return to the same thermal now just 200 meters below him. Thanks for returning the favor, Bruce. :-)

From there it only took him another 25 minutes to reach goal for sixth place. I flew for another 1:15, including the dreaded saga of this poorgirl's pisspoor performance at the Poorman's TP, not nearly making goal, but turning in an overall satisfying (and supremely enjoyable) performance. The saga to be posted later ...


That's our flying lesson for today. Look for Bruce. Fly like Bruce. But let Bruce be Bruce. And I'll be me.

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How did I miss Poorman's? I'm not very good judging distances. I did not know what the actual turnpoint was, and for me not knowing the area, Poorman's didn't give a good description. My GPS was showing I was heading right for it, 800m to go, then 700 m, ... , but I didn't know what "it" looked like. I was on glide, and not feeling any lift, so I wanted to be able to take my eyes off the GPS and start scoping out lift. I looked and tried to guess what feature in my path might be called "Poorman's." I decided it must be this one particular knoll at the end of a spine. I just kept heading for that as I was then starting to concentrate on watching what was happening with the few pilots I could see. Were they going up? Where was it they were turning? What features on the ground looked like thermal generators? I might have even turned once in some light lift. Nonetheless, at some point, thinking I was getting close to the TP, I looked at my GPS and saw that I was now further from it than when I last looked! At about 1.2 km away! And it was behind and to my left. I paged through the screens on my GPS to see my track, and could then see that I had skirted outside the cylinder. Aaargh! Nothing to do but head back. Upwind. Major mistake. Sky was overcast, not much lift to be found. Lift getting skinnier the lower I got. Almost better to keep going straight. But then had to think about landing.


Found a nice field. Not a soul around, until as I walked to the edge of the field, Roger Marsh and a couple others drove up. They had landed in the same field just a little while before. It was comforting company after my little disappointment.


Still, I was pretty happy with making it to the last TP before goal. Yet I can't help but wonder, what if? I had pretty good altitude heading to the Poorman's TP, how close could I have gotten to goal, even if I didn't find any more lift? Might I have made goal????????????????????

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Ohmigod, that girl is gonna die!

My first launch of the comp seemed to go well, although just after launch, I felt something between the seat and my legs. My seat board has a lip that can fold back, although it didn't feel quite the same....

I headed over to the corner of the gulley where I knew there was a
good house thermal. I slowed in it, and just as I started to turn
back to benefit more from it -- WHACK! What the hey?!?!
I went hands up, and checked my glider, and as my eyes came back down
I saw the speed system was nearly 2/3 engaged. Ohhh, so that's what's
pulling up under my legs. Well, I fly with speedbar on all the time,
no big deal right? Still, in the back of my mind, I know that at my skill level, and relative inexperience with thermal flying, flying with the speed system on would seriously degrade my chances for success at staying in the narrow cores low and succeeding in the comp. And while I also knew that flying in thermals with speedbar on could lead to increased risk of collapse, I didn't expect my DHV1-2 glider to have much trouble. Cautiously flying away from the hill, I tried pulling
my legs up as much as possible to release some of the speed system, but it was no use. Efforts to remove the speedbar from under my legs were futile. Further, the lack of active piloting while trying to do so resulted in instability and whacks and dangerous turning toward the hill and tall trees below. Non-active piloting during an attempt to undo the sister clips was rewarded with a big whack,
turn, collapse, surge. I later heard that the launch director "closed" launch after witnessing this, not knowing what the cause was. After dampening the surge, I looked for and grabbed my reserve handle, then as the glider levelled out again --
it occurred to me: HOOKKNIFE! With a quick snip-snip, the background music of my flying went from Metallica to Mozart, and I glided away relatively peacefully.

Analysis and experimentation later revealed that the speedbar was
probably twisted from the act of so much walking over level ground
before launching. With the lines shortened in this way, it got
sucked up between my legs and the seat when the glider came up.
In my six years of flying with this harness/speedbar combination,
I simply had not had this situation before. I have since found a
way to keep the speedbar from dragging on the ground prior to launch.


I had expected to find the speedbar still wedged under my legs upon
landing, but alas, it was lost somewhere in the halfmile of hillside
from launch to landing. :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(

Later, I went back up to launch, and the owner of Airwave gave me
a brand new speedbar -- which I am still using, but I still miss
my Skydive-Chris special bar. Relaunches were not scored, so even
though I made several turnpoints, I got zero for the day. Still,
my biggest disappointment was the loss of that bar.