The weather forecasts have proven to be fictions. High thin clouds
covered the Americus airfield all day while there were blue skies with cu's ten
or fifteen kilometers away. Unreachable from the launch, but so tantalizing.
Well at least the forecast for light winds was spot on.

To emphasize the craziness of the weather forecast we gave our presentations in
the USHPA's hanging pictures:

We called the launch to open at 12:30, but just before that we found out that
Evo Morales, the President of Bolivia, would be landing just about then. We all
thought that this was pretty cool (although the South and Central Americans had
strong opinions) and posed for a picture as his plane taxied to the apron.

We delayed the launch twenty minutes, and we were concerned that there wasn't
any lift as the sky was milky white and there were no cu's in our vicinity. The
task was a 113 KM FAI triangle, given the forecast for light winds, but would
there be any lift?

The early bird pilots launched, and a few of them stuck circling up from low
over the airport after falling down a substantial elevation. The pilots in
ordered launch stalled as it looked like they wouldn't be able to stay up.
Finally we decided that we had better get going as we couldn't change the task
or its timing. And the early birds who had stayed up were getting higher.

We were towed into an unpromising sky and soon the gaggle was filling up and
flattening out as we all tried to stay up in the very weak lift. For the next
hour we all battled with each other getting no where, with no one wanting to
head out along the course line low. We were able to get to 2,200' AGL at most.

Finally I had enough of this and went searching for better lift far away from
the gaggle and then decided to land after finding nothing. The gaggle behind me
was coincidentally losing its lift and almost all the pilots in it soon landed
after I did.

With the air cleared out I was soon ready to go again (while almost everyone
else sat around), but I had Jim Prahl take me toward the cu's to the north, away
from the course line to the southwest. I had to glide an additional 4.5
kilometers to get under the clouds I wanted to get under and I was down to 560'
AGL before I started going back up. I was six kilometers from the air field and
really needed to get back up if I was going to make it back at least that far.

Ricker had also been pulled out in my direction and he wasn't able to make it
back. I did finally climb back to 2,100' AGL and headed back to the airfield in
the hopes of getting another tow. I heard Larry, who had towed up just behind
Ricker, on the radio finding lift a short distance along the course line and
slowly heading to the southwest.

I just barely made it back to the field after a forty minute flight and with
some help got back in line for a third flight. The sky had not improved one bit
but there were plenty of cu's far away from us, some of them towering.

I was towed up now in the general direction of the course line. It was 3:50 PM.
I glided until I saw a few pilots turning right of the course line. We climbed
up 400' in light lift before it gave out and I went on glide below Greg Dinauer
who had launched just before me.

The glide was a final glide and pilots were spread out along highway 49.

Given the some pilots were towed too high the protest committee decided to
invalidate the day. It was only worth 56 points anyway.

http://flytecraceandrally.wordpress.com