Ollie Gregory <<olliettt1955>>
writes:

Hope it's warm and sunny where you are! The Tennessee Tree Toppers
are moving along with preparation for the Biwingual Team Challenge set for April
17-23. Spring brings phenomenal soaring to the Sequatchie valley. The cool
nights and warm afternoons generate the kind of thermals that dreams are made
of, and make camping a joy as well! We have 40 pilots registered with about a
third paragliding pilots so far. We cap at 60. We have four nice launches now,
two on each side of the valley! We can handle a crowd and welcome free flyers
before, after, and during lulls in the competition action! TTT is thankful for
all the great support from our sponsors and the legends in the sport who have
made TC the premier educational event for learning and mentoring XC flying.
Special thanks to Mikey Barber and Denis Pagen for years of support! We want to
give back! This is going to be an extra special Team Challenge! If you are
getting good at thermal soaring and want to connect the dots to go some where,
this TC is for you! If you want to get ready for some of the sport class or open
class competitions and would like to learn how to put it all together, this meet
is for you! If you are a grizzly soar dog with thousands of miles of XC
experience and want to pass this treasure of knowledge on, we need you! Bring
it!

OK! This is how TC rolls. We'll meet, greet and register all afternoon Saturday
April 16th at our Henson Gap Pavilion. We will build teams Saturday night and
Sunday morning. Our mentoring format pairs skilled A pilot mentors with B and C
pilot team mates. A typical team would have two A pilots a B and a C pilot. Each
team chooses a task committee member and a safety committee member. The scoring
program normalizes every team, no matter the make up, to be able to achieve a
maximum score of 1,000 points. The C's are weighted more heavily than the B's.
The A pilots are significantly handicapped, though they have a big job to do,
and longer, more challenging tasks.

Tasks are designed to offer a good chance for the various level of pilot to make
their XC goals. Typically, the C's XC goal is fairly close. The B Pilot goal is
often twice that distance or maybe an out and back. The A goal may be two times
the distance of the B goal, or require a valley crossing. To win, a team must
get their C's and B's to their goals. A Pilots help their team win by flying
wing man until their peeps have their goals. A's are typically in the air for
hours to do this and then go on to complete their longer tasks! This has been a
great format! When task legs overlap, there are thermal markers everywhere!

A typical day offers many opportunities to learn from the best! We have
breakfast and weather work up together under the pavilion. The work up is
projected for all to see. This offers those interested in the weather a chance
to peer over a weather guru's shoulder, ask questions, then fly the day!
Knowledgeable locals will make suggestions to the task committee of various
routes. This will all be projected on Google Earth so pilots new to our
beautiful Sequatchie Valley can be well oriented! Once tasks are chosen by the
task committee and ratified by the safety committee, we move to get ready for
flying. After the flying day is done we have debriefing and seminars from
leaders in the sport of free flight during and after our onsite evening meal.
Then repeat all week!

Our beautiful Henson Gap site affords great camping right by launch. We will
have healthy affordable food on site all week. Wills Wing, Lookout Mountain
Flight Park, Flytec and more are contributing bling that A pilots will
distribute to their peeps during the evening debriefs.

Ya can't miss this! The meet runs from Sunday April 17th through Saturday April
23rd. We have a crazy fun karaoke party Friday night so think of a fun
Freeflight parody song and win something! The meet wraps up with an awards
celebration party after flying is done Saturday. The hand thrown pottery
trophies are awesome! The Blues Devils will be playing for us!

Now the coolest part! The TTT is accepting donation to the RRG in lieu of
registration as long as those donations are greater than or equal to $175 and
happen between January 9th and March 1st! This is our best way to help free
flight! For those donating to the RRG, Participation in the Tennessee Tree
Toppers Team Challenge only requires a TTT membership! Come fly in our great
teaching meet and help the sport of Freeflight remain secure into the future!
TTT Membership for a year is only $100.

And the other super cool bits! Steve Pearson is bringing Wills Wing Demo Days to
Team Challenge! Zac Majors is coming to teach and lead a team! Steve is teaching
and leading a team too! It will give me great honor to fly with these hang
gliding superstars, but it'll be more fun when my team beats em!!! Don't miss
it!

To register visit
https://tttmember.org/team-challenge/

For detailed instructions on completing the registration process visit
https://tttmember.org/registration-help/.

To explore more about the Treetopper's Team Challenge check out this blog post
by Jamie Sheldon:
http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/2012/10/tennessee-tree-toppers-team-challenge.html.

and this video by Cory Barnwell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_xkg7esWkE.

To read about the exceptional conditions we can get in spring, check out this
article from the TTT newsletter:
http://videos.tennesseetreetoppers.org/TTT News Magazine Spring Issue April
2011FINALproof.pdf#page=5.