A front came through on Saturday with rain and high winds. The
winds were still a bit strong on Sunday morning, but the forecast was for the
winds dying down substantially in the afternoon.

Belinda takes a photo that shows that the winds are much lighter.

NAM was showing top of lift at 3,000' - 4,000' at 2PM on XCSkies. 4,000' -
5,000' at 5 PM. Not real high. Of course, with a post frontal north wind there
was a forecast for no cu's. While the lift was predicted to be 600-700 fpm, it
did not look like it would be that strong with temperatures much lower than
before the front now in the upper seventies.

The task committee called a short opening task to the south and southwest. The
nominal distance for the Sport Class here is 30 km in light April conditions and
the task distance was a little over that. They put a 9KM radius around the goal
point it get us near good landing fields and easy retrieval at Dean Still road.

The task was to fly south along highway 33 to the intersection of 474 and 33
then head off the south east corner of the Green Swamp over open fields toward
the intersection of Rockridge and highway 98. A little tricky heading south on
33 with kingposted gliders as the fields are there but you have to be choosey.
It is not totally open like it is to the north and northwest of Quest.

There are four mentors in the competition, Larry Bunner, Greg Dinauer, Ton
Lanning and myself. Our payment consists of free tows. We spend considerable
time with our teams and switch every two days.

Steve Kroop from Flytec USA came on Saturday night to help pilots understand
their instruments. He and the mentors split up the pilots into instrument groups
and a two to three hour discussion ensued. Thanks to Steve for all his expertise
and kind help.

Because of the wind forecast for reduced winds later in the afternoon the task
committee called on us to open the launch at 2:30 PM. The task was "elapsed
time" so your time started when you crossed the 5 KM start cylinder. This is how
we run Sport Class competitions, without start gates.

Since we had five pilots flying Wills Wing T2C's I decided to score them
separately than the king posted gliders. Normally we would just provide a
substantial handicap to the topless gliders but with so many I determined that
it would be fairer just to score them separately even though everyone flew the
same task. This is still a sport class competition, with two separate groups
being scored.

The king posted hang gliders were handicapped, actually anti-handicapped, with
the Wills Wing U2 and similar configured gliders having no handicap, and gliders
equivalent to the Sport 2 with a 6% bonus. The Wills Wing Eagle pilot got a 29%
bonus.

We divided the pilots into teams of five with a couple of extras in the S (Sport
2) team. The T (T2C) team launched first in the hope that they could stay up on
a weak day and show the rest of us the lift. The two U teams were next and
finally the S team. Each mentor launched just in front of their team, again
hopefully they would radio to their team members where the lift was.

Getting ready to launch in team order. Photo by Belinda.

I found lift that averaged 105 fpm on the southwest corner of the Quest Air
field and radioed my position and climb rate to my team members. Hard to know
who heard as they basically listen. At 105 fpm conditions were not really great
and I was not climbing that high. There were plenty of pilots nearby so markers
were the order of the day.

I hung around in the 5KM start cylinder for 35 minutes attempting to gather up
the team and then move them south toward the first turnpoint. One of the team
headed further south when I went back north to gather more. I really could not
tell where most of the team was.

Finally moving further south there were a few markers ahead so I encouraged my
pilots to go on the course and use the markers ahead to show them the lift. I
had been able to climb to 3,900' before heading south and that was the highest I
was to get all day.

The ground was flooded below us from the heavy rains on Saturday and days
before. The lift was weak and we just weren't getting high, but it was fun. We
found lift pretty readily but it was rarely coherent. We'd hit a little here and
a little bit there. One of my pilots ahead of me and a couple behind.

The markers ahead showed me the lift at the Seminole Glider Port and I waited
there for the two pilots just behind me to catch up. Mick Howard, Greg Dinauer,
Larry Bunner, (so two mentors and a topless) were waiting around with me. Andre
Solomykin, from Russia, flying a nice looking Aeros Discus, was there also.

One of my pilots was too low just behind me and couldn't make it to our lift and
landed. As we headed south another pilot was on the north side of the glider
port getting up, so I told him that there were markers ahead not far and not
flying fast, so get up and use us to get to the next thermal.

That thermal a few kilometers south of the glider port was the best of the day
at 300 fpm. Andre got above me there and Greg and Mick were high.

Heading further south west now that we had tagged the waypoint, I came in under
these guys again and found lift that averaged 65 fpm. I was calling out my
position and lift values ahead so I think one of my pilots came in under me, but
was too low and landed.

Larry Bunner, who was supposed to be transmitting on his team frequency, was in
fact transmitting on ours and not communicating with his team mates at all. But
we appreciated all the extra help. He had already gone back again to help Kelly
Myrkle, but again could not communicate with him.

Finally I had to leave the weak lift low at 1,700' and just head out toward the
goal looking at massively flooded fields ahead. It seemed to me that I would
never find lift over such fields and that I was on final glide to the edge of
the goal cylinder with no team pilots in tow. A complete failure in the
mentoring business.

But it was just one kilometer and I found 200+ fpm at 1,400'. The wind was only
4 mph out of the north northwest and I climbed 1000'  in the much welcomed
lift before some black vultures came through heading north further into the
Green Swamp. I decided to follow them away from the goal and see if they could
find something even better. They were definitely following a lift line and I
kept hitting little bits, but didn't gain any altitude as I kept watching them
hoping for them to start turning.

After this game for one kilometer, I turned around and lost all by 400' of what
I had gained and again headed out over the flooded plains. The sink wasn't that
bad and it looked like I could just glide to the edge of the goal cylinder. Down
to less than 1000' AGL a little over 3 km from goal, I found some sweet little
lift that was actually very coherent. 109 fpm.

It was over a nice open field with a paved road nearby and there was no reason
to leave it, just hang in there and maybe get to the center of the goal
cylinder. Lots of birds came over the play so this must have been the best lift
in the neighborhood.

It was easy to make to the goal cylinder with 1,800' of altitude and once there
I spotted Andre and Mick at the north end of a long field. I figured that I
might as well land there on the south side of Dean Still road. Turned out that
the field was soaked and the water was full of cow poop. We all smelled awful.

All the mentors landed in or next to this field so it was an easy retrieval.

Kingposted results:

https://airtribune.com/gssk2016/results/task1297/day/sport-class

 Topless results:

The mentors score by getting their pilots to goal. We'll get the topless
scores up on Airtribune in the morning.