The manager for the owner of the runway (not the neighborhood,
just the runway) did not want us back at Leeward, but we used it as goal anyway
today and landed in a field to the south instead. Some of the owners of the
houses in the Leeward community really encouraged us last year and said come
back anytime, and they did so again this year, but apparently they don't have a
say in the governance of the runway.

This is what we saw for top of lift and 2000' winds at 5PM:

Instead of south southeast winds right up interstate 75, it looked like a
convergence over the Ocala National Forest with a sea breeze from the Gulf of
Mexico wiping out the lift on the western side of I75. We were wary of sending
Sport Class pilots into a sea breeze situation.

Going up the western side of the Ocala National Forest, meant quite a stretch of
restricted landing areas to the north and then trees and lakes even further
north which present quite a few obstacles to Keystone, 147 kilometers from
Sheets field. That seemed to be a bit much for our mentees especially given how
late that they would get there, if they got there.

The later model run showed conditions even worse with a stronger sea breeze, the
areas of very low top of lift further inland, and the convergence zone even
further to the east over swamp land.

The satellite showed this at 3:3 PM:

and this at 4:37 PM:

You can see how the sea breeze from the west has cleared out the cumulus clouds.
Also unlike the cumulus clouds further to the south at 3:37PM, the clouds are
bunched up and no longer scattered. The clouds further to the south show the
south southeast wind.

When we got to goal we could see the dark shaded areas way to our west. The sun
was out where we were in between the nice cu's. After a while the sky completely
clouded over.

With a ten to fourteen mph south tail wind it was a quick task to the north. One
of my new mentees (we swapped teams today) went down early in the start
cylinder. I was a bit amazed by that as both my mentees started out high above
me as I pinned off at 1,500' and climbed slowly. I waited for the other mentee
as he slowly climbed back up.

There was a cloud street from Mascotte far to the north so I drug my mentee over
to the south end of it, only to find little to no lift. We both searched around
and went further north with little luck. Finally he had to land at the Grass
Roots airfield. I came over him at 1,400' and turned in the light lift that he
made only one turn in and slowly climbed out.

With both my mentees down I was considering trying to go back up wind if I could
ever get up. The climbs were slow and the wind was strong. I saw three more
pilots go down.

Belinda got on the radio and told me that John Simon's crew was just a few
kilometers to my west near the prisons so I decided to join them and provide
some additional mentoring. I found three of them, but John was further south
trying to get another pilot up and away.

I provided a slight amount of thermal snooping, but had to catch one from 2,200'
which got me way high into goal. Of course there was lift most of the way in.

Airtribune was back up and running well today. A couple of pilots didn't record
their flights so that is reflected in the preliminary scoring. Airtribune makes
the scoring so much easier for everyone.

https://airtribune.com/2017-green-swamp-sport-klassic/results

Task 5:

Cumulative:

Makbule at goal.