Greg Dinauer <<gdinauer>>
writes:

Organizing a major sanctioned hang gliding competition is
something that Larry, Kris and I have always talked about and, indeed have
attempted in the past. Plagued by low turnouts, and of course, the always
dubious weather up here in the Midwest, we just lost interest.

This year we finally decided to give it another go. With the lack of sanctioned
competitions, due to the complexity of negotiating the minefield of insurance
imperatives, and the huge gap in years of having any large scale events like
this, we agreed it was a perfect storm of wide open doors.

In October we started drawing up plans. Since then every door has opened, even
though the insurance hurtle almost discouraged us out of it. We always had the
back-up plan that if only 20-25 pilots signed up and we skimped on everything,
we could just pull it off without having to dig too deeply into our new glider
funds.

So when after merely five days of the event registration being open,
I received a late night call from Larry and Kris confirming that we had 60
registered pilots, I felt like the co-inventor of some unique product that just
went nationwide overnight.

Of course we had to have another meeting at Larry’s home (the geographical
midpoint) to access what to do about the monster we created. We wanted to limit
it to 60, but before we knew it there were 80 pilots registered. So we had to
draw a sharp line in the form of strict deadlines to control every ones flying
sickness for this event. The glee we shared with the break in the really gloomy
weather in the upper Midwest over the prior month well; it was just another of
those open doors which seemed as inexplicable as Kris’s “need” to schedule during
a full moon. If he is silently gloating, he deserves to be.

In as much as we considered every contingency, now that the competition is over,
there were weak places; places that we could have better addressed, had we not
also been competitors ourselves. Better communication with the launch process
volunteer staff, management of civilities like: the portable bathrooms and waste
containers, and the damp condition of the ground, particularly on the first day,
are among them.

With all that, the pilots’ response was overwhelmingly positive, and while the
soaring was not particularly epic, we did have one or two good days along with
some challenging ones.

I really want to say that the three of us never scuffled with each other over
decisions or ideas (often done over Larry’s favorite beer), in spite of the
daunting insurance mitigation forms that Larry labored endlessly over. Our
individual tasks in this came about more or less naturally; just three flying
buddies cooperating to make a bigger dream happen.

We want to again thank everyone including the pilots, tug pilots, all the
selfless volunteers, and the (more than patient) local pilot community for
participating in what we feel was a bit more like what these events use to be.
I, for one, while watching Rhett’s vivid green dragonfly depart this morning
couldn’t help but feel a bit sad to see it end.

Will we do it again next year? We’ll see. A lot of the busy work is done and as
with Jamie, Davis and other organizers in the past, we have learned a lot.