The 2009 Santa Cruz Flats Race
With an east-northeast surface wind like the last two days but this time not too strong (and forecasted to last two more days) we headed up to the small GA airfield seven miles to the north west of the Francisco Grande Hotel to find a spot away from the trees and not in the rotor. The field was wide open and there was a nice packed dirt runway next to the main paved runway, so it was easy to launch there.
We don't have many waypoints to the west as that direction goes away from the nice cultivated fields around Casa Grande and puts us into the Saguaro cactus country (Sonora Desert). We had a few waypoints along the highway and one at the Gila Bend airfield. So we sent pilots on a short downwind task (70 km) thinking that the head wind would be 9 knots if we came back to the hotel.
Jeff and I were off early and climbed out west of the launch area. The task had a twenty nine kilometer entry start circle around the first waypoint, a radio tower out in the desert, and we started working our way north with Zippy. Larry Bunner joined up up with us.
The wind was about seven mph out of the northeast, so it was a slog going north and finding lift. But was had started early so we had plenty of time to get going. We wanted to get east-northeast of the first waypoint so that we could have a good downwind run to it. There were just the four of us together.
We decided to take the first start time as we were as high as we had been (7,000'), all of us together (we figured Larry would go with us), and we had a chance to grab the early arrival points. With four of us flying together we figured we had a good shot at helping each other find lift.
It turned out that Jeff O'Brien could hear us but didn't know that we couldn't hear him on the radio. Bunner was on another frequency. Zippy said that he was going at the first start time, I said that I would go with him, and all four of us started then.
We went on a sixteen kilometer glide without finding any lift. We stayed to the north of the obvious green areas and away from the cultivated fields to try to stay in the driest areas. Neither asphalt nor gravel pits worked out for us, and we turned south to check out the cultivated areas finally finding 200 fpm at 1,500' AGL.
This was a disaster. The whole point of leaving early was to get away from everyone else and get to goal first to get the extra points. Now we were low and in light lift in our first thermal on the course. Five minutes into it Zippy radioed that there was a dust devil upwind two kilometers to our southeast. We all headed for it. Of course, Larry didn't hear the news so was late getting to the party.
The dust devil wasn't that great but got us back to 5,300' at 300 fpm. The three of us together headed west over the small mountain range hoping to find lift on it. We left Larry groveling low in multiple dust devils.
We didn't find any lift on the hills, but again found 200 fpm beyond them as we got down to 2,300' AGL. Now were were in big trouble. Two weak thermals, not much out of a dust devil, not very high. We were having a hard time racing.
We were all climbing together, after Jeff came back to get in what I had. Back to 6,000' Zippy called on us to go ahead. We all did and quickly found better lift. I was 50 feet below them. After a few turns Jeff and Zippy go ahead but Zippy forgot to call me on the radio to tell me that they were heading out.
I climbed another 600', then went forward after I asked Zippy where they were and run into 600 fpm. This got me to 8,200'. I left this good lift to chase after Zippy and Jeff.
We were still out in front with no sign of pilots catching us from behind. We heard from Dustin that he had pushed too hard and was down just behind us. We were thinking that maybe things were bad behind us.
I came in under Jeff and Zippy but couldn't quite catch them even though I had had a good run behind them, and had climbed higher than they did. Climbing in a thermal just before the next set of mountains I saw Kraig Coomber and five buddies come in a few thousand feet below me. They had obviously started later. I was anxious to go.
I could have flown over to Kraig and just stayed above him, but I wanted to race ahead and get to goal first. Not a great idea. My 6030 did say that I had goal made, but it was still over twenty kilometers away, so that L/D business is pretty unreliable.
Jeff and Zippy were just ahead and I figured I could use them to spot thermals, but that didn't work out so well. Down to 1,500' twenty kilometers out, I stayed in whatever lift I could find until I could find the better core. It took a while to catch it as Jeff and then Zippy made it into goal. I finally got back up enough to go on final glide at up to 70 mph over the ground.
Kraig and his buddies (half a dozen of them it seemed) who had worked well together got in before me. Lots and lots of pilots made goal later.
Larry Bunner did get up in the third dust devil that he went to. He then went to the hills to the west and found 1000 fpm up, which got him quickly to goal.
http://OzReport.com/1253855379
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