Brandon DeKock <<bkdekock>> sends:

http://hickarus.blogspot.com

Here’s the report from Thursday at the Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge. I want to cover something very important before I get into the day’s flying activities. An important announcement was made by the Foundation for Free Flight, represented by Randy Leggett. The FFF will be giving out five scholarships for pilots to next year’s TTT Team Challenge. The TreeToppers will be choosing the recipients for the scholarships.

The TTT believes that competitions of this type are a great benefit to the sport and think there should be more of them around the country. Thus, scholarship selection will be based mostly on the applicant’s plan and ability to encourage fun educational events similar to the Team Challenge in their local area. Documents describing how the TTT Team Challenge meet is run are available on the tree toppers web site (www.treetoppers.org).

Onto the flying: There was SE flow very early gong SW (parallel to valley) by noon so we headed to the Whitwell launch. The winds were light at launch and Dennis Pagen put on a short “how to launch here today” clinic for those who felt an ounce of prevention and knowledge is worth 45 pounds of bent aluminum.

The launch window opened at 12:45 and a few folks went but there was a mass exodus starting around 1:30 because it looked like there was potential for it to cross up or blow down and become unlaunchable. The lift at the ridge was weak and coming up in small, short-lived bubbles. At times there was a bit of a disorganized bar fight on the ridge, and it was only mitigated by the fact that most folks couldn’t stay up very long. Most pilots who couldn’t find anything to travel with chose to land in the Church LZ, the primary for the site. I didn’t count just how many topless gliders landed at the church, but it looked like more landed there than got up and landed further along the course.

Of course, a few pilots got up and away. No C pilots made the C goal (Galloway airport, about 11 miles downwind). One B pilot, Bryon Estes, made the B goal (Whitwell to Galloway for 11 miles, then another 4 miles downwind and across the valley to Henson's Gap LZ). Only one A pilot, Tom Lanning of Team Aerosnauts, made the A goal (Whitwell to Galloway to Henson’s, then back upwind to Galloway). Just to make the rest of us feel better, Tom admitted it was challenging most of the way. To make us feel worse he let us know it was hard to get down at Galloway at the end of the course.

The evening activities included giving out some of the awesome stuff generously donated by our sponsors (in no particular order), Steve Kroop of FLYTEC, Kriag Coomber of Moyes USA, Maui Jim Sunglasses, Davis Straub of the Oz Report, Jim Lamb of AIR ATOS, Red Bull, Rusty of Gunnison Gliders, SPOT GPS, ICARO, Matt Taber of Lookout Mountain Flight Park, Malcolm Jones of Wallaby Ranch, and Greenlife Grocery.

I’ve also included some photos from the day’s flying. There’s two depicting the barfight on the ridge to get up, one of Matt Dittman getting ready to hang check, one of Erin Rapacki holding her glider’s nose, and one of Leigh Sheridan showing off her hang glider necklace while stuffing battens. Thanks, Brandon DeKock

Friday we had rain and lots and lots of seminars! The weather forecasting seminar made many fall asleep and a few cry. We also had cross country landing fields and how to pick 'em, launch technique and then video launch clinic. We snuck in a few landing videos as well to stimulate discussion of landing techniques. Earlier in the week pilots enjoyed the hands on exercises of gps/flight computer geo cache racing (which was won going away by the comp pilots with Flytec 6030s and a thermal etiquette exercise that was pretty kooky, but effective for pilots who don't have a lot of gaggle time.

Saturday we had a bit too much wind to call tasks for the C's so we gave 'em more seminars. We wrapped it up with a round table question and answer seminar that I thought was very valuable. We simply asked the pilots what they wanted to hear about, then created a list on the dry erase board! The panel of experts knocked 'em off one by one! This gave us time to fill in the gaps left in some of the lectures and get a feel for what we'll need next year.

Whew! It was a lot of fun and intense learning. I'm sure it was the most comprehensive week of hang gliding education on the planet in 2009! We celebrated everyone's great success with a fine meal and party with a DJ, karaoke and a Tara Murphy to entertain us. The awards ceremony was a lot of fun and every pilot attending received gifts and prizes donated by our sponsors.

Unfortunately the weather was below par for TC this year, leaving us with only three days with called tasks, but we held so many excellent seminars, video launch clinics and soaring exercises that the time flew past! Pilots flew on 5 of the 7 days. I continue to learn new information at every Team Challenge. I've been a student of hang gliding for a long time and nothing comes close to this educational experience. Our C and B pilots were awed by this incredible opportunity to learn from the best teachers in hang gliding! I heard some pilots talking about the feeling of Team Challenge, "Its like a fun sports camp for grownup kids." Many thanks to Dennis Pagen, Mike Barber, Tom Lanning, Mark Stump and all the others for helping us understand our sport better!

We had another great year! We are working right now to make it even better next year!