http://www.aerosports.net/ECC.html

http://soaringspot.com/2010ecc

http://skyout.blogspot.com/

The forecast was for light north northeast winds so the task committee called
two triangle tasks, one for the Sport Class and one for the Open Class. There
was again a great deal of back and forth on the Open class task with Tom Lanning
not wanting to have any component of the leg upwind to the north. He pushed for
stretching the first turnpoint further to the east. The task committee was up
for a big task, bigger than my proposed 85 km triangle which I thought was big
enough.

We weren't certain that there would be cu's (RUC says no, and the NAM says yes).
We decided on a shorter task, but with the first same eastern most turnpoint, as
a backup if there were no cu's at around the time that we launched, 1 o'clock.

The winds were light at launch but the cu's showed up earlier, so we chose the
90.5 km triangle task to the east near Milford, then southwest to the Sugar Hill
airfield, then back to Highland Aerosports.

I lined up first to launch and took off a 1 PM. The lift was moderate and I was
able to climb to cloud base at 5,600'. Other pilots were soon up with me and we
drifted slowly at 3 to 6 mph to the east or southeast toward the edge of the
start circle. Since we launched an hour before the start window and we had a
five kilometer start cylinder we had to be sure to stay close to the airfield
for a long time.

I headed back toward the airfield as the rest of the field drifted downwind to
the edge. I found lots of new cu's coming over the field and there was lift
under many of them. I was just waiting for the start time and open and to stay
high.

I wasn't staying that high and after a while the start time was coming up. I
headed east to the good looking cloud. Finally, a cloud turned on strong and I
climbed back up to 5,400' then headed out toward the edge of the start circle. I
was two minutes behind the start and I could see Larry out ahead of me. I also
saw Sunny and John Simon 500'below.

Larry displayed two strong thermals as we headed east. I was joined by Mitch
Shipley and we climbed up under the thermals that Larry spotted for us. The
second one averaged 520 fpm to 5,300'. There were plenty of cu's along the
course line and we were moving fast.

As I looked ahead I saw that we were in trouble. There were no cu's within 14 km
of the turnpoint to our east. There was a sea breeze clearing away the cu's and
destroying most of the lift.

At twenty kilometers out from the start and fourteen kilometers from the
turnpoint I was at 4,300' under some cu's. It was blue in front of me with a
distinct inversion. Larry had not climbed as high as Jim and I in the last
thermal and came in under us. Mitch went out into the blue but then came back
under me much lower.

Now was the time for the decision. Go out into the blue where I had just seen
two pilot get low out there, or go to the clouds 2 km to the north and get
higher before going out. It turns out that it might have been better to just go
out into the blue as I was quite high, but with Larry and Mitch headed north to
the clouds and me high over them, I headed with them to see if we could get up
under the clouds and follow them further east and get closer to the turnpoint
under the cu's.

That didn't work out. The lift was very weak under the cu's. I lost 1000' and
then lost more after searching around. There was some lift and I climbed some as
did the other pilots, but overall it was a bust.

John Simon and Sunny came over us, 600' over me when I was at 3,400' about ten
minutes after Larry, Jim and I went to the clouds to the north. They kept going
and found lift further east perhaps under some small clouds or perhaps out in
the blue. They kept going and ended up first and second for the day not making
it back to the second turnpoint.

I finally pushed forward into the sea breeze, found some lift, but not enough to
get around the turnpoint. Larry continued to circle in 40 fpm and ended up back
almost at the start of the leg where he found lift over Greensboro. He climbed
to 5,600' then headed east and continued to glide toward the turnpoint never
hitting any lift again and landing short of it.

The task committee did get the Sport Class task right with a number of pilots
making it back to the airfield.