Chelan XC Classic ceremony

The Chelan XC Classic has been awesome! Like last year I racked up nearly 20 hours in the week, and 342 miles cross country flying. The scenery is spectacular, and having the vibrant town of Chelan is a real bonous. Again Darren did an excellent job of organising the meet.
Here is Gerry coming into land at the soccer field LZ. It was pretty turbulent with the wind kicking through there.

Dave Gibson in Third.

Tom Peirce in Second by just 5 points (half a mile)

1st Place !!

"And then I flew into the wall of air again and flipped over dislocating my shoulder,
only a few hundred feet over the powerlines" Everyone is rivited by this storey...

Going into the final Day (six)

Yesterday was cancelled due to the forecast of storms, they didn't show up until 2am this morning, but it was windy enough that it was likely the right call.
Here is the sky at 9am, RAIN.

Here are the cummulative results for the meet so far, competition is really hot in the top 5. There are only 5 points (half mile) between me and Tom!

Here are the daily results, the format is best 4 of 6 days. If today is cancelled then the results will stand, I would be OK with that ;)

Here is a typical view on the flats near Mansfield.

Day 4 at Chelan

Gliders set up in front of Lake Chelan.

Konrad and Phil having a brief discussion of stratagy.

Hmmm still in second, excellent !

Todays random picture while waiting to launch. Bruce and I had a great low save in front of launch climbing to the top of the stack and leaving right off the bat. From Dispair to hope! It was a challanging day. I put in a relatively good day, I didn't make it back but did a decent albeit incomplete triangle. Brian, Bruce and Gerry all had really good flights today. It will be intersting tomorrow to see what the scores are. The weather forecast is a different matter with storms predicted for 11am. We will see...

Here is Darren the Meet Director on Day 3.

The cummulative results after Day 2. I dropped to second.

Brian and I flew together in a valiant attemp to go big and claw back some points. We launched an hour ahead almost all the other pilots and got out on the the flats early. Progress was quick to Withrow, and the sky was really working to farmers. Then we headed east into a blue hole (the same route as the first day) Coolee city.
The air got very quiet and clam and we went on glide for 15 minutes. Things had slowed considereably, we eventually climbed back to cloudbase and tagged the waypoint. By which time many pilots had easily reached Farmers - the previous waypoint. From there we headed north back into the active sky, and made the sims waypoint pretty easily. We caught Bruce there and got a good climb (1200 feet per minute to 11k) on the way to Leahy. About then the cloud over the rim just exploded. There was virga, hail, rain and gust fronts and we had to abort our mission and land safely. Rats. A really good flight, but the points won't reflect that, on account of being short on the last leg and not making goal. We were happy to be on the ground safe without any breakages.
Here is Brian putting on his drinking shoes (planning on going big).

You can think of your own comments for this one.

First day, first place

Another fun day today. The sky turned dark a couple of times but it seemed harmless from the distance we were at. It seemed like a harder day but maybe thats because my zipper blew out right after launching and it got cold at 9k.
The clouds were cycling as we saw from the landing field.
It Over Developed at the end of the day, but only a couple of lightning strikes and no rain to cool things off a bit. We ate in town since we thought it would rain.

Time for a new look

At Uncle Joes barber shop.

Its going to be 101'F, sorry Leighann I couldn't wait.

Chelan - Day1

It was fun at Chelan today
I managed to find myself at launch first, it was nice to get up into some cooler air. I flew with Chris a bit, and even saw him at a turnpoint 20 miles out (I wonder if he was waiting for me?) I lost sight of him after that as I headed to the next turn point.
I flew for a bit over 5 hours, thinking I was the last in Tom came in right after me followed by Rob and Fiona.

Off to Chelan

Its been a busy week, trying to fix things up and get organised for the long trip. Most of my time was spent fixing up this camper trailer. The project is not complete but it was time to leave.
Made to Chelan in time to check in, catch up with a few friends and take a dip in the lake.

Tomorrow is the first day of the comp.
Leighann I wish you were here :)

Flying Marina with Lance

I had a couple of things I needed to do down near Monterey, and hey look at that, it soarable at Marina, and my glider need airing out from yesterday anyway...
Here is Lance flying in his cowboy boots. Nice and aerodynamic.

View of the new park entrance, that is unopened because of Ca funding cut backs. Even though it is finished and fully staffed. Got to love the government. Hope someone with influence sees the stupidity and opens it up.