Re: Best soaring site in USA ?

[[email protected]]

Ionia?? Really? With six flights totaling 1,821 OLC points since October 2016, I doubt I will be putting it on my bucket list.

[Sean Fidler]

I was kidding "a bit" about Ionia although as Glenn says when it is good there there probably isn't a more pleasant place to fly. To be honest, based on the weather all over the USA over the past few years, Ionia is at least as good as anywhere else in the eastern USA. For example we are at Uvalde right now and it has been well weaker than normal and last year they only got I. 4 days for Sports class Nationals here. Meanwhile I flew in Toronto (4-5 hours west of Ionia) and flew 7-8 days in a row during the exact same period as Uvalde Sports Class Nationals with cloud bases of 10k and speeds of nearly 85 mph every day.

One thing we should all consider is a "flexible contest location" (or fun flying location). In the sport iceboating they will move several hundreds of miles (or more) to a location with good ice if the original location ends up having bad "ice" (weather). Soaring could really benifit from this type of thinking. Example, Mifflin with a backup at Perry.

Sean
7T

[Tony[_5_]]

For the record Uvalde last year should have had 5 days last year but one day was cancelled due to the runway NOTAM expiring. The days we flew were pretty good Uvalde days. Then the weather got weird and that was the end.

After Region 7 this year we also talked quite a bit about the idea of a floating contest site. That is something that deserves some effort I think.