Our normal 10:30am pilots meeting was held this morning in a
torrential downpour - giving us a mild hint that today would be a no-
fly day. There were all sorts of options proposed for activities,
none of which involve glider assembly or flight. Tonight's activity
involves a pig roast and a Keg of Canadian beer donated by Ed
Hollestelle (A1) - vive Canada!.
The U.S. team steak dinner last night was a rousing success, with
about $3200.00 gross income. At that same dinner, Dennis Linnekin
gave a report about being team captain last year at Szeged, and when
he asked for volunteers for team captain for next year's world team
contest in Argentina, Enrique Mertins (KO) raised his hand - wow!
Ken Sorenson took a few minutes to talk about the Philadelphia
convention and to encourage everyone to participate in the on-line
poll about Conventions in general. Seems the Philly convention
actually lost $15,000 instead of bringing in about $15,000 - bummer!
Apparently attendence was way down (again) due to very bad weather
(again). Maybe someone should mention that February in Philadelphia
is not always a nice time to visit! ;-).
Yesterday was also supposed to be a no-fly day, but we wound up
actually getting a task in. CD Ray Galloway told us at yesterday's
morning meeting that "There is a 100% chance of gridding, and a 30%
chance of launching. We all grumbled, but we gridded - mostly without
water. The weather looked anything but promising, with a heavy cloud
deck coming in from the west. The sniffer (a std Libelle) went up,
but almost beat the towplane back down. 15-20 minutes later, Roy
McMaster (1) was flung into the sky, and it looked like he wasn't
doing any better when he found a small thermal at about 1500'agl that
got him back up to about 2500'agl, and then another. So the 15m class
was launched to see if we would stick, and we did!
The 15m/Std class task was a 2hr MAT with Aiken (about 16m west) as
the only mandatory turnpoint. 18m was the same except the 1st turn
was about 20m SW at Ernies. Sports class had a 1.5hr TAT with two
turns - Aiken with a 10m radius and Bamburg with a 15m radius. All
classes reported barely survivable conditions on the first leg, with
several std/15m pilots landing at Aiken and in surrounding fields.
Survivors from the first leg generally turned east toward Ernies as
there was sun on the ground and some promising looking cu's. Those
who made it to the clouds found excellent lift, climbs to 6000msl and
higher, and cloud streets (although somewhat short lived). BB won the
day again by getting a climb over Orangeburg and then running it out,
putting another 20 miles on the odometer compared to the slow guys.

The 18m class had a quite distinct experience with their flight. Some
18m guys found their way into a street that developed to the north of
the field, and for those who did it was an exhilerating ride. Day
winner Al Tyler (8H) was almost 5mph faster than 2nd place Dick Butler
(DB) with 70.97mph - wow!
Sports class was a struggle too, with most gliders barely ticking the
Aiken 10-mile ring before heading to Bamburg to try to get into the
sun. However day winner Sarah Kelly-Arnold reported that she had to
switch back from survival to racing mode after hitting a 6kt thermal
to 6000'.
There were a number of landouts yesterday, at airports and in fields.
After getting my glider back in the box, I helped pull Ken Sorenson
(KM) out of a nice field about 10m southwest of the airport. The
field Ken picked was nice and flat, and right next to a paved
highway. Unfortunately, the only vehicle access was via a roundabout
route that I swear took us into Georgia and back out again!

What a day! From no hope to 6kt thermals back fully overcast and a
dead glide in the space of two hours. Ray Galloway reported today
that yesterday's high temperature wound up being over 10 degrees
higher than predicted! Today of course is a rain day, but there is
some hope for another flying day tomorrow, as the sandy soil down here
can soak up any amount of rain in just an hour or so. Stay tuned!
TA.