On Thursday, January 3, 2013 10:23:10 AM UTC-6, Tony wrote:
Soaring friends, The Kansas Soaring Association will be hosting a low performance contest at Sunflower over the 4th of July holiday. It will be an SSA sanctioned sports class regional limited to gliders with a 1.115 handicap (Std. Austria SH-1) and lower performance (higher handicap), all the way down to the GAPA. Practice day will be July 3rd with contest days July 4-7. Contest size will be limited to 20, with 10 inverted entry slots. At the moment, 9 of those inverted entry slots are taken. Current USDA estimates show that by the first week in July there should be about 9 million acres of perfectly landable harvested wheat fields in Kansas, and if the Drought forecasts continue we should have a third season of excellent soaring conditions. In 2012 during the first week of July we had epic conditions. Steve Leonard did flights of 419 (triangle), 425 (out & return), and 552 (straight out) miles in his Nimbus 3, and I was able to do a 300km triangle in the Cherokee II in 4.5 hrs as well as fly 252 miles straight out. Currently registered for the contest a Std. Austria SH-1 Russia Apis 13 PW-5 Cherokee II 2 Dusters Woodstock Ka-6CR Salto Sunflower Aerodrome is located south of Hutchinson, KS near the Amish farming community of Yoder. It is about a 40 minute drive from the middle of Wichita. Local attractions include the world class Cosmosphere and Space Center where you can see a Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsule as well as V1 & V2 rockets and an SR-71 and the Hutchinson Salt Mine where it is always nice and cool 600 feet under ground (very nice when surface temps soar past 100F!). The airfield was a Naval Air Station in WWII and we enjoy a 200x7000 ft paved runway. Registration for the contest is open at http://www.ssa.org/members/contestre...7&display=info Please contact me if you have any questions.. Would love to see some more Dusters, 1-26's, 1-23's and others sign up. Email me at if you have any questions. 2013 SSA Rules will allow pilot to pilot radio use in the air and we plan to take advantage of this, trying to match up new pilots with more experienced mentors not only on the ground but also in the air. We look forward to seeing you in July!

One particular smart-a**ed pilot asked if we could fly this contest under early 1960's FAI rules. The answer: NO!! We will fly with SSA Sports Class Regional rules and we'll have a lot of FUN doing it!