Brad wrote:
On Aug 10, 5:14 pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Brad wrote:
Not being a competition pilot myself I am not in the know regarding
this subject. But.......are there any soaring competitions held in the
U.S. where flying in the mountains is common for the whole course?
I've been told that pilots prefer the "safety" of desert or basin
flying since there are "more" places to land and that the separation
between ground and aircraft is greater.
One undisputed fact is that the scenery is better in the mountains.
I'm not aware of any place in the US where pilots routinely fly IN the
mountains, as they do in places like the Alps and NZ, but there are a
lot of places where pilots routinely fly OVER the mountains. Is that the
kind of distinction you are making?

Not really.................imagine a contest that would be held say at
Twisp airport in the Methow valley and has the course set up to be
mostly in the mountains, perhaps making turnpoints at Lost River,
Scott, and Brewster, then back to Twisp.

Twisp is pretty small; Methow Valley airport would be better.

A common complaint about mountain tasks is they can depend much more on
local knowledge, particularly knowledge of safe landing places and the
valley winds. The number of available tasks can be much smaller,
particularly if the cloudbases are near the mountain tops.

FAI classes could be run "fairly", but Sports Class would be almost
unworkable, as the higher performance gliders would have a considerable
advantage. Of course, if it's great conditions and cloudbase is 6000'
above the peaks, then it's no problem, no whining. Not a likely weather
situation for the area you mention!

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
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