2011 U.S. Seniors Day 6 Early Report

It’s Saturday morning at 0700, and I’m sitting in my camper at
Seminole Lake Gliderport, sipping my coffee and watching the airport
take form through the dawn and the fog. Right now I can just see the
top of Bob Spitz’s camper, but in a few minutes the office, the
runway, and the trailers on the far side will slowly appear, and the
temporary residents of Geezer City will start a new day. So far we
have had five wonderful days of soaring in this 2011 Seniors, with
every anticipation of another wonderful (if a bit blue) day today.
Local pilots and national champions have traded top honors on various
days, and the result, after five days is a real horse race for the top
five spots. The Alexandrescu family (Andreea, Florian, Michael) have
answered the question “will the Seniors continue, or will it die off
with the new management?” with a resounding “YES” - this Seniors has
been as well run and as pleasant as any in my memory (admittedly short
in terms of the number of Seniors I have attended). In addition to
continued great contest management by the John Good/Rick Sheppe CD/
Scorer duo, this year we had a much better internet experience due to
the long-awaited arrival of DSL to the field, and for the first time
Mike Fuller opened his huge (and very interesting) hangar to us for
morning meeting and social activities.

This contest marks the start of the year for many U.S. soaring pilots,
even the ones who have the misfortune to be tied to real jobs and
careers that prevent them from actually attending the contest in
person (hey, somebody has to pay for my retirement checks!). For me,
the transition from winter Condor flying to summer real-life flying is
always a bit strange. Out on course I find myself thinking about the
view out the canopy as if I were in Condor, and it takes me a little
while to figure out why those gliders out in front of me don’t have
little blue ID tags floating above them – “oh, yeah, this is real
life!”. Another minor strangeness is that my partner in the Condor
Corner column series, Scott Manley, is also my crew here at the
Seniors. Turns out that Scott is just as nice a guy in real life as
he is in the Condor world – go figure! ;-)

Tonight we have the awards dinner, so things will be a little hectic
between getting gliders put away, getting cleaned up for the dinner,
and getting the scores out. I have a plan to use the banquet hotel’s
internet connection to get the evening report out, but at the very
least I will get it out Sunday morning to R.A.S. and SoaringCafe.net.

Ah, the trees on the other side of the runway are just becoming
visible – must be time to change into my running gear and go scare the
hawks again.

TA

On Mar 19, 7:55*am, Frank Paynter wrote:
The Alexandrescu family (Andreea, Florian, Michael) have
answered the question “will the Seniors continue, or will it die off
with the new management?” with a resounding “YES” - this Seniors has
been as well run and as pleasant as any

Have another cup o' joe and rewrite that :-). Great reports Frank.

-Evan Ludeman / T8