2011 OLC Results - US moving up

The European pilots and, not unexpectedly, the Germans (who invented
the sport), dominated the 2011 results. However, Two US pilots made
the top three for OLC Champion (Gordon Boettger of Minden and Jim
Payne of Tehachapi) for some extraordinary long wave flights.

For those rest of us flying thermals, Tuscon Soaring Club's Randy
Acree amassed over 43,000 points by flying over 38,000km in 117
flights to take third place in All Flights, a hair behind Spain's Pepe
Gresa. Alfredo Giretti of Italy somehow accumulated over 57,000
points in 108 flights - a pretty amazing achievement. Other US
appearances in the top rankings included Gary Ittner at number 13 with
27,500 points and Billy Hill at number 21 with just under 26,000
points.

US Clubs had some notable appearances, with Albuquerque Soaring taking
first place in the OLC League with Texas Soaring Association in fourth
and my own Tucson Soaring Club in eighth. For overall flights,
Albuquerque is in third place (209,800 points), TSA in eighth (164,788
points) and TUSC in ninth (157,887 points).

The new rules awarding higher points for triangle flights has had some
interesting results - our Tucson pilots are flying more FAI triangles
and pushing out further into previously unflown terrain (some of it
pretty ugly), but scoring higher as a result. This may be one reason
for the relative US improvement, since FAI triangles are more
difficult in some areas.

The major contribution of OLC has been the ability to rate your own
flying in a non-contest environment and to encourage and promote cross-
country soaring. I know that mine has improved as a result.

Mike

The major contribution of OLC has been the ability to rate your own
flying in a non-contest environment and to encourage and promote cross-
country soaring. *I know that mine has improved as a result.

I was definitely more inclined to fly triangles this year and had a
lot of fun putting my flights up on the OLC to compare. I also really
enjoy looking through the listings and seeing how others are doing,
where the long flights are being flown, etc.

I was pretty proud to make it into the top 100 (barely, #98) in the US
this year and top 1000 in the world on the OLC-Plus

On the Oldtimer Ranking I was 6th in the US, 12th in the world. Those
1-26 guys are hard to beat! I am happy to be the highest scoring
pilot of wooden gliders in the US though. I'm looking forward to this
sub-ranking in the future