2006 Region 8 Contest - Day 3

2006 Region 8 Soaring Championships
Ephrata, Washington

June 28, 2006 - Day 3

Once again we greet you from Ephrata where a slight change in the
weather has brought the forecast temperatures down to between 92º and
96º. It doesn't seem like much but I can tell you, we will take
anything we can get.

Our pilots meeting was held again this morning at 10:00 am where we had
the opportunity to view the flights of yesterday's Sports class
winner - Tim Martin and Open class winner - Greg Mecklenberg. Tim
also provided us with some safety tips on gaggle flying.

Steve Northcraft then briefed us on the weather and how the changes
would affect the day. The reduced temperature along with a flow coming
up from California is bringing in some high cirrus that may cause some
problems with our trigger temperature. The forecast is for lower
thermal tops in the 6,000 to 8,000 foot range and lift down to between
4 and 6 knots. That's quite a change from yesterday when some pilots
were seeing 14 knots on the averager.

With the possibility of high cirrus cutting off the day earlier we
opted for a shorter task today. Both classes will be flying a 2 ½ hour
TAT. The turn points will be #1 - Nilles corner (# 29), #2 -
Waterville (# 43), #3 - Dry Falls (# 18), and #4 - Mansfield (#
26). Each turn point will have a 10 mile radius in case things start to
wash out. Using the "look outside stupid" method of forecasting we
can see that heavy cirrus from the south is moving this way so we are
hoping for a successful day but are also making plans to shut things
down if we can't keep folks in the air long enough for a successful
task opening.

Gliders moved to the grid at 12:15 with a fairly thick layer of cirrus
directly overhead and to the west slightly - our task area. Things
were looking grim. A pilots meeting was held on the grid at 12:30 and a
decision was made to hold things until 1:00 with the hope that the
cirrus would blow through and allow the launch. Since the temperature
had dropped by 4º since the pilots meeting at 10:00, things were
looking even grimmer. At 1:00 pm a pilots meeting was held on the grid
where I passed out the good news/bad news. Good news - we wouldn't
be having all the relights we had yesterday. Bad news - the day was
cancelled due to weather.

Most of the pilots took the news in stride with several opting for an
out-and-return task to the nearest watering hole in town. Nelson
Funston however decided to see if he could fly the task. He launched
about 1:45 and after returning about an hour later told me that he
found lift to about 5000 feet over Ephrata and flew to Mansfield but
came right back as there really wasn't any usable lift over the
plateau. He agreed that we would have had gliders landing in every
field in the county.

I do want to mention a few great things that have made things work
smoothly so far. Even though we didn't rig Nelson's spoilers open
so the 15 Meter guys have half a chance flying with him, Nelson did
agree to fly dry which has evened the playing field quite nicely as you
have seen by the scores. We thank you Nelson. The second thing is that
Mike Wren, the airport manager here at Ephrata was out on the launch
line with me yesterday during our relight marathon. Mike chipped right
in and was racing after landing gliders and helping to push them back
to the launch line since our line help is a bit thin this year. I
don't know of many airport managers that would have been out there
doing that in 102º heat! We can't thank Mike enough for his help.

From warm but washed out for the day Ephrata - where gliders are tied
down, pilots are scarce, my wife just brought the vacuum into the
motorhome (the Doghaus), and I am deep into my 3rd Bloody Mary - fly
safe.

Jay Todd
CM, CD, Ops, General Flunky, Bartender and Dog Walker