2006 Region 8 Contest - Day 5

2006 Region 8 Soaring Championships
Ephrata, Washington

June 30, 2006 - Day 5

Greetings to all our loyal readers from beautiful downtown Ephrata,
Washington where today the sun shined, the birds chirped, the dogs
barked, the gliders flew and the pilots were happy ... well, mostly
happy anyway.

As usual, our pilots briefing was held at 10:00 am where I hardly had
anything to harp at anyone about. Probably because we haven't flown
for the past two days but hey, ya take what you can get. Dick
VanGrunsven gave us a safety talk about visual perception cues and how
they can lead to accidents during landings and slope soaring. Very
informative and well received. Next, "Cloudy" Northcraft got up to
tell us about the weather. Steve had a smile and kind of a shine about
him that could have come from the happy news he was about to impart, or
could have been because he had his hat off and the reflection was
getting to us. At any rate the news was mostly good. High temperature
forecast at 92º with a trigger temperature around 80º. The down side
showed an inversion around 5,300 feet and the lift was only forecast to
be in the 2 to 4 knot range. With a concentration of high level
moisture, there was also a chance of either cirrus forming in the
afternoon or some towering cumulous flatting out and causing sun
blockage in the afternoon.

With this information in hand the task for both classes was called as a
2 ½ hour TAT with the turn points at 1 - Nilles Corner (#29) with a
10 mile circle, 2 - Waterville (#43) with a 10 mile circle, 3 - Dry
Falls (#18) with a 5 mile circle and 4 - Mansfield (#26) with a 10
mile circle. For those hearty souls that have actually read all of my
reports, this task may look suspiciously familiar - similar in large
(very large) part to the task called on Day 3, the first day we
couldn't fly due to the weather. OK, I admit it but give me a break.
This is my first time out as CD and those that know me will tell you I
have a limited capacity for thinking up new things. I even use my
mistakes over and over. At any rate, an alternate task was prepared
just in case the overdevelopment started early but as it worked out, we
didn't need it. We also made one additional change by extending our
tows to 2500 feet AGL rather than the 2000 feet AGL that we have been
using. This was to give the pilots a little more chance to find lift
before having to head back to the airport for a relight.

The gliders were out on the grid at 12:15 and shortly thereafter our
sniffer launched. Our sniffer, Helmut Gebenus is one of those guys that
can fly in anything and find lift where there isn't any. He launches
an hour before anyone else and lands an hour after everyone else has
given up. Really makes you sick but he's a GREAT sniffer. A pilots
meeting was held on the grid at 12:30 and Helmut let us know he was
thermaling in 4 knot lift and had reached 4500 feet. That was good
enough and the launch commenced at 12:45. Today's launch went
beautifully and all were in the air in 45 minutes. There were 4
relights (1 was a motorglider) and the tasks were both open by 1:47.

At 1:51 Helmut arrived back on the ramp - not a good sign at all! I
was hoping that maybe he just forgot his lunch or something but no ...
he told me that it really was pretty poor up there with very scratchy
lift and nothing above 5000 feel. I cringed and headed for the Doghaus
for some Mylanta®.

As it turned out, things got better rapidly and stayed that way for
almost 2 hours before things began to get scratchy again. Most of the
pilots had a pretty tough time within 15 miles of Ephrata but once out
of the area and after about 2:30, some visible cue's showed up and
most were able to work the lift to a bit over 10,000 feet.

The gliders started returning around 4:30 and we considered the day a
success with only 2 landouts though one of those really didn't count
since he landed at an airport and was a motorglider so he self launched
back out. Our preliminary scoring looks like this:

Sports Class Daily Score
1st with 1000 points - Dick VanGrunsven in his Ventus 2CM with a
handicapped speed of 52 mph and a distance of 164.16 miles
2nd with 992 points - Dennis Vreeken in his HP-18 with a handicapped
speed of 51.57 mph and a distance of 157.37 miles
3rd with 974 points - Tim Martin in his DG-400 with a handicapped
speed of 50.64 mph and a distance of 129.56 miles

Sports Class Standings
1st Dick VanGrunsven with 2907 points
2nd Martin Dennis with 2699 points
3rd Tom Udd with 2694 points

Open Class Daily Score
1st with 1000 points - Nelson Funston in his Nimbus 4M with a speed
of 65.42 mph and a distance of 176.08 miles
2nd with 978 points - Greg Mecklenburg in his Ventus A with a speed
of 63.97 mph and a distance of 185.54 miles
3rd with 974 points - Stuart Larimore in his ASW-20 with a speed of
63.73 mph and a distance of 170.86 miles

Open Class Standings
1st Nelson Funston with 2974 points
2nd Greg Mecklenburg with 2947 points
3rd Mike Thompson with 2820 points

From Ephrata where the sky is darkening to a beautiful sunset and all
is right here in our world -

Jay Todd
CM, CD, Ops, General Flunky, Dog Picker Upper After and Bathroom
Cleaner Upper