Albert Lea Contest

Ben wrote:

I did notice that early in the movie, some gliders
seem to line
up on one side of the large central dividing area and
others
on the other side facing them. Are those on opposing
teams?
But eventually they all seemed to end up in a jumble
in the
central dividing area of the contest board. The central
dividing
area between the opposing teams of gliders seems to
be occasionally invaded by another faster air vehicle
that looks a
lot like a smallbusiness jet. What role do those play
in the contest?

What you're missing in this video is that there are
actually three runways involved. The contest starts
with the gliders all parked on one runway. The towplanes
then start moving gliders around on the three runways,
with brief excursions into the air, following the rule
that contest numbers must remain in alphanumerical
order on each of the three runways. The contest ends
when all the gliders are arranged on the second runway
in contest number order. The interloper you noticed
was outside interference by a fan of the contest, and
probably resulted in expulsion from the arena. These
contests are an immense amount of fun, contrary to
what you might expect from my explanation.

Jim Beckman (NJ)