Thursday, June 09, 2005

ECC: Day Five: Diving Into Goal

I wasn't sure we would fly today. Cummies started forming around 8:30am, almost 4 hours earlier than yesterday. The task committee called a short downwind task to where we landed yesterday, the Massey airfield. Launch opened at 11:30 and we had a single start gate time of 12:30. I was once again one of the first to launch, but just slowly sank out. I landed with Ollie and we quickly jumped back into line. (The ground crew changed the tow direction, so at least we avoided hiking our gliders to the other end of the runway.) Now I had to rush to get to the 5 mile start line before 12:30. I found a weak, but cooperative, climb with a couple of pilots from the sports class. I went on glide towards the start gate and found another weak climb. I was quickly joined by gliders coming from all directions; including downwind. I got lucky and drifted across the start gate just a minute after 12:30. I was tailing Davis, Ollie, and Paris by 500 feet even after several climbs. The three of them centered up a nice climb faster than I did and Bubba and Russell caught me. From there Bubba and I raced about 5 miles to goal. It was awesome diving to goal through the fairly mellow air with a friend. We were close most of the way, but I pulled ahead to arrive 6 seconds earlier. That glide into goal was definitely worth the admission price for the meet!
Ollie was the second rigid wing into goal behind Davis. Charlie, who left before the start gate officially opened, also made goal. It made the day easy for our new driver Christopher since the entire team was at goal.

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