Pre-Worlds (Day 2)

It was tough to choose which weather forecast to believe. Forecasts ranged from blue skies, weak lift with light southeast winds, and a slight chance of overdevelopment by early evening to scattered showers and thunderstorms with light northeast winds. We settled on a triangle task that assumed a mostly blue day with southeast winds but would work with the dry northeast forecasts as well. The sky was still blue around 10:30 but exploded with clouds shortly before the launch window opened. Fearing overdevelopment and rain, we switched to the secondary task, a straight downwind run to the northwest.

The rigid wing pilots, who launch first, were not even finished launching when Bo kicked off the flex wing class for the southern launch line. Once I saw Bo climbing I tossed on my gear and headed to launch. I had a sweat tow behind Armand and was waved off below, but near, circling pilots. Since I had plenty of time I settled in for a lazy climb. There was the usual “start circle” chatter on the radio until everyone started commenting on rain that was beginning to fall around the area. I started noticing sprinkles on my visor but wasn’t concerned. I continued to climb and the sprinkles turned to rain which I took as a sign to leave! As I glided to the south side of the airfield the rain got heavier. I got wet and was looking for any sunshine I could find. Most of the pilots in the air congregated around the south end of the airfield as rain halted the tow operations. Many of us were initially low but managed to find little climbs that would last a few minutes before rain would start falling. All I wanted was something going up without water coming down. A column of gliders formed and we waited to see if the rain would simply pass by or become more widespread. We also started watching a large thundercloud form to the north not far off course line. Things continued to deteriorate and Drew stopped the day. We dashed back to the airfield during a break in the rain for safe landings. I went out of my way to cross over the “goal line” just so I could say I “made goal” for the day. It was a fun and interesting flight even if it did only last about an hour.

Once again a line formed at the entrance to the hanger and once again I was lucky enough to land close enough to the hanger to avoid most of that line. After I stored my glider and gear I got some pictures of the pilots waiting to get inside.