East Coast Championship - Day 1

The thunder, lightning, and rain helped me fall asleep last night and the overcast skies allowed me to sleep in a bit longer than normal.  It was hard to imagine us flying when the protest, safety, and task committees were selected at the pilots meeting at 10 am.  Larry, Randy, and I were selected for the task committee.  Since Larry was not around, I asked Charlie and Paris to help out.  We ignored all but the most optimistic forecasts and tried to design tasks that also stayed out of controlled airspace to the southwest.

We decided on an out-and-back task to the west near the town of Wye Mills, for a distance of 37.7 km (23.4 miles) for the open class.  The sport class flew straight to Wye Mills for a distance of 18.9 km (11.7 miles).

We postponed the start 30 minutes when the skies didn't clear as predicted.

Randy and Jim

Mark Bolt launched soon after the altered launch window opened and flew a beautiful sledding path through the sky followed by a sweet landing back at the head of the line.  A short time later Paris launched and managed to hang on which started the real exodus of pilots.

I launched soon after, following April into the air in the "checkered taxi" tug.

At first the cumulus forming under the higher clouds were fuzzy, low (2800 feet / 850 m), and not well defined.  However they slowly started looking better and better as we pushed to the edge of the 5 km start circle.  I picked my way to the edge of the western convergence line and finally dove into the milky cloudless sky with Charlie.  We floundered a bit around the turn point, but once I made it back to the convergence line, about 1/4 of the way back, I started a long glide back to goal.

Mark Frutiger had a disappointing landing 800 meters short of goal after spending most of the day flying with us; we could easily see him from goal.  Bob, Larry and Rich, who launched late, did well since the day got better later.

The results are available online on Soaring Spot.

Flights: 1, Duration: 2:00, Distance: 23.4 miles