Day 2

I can't believe that it's already day 2! I've been meaning to get this going sooner, but I haven't gotten the chance. Maybe it's just my gotta stay chill attitude that I've been working on having for this contest. Hence the name Staying Cool. Not only is it pretty warm here, I've made it a personal goal of mine to do my best to stay positive, calm and collected. I have a couple of reasons for this, probably the biggest being that I don't like being scared or stressed - it just sucks the fun out of it.



I'll write about today since it's still fresh in my mind. Today was cooler than the previous days, which follows the forecasts showing a cooling trend until Friday, when I guess a front is supposed to pass. The mountians to the west of the airfield were completely hidden by smoke, as they ususally are in the morning, but today the smoke never lifted. The task was called similar to Day 1, which I haven't written about so I'll fill you in. The contest director called a Modified Assigned Task (MAT) where the first few turns are specified and a total time is given, and then it's up to the pilot to use the time left to maximize speed and distance. We usually tow to a hill nearby called Craggy to get the first climbs out of the Shasta Valley, then we move south west into the mountains to make it to an area called Gunsight. This is our start gate (really a start cylinder), with a 5 mile radius, and a top of 10,00ft. Today the start gate was totally filled with smoke. I even considered coming home and not flying because the smoke was so bad. I had some trouble with disorientation, but made it a point to focus on my airspeed to stay safe. Once the gate opened (20 minutes after the last glider in line has been towed aloft) the fleet headed south along the mountain tops to random mountain called China. This leg was easier than expected as the air cleared up quite a bit and the lift was good. Several of us stumbled into some thermal wave (that is, wave lift that is generated off of a thermal - the thermal acts like a mountain would in the classic mountain wave system) and got quite high. High enough to cruise across the Shasta valley without concern. I was able to get climbs just about everytime I thought "I'd like to get a bit higher right now", and didn't have too much trouble. I did notice that the clouds in the middle of the Butte Valley looked great, but when I crossed under them, there was little activity - no sink, but no lift either. In my mind, this meant that the lift under those clouds had already cycled, and it wouldn't pay to fly under that again. Turns out that some people got caught off guard and landed at the Butte Valley airport.

I wandered about the valley a bit longer, before I decided to head home. At one point, I was out of glide to an airport, but had fields in the area made. I found a thermal coming off of some sunny rocks, and was able to climb up to well over final glide. I kind of chickened out on getting some extra miles and heading to other turn points and I ended up coming home just a few mintues early with extra altitude. I'll have to make a mental note not to do that again. But, I ended up 11th place for the day! This is far and away my best finish to date in a glider contest, and I'm super happy!

Off to slumber!