Day Zero, Day One - Move Along; Nothing to See Here

Ready to Fly - The day before
the competition looked
great!

Registration day went well enough and plenty of people showed up early to get a little bit of pre-meet warmup flying in.  I managed two short flights, but it was good to have a chance to test out my glider after having had to replace one of the leading edges.  The new patch on the sail looks great, too!

Pilot Registration &
Team Assignment

Team selection went quickly and I ended up on a team of all local friends with whom I have flown many times before.  Our team's name is "Team Challenged", which was proposed by J.C. (and pre-proposed by the infamous Rex of Lookout Mountain Flight Park if I have the back-story right).  Flying with friends is what hang gliding is all about (and beer... friends and beer), so I think we have the perfect team!  I'm very excited for the comp to start, but there is just one more obstacle to overcome:  The weather.

The first day of Team Challenge 2011 dawned with some hope as the morning numbers on the computer forecast site showed a lot of potential for soaring, but as the sun came up it quickly became clear that it was not about to become clear.  The clouds weren't going to cooperate.  They looked, in fact, a bit like the defensive line from a prison football team, all in drab, gray uniforms as they shoulder into each other and work hard stop every single, thermal-generating ray of sun from ever getting to the ground.

Linked form
http://www.icelandphotoblog.com/index.php?showimage=214

Then we got the wind forecast and realized that there were not going to be any places for good, safe launches in the Sequatchie Valley so the flying day was called.  Canceled.

Instead of flying, everybody piled into the clubhouse to listen to a great seminar about soaring in the Sequatchie Valley by hang gliding legend Dennis Pagen.  It was very educational and I hope that the weather cooperates soon so that I can put some of what I learned from Dennis to the test... but tomorrow's forecast just came in and it looks like rain.

Rain.  Ugly little wads of water shooting toward our heads like evil, bullet-shaped drops of thermal-killing hate......