Another Year of TC is Finished

It's over.  Everyone has packed up their wings and headed home to Washington, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Florida and many other distance places while us locals shake our heads and wonder what went wrong with the weather.  We can normally count on a few good days during any week in the early fall, but this year was tough!  We ended up with two flying days, but only one of them counted for toward the competition.  The first, as previously mentioned, was a day for launching and landing clinics in which we all had a lot of fun and learned a lot, but the other was the reason that we all took time off from work, packed up our gear, and spent hours (days for some folks!) to travel to the beautiful Sequatchie valley:  Cross Country Flying!

The two ridge-gaps before
Dr. Dales.

It was Thursday and it was windy.  So windy, in fact, that the safety committee was tempted to call the day off a couple of times, but the gusts subsided and safe launch windows were available.  Everyone, about sixty pilots, got off the mountain safely and into some moderately ridge-soarable conditions.

The task for C pilots was to fly 8.3 miles south and to land at Dr. Dale's field, which is a huge field with two crossing landing strips cut into the soft, green grass.  The B pilots were to go a bit past Dr. Dale's, then turn around and make the trip back to Henson's Gap and land in our primary LZ - about 18 miles all together.  The A pilots were to go to Dr. Dale's, then back north to Buc's Knob, then all the way back to Dr. Dale's again for a 36 mile flight.  Wow!  

I launched about halfway through the pack, following my team leader, Jeff Nibbler, into what should have been easily ridge soarable conditions.  The plan was to run the ridge south to the first gap and then take stock of the situation, leaning on Jeff's experience before attempting to make the first jump.  It turned out that the ridge, for reasons I don't fully understand, was barely working at all, so what should have been a stroll turned into a bit of a chore.  I got lucky and found some light but workable lift lines early on that gave me enough altitude to make it to the first gap easily, then another light climb that got me across.

Feeling confident, I charged  ahead of the pack until I reached the edge of the second gap.  Whoa, Nelly!  This thing did not look so big on the topo map in the clubhouse!  Something about the way that it was laid out, maybe the way the trees seemed to flow outward into the valley like water, made the 2nd gap look a LOT bigger than the first.  Or maybe it was just that I was so much lower.  I knew that getting too deep into one of those gaps could be dangerous if I didn't have the altitude to get back out again.  

I could see that I didn't have enough altitude to cross the gap and I didn't want to risk getting stuck in the middle and not making it out of the large, forested area that extended around it in all directions, so I scraped along the ridge for about 10 minutes trying to find a way up.  Our team leader, Jeff, saw me scratching around and called out some lift behind me, so I turned back to see four other gliders climbing in it.  How did I not notice that on my own?  Well, that's why I'm a "C" pilot and Jeff is an "A" pilot and our team's leader!  

GPS Log of my flight.  It was 8.3 miles, straight line,
and very fun!

I turned back to the lift and quickly climbed up to 5200' MSL before Jeff suggested that I turn out to the valley and glide to the target LZ.  I didn't want to leave the climb, but knew that Jeff needed to get me and Brandon, the other C pilot on our team, to our goal as quickly as possible so that he could head back to Buc's Knob before it started to cool off, so I did as directed.  

My first Hang Gliding trophy, created by
Eric Donaldson.

I arrived at Dr. Dale's with around 2000' of altitude to spare and enjoyed a nice, casual descent to the massive landing zone, where my nice, no-step landing was met with hoots, congratulations from my lovely girlfriend, and some high-fives from my teammate and flying buddy, Brandon.  It was Brandon's first Cross-Country attempt, and both of our first time making goal.  We were both very happy as we broke down our gliders and watched as seven other C pilots made goal.  In the end, nine of the twelve C pilots in the competition made goal that day and it was amazing to be a part of it!

That was the only scored competition day of the week, but it was a great day for almost everyone.  My team, "Team Challenged", managed to take second place in the competition, thanks almost entirely to Jeff's patient and wise leadership, and we all went home with some amazing trophies made by our friend and fellow pilot, Eric Donaldson.  Eric's team, incidentally, took first place.  Again.  

We spent the evening with Dennis Pagen and Mike Barber reviewing the day and sharing stories and observations.  We also reviewed the days launches, most of which were very well done!  

Mike Barber and Dennis Pagen review the day's
flight reports and discuss flying conditions.

All in all, it was a good week.  I do wish there had been more flying, but I'm incredibly happy that the one day we had was such an amazing experience and I can't wait for next year.  Until then - happy flying!