I wanted to take a couple minutes and share some of my experience in Texas at the Big Spring Nationals, competing in the sport class. We had a great sport class this year with I will share more as soon as I can get something up on my Blog. Until then, a pilot on another forum had asked for me to share some details and the following is a report that I typed on my phone on the drive back:
Hey guys, sorry that I haven't provided any flight reports. I plan to share some details on my blog, but that will be a week our so away. When I do, I will post a link here.
In short, EPIC Texas flying. We flew everyday. Cloudbase ranged between 10-13k', great climbs with lots of boomers in the 700 - 1000+ fpm range. One pilot reported 1800fpm sustained. I won the first day with a quick flight to goal, racing a T2C in to take the win on final glide, very fun.
I had 4 flights longer than my previous personal best, with a new personal best of 106 miles, making goal on the longest sport class task ever called, 5 of us made goal that day. I was able to make goal 4 of the 7 days, decking it on two days that really hurt my scores.
On the last day I needed to have a very strong flight to have any chance at making it back in the top 3. The task was a 91.1k downwind goal with two slightly crosswind waypoints. The forecast was showing nice lift, but strong winds. When I launched it was blowing 15+- on the ground and at 2000' I was parked into the wind at 26 mph. While I found lift it was drifting fast and I didn't want to get caught low and down wind of the airport without the ability to relight. After a short flight I decided to land and see if the wind would lay down. After 45 minutes or so, I launched again. The wind was just as strong, but the lift was nowhere to be found and I was quickly back on the ground and frustrated. At around 2:30, I was the last pilot at the field and knew that this would be my last flight of the meet. With blue sky above the airport and no gliders in sight, I launched for the third time. I found a few bubbles over the airport, but nothing significant. Tired after a long week of flying and frustrated with the day, I decided to go on glide at around 2500' and take my medicine. By the time I hit the edge of the 10k start circle, I was down to around 700' and picking out fields..... In Texas, there is big lift and of course big sink. Getting caught In 900-1100fpm down puts you on the ground in a hurry; but I wasn't there yet. I stumbled into a few bubbles that I had to work hard to stay in. After a while of light up and down, I was back to 1500' and then 2500'......5000'...... 10,500. BOOM! I am back in the game and yelling "Cloudbase Bitch!".
After being resurrected, I am resolved to stay high. I get a nice lift line to the first waypoint and topping up where I can. The second leg has more crossword, but the clouds are working for me, allowing me to keep moving and stay high. I tag the second waypoint at around 6500'msl...4K' agl. Just after tagging the 2nd waypoint I find some moderate lift that eventually consolidates into a sweet 700-900fpm climb. At around 9000' my 6030 is telling me I have goal at 1800', but I am around 35km from goal, so I top that climb out to around 10.5k' where the 6030 tells me I have goal at 4300'. Its final glide time, with a 14mph tail wind. At 20km out the numbers are holding and at 15km I am showing 3300' at goal, so I push harder, but my arms are screaming. At 40+mph, I am climbing at 2-800fpm all the way to goal and I tag goal at around 6500'. Exhausted from a week of long days in Texas, I fight for what seems like forever to get down. Struggling to escape lift, I get down to 5800', then back to over 7000'. Unzipped with my knees out and my arms draped over the bar, I finally find 600 down and put the U2 on a wing. I was overjoyed to see over a 1000 down on my instrument and finally touch down at the Lamesa airport. I wasn't the first one there, but I was the fastest. What a great way to end a phenomenal week of flying. When the scores were in, I snuck into 3rd for the week with 4214.92 points for the week. Just 8 points from second and around 800 points behind my teammate from the Worlds, Dave Williams.
I finished the week with just over 17 hours of flying and 332 miles. Lots of 1000fpm climbs with my highest to over 12,000'. What a great week of flying and hanging out with the great people in our little hang gliding community; especially our own Peter Kane who continues to mentor me and graciously used his beautiful truck for the trip out and retrieves. Good times!
Cheers,
Matt
PS: Typing this on my phone as we drive, so please excuse typos and grammar.
Tried to attach a pic that our driver took of me finally getting down on the last day.
