August 28, 2024
Difficult weather today: excessive atmospheric moisture continues to cause trouble in south Texas. Today it gave us extensive low morning cloud that broke into useful cumulus, which promptly overdeveloped, yielding areas of rain. These consolidated and expanded during the day, finishing as massive barriers to motorless flight.
In the face of this challenging weather (which was accurately forecast) task choices seemed notably strange: The usual way to deal with this sort of trouble is area tasks, which give pilots a decent chance to pick their way around weather problems. The Open class had one of those, but both 18-Meter and 20-Meter classes were given Racing* tasks, which require pilots to get within 500 meters of each assigned turnpoint. If that point has rain (or worse), good luck – difficult and possibly dangerous flying may ensue.
At launch time, troubled weather was already evident, but lift near the field was sufficient to keep all gliders aloft and get them started on their tasks. For all three classes, this involved an excursion to the south; the favored route there lay east of the direct line, avoiding a formidable and growing north-south line of rain clouds.
The 20-M classes then found serious problems at their Bella Vista turnpoint (where the view was anything but beautiful): rain covered the entire area. Two obvious choices emerged: gain height, glide to the turnpoint and either continue on course to the west (expecting dead air over wet ground) or retreat south and east (hoping to reconnect with the good lift there and then seek another route west). Neither scheme worked, and nearly all gliders soon sprouted an engine and headed home. Glider L did not follow the crowd: Karl and Sarah spent half an hour in reliable lift to the east, waiting for the rain move away to the north. They were thus able to make a rain-free glide to the turnpoint, and onward toward the next one. Over the wet ground they, too, were unable to reconnect with lift, but their patient tactics gave them the best distance of the day. The 18-Meter class had a similar experience; again, it was the more patient pilots that did best.
Open class had turn areas and thus more freedom of action, but nonetheless could put just one pilot across the finish line: It was Claudio Schmidt, flying the Nixus, who had been standing in last place. Though he didn’t finish, Jim Lee had a great flight: He somehow found a path from east to west across the impenetrable line of rain clouds, reached the final turn area and them went for more distance, which actually yielded a greater score advantage over other pilots than if he’d taken the short route home. Keith Baugh had a solid flight, good for fifth.
A day with only one finisher among 64 pilots is bound to yield some interesting retrieve stories. With only 10 non-motorized gliders flying, 14 gliders outlanded. We hear of motors that did not start and some that didn’t have enough fuel (or battery charge) to get all the way home. Bad weather appears to have completely blocked one pilot from returning. The French team was shopping for a trailer that could be used to retrieve one or more unmotorized gliders. The pilot of a JS3 with an overheating electric motor reportedly had no good dry option and managed to land safely in a stock pond. But the glider then suffered a battery fire as it was being hauled onto dry land; application of water and seaweed apparently dealt with the fire. (No word yet from the cattle that will be expected to drink from that pond.)
* The International Gliding Commission (which makes the rules for World Gliding Competitions), uses the terms “Racing Task” and “Assigned Area Task” for its two task types. Never explained is why pilots at a glider race, who are scored on the speed they achieve, would not be racing during any task they were assigned.
John Good