JP has been hooked on aviation for nearly 10 years. Beginning with radio control aircraft he flew competitive giant-scale aerobatics before moving into full-scale flying. He joined the Blue Ridge Soaring Society (BRSS) 6 years ago and fell in love with soaring. He is now in his third year studying Aerospace Engineering at Virginia Tech, spends his weekends instructing at BRSS, and racing gliders in the summer.

For any contest, it’s extremely important to cover the “basics” such as reviewing past flights, the task area, and the local procedures. For a WGC though, the team flying aspect is critical and Daniel, Noah, and I have flown a number of contest together and have spent extra time reviewing out team flying strategy and communication approach. Even though Michael Marshall is flying in Standard class, I also got to spend some time team-flying with him to figure out how we might be able to share information between classes.

You have to learn to work with the gaggle. In my first JWGC (2015), we thought that with good weather and three gliders in a class, we could focus less on when the gaggle started. In 2017, we began to understand the gaggle behavior (risk adverse vs. risk seeking) much better and could use that to determine when to jump ahead in a gaggle.

It’s a rare opportunity to be able to represent your country in high level international competition. After having flown two previous JWGCs, we’ve learned learned a lot of lessons as a team and I’m looking forward to being able to apply them this year.

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