Green Swamp Final

 It’s Sunday, the Green Swamp Sport Klassic is over and our bodies are feeling it today.

We had the first day of the comp turn out to be awesome but the following three days were blown out. I remained in 13^th place.

Thursday, they held Task 2. It was a questionable day with low TOL and high winds. I was extremely apprehensive about flying and under normal conditions I wouldn’t even get my glider off the truck. I was set up, but my glider stayed right next to the camper under the trees on the tie down. Anyone who has flown with me knows how much of a weenie I am when it comes to flying in high winds. It’s not fun when you’re hooking in below minimum weight, turning my glider is like trying to turn the Titanic. Myself and about 20 other pilots took a ‘DNF’ and 0 points for the day, which I was totally fine with. It bumped me down to 19^th place, but the points awarded that day were peanuts anyways due to the amount of people who didn’t fly or go anywhere if they did.

 

Morningside South

 

Task 3 was Task 1: Part 2. Another Southern flight to tag the rotary waypoint then East to Wallaby. I was flying today, the winds had calmed down but it was a totally blue day with another 3,500 TOL. (Not much when you’re used to New England’s 10,000ft Springtime ceilings. I just wanted one day at goal, but it was going to be tough. Our mentor was Dave Lopez on his T2C. The teams had also been whittled down and the A-Team now only consisted of Max, Ilya, and myself. Dana and Asel got split onto a new team since we had a couple more mentors.

We all towed up and Ilya and Max caught the first train out in a large gaggle, and it wasn’t until we were in the air that we realized our mentor’s PTT keyed on and none of us were able to communicate. The drift was strong and I was only around 1,600ft. I didn’t want to risk leaving and sinking. At least if you make it back to Quest you can get a re-light and try again. So, I bobbled around, climbed out with the second group, and gave chase. We had issues with our gaggle though, nobody up top wanted to push out front. So, a few times in a row I was the schmuck that topped out and lead out to hunt around along with another guy in a red Sport2 with white racing stripes. We fanned out and hunted around and it worked for a decent distance. I started catching up to Max and Ilya, I could see the red and green dots about a mile ahead. I got over the same field that I had landed in on the first Task (the attack-cows), and there’s only a couple of landing options. I was low and needed to get higher to make the jump over the trees to the next decent field near the road. Landing in Bronson’s ranch was not an option to me. Unless you like having your life threatened by ranch hands and hiking 100+lbs of gear for hours through pastures. There is no access into the acres of cow fields. I lost my climb and was getting low, about 1,000ft. A guy named Chris had landed there a few moments before in a Sting, and I didn’t want to deck it. I struggled on the tree line down to about 300ft, vultures came out and started circling but by the time I got over to them I was about 150ft up and the drift would’ve taken me over the trees. It wasn’t worth it and I landed… in the same damn field. It was windy and I ended up having a two-step moon-walk landing. At least I was familiar with the terrain and cows at that point. They didn’t even venture over the hill to look at me this time. Ilya and Max landed not long after I did, a little further down the course.

Breaking down in Bronson's field

 

Distance: 21.34 km
Time: 1h 31m
Place: 13th

 

Task 4 – The last day. The wind had switched 180º for the day and we had a new task, so everyone was amped to go North instead of South. New terrain! It was another blue day but the TOL was predicted around 5,000. Our mentor for the day was Pete Lehmann, and he ended up being a super cool dude. We were the last team to launch so we got into the later part of the day, but it worked out because the ceiling had lifted a bit and we had what Lanning calls ‘confetti’ (other pilots) on the course to help mark the thermals out We had been first every day of the comp. Our mentor launched first, then myself, Ilya, and Max. Again, we had issues with comms. We couldn’t hear Ilya or our mentor, so Max and I were the only two that could communicate and we ended up being split up. I caught a climb out with a gaggle, topped out and was being attacked by an immature bald eagle at the top of the stack along with another poor dude in a red and yellow Gecko. I saw him rolling with the claws out about 100ft away from me so I beat feet and went on glide towards the north. And I got HAMMERED. It was a slow, sad descent. I had spoken to another pilot, Rich, before the flight and he mentioned that there were aluminum chicken coops off to the NW that were really good thermal generators. Remembering that, I made a dash for them and got there at 1,000ft. And thankfully, the advice and chickens paid off. I had a 3,000ft climb out and was back up over 4,000ft. I left and went back on course. The first turnpoint was 34.9 km to Colman, and goal was 62.5km from start.

I was reading off my distance from the cylinder back and forth with Max, 22k.. 17k.. 10k.. and I finally heard the happiest beeps ever from the 6030, I had tagged the waypoint. But I was  now down around 2,000ft and needed a climb out. I saw a glider below that had landed in the dirt of the mines and I didn't care to give them any company. So, very slowly, I had clawed my way back up and it cost me time. Max ended up catching up from a couple of miles behind and blowing right past me while I was circling trying to get back up. Ilya was not far behind me either, I could see him the next gaggle back but he said he never spotted me. My mentor was climbing with me, and afterwards said he caught a climb not even 500ft from where I was and was about 2k over me while I was struggling. I lost him and thought he had left, I didn’t even see him above and we had no communication. Damn.

I ventured off alone, and went on glide up the highway and over the retirement city, The Villages. There’s golf courses mixed in there but I wasn’t keen on shooting into one of those when there were larger fields off to the West, and not very far off course. I was only 18k from goal. I flew over a few downed gliders here and there, one was behind a Lowes in a large field that I ended up getting stuck and circling over. I kept saying aloud ‘I am NOT landing with you'. The mantra worked and I got back up and moved on. But the day was getting late. Max was way ahead of me, Ilya had caught up and was about a mile to the East of me over the villages and neither of us realized it. He was with Zac Majors and Ken and they got better climbs over that way, he landed a couple miles further up the course than I did. I could see goal in the distance, I was on glide and getting low though. I picked out a small field with no fence and an access area. I scratched down to about 300ft, but the last tiny 20fpm of lift wasn’t big enough to get a full turn into. I accepted my fate and ended my flight with a perfect no-step landing. I was quickly followed by Matt Pruitt, who was tailing me.

It was the longest duration flight I’ve had since my shoulder surgery, and it was sore but it held up a lot better than I thought. I got to thermal around that day with Zac Majors, Christian Ciech, Mick, and Pete Lehmann too. So, it was a pretty incredible day.

Distance: 44.42 km
Time: 2h 30m
Place: 11^th

 

A-Team 3D flight track - Doarama

Max made goal
Ilya got 48.91km  
Bill Gottling had a personal best of 42.46 km
Nick finally got out of the field in his T2C and put some miles in
Asel had his second-ever XC
And poor Dana didn’t fly. His rental glider was a total disaster and he was grounded all week.

 

A-Team final results out of 54 competitors-

Max: 1^st place
Ilya: 9^th place
Crystal: 13^th place (1st women's)