Day four SCFR

Dustin says that he doesn't like to fly when it is this windy here and he doesn't like turbulence (Francisco Grande, Casa Grande, Arizona)

The flex wing results.

The rigid wing results.

The Swift results.

The blogs of pilots here:

http://skyout.blogspot.com/

http://www.goflyxc.com/

http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/

Finally the RUC forecast gets it right.  We get super high, with really strong lift and the wind is strong out of the west southwest.  With the wind there is blowing dust in the tow area, which is not that pleasant.  It also scares some pilots a bit thinking that the wind is really strong, and it's not that strong, i.e.  not unsafe for launching.

I finally get a tow behind a trike and it is a hard tow, so I'm happy to get off at 1000' AGL.  The lift is strong at first and we climb to 8,000', the highest yet in the start circle.  I'm with half a dozen other gliders including Glen Volk and Sunny Venesky.

As we climb up I begin to think about going early.  We are drifting toward the edge of the start circle and these are the best conditions yet.  The rules say that you can start early, your flight is just rotated around the first start time.  So if a start half an hour before the first start time, it become half a hour after the last start time.  The flight time interval remains the same.

With thirty two minutes to go before the first start time I race to the edge of the start circle and make it 30 minutes and 12 seconds before the first start time (1:30 PM).  This means I will get the third start time at 2 PM by twelve seconds, very lucky.

I race off and find good lift as I head south southeast toward the first set of hills.  As I get to the hills I see a couple of rigid wings high above me.  They got a half hour earlier launch and got higher, but their start time was 1 PM so I started when they did.

Campbell Bowen in an ATOS VX comes in and joins me at my altitude and we climb out again.  But I lose sight of him.

Just past Eloy I come in under the high ATOSes again and climb to 8,600' in a dust devil.  I then go straight south trying to set myself up for going around Picachio Peak south of I 10.  I somehow miss all the good lift out there, struggle at 500' and this time don't pull off a low save.

About then the start window opened and pilots headed out toward the first turnpoint at Red Rock, east southeast along the south side of I 10.  They are also getting high.  In fact Jeff Shapiro reported that he got to 12,600' with a nine to one glide to goal.  But it turned out that the sink going to goal was so bad that he was getting four to one on glide and had to top out two more times in order to make it to goal.

About twenty to twenty five pilots made it in to the RC field near the Saguaro National Park - West just west of Tucson.

Rob Kells reports that he misquoted Brian Porter yesterday.  Brian actually said that he thought some flex wings would make it around the course line on day three if they got past the second turnpoint.

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