Region 10 1993, Brady Texas

Saturday Aug 14, I set out for Brady Texas to fly in my second regional for the summer and to escape this bloody swamp we live in! Once again I flew my HP-16 in sports class. Sandi stayed home, but fortunately for me, Curt and Sue McNay from Wichita came down to crew. Brady is situated in the goat hills of central Texas. The contest area is sparsely inhabited, and has a fair number of safe places to land. Field elevation there is about 1800 msl, and the late summer soaring is typically very strong. Sixteen gliders came to fly in sports class, 11 in 15 meter class and 5 in open class. I was told when I arrived that it hadn't rained in over at the airport in over a month. The day before the practice day, one of the competitors, Ken Jacobs, flew his SZD-55 from Dallas to Brady.

On the practice day there were 4 tow planes including a 150hp Super Cub. The Super Cub just wasn't strong enough to tow a ship with water ballast, so it towed those of us in the Sports Class. I was pulled off the and moved back just so the Cub could tow me. On take off roll I noticed he had the flaps down, hmm. When I was showing about 45mph and not yet off the ground, he took off and began to climb! At that speed I am just barely above stall and the aileron's aren't very effective. I wallowed around just barely high enough to stay out of the wake trying not to bring the nose up any more than I had to, keeping a hand on the tow release. At about 200 feet I grabbed the microphone and asked for a bit more speed please. After I released from tow, I called the tow pilot and suggested he not do that to the next ship in line. I struggled about for about a half an hour and finally got a good climb. From here on it was fantastic. There were beautiful Cu's in all quadrants closely spaced at 9500msl. Winds were light out of the south. My strategy for the day was to conserve my energy for the contest and get familiar with the area. It was an effortless day to go cross country. I took it easy, flying to Coleman, Brownwood and return, about 115 miles.

At the pilot's meeting on the first contest day, the weather was forecast to be a repeat of the practice day. For Sports Class, the task was a 3 hour minimum. Again I was towed by the Super Cub, and this time it was a new and different experience in excitement. He made the entire tow at 80mph, which made for a rather slow climb. We were a good two miles from the airport when we got 300 feet high. Being in that particular position gives one a great incentive to fly smoothly. The early stages of a contest flight offer some of the most exciting and beautiful moments of soaring flight. This day, like most contest days, I shared most thermals before the start with a variety of fiberglass birds. Some times there would be as many as a dozen of us in the same thermal. In a gaggle, you have to keep your head up, you can't spend much time looking at the variometer. Still, it is easier to thermal with someone else. Watching anther ship is the best way to find the strongest part of a thermal. All of those gliders make tremendous thermal markers, greatly reducing the difficulty of simply staying up, unless of course, you are the first to be launched. Joining up with a gaggle is a delicate procedure, it is important to stay where you can see everyone as you approach. It is very difficult to time your approach correctly to join up with someone who is circling very tight or erratically. Invariably you will find that there are some pilots who try to be accommodating and others who would run into you if you didn't get out of their way.

I waited a few minutes after the task was opened to take my start so that there would be some thermal markers out ahead. I got my start right at the top of the gate doing 100 miles per hour and turned north. The cu's lined up in a nice looking street but I just couldn't seem to find any really strong lift. I worked my way north getting steadily lower and finally worked a 300 fpm thermal to get back above 3000 agl. A mile north of this one I hit the 600+ fpm boomer I had been waiting for that took me to 9600 feet. From here I made great time north to Coleman for a turn point picture and back south to Brady for another picture. With only 1.5 hours used up, I headed out west to the good Cu's. I spent the rest of the flight up to final glide above 6000 msl and wouldn't turn in anything that showed less than 500fpm. Between clouds I would glide at 80mph. I made the final glide back to Brady starting 20 miles out and cruising at 80-100 mph. After landing Curt and Sue helped me tie down the glider, and I headed over to the office to turn in my film. On the way, Mike Evans, a first time competitor flying in a yellow PIK-20, asked what I thought it would take to win the day. He was amazed when I told him about 65mph. My flight for the day gave me an average speed of 53.46mph, the fastest I have ever done in the HP-16. My daily score was 6th of 16. I would have been 9th, but 3 others ahead of me, including Mike Evans, botched their turn point pictures. The Sports Class winner on that day flew a Standard Cirrus and averaged 65.56mph.

For the second contest day, the weather was forecast to be fantastic. I got a nice tow from a Cessna 150 with a 180hp engine. On this particular day, I decided that there was one glider I intended to stay away from. By the time I went through the start gate I was suffering from a nasty headache. I headed along a good cloud street, hoping that the cool shade at cloudbase would make me feel better. After about 40 minutes, I reached Eden, a turn point about 30 miles out.

In taking a contest turn point picture, you are supposed to fly over a particular landmark which is the turn point and photograph another landmark which is the photo target. The camera is mounted to shoot along the leading edge of the left wing. To take the picture, you basically place your left wing to point at the photo target. The turn point and photo target are supposed to be at least a half mile apart. Most turn points are runways where you fly over one end of the runway and photograph the other end, so a typical turn point and photo target are more nearly a mile apart. My technique for taking a turn point picture is to fly over the turn point so that I have to make a 45 degree left turn to get lined up for the picture. This way I can try to be in a coordinated turn as the wing tip comes in line with the photo target. The turn point at Eden was an intersection in the center of town, and the photo target was the football field at the local high school, perhaps 1/4 mile away. At 9000 msl I flew over the turn point and rolled into my turn to take the picture. To take the picture required a bank angle of approximately 80 degrees. With the low roll rate and weak rudder of the HP-16, return from this attitude to level flight is somewhat dramatic.

The sky looked good in every direction, but my headache had been getting steadily worse and I was starting to feel nauseous as well, so I headed back to Brady for an early landing. What a waste of a great soaring day. Still, I flew 2.5 hours and got speed points for the day.

Wednesday started out looking like we were in for a tough time. By 12:30 no Cu's had shown up. On previous days, Cu's had appeared as early as noon. The winds were a bit stronger out of the south, maybe 10-15mph. I was the 1st launch, but was blessed with a kind tow pilot. The Pawnee which towed me hit a thermal at about 1000 feet and stayed in it right up to 2000! By the time the start gate opened, there were Cu's in the Northwest quadrant. I had a great deal of difficulty trying to get high enough to go through at the top of the start gate. I decided to make for the Cu's to the north, and took a start at only 4000 agl so I could take advantage of a gaggle about 2 miles north of the field. I spotted U1, a Grob who was about 2 places ahead of me on the score sheet, no better way to add a little extra incentive to go fast! U1 had started ahead of me, but buy 10 miles out of Brady, we were gliding side by side. About 30 miles out, I finally got to the Cu's and good lift. I had pushed a little lower the U1 to get a good thermal and it paid off. I was a good two minutes ahead of him when I took my first turn point picture at Coleman.

From Coleman I could see that the clouds were in a band that ran east west as far as I could see, but the band of Cu's was only 15 or so miles wide. I headed to the west along the band of Cu's on a line heading half way between Winters and Ballinger following the good looking Cu's and putting off deciding on the next turn point. As I passed north of Ivie reservoir, I could see that the band of Cu's was steadily narrowing and moving to the north. I followed the Cu's up to Winters. On most contest flights, you will see only a few other gliders on course after the start, especially in Sports Class. As I went to take my picture at Winters I had a rare treat. I saw a least a half dozen other gliders within a few miles of the turn point including a Nugget, a DG-600, my dad in his ASW-20 and Dick Johnson in his Ventus.

I soon found out why so many other pilots were getting penalized for bad pictures. As I took my picture from as close to right over the turn point as I could, two other gliders took their pictures a good half mile away from me! The allowable tolerance is 1/4 mile. I turned south from Winters toward the next good looking Cu which was unfortunately the last Cu between me and Brady, now some 60 miles away. I began to wonder if going that far north had been a good idea. Instead of striking out straight across the blue toward Brady, I detoured to the east of course line toward Valera. Half way to Valera I ran out of Cu's and worked some fairly weak thermals. From there I headed South at a conservative 70 mph. I just didn't know if it would be any good in the blue. I should have just pressed on at 80 to 90 like I had under the Cu's. I hit strong lift in the blue several times and the thermals still went to 10000 feet. As I approached the Colorado river I spotted a good thermal from all of the leaves it had swept up, climbed to 8500 feet and glided back to Brady. My speed for the day was 44.72 mph. The slow cruising and weak lift I had worked on the last leg really hurt my speed, I was 10th for the day and 12th overall. This day of the contest was the only day on which there were any land outs, one of them was Dick Johnson. Dick got an air retrieve and was back in time for the goat barbeque that night.

Thursday's forecast was again for limited Cu's but good soaring. When I launched there were clouds forming to the east. This time they seemed to be in a band which ran north/south. I waited to start until several others had gone and headed east/northeast toward the nearest Cu's. The direction I had chosen put me in line with the 15 meter class task for the day. One after another the water laden glass birds blasted by me. About 5 miles east/northeast of Brady I got to the Cu's and headed north/northeast thinking of going to Brownwood. About this time I worked a thermal with 8 or 10 of the 15 meter ships. By the time I got to the next thermal every one of them had already topped out and left me behind! The Cu's seemed to thin out dramatically north of Winchell, so I took a turn point there and headed back Southeast under better Cu's to San Saba. Again I found myself suffering a nasty headache. The going was easy to San Saba and I just stayed high and comfortable, regularly reaching 9000+ feet. My headache grew steadily worse, so from San Saba, I came back to Brady.

The last day of the contest was forecast to be another great soaring day. The task was set at 3:15 minimum. Cu's formed early to the North, and sparsely around Brady. My first attempted start I was given a bad try for being too high. I ran into strong lift and just couldn't get down! My next start was a little after 2:00, this time I just squeaked through at 5000 feet. I turned and ran north once again for Coleman and the best looking Cu's around. From Coleman I went where the clouds looked best to Winchell, Ivie Dam and then back toward Coleman. From Ivie to Coleman the clouds were incredible. One climb measured on the barograph at 1000 fpm. It looked like if I went to Coleman again and back home, I would be home under the minimum time. The clouds looked good on east so I continued on toward Brownwood. About 10 miles east of Coleman the Cu's grew very sparse, but I was committed now with no good alternate turn points to cut my losses.

After several dramatically steep glides in the blue followed by fair climbs, I got the picture at Brownwood and headed home. From Brownwood it was a good 10 miles along course to the next Cu, and the terrain on the course line was rather nasty. I deviated quite a ways west of course for more landable terrain and better clouds. It was about 5:30 and I hoped that the lift wouldn't die early. Two long slow glides got me over to good Cu's. About 20 miles out I got on a fantastic cloud street which went straight to Brady. I thermalled up to 8000 feet and headed home. I should not have bothered circling. From here in I flew 90 to 100 mph in strong lift, and crossed the finish at about 1500 agl. My flight for the day was 200 miles at an average speed of 50.84 mph. This would put me 12th place for the day and 13th overall.

In the week at Brady I logged about 24 hours of flying time and flew in excess of 750 miles. Not only was the weather great all week, but Curt and Sue took great care of me. They washed my glider for me, helped drag it to the launch line every day, ran my wing and and tied the HP down every night. On the drive home, I wished I had tried to fly back. The soaring conditions looked good from Brady all the way north to Emporia. Who knows, it might even have been a diamond distance day for an HP-16.