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2007 August 4 ... Martyn Acreman and Doug Morris Become Glider Partners.

Today, Martyn bought into Doug's newly acquired Grob Astir CS, so we should begin seeing even more of Martyn in the skies over Moontown. He plans to take his private glider checkride as soon as he can schedule it. 

2007 July 23 ... JJ Hits New High in OLC Standings 

Beautiful skies, moderate temperatures, and the promise of good soaring weather drew several of us to Moontown today. JJ, Jim Finger, Doug, John Slifer, and I flew our birds, while Ivan took the L-23 aloft, followed by Bill and Dylan, then Ted and Martyn.  About half the active club members were flying today!

JJ flew 276 km on Saturday. He made an attempt at his 300 km Gold distance/diamond goal flight,
but cut it short enroute from his first turn to the second when the clouds disappeared and conditions turned blue.

With this flight, he has risen in the Region 5 (Southeastern US) OLC (Online Contest) standings. Here are JJ's current regional standings in the various scoring schemes:

Classic OLC
All flights (cumulative handicapped distance flown since the 2007 series began in mid-October 2006): 9th out of 116.

FAI - OLC (only FAI triangles count)
All flights: 3rd out of 116
Best flight: 11th of 116 with a 291 point flight (1st is a 538 point flight)
Champion: 3rd of 100 with 1339 points (1st has 1964 points)
The OLC championship is based on a pilot's six longest flights.

Airfields are also ranked by cumulative distance flown by all participating pilots who
launch from that site.  In Region 5, Moontown ranks 12th out of 30 participating airfields,
largely due to JJ.

Congratulations to JJ for a superb performance so far this year (and it doesn't end until mid-October).

For you new pilots, the OLC is a worldwide soaring contest, based on distance flown, with sailplane handicaps applied. Competitors upload their flight files to the OLC Web site for scoring. Anyone can download any IGC file for display in SeeYou, Strepla, or similar software.  Files are also available in KML format for display in Google Earth.

Paul Remde has posted a good description and explanation of the OLC at his site.

Rand

2007 July 21 ... Jim Finger Achieves Silver Badge in One Flight. 

On his second flight in the LS-3a, Jim achieved his Silver and Gold 5-hour duration, his Silver distance (50km), and his Silver altitude gain, thereby earning the Silver badge in one magnificent flight!  Congratulations, Jim! To my knowledge, Jim is the first HSC pilot to earn all three legs of a badge in one flight. Jim declared Winchester airport as a remote finish, so he actually flew about 80 miles up and back, then soared for a couple more hours at min sink to make the five hours. Click here to view Jim's flight as posted to the OLC. 

Beautiful skies, moderate temperatures, and the promise of good soaring weather drew several of us to Moontown today.  JJ, Jim Finger, Doug, John Slifer, and I flew our birds, while Ivan took the L-23 aloft, followed by Bill and Dylan, then Ted and Martyn.  About half the active club members were flying today!

On his second flight in the LS-3a, Jim achieved his Silver and Gold 5-hour duration, his Silver distance (50km), and his Silver altitude gain, thereby earning the Silver badge in one magnificent flight!  Congratulations, Jim! To my knowledge, Jim is the first HSC pilot to earn all three legs of a badge in one flight. Jim declared Winchester airport as a remote finish, so he actually flew about 80 miles up and back, then soared for a couple more hours at min sink to make the five hours. Jim will post his flight to the OLC Web site. 

JJ made an attempt at his 300 km Gold distance/diamond goal flight, but cut it short enroute from his first turn to the second when the clouds disappeared and conditions turned blue.  John released low and became fodder for the sink monster.  He landed in a very nice field near the airport and a handy-dandy retrieve crew arrived shortly thereafter.

Doug enjoyed his second flight in his Grob Astir CS, remaining aloft ~2-1/2 hours. He reports that it handles nicely and generally flies very well.

Yours Truly declared a AL state record 300K FAI triangle (actually ~196 miles) with Gadsden and Marion Co. airports as TPs.  On the first leg, I had to work weak lift near Lake Guntersville before getting marginally high enough to cross the river.  I hit very little lift on the way to Albertville and had my gear down in preparation for a landing at the airport when I found a weak thermal directly over the south end of the runway.  It strengthened as I climbed until at 4,000', left it and I headed for clouds in the direction of Gadsden. The pace picked up from there into the turn, and the 79-mile run from Gadsden to Marion Co. was relatively fast.  Once I reached turned Marion Co., however, I was low and scraping for anything I could find, which wasn't much. I limped along to Stevenson, where I found a decent thermal that took me up to nearly 6,000'.  From there, I could connect with the good clouds to the west, which helped me start a 34-mile final glide that got fatter and faster as I cruised under nice cus over the hills between Stevenson and Moontown.

After flying, most of us adjouned to the West End Grill for dinner, where we were joined by Rick and Janet, Angelia Slifer, and Mandy Morris.

Thanks to Bill for FOOing and to Rick for towing.

Rand