Chris Grantham

Tater Hill Comp May 7-13
The pics are up at http://www.lagparty.org/~greenmntn/TaterHill/

I arrived in Boone, NC on Saturday the 6th of May and met Dave Prentice, Jeff Farrell, and JC Brown in the landing zone.  We'd heard rumors that Greg Babush, Todd Weigand and Luis Rosenkjer were up on launch but it looked way too windy for us.  Boy was that a mistake.  About an hour later they were all flying though it still looked windy.  When a bunch of comp gliders look like salmon swimming upstream, you know it's nukin'.  We didn't have time to zip up there before the comp meeting so we commiserated with each other in the LZ and Jeff Farrell busted out his Gin Nano speed glider.  Those things look like wicked dangerous fun.

The comp meeting got things rolling with a quick intro by Beth and Bubba and a GPS clinic by Babush.  I should have paid more attention that that one..;P  They set the meet time for 9 am the next morning which didn't pan out since it was pouring rain.  Doh, not a good start for the comp.  It did improve though and we got more than a handful of flying days.  With only 16 competitors and about as many non-comps it had that great "fly-in" feel with a fun competitive edge.  Most of the tasks involved a few laps around the ridge and a final leg that separated the comp pilots from the rest of us.  It helped the rest of us get the bugs out of our gear though.

Speaking of which, flying a wing you've only flown once, a harness that you haven't flown at all, have a new GPS unit, at a new site, you are guaranteed some snafus.  I spent the first 3 days sorting out the brake lines and botching my GPS track logs.  One new thing at a time!

The two most memorable days were the convergence day, and the final day.  The convergence day started out with some low clouds on the backside of launch.  Not long after the task committee called the task, the convergence set up ON launch and socked us in.  A few were able to get away from the hill in blue holes but the vast majority of us were stuck on launch with only the distant sound of their varios beeping in the fog.  They were apparently enjoying epic flying at the leading edge of the cloud bank in beautiful sunshine.  The rest of us finally snuck off but the day had subsided by then.  After landing I went up for round two.  The convergence had pushed back again and was just behind launch, leaving us in sun.  I headed off to the left of launch and found myself flying above the clouds with a rainbow ring around my shadow.

The final day was by far the best of the week.  It started out with a windy forecast, 8k ft boundary layer, and booming lapse rate.  Dr. Jack was forecasting 1000+ ft/min lift.  We could see lenticulars starting to stack up in the distance and cumis with slightly shredded tops.  I launched early and zipped over to the first turnpoint and exited within seconds of the start window.  The second turnpoint was only about half a mile away and on the ridge and was an easy hit.  On the way back I screwed up and got low in front of launch.  There were a few others in the same boat though still behind the second turnpoint.  We gaggled up and managed to scrape our way out.  I was on my way to 7,500 ft with drift in the right direction for the next points.

Tagged the third and looked back to find all the hot gliders tagging the second point.  Did I miss something?  I double checked my GPS route list to make sure I hadn't missed something.  Nope, all good.  I was very surprised to find myself in the lead but the hard part was still to come.  We were supposed to jump across to another ridge and make it back upwind for the goal.  I was at 7,500 and the drift was perfect so I went with it, turned downwind and found myself in a booming convergence all the way to the next point.  Tagged it and 180 for the slow crawl back to Tater.

I considered blowing off the comp and zipping downwind for the state record.  It could have been done.  I could see the comp gliders zipping by in the other direction well below.  In hindsight I should have done it.  After an eternity I finally squeaked back to Tater at launch level, still in the lead.  It was getting trashy though and while I hadn't taken any serious wacks yet, it felt like disaster could be imminent.  The lenticulars were everywhere and my ground speed had dropped below 2 mph more than once.  I was within shooting distance of the LZ and figured I'd had enough for one day.  Besides, it was 33F at 6k, and I was at 7k without a flight suit.  Brrrrr.

Heading to the valley resulted in slightly smoother air and I regained blood flow to my fingers so off to the penultimate turnpoint.  Arrived above it and booted back up to 7,500 with Dave Prentice close behind.  I was still leading but Dave was closing in and higher than I was.  The glide to goal was upwind and he was going to move faster than I was.  Went on glide above a ridgeline hoping to make it happen but the wind was way too strong and I wasn't going to make it.  Fell off to the right looking for a nice bail out and found myself in a weak drifter that took me nearly back to the LZ.

The burliest air of the day was right smack over the LZ.  Went back into orbit at 1500 ft/min and took another stab at goal.  Same result as before though and I ended up back over the LZ with too much lift to get down, but not enough height to be able to push upwind to goal.  Several hard spirals later I found myself 30 feet lower.  I had to fly well away from the LZ to find light enough lift to spiral down through.  Greg Babush had been scraped off during the long upwind glide from the downwind ridge (along with lots of others) and was in the LZ with the scoring computer.  He tossed in my GPS track and to my horror I had missed 2 turnpoints by less than 100 feet.  The turn cylinder radius was .4Km and I had set it to .4Mi. Nooooooo!!!!  Still an epic day though and well worth the experience.

Tater Hill is a brilliant place to fly.  You could set up 30 pilots on launch with all their gliders spread out.  Grassy, brilliant slope angle etc.  It just doesn't get much better than that.  The LZ is big and grassy with a few obstacles but nothing a brand new P2 couldn't land in.  In fact, Machine Gun Mike, one of Prentice's students got his first foot launched flight, first soaring flight, and first thermalling flight in the course of a few days.  He owned it and took the cake for "most stoked" during the comp.

Beth and Bubba were gracious hosts for the comp and it went off without a hitch. No accidents, incredible hospitality and super fun atmosphere.  I can't thank them enough for putting on the comp.  It's definitely a place to visit and he's already talking about doing it again next year.

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