NW-XC League - Event One

10 May 2015

C.J. flying away from BJ launch, North Fork below

C.J. and I were all set to go camp with the Aliner at Larabee State Park and participate in the first event of the new Northwest Cross-Country League when the weather decided not to cooperate. T.J., our local weather guru, called for "Wow" conditions everywhere but near the water. Owen Shoemaker, organizer of the NW-XC changed the venue from Blanchard to "B.J.", Big Johnson, near Deming sometime after he got home from a long flight out to Chickamin from Ranpart. That left us kind of scrambling around at 2200 packing sleeping bag, pads and tent and mostly non-cooking-type food into the car.

9 May, Saturday - It was close to 0730 before we got on the road

but we still arrived before the meeting time of 1000, and well before Owen. There were about twenty "competitors" and some local pilots, plus launch and retrieve coordinator Tom Keefer. Frank Hernandez helped people get the waypoints uploaded to their flight instruments (for those who had not got the new waypoints done at home - Owen had emailed them out at 0200). Owen did a short pilots briefing and then sent up the two shuttle vehicles with a load of pilots who had competed before. [The shuttles consisted of Owen's pickup driven by his brother, and his brother-in-law's Honda SUV; two other retrieve vehicles had failed to show up.] Those of us waiting for the shuttles to return got together with Andrey Yakimov for some talk about how an XC comp works - start cylinders, waypoints, routes and goal/end-of-speed-section lines. Owen worked out a task and Trent wrote it on the whiteboard.

C.J. inflating her wing on BJ Launch

When the shuttles returned, almost an hour later, we piled in and drove up the gravel road which was rough in some places. Since there was only one key (Roger Brock's) we had to stop and retrieve it from a hiding place near the gate. Launch is an old logging landing with the usual pretty flat area, and a dropoff into a clearcut; BJ has room for only one pilot to launch at a time and not a whole lot of room for setting up gliders. One local had already launched and was maintaining, and Doug Mashburn was climbing to the left of launch. Dave Wheeler and I both got ready to go while the pilots put the task into their flight instruments and then had a more-detailed task briefing. Wheely launched and got above launch to the right so I went the same way. The lift was small and punchy and I may have missed a chance to get up by looking for something larger and smoother to work. As it was, I was sinking around the corner to the right of launch and finding a venturi-like strong wind from the SE. I flew out toward the easily-recognizable LZ and continued to sink. Since the wind was so strong, I kept upwind of the LZ until I was low and then did not want to go back farther than the middle of the field. It was pretty bumpy on approach but I was able to land lightly and drop my wing (0:07min). Dave landed

C.J. Launching at B.J. (photos by B Hobson)

not long after me and then a steady stream of pilots joined us in the LZ. C.J. landed as well after doing some sharp turns near the ground to get into the field (0:15). Most of the other pilots headed back up as soon as there was a shuttle and most of them found better lift on their second flights. A good number went left and got high enough to cross to Porter Mtn. to the south, some got to VanZandt Dyke and most eventually landed in the LZ. [I think the task was BJ to Porter, back to BJ, then VanZandt Dyke, across the river to Sumas, and back to the BJ LZ, some with 2K cylinders.] C.J. and I hung out with the rest of the pilots in the shade on the west side of the LZ watching people land and talking about the event until almost everyone but Brent had landed. Last we heard he was working hard trying to get high enough to make it out to the LZ instead of landing on a logging road. Around 1830 we headed home and made it by 2100 when it was not quite totally dark.

10 May, Sun - Owen posted a cancellation for the rest of Event 1 -

Mt. Baker from BJ   (Brent Taylor)

conditions were not expected to be very good for XC flying on Sunday on the west side. He was heading for Chelan and hoping to fly west into the mountains. I tried to get the Telegram app loaded onto C.J.'s new phone but even at home with wi-fi, I couldn't make the App Store work. Finally I called Consumer Cellular and they had to reset the phone (?) or the app(?). Whatever they did, it worked and C.J. can now add apps. As soon as Telegram announced that C.J. had joined, Meredyth invited her to join the NWPC Flying group. Now if we could just figure out the logic of how to send a message with the DeLorme inReach.