This past weekend The SOSA Gliding Club hosted the third installment of the new Sailplane Racing Series. We had 15 entries ranging from beginners to the current Canadian champion and Canadian Team. The contest began with a 10am meeting in the clubhouse on Saturday morning. Pilots decided whether they would fly with water or not. I decided to go without to avoid the hassle. We were assigned a 3.5 hour modified assigned task consisting of 4 mandatory turnpoints and then we could choose where to go afterward. I flew the assigned part at close to 100km/h but perhaps made a bad choice in the next turnpoint, Woodstock and had to scrape out of a hole. I headed back towards the gliding club with 15 minutes of time to play with. I looked for lift but could not find anything strong enough. I eventually landed back at the club and finished 10 minutes under time. Jerzy smoked everyone at 112km/h. Despite my mistakes at the end I still finished 7th.
Day 2 started with another meeting at 10am. The sky was going to be blue with a chance of clouds to the north. When we launched it was very weak and I was contemplating scrapping the day. The top of the lift picked up and it became more promising. Later in the day we got clouds and they worked well. I flew a very good flight without any real trouble spots. I finished first for the day and moved up to 3rd overall. My average climb was 4.3kts which was probably the biggest difference.
We were lucky to get two nice days of weather for the contest and all pilots seemed to enjoy themselves. There was a lot of experience flying in the contest with the top seven pilots having represented Canada at the international level. I would like to thank Derek Mackie and Luke Szczepaniak for organizing the Sailplane Racing Series and Luke again for scoring and CDing this weekend.
Sailplane Racing Series Website
Day 2 Route
