[MT-ALES] Soaring Masters West

[Luke Waters]

These emails somehow ended up in my spam folder, even though I am getting
other Montana club messages. I just saw them now, otherwise I would have
replied sooner.

The Soaring Masters West was a good contest. Well attended, great hosts,
and fully catered with good food. The effort didn't go unnoticed, John
Armstrong and other club members really want to make this an inviting
contest. There were several first timers there and I think everyone had a
good experience.

They originally planned fly-offs, but changed to all normal 10-minute
rounds in the week leading up to it, maybe due to over 40 pilots signing up
(slightly less actually competing).

The field wasn't ideal, but they're doing the best with what they've got.
Field is mostly dirt with some fake turf John got from a high school
football field for the landing zone. The turf strip is a little wider than
one landing circle, and about 10 lanes long. The turf is slightly better
than landing on the rock hard desert dirt. That made landings a bit less
forgiving than the normal sod farms or soft grass, at least for me.

Saturday had some great flying, solid conditions allowing some medium to
low launches. I was happy to fly the light model all day.

Sunday morning was a little more interesting starting off with a strong,
laminar but buoyant west wind layer around 200 meters, while ground winds
were light east. The strong west layer slowly descended over the first
several rounds. By the 3rd round we were dealing with it on the ground,
blowing dust and tumbleweeds, nearing FAI limits. I was also glad to be
flying a 50oz strong model with ballast options and enough power to push
upwind for some higher launches.

The wind wasn't very turbulent, and flying continued. There was some
carnage, partly from pilot errors and low downwind maneuvering, but also
due to the wind direction being almost exactly 90 degrees to the (fixed)
direction of the landing lanes, making some approaches extra spicy.

Several pilots packed up early, including me. The 1,000-mile drive home
also influenced my call, but in hindsight I should have stuck it out. After
about an hour the wind eased some, and they got some good competitive
rounds at the end that shook up the leaderboard.

Garber and Milan both flew solid all weekend, Jr also flew great on
Saturday turning up the risk with some low launches starting in the first
round. The Muncie Nats/team selections should be competitive and really fun
to watch this year.

I got away with no damage to my gliders, and made it home Monday morning
just before snow started, so I don't feel too bad about leaving early. I'll
definitely go back, but I hope they can find a way to get back onto a sod
farm by the October contest.
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