Seattle Area Soaring Society
April 22nd HLG Contest Results
by Adam Weston

Well, the first Seattle Area Soaring Society HLG contest of the year is complete.  The weather was very interesting, there was a gusty 10-15 knt wind from the south, which started out pretty cold in the morning.   Fortunately, the thermals were popping if you could get into them, as they tended to be very turbulent and small in their lower layers, and surrounded by lots of sink.   It was also a trick on some of the longer tasks to make it back to the field.   However, there weren't all that many off field landings, and the soccer fields to the North were vacant. 

We flew two classes with all the competitors flying in a mix of two flight groups.   Without any channel conflicts we were able to sort the groups by the pilots running score.  Competition was tight, with the 1000 pt round winners distributed pretty evenly among the contestants. 

It was neat to see the wide variety of planes we have up here in the NW competing together.  It was a real show-down between different design styles.  The conventional over-hand thrown 1.5m span Sunspot, Vector, Orbiter, and Terminator went head-to-head with the discus launched 1.5m span Uplink 58 and the wing-launched (1-1.1m) Ionosphere and Minitross.  In the end, the wing-launched planes won out, partially due to they're tight maneuverability in the small turbulent thermals of the day.  You can bet this won't be the final round in the design arena fight.

The final standings:

Pilot, Class ('Exp' or 'Spts'), Plane, Airfoil, 1000 pt rds, Final Score
Adam Weston Exp Ionosphere (own design) GM15 mod 2 5169
Jonathan Bryan Exp Minitross (own design) SD7037 Mod 2 5015
Jim Pearson Exp Sunspot S6063 1 4912
Tim Johnson Exp Vector (own design) SA7035 7%t 1 4753
Phil Pearson Exp Sunspot (own design) S6063 1 4547
Russ Young Exp Minitross SD7037 Mod 1 4471
Dick Barker Exp Uplink 58 (own design) SD7037 Mod 1 4545
Ole Skotvold Spts Minitross SD7037 Mod 1 4387
Mark Bryan Exp Minitross SD7037 Mod 1 4047
Tim Naugler Exp Orbiter IIF S4083 2 3620
Lauren Anstead Spts Uplink 58 SD7037 Mod 0 2912
C. B. Cain Spts Terminator S4083 0 2673

Strong performances were made by Russ Young and Ole Skotvold, two recently won over 'big' plane fliers [Turncoats! -Ed].   We're working on the rest of the gang to give HLG a try.  CB Cain put in a great performance with his scratch built Terminator.  His S4083 was a real challenge to fly in the wind, but he managed to plug away at it and put in a great performance for his first outing in HLG.  Special thanks go to Al Bangham and David Anstead for help with round timing throughout the day.  And special thanks to Dick Barker for picking up the new BIG NUMBERED calculators!!!

Door prizes were donated by Thermal-Gromit Works (http://www.tgworks.com).   Hinge and covering tape, Cadbury Carmel eggs (it was Easter weekend), and the grand prize, TGWorks new model down alarm: The Downer Mk1 from Ohmark.  Ole was the winner of this annoying little beeper.  It will be great for when the winds are 10 knts out of the North and all our planes blow out into the brush at the south end of the field.

There will eventually be some more info on the contest on SASS's webpage: www.reddata.com/sass.  Our next HLG contest is May 13th starting at 9am.  Email red@tgworks.com for details.  Everyone, anywhere is invited to compete.

(BTW, if these scores look slightly different from what was calculated on Saturday, that's because they are.  The CD made some corrections to the 15, 30, 45, ... round scores.)