Seattle's IHLGF 2003 Report

Mark and Jonathan Bryan, in the heat of battle! Look at that concentration! (which way did the plane go???)

Red, hard on that Encore (hard, but not hard enough to finish in the money). Gordon Jennings keeping time.

Billboard: "San Diego, Come see that thing your Space Needle points to" with a picture of the sun... yeah, right.

The International Hand Launch Glider Festival is held annually the first weekend in June. The contest is hosted by the Torrey Pines Gulls (www.torreypinesgulls.org) and the field where the competition is held is in Poway California, about 15 miles north of downtown San Diego. This contest, while perhaps not officially, is considered by most folks in the HLG community to be the Big One! Contestants show up from across the country and also from around the world!

The Seattle HLG contingent has been pilgrimaging to Poway since about 1994 (the second year of the competition), and have always found it well worth the trip. Competitors from Seattle have finished in the top ten on several occasions, but have found the reigning champion (Joe Wurts, usually) hard to beat. None-the-less, we keep heading back to give it our best!

This year's contestant roster boasted several of the big names in the HLG Community, Joe Wurts (world champion in everything gliders, design work on Encore), Phil Barnes (from the East Coast builds most of NSP's wings and things), Oleg Golovidov (from Russia, via North Carolina, designer of the Taboo HLG), Mark Drela (MIT Professor, Xfoil author, designer of the Supergee and others), Our own Phil Pearson (designer and builder of the Encore HLG), Gordon Jennings (World class glider competitor), George Joy (owner of Peak Electronics), Paul Naton (Radio Carbon Art), Chris Adams (Scrollsander.com website), and others from Canada, Brasil, and even New Zealand! From Seattle, we also had Jim Pearson, Mark and Jonathan Bryan, Tim Johnson, Bruce Kimball, and myself.

The field in Poway is several miles inland from the ocean, so it has a curious mix of wet Pacific air and dry desert air. Traditionally, Poway has boomer thermals, and gut wrenching sink, scorching sun, and blasting winds. Poway gives you the opportunity to see how quickly your plane can go out of sight down wind, and then be thrown into sink and land 1/2 mile off field!

But not this year!!! For those of you familiar with California, they have something called June Gloom. We all arrived in San Diego (half of us flew down, the others drove, about 21 hours if you drive straight there) to overcast skies. We like to get our planes tuned up a couple of days early, Thursday had awesome lift, with 'stupid' thermals everywhere. The clouds kept things tuned down as far as sink and wind, so it was easy thermaling for all! Friday was more of the same, maybe a little less lift, but we had everything tuned for landing quickly since it was going to be all up while we were flying! Fat dumb and happy, we headed for hamburgers Friday night.

Then came Saturday morning. It was still overcast but there were no thermals! The contest started at 9am, and there was only light lift. Those stupid thermals had all gone away and all that was left were the light, whiley ones. It was going to take some good piloting to do well on Saturday. We flew six rounds on Saturday (tasks were: 8-one minute flights; one, two, three, four; 5-twos; etc.) and Seattle was doing really well, I was in 11th (one out of the fly-offs) and Jim was in 21st, but only 130 points out. We all went to bed thinking, yeah, we know all about light lift.

Sunday, you guessed it, more clouds and fog, a light mist, and cool. Light thermals, if you aren't in it, you aren't going to get your times. So, a little focus and Red's in the fly-offs, and Jim's got a chance too. Well, Red flies about as well as he flew on Saturday, and everyone else flies a lot better than they did on Saturday, and Red ends up in 20th, Jim flies a bit better and ends up in 15th. The rest of the gang did well too, Tim Johnson was in 26th at the end, Bruce was 35th, Mark in 36th, Phil was in 50th and Jonathan was in 58th... BUTTTT Jonathan was signed up in the Eagle class and was in fourth as an Eagle, only one place out of the trophies!!!

That's the Seattle story, so what happed with with the rest of the contestants... The IHLGF format is 10 rounds with one throw-out and then a 3 round fly-off with the top 10 fliers (you carry your score into the fly-offs). For the first 10 rounds it was the Joe Wurts show. He was flying the New Molded Encore that Phil (Pearson) built for him a couple of weeks earlier. Joe won every round (1000 pts) except for the 10th were he got a 998! Oleg was flying quite well (it might have been his timer (me) calling lift for him, but he's a real good pilot all by himself too;-). He had seven 1000 pt rounds a 995, 997 and a throw-out (971), he was second going into the fly-offs. In third was Phil Barnes with his strong planes and his monster throw. Phil Barnes (East Coast Phil) was one of the highest throwers. BTW, Every single pilot down there was throwing Seattle-style, discus luanch that is (Thanks Dick, we missed you this year)!

Also in the top 10 were Paul Anderson, Mark Drela, Arthur Markiewicz, Bill Watson, Craig Greening, Don Vetter, and Michael Smith. It was going to be an exciting Fly-off. Joe had it wrapped up, if he could just keep flying perfect! Round 11 had some rough air, the task was five-two minute flights, Phil Barnes would win that round, and Joe dropped several seconds with 967, Oleg had a 994... there WAS a small chink in Joe's armor!

Oleg and his stalwart timer went into the second round of the fly-offs with some hope, but only a little, Joe wasn't likely to drop many more like that. The task was three-three minute flights in a 10 minute window, so the pilots had 1 extra minute to play with, but if you threw more then 3 times, there was a 30 second penalty! Most of the pilots waited after the start of the round, but as I remember, Oleg thought he had something and headed out early in the round... he didn't get all of his 3's (ending up at 929), and Joe flew a perfect 1000. There were several other 1000's scattered among the rest of the fly-off contestants, there would be some resuffling before the end of the day.

But at the top, Joe was a lock, he just had to fly the 1, 2, 3, and 4, and walk over and pick up the trophy for the umpteenth time. Oleg knew he had to fly well just to keep 2nd place! Then it happened, Oleg flew well, getting most of the times, and Joe ran into some sink, turned around to make it a 1 minute flight, and then threw back into the same sink!!! He couldn't make his two minute flight, and that was all she wrote. Oleg won the round (1000), and passed Joe (937) to win the contest by 13 points (out of 12,000!). Paul Anderson captured 3rd from Phil Barnes (finished in 4th) and Mark Drela was in 5th, you can see the final scores on the Torrey Pines site.

So, that's the long and short of it. Poway is the place to be the 1st weekend in June. If you get the chance, you've got to be there! The head-to-head nature of HLG makes for a pretty exciting contest, and the three round fly-off is probably as exciting as it gets in R/C competition!

Ironic billboard of the weekend (seen on East Marginal Way near Boeing Field in Seattle) : 'Come see what the Space Needle points to (and there's a picture of the smiling sun), Visit San Diego.' Yeah, right! I did see the sun again, four days after arriving in San Diego, Sunday evening as I headed north to fly at Parker Mountain north of LA. BTW, Parker is awesome for DS. You've got to go there!