SASS 2003 HLG CONTEST RESULTS

As promised, here are the Seattle Area Soaring Society's HLG Season's Points Champions... SASS HLG has had a rotating trophy that has a names of some very famous HLG pilots from over the years (As famous as HLG pilots get anyway!). There are four categories: Season Points Champion, most 1000 point rounds, highest contest score, and Total air time for the season. By the magic of Excel, I've tallied this years results and I've also thrown in the previous years winners. (The points and stuff don't compare from year to year, since we have had different numbers of rounds at different contests, etc.)

If you didn't make it to the Pacific NW HLG Regional, here's what you missed... Exciting head-to-head competition, beautiful, yet challenging weather, great food, and above all, a whole lot of fun!

Saturday was clear and warm a good bit of lift, but nothing guaranteed. After the first 5 rounds on Saturday, the top 4 standing were: 1) Jim Pearson-4960, 2)Tim Johnson-4952, 3) Adam Weston-4898 4) Phil Pearson-4738. Tim and Jim were on target to be unstoppable! Tim was flying out and finding some boomer on every throw, and Jim was thermaling on lift that wasn't there! Saturday ended with a great dinner at the Celtic Bayou (English pub with Cajun food in Redmond, very tasty!) and then the Mariners won, so it was a nice relaxing evening.

Sunday dawned cooler and cloudy, but with some good energy in the air. There was lift and you were in trouble if just one of the competitors in a round found something and you didn't. Tim was looking great the first round on Sunday... and that's when the wheels came off... Tim was thermaling close to the trees on his second flight, a little too close... so he grabbed plane #2 and launched... and we can all guess what happened... as Sherman Knight would say...'no wiggles';-( #2 arched over into the ground and was totaled. #3 was good, and he had wiggles, this time he was able to finish the round, but not without getting a 596. Tim ultimately ended up 3rd with 12,155. Jim Pearson was still in the hunt, but he wasn't getting the good air he was on Saturday and was getting out launched by Adam and ultimately ended up in 2nd with 12,392. And you guessed it... RED ended up flying eight 1000 point rounds and ended with 12,898. His secret: launch higher, fly longer, and boy do those Drela foils fly nice!

Here are the final standings... Special recognition goes to Jay Allison who flew to 5th place after a great weekend of flying. He was nominated most improved pilot for 2003 coming up from his 15th place finish in last years PNWHLGR!

So, you wake up, and its raining hard, and you think, great, I didn't really want to go all the way out to the field and fly in an HLG contest anyway... Unless, you're going to a Seattle Area Soaring Society HLG Contest! We haven't had a rain out in years, and last Saturday was no exception! Pouring down rain on the west side of town, clears up on the way to the field on the east side. A great weather pattern which made for some challenging thermal hunting (REALLY CHALLENGING for some of us!)

We had 12 contestants turn out this time (2 more had the wrong date circled on their calendars;-( Lapo Nustrini showed up for his first HLG contest, and I think, had a great time. Jay Alison ended up with his best finish to date (3rd... don't worry Jay, we won't let that happen again!!! And with my old Encore to boot!). Jim Pearson turned in his usual fine performance, but it wasn't good enough to beat Tim Johnson and his own design Hitchiker... Tim had his usual consistent performance, proving once again, good thermaling will always win the day!

As usual, dial up a SASS HLG contest, and you'll get great weather, and some of the best head-to-head HLG excitement in the region!

We welcomed John Petrek, a recent import from California... John had a good time, and was gracious enough to not pick on us too bad. I think we'll be seeing John again at our August contest (August 9th). We also saw some great performances from some of the lurkers out there, Jonathan Bryan and Jay Allison managed to pass Phil Pearson in the light wind and thermals on Saturday.

Here were the final scores:

June 7+8th 

International HLG Festival in Poway, CA SASS Report

May 10th

Just like a broken record (a really great record, that we love) we had another beautiful day for HLG here in Redmond on Saturday.  Thermals were abundant, but not so good that you could just throw anywhere, and winds were light out of the west.

More Photos

April 19th

Yes, we can fly HLG in Seattle, in April, and the rain actually held off for the four hours it took us to finish 5 rounds of flying! (it did rain until 8:30am that morning and started again at about 6pm;-)  The weather was mostly cloudy to broken clouds, with light southerly breezes.  The thermals were unsettled, at times the flags would point confusingly away from the thermals.  At other times we would go an entire round with little or no thermal activity and at others, it was all we could do to get the planes down at the end of the round.

We had a couple of new faces out at the contest, Dave (Punkin') Beardsley's son Brendon made it out, and so did Dave Kalamen.  It was good to see the rest of the regulars too, and I know of several folks who got a little spooked by the threat of rain, so 15 fliers was a great turn out! 

It was also great to see a new crop of airplanes out there, folks are tweaking their designs and trying some new stuff.  Launches seem to keep getting higher, and we did a pretty good job of keeping the planes in one piece for the most part.  We were also treated to get a glimpse of the new mold work by West Coast Phil, we can't wait to see the finished results in the air!

The contest was heated as usual... this group doesn't give any one an inch when it comes to competition.  But with the round grouping done by your running total score each time, you're always flying against people with pretty much the same score/flying skills as you.  In the end, slow and steady won the day with Tim Johnson who didn't win a round ending up with the top total for the day... better luck next time you Jack Rabbits (on Easter weekend, even)!

Here's how it all fell out: