Last night's flight to the west resulted in several stories of difficult retrieval. At this morning's briefing the Event Director put a map on the screen showing the general locations where groups got stuck (including near our landing site, where we managed a retrieve without incident). In fact, some competitors spent the entire night getting themselves and their equipment back to town, with a few even missing the morning briefing. Those experiences, combined with morning winds in the same direction, prompted those setting the tasks to pull a fourth marker from today's first flight. What we were left with when the briefing opened was a 3-part objective: Judge Declared Goal, Judge Declared Goal, Hesitation Waltz. The targets were relatively close together, which would presumably allow landings to take place before reaching those worst sites. As 120 competitors caravaned to the common launch field, the first signs of daylight yielded an unexpected site - a low cloud deck. By the time we reached the airport Brad and Al were reporting pibals lost in the clouds approximately 500' above ground. A very lengthy hold ensured, after which yet another black flag was raised. Another cancelled flight.
Last night's tasks were posted on the official notice board just prior the morning's briefing. They're not available online yet. Nick Donner (USA) is still in first place, approximately 300 points ahead of Johnny Petrehn (USA). The provisional overall showed that a Lithuanian pilot had passed Joe Heartsill (USA) for third, however Joe's 3D Task from the previous evening had been scored incorrectly. With that correction made he should return to 3rd place, about 10 points behind Johnny. Paul continued his climb, moving up to 29th.
Below are Paul's tracks and results so far. If you click on the graphic you'll get a larger version that's easier to decipher. Where the track is blue he was descending (light = slower, dark = faster). Where it's yellow (slower) or orange/red (faster) he was ascending.
 | Flight 1 (Monday AM) Task 1 - Hesitation Waltz = 33.65m Task 2 - Land Run = 1.16km2 (winner = 7.36km2) Task 3 - Hesitation Waltz = 7.86m Task 4- Judge Declared Goal = 282m |
 | Flight 2 (Monday PM) Task 5 - Pilot Declared Goal = 19.93m Task 6 - 3D Shape Task (cylinder) = 9,041m (winner = 17,832m) Compare Paul's flight through the 3D area to the winner's (shown here). |
 | Flight 3 (Wednesday PM) Task 7 - Pilot Declared Goal = 87.81m Task 8 - 3D Shape Task (cake) = 10,734m (winner = 12,045m) The track points immediately west of the rings show Paul's ascent/decent to 8800' searching for winds that might take him back to the east (re-entering the 3D scoring area). |
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