Mark Gauding: Chris and I left Thursday at about 830am and arrived in Carlisle, Pa around 1030pm est. at the Motel 6.  We got up early on Fri. and carbo loaded at Denny's for the rest of the days activities.  When we got to the field we set up our canopy and settled in.  The field we were flying at is a power field with a nice paved runway.  The field area (cut grass) was kind of small but the area around the field was large so you had a large area to look for lift.

At around 1100am on Friday, Bruce Davidson put on a clinic for anyone who wanted to join in.  The topics covered everything from airplane set up to launching to practice techniques and things to do during the 3 min working time between rounds.  Bruce is one of the best launchers in DLG  and it was interesting to hear that he only launches at about 80% power since if tried to launch at 100% power he would break his plane everytime!

The Pro Am started at 100pm on Friday and we had 32 teams!  Chris was paired up with Dave Register and I was paired up Tom Shupe from Gainsville, FL.  Unfortunately for me Tom is not a pro so I did not really glean any info or techniques.  I actually flew better than my Pro during the Pro Am and the 2 day contest! We flew 3 rounds with the Pro's flying first and then the Am's.   Chris and Dave finished 4th and Tom and I finished 16th.

The conditions on Saturday started out with a light wind and overcast.  The lift was kind of spotty and not very strong.  As the day went on the lift got better but the wind also picked up making lift much more spotty.  I flew ok not as well as I wanted.  Chris was flying very good and maximizing his rounds.  One of the most impressive things to see was the initial launch when the round started!  As I mentioned earlier the field was on the small side and when you have 12 - 15 pilots launching at the same time it is very impressive!  Also with so many people launching you are going to get carnage!  I was fortunate and only had one incident at the top of my launch, somebody hit the bottom of my left wing with no damage.  Other people were not so lucky!  Thermaling was also neat looking with so many airplanes it looked like a flock of buzzards in one thermal!  Again with that situation their was quite of bit of carnage with midairs!  We finished up flying at 530pm and then it was time for the PIG!  Denny every year has a roast pig for dinner which was very good!  Also the raffle is done after dinner.  As we have all heard Robert was the big winner of the raffle with three items, Brian also won and so did Chris.  I came away with nothing!!

Sunday also started early, 830am pilots meeting and flying started 15 min after.  We had 4 rounds to get through so we could get done early enough to get on the road early.  A cold front had come through the night before and cleared out the haze we had for the last 2 days.  Also the wind was a little stronger than the last 2 days.  Lift was abundant and if you caught it you were skyed out in no time, and if you didn't you were surfing for all you were worth to get your time.  With the wind the thermal were not breaking up like I thought they would.  The thermals were quite big and if you got in one it was easy to stay their but it was going to take you down wind, so you had to make sure you were going to get back.  A lot of people took that chance and paid dearly for it by making out landings for a 0.

Chris as we all know won Sportsman class and came in 5th overall beating some very big names in the process!  Over all this weekend was a great success for both of us.  I learned a great deal and met some really great people and over all had a ton of fun!!

If you want to see the scores you can log on to the Polecat website and go to the Polecat challenge link.  Also I am sending Chris pics that I took over the weekend so he can put them on the website.  Also Frank Dumas took many pics and you can see them at :

http://fotodynamics.smugmug.com/gallery/5182501_TuPfs#P-1-20

Mark Gauding

P.S. Chris and I put out a feeler to the other contestants to see if they would come to STL for a 2 day DLG contest for next year!  The reception was very positive and we feel we could get about 20 people to come. Dave Register said that would be a good amount for a first contest.  This is obviously something that needs to be put up for discussion but would not be too hard to do if we do it.

photo courtesy Team Polecat

Chris Lee:  Mark covered most of the bases in the above report.  Great write-up, thanks!  A couple thoughts I can add:

Last year I attended my first out-of-town soaring contest, the Nats Hand-Launch contest at Muncie.  Trying to keep things simple and straightforward (and a bit unsure of myself), I opted to only ask people I knew to time for me, which at that contest were just MVSA members.  They did a fine job, but staying in my comfort zone, I didn’t learn as much from the experience and didn’t take advantage of the wide knowledge base gathered there. 

This year at the Polecat Challenge, I made an effort to carry on our informal club policy of using a different timer for every round.  Over the course of ten rounds, I had nine different timers and I tried to pick up a little something from each of them.  An unexpected side benefit of having all these excellent timers was that I did better than I had any reason to hope for.  See, it really is the timer!

Mario Sergio de Lucca: when in a thermal, for every 10 tight coring turns, make 1 wide turn to make sure you are in the best part of lift. 

Dave Register: only two F3K tasks emphasize fast turn-arounds, the 5x2s and the 1,2,3,4.  Do not lose precious time overflying the task (2:03, 3:02, 4:05, etc), it is better to aim at landing at 1:59 for a two-minute task.  The fastest turnarounds are sub-one second and the best pilots don’t drop more than 7 seconds over the 10 minute window. 

Bruce Davidson: Poach them thermals!  Also, when flying in a “blender” with lots of other planes, realize that the thermal is big for everyone to be in it, so stay off to the side and out of the way to avoid mid-airs. 

Oleg Golovidov: don’t be afraid to add ballast to range to the far tree lines (and then make it back).  Another way of saying this is: “When the manufacturer of the plane you are flying tells you to add ballast, just do it.”  I saw it also seems to help to throw to 600 feet but he didn’t divulge how he does that. 

Kai Yang: subtle lift reading skills.  Also, the timer is there to provide recommendations, not to make decisions for the pilot.  It’s still up to the pilot to pick the air and fly the plane where he feels the lift is.

Phil Barnes: use ground-based landmarks that are not direction-dependent to designate areas of the sky.  “Wheat” field side of the flying field vs the “Tent” side of the field rather than left side / right side.  Upwind or downwind from a current location.  Left/right directions can be confusing because the timer and pilot may be looking in different directions and the plane, especially in a thermal turn, can be pointing in a third direction.  (Phil didn’t actually time for me, I overheard this tip while he was talking to his timer.  He seemed very focused and I didn’t get the feeling he wanted to be bothered, so I never asked for him to time.  Everyone else I asked, even perfect strangers, all said “Yes, sure.”)

Aradhana Singh Khalsa: use the three-minute preparation time to test out theories on where the lift might be

Walt Higgins: keep flying the plane.  Walt had a mid-air on launch during an all-up round when Bruce Davidson launched into his plane (!).  It was fortunately near the apex of the launch, and actually pushed Walt’s plane up a bit, but caused a little stall.  Walt corrected seemlessly and continued his flight, never rattled at all. 

Mario Sergio of Brazil timing for Chris during the fly-offs.

Hand Launch Clinic by Bruce Davidson

Bruce Davidson held a hand-launch clinic covering a variety of topics on the Friday before the contest.  Here is the link to the video (.wmv file, 75mb).  It is a sizeable download, but it is 30 minutes in length and full of great information.  Well worth viewing if you missed the clinic and certainly worth reviewing if you were there. 

Polecat Challenge flying field.  The inbounds portion of the field was the mowed grass immediately surrounding the asphalt runway.  A mid-thigh height wheat field began immediately east of that extending to the tree line still some distance away.  To the west was a lone house on top of a gently sloping hill.  The area to the north dropped down in elevation and the area to the south dipped down before rising on a gentle slope to the tree line.  A gourd factory is immediately southwest of the flying field.