FSS 1 Sunday Apr 7

Sunday dawned a much calmer day with promise of 7 mph wind and a balmy day in the 80’s. Perfect soaring weather with almost zero chance of rain. CD Don Grisham addressed the 18 pilots for a short meeting and flying got underway around 9:00am. Unfortunately we had a delay of about 25 minutes with early line breaks caused by the long stalks on the new field and turnarounds pulling out of the very soft soil but with many hands available to assist Raed with repairs and adjustments we finally got the first round in the air for a 7 minute max. Most pilots found the air was friendly enough with gentle lift forming in multiple areas and achieved their times though the last flight group was won with a 4:32 by John Kennedy when they launched into a large piece of sink. The round completed with myself scoring 1095 and Dillon in 2nd with 1094 and Jody 1091.
Round 2 the max was set at 8:00min which was still a difficult task for Group one which Eddie White managed to win with a 4:49. The day was warming quickly though and the three remaining flight groups managed to find soft lift to make their times with Jim Maclean winning the round with his big Icon 2 shooting a 98 landing and scoring 1098.
Round three saw the lift continue to remain soft and elusive for some with Dan Johns burying his Group with a 7:16 while they all landed early. Rich Kiburis won group two with a perfect time and 84 landing while Group 3 was aced by Jeff Duval flying his X2 3.8 shooting a nice 93 landing. The last group saw Jody Miller find his range and take the top score.
Round 4 saw the lift conditions beginning to cycle and 14 pilots managed to find a sweet ride to make the max. As with cycling lift always there are some groups who launch in the middle of the sink and they must go a little further in the right direction to avoid it. Flight Group three and four had the most difficult of the conditions this round which saw some good pilots struggle to survive for 8:00 minutes while the 1st two Groups found easy air. It was an exciting round with newcomer Andy Fox putting in a sterling flight to score well while Rick Eckel showed some great skills with his Xplorer downwind on the treeline at a low altitude for most of his flight finally getting out with 2 mins to go for a nice max. I had a strange moment during my landing as I almost dropped my Tx at a vital time. I must get a neck strap for the future. 🙂
The 5th Round saw Andy Fox once again perform well in his first contest winning his group and it is encouraging to see new pilots growing their skills so rapidly. John Kennedy also was starting to show form with a great max and landing to take top honors in his group. Although Jody Miller won his flight group he was having an uncustomary tough day as was Eddie White but I am sure they will both be back with a vengeance next FSS event. The final Round 5 flight group was aced by Jeff Duval who is showing tremendous consistency as he grows in TD skills.
Round 6 was announced by Raed as our last for the day and the first group launched into great air which was to be the standard for the entire round with each flight group finding lift and at the end of the round only two pilots had not maxed with Andy Fox exploring some low trees downwind just a little too close. It was a great days soaring at the new field but clearly with the onset of spring we must do some work to remove the tough stalks which hindered our launches early on.
The presentations were done by Raed with the following results.
The Grey beard class was won by Rick Eckel on 6445 points and outright 3rd place with Jim MacLean 2nd on 5935. Sportsman Class was easily won by John Graves finishing outright 6th on 6163 points.
5th place was Dillon Graves just beating his Dad with 6295 points. Jody Miller was 4th on 6316 points. Rick Eckel was outright 3rd. Gordon Buckland was 2nd on 6485 points and Jeff Duval was Sunday champion with 6517 points. I think all that attended had a great weekend and a special thanks to Kim Graves for scoring for me both days and Raed for bringing all the launch equipment to the field.
See you all at Kennyworld Ocala in a months time on May 4 and 5.
SundayFinal

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