Mist-ick

Today we awoke to more smoke than yesterday. The wind had changed yesterday afternoon and the valley filled with smoke. From the general lack of enthusiasm it was clear that most people felt we wouldn’t fly. I knew we would go through the motions anyway, and I made sure that I was ready and that I signed up for alternate launch. Surprisingly, (or perhaps due to the general pessimism) not many chose to sign up. I had a launch position of 7, but no one was in slots 1-3, so effectively I would be 4^th in the launch order. Much better than yesterday’s cliff-hanger!

The pilots meeting started with Heather reading some quotes out of the Oz report. She was obviously miffed, and it became clear that the reason was that she had taken some flak for canceling yesterday’s task. Apparently Davis was critical of the decision, as was Gerolf. Others, including Jonny Durand Jr., were in favor of canceling the task. Apparently Heather had talked to the safety committee (which included Gerolf) and they had all felt that the task could be completed safely. Heather had decided to cancel it anyway after talking to others. Gerolf seemed to feel that she had no right to cancel the task on safety grounds if the safety committee said it was OK. This seemed ridiculous to me - the meet director has the ultimate authority to cancel the task. The safety committee only has the power to stop a task on safety grounds – they can’t force it to go on or override the meet director’s safety concern. Certainly the conditions were deteriorating, and were below local visual flight rule minimums when the task was canceled. Davis and Gerolf argued that because visibility is often worse in the LA area or in Basano, Italy that there wasn’t a problem.

Ironically, when I talked to some local pilots later, they commented that based on Davis’ description of his flight, he had taken a course line that took him far over the back of the ridge into an area that would have been very difficult to get out of had he gotten low. Those who know the area never get in that position. Presumably he wouldn’t have either if he had seen where he was.

I think most people agreed with the canceling of the task. Certainly based on what I saw in the air, and at the airport later (the intended goal of the task), it was very appropriate. Presumably as a result of the dispute, Gerolf resigned from the safety committee.

With that bit of drama behind us, Oli gave a weather report. He said it was going to be another good day like yesterday – that got a chuckle from the crowd. The wind had gone northeast, which held some promise of clearing out the smoke, so we were sent to Mystic launch in Bright in the Ovens Valley - about 20 miles to the west.

When we arrived at launch, the visibility was terrible. It didn’t look good, and most people left their gliders on the cars. Because of my position in the launch order I knew that if it cleared up and they called a task I had to be ready, so again I went through the motions of setting up and getting ready. By the time they called the pilots meeting, however, things had gotten worse. There seemed to be three possible courses of action – wait and see if it got better, have a spot landing contest in the bomb-out as the task, or call the day. I was in favor of either of the two options that would have given us a chance at a task, but most people wanted to call it a day. A few people flew anyway, with a couple of the guys trying to go to the Porpunkah Airport just 5 miles down the ridge, and the rest flying around for a bit and then landing in the bomb-out. I rarely pass up a chance to fly if my glider is set up on launch, but conditions were so poor I was concerned that I would lose sight of the ground if I attempted to climb to make the glide to the Airport. Breaking down on launch seemed the smarter thing to do.