Managing the Snowbird Contest

The Snowbird contest is nearly 70 years old

I was asked to be the Snowbird Contest Manager this year.  Frankly, it was the last thing I wanted to do as I've had a crazy number of commitments of the 'helping out' variety this Fall.  Buuuut...well, they needed someone to do it and it was obvious that nobody new was going to step up and volunteer.  I thought, "Gee, it's in just a couple of weeks so I'll just do it and get it over with."

It went fine, but it was tough to find volunteers for the schedule.  Thanks to the 'usual suspects' that volunteer every year and stepped up immediately. You know who you are.

Kvetching aside, on the two days the contest was scheduled, Mother Nature blessed us with 15 knot 90 degree crosswinds and gusts as high as 32 on the anemometer at the Flight Center!  Needless to say, no flying occurred and the whole contest was a washout.

What a drag!  This was my first Snowbird and I was looking forward to seeing the spot landing contest.  We'd laid out the landing zones on the runway and set up the marker cones to see who could touchdown and roll out, stopping closest to the cone.  Some years, the difference is decided in under 1 inch from the cone.

The contest is the longest continuously running contest in soaring history at 60+ years but the atmosphere is more like a local event.  We have members from Mid-Atlantic Soaring who come pretty much every year and a few others here and there, but by and large it's a chance for our local pilots to get out there and fly on last time before the New Year.

Instead, this year we had a whole lot of hangar flying as we waited each day until about 1pm to call the contest off each day.  Someone joked that I was automatically signed up for next year as the contest manager.  I don't think so.  But I'll be sure to volunteer for a task when the call goes out.

From here on out, it gets colder as Winter takes a firmer grip on the Southern Tier and it won't let go until April.  Time to put away those thermal thoughts for awhile until we turn the corner and Spring approaches.

Passing up the opportunity to fly?!

I've been busy the past six weeks.  REALLY busy, as in, no time to fly busy.  And when there has been time to fly, the autumn has been pretty poor for soaring.

The end of our staffed flying season at Harris Hill is the last week in October, so we're done for the season now, unless you make special arrangements to fly.  We'll have one more weekend to fly (our Snowbird contest on Thanksgiving weekend) but that will be it.

I passed on the opportunity to fly at the very end because I hadn't flown since the second week of September and I feel strongly that you need to fly regularly to be proficient.  So, while I could have squeaked in something at the end, the flying wasn't good soaring and I hadn't flown in 6 weeks.  I need to fly regularly.

Did I accomplish my goals this year?  I wanted to be more proficient at flying the ASK-21 and I wanted to fly some cross-country.  I wish I could say I felt more proficient in the 21, but while I'm more *experienced* I still don't feel more proficient.

I struggled all year to put the aircraft on the ground the way I wanted to.  I was generally able to land it on the spot I picked, but I was either faster than I wanted to be, or slower than I was comfortable with.  My rear seat performance on the BFR was dismal for takeoff and I was disappointed with my failure to react quickly and correct sufficiently.  That's a trait I've worked on to break all along and yet it pops up time and again.  Last year I felt like I was on top of it.  This year, not so much.

I also didn't fly any cross country at all.  The weather was either crummy when I was available or I couldn't hook up with an instructor.  Not to mention I find my technique embarrassing and don't want the upper echelon of the club to know how badly I fly.

Did I get better at thermalling?  Yes, I got better.  Did I thermal satisfactorily?  No.  I continue to have trouble reading and centering thermals, although I'm better at it than I was.  Compared to my technique last year, I have improved.  Compared to other peer pilots I've flown with, I need more improvement.

I flew more in the early part of the year than later.  I knew that for a month period between mid-September and mid-October I would not fly due to other commitments.  I hadn't anticipated that the weather in the last two weekends would be crummy anyhow.

So, the season ends with a whimper and only slow progress on my flying goals.  Next year, the logical thing to do would be to get my commercial glider pilot rating so I can fly passenger rides.  Although I'm hard on myself about my flying skills, it's more about assessing my skills and working on improving areas that need sharpening up.  I certainly don't have any compunctions about flying friends and family around as passengers and taking a member of the general public up for a ride isn't the same thing as developing soaring skills for cross country flight.  I'm a conservative pilot when I fly personally and I'm more conservative when I have a passenger with me.

I'll decide whether or not to cross that bridge next Spring when the flying season is closer.  There's a lot of preparation and analysis I need to do before taking that step.  It's expensive to take the flight test, it's expensive to take the written test, and I need to gear up for doing that.

In the meantime, our club President has asked if I would volunteer to be the contest manager for our Snowbird contest.  I have tentatively said yes, but told him I have no idea what I need to do to prepare for the contest and will need help.  We meet on Monday, so I'll find out what's in store for me then.