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.