Snowbird 2011 Contest

The 2011 Snowbird is now in the history books.  The longest running soaring contest is hosted annually at Harris Hill on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Hooking up and ready for takeoff  All photos courtesy of Stefan Trego: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefantrego/

This was my second Snowbird, but the first one where anyone did any flying.  Last year's contest was weathered out with winds out of the West at 20 knots and gusting higher.  This year was completely different with reasonably calm winds and incredibly warm temperatures into the 60's.

I volunteered to log takeoffs and we kept two tow planes busy all day long with over 60 flights Saturday.  We had contestants from Finger Lakes and Valley Soaring and they brought their own 1-26 gliders -the machines of choice for spot landings.

Preparing to enter downwind for Snowbird.  All photos courtesy of Stefan Trego http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefantrego/

One of the nice things about Snowbird is that it is more a fun-fest than a contest.  With events like spot landing and specific duration, the point is to fly a short pattern and land at exactly the right time on exactly the right spot rather than be an ace pilot and stay aloft to fly fastest and furthest.

On approach during Snowbird.  The landing zone is on the right hand runway about 1/3 of the way up from the grass.  Can you see it?  I didn't think so.  All photos courtesy of Stefan Trego http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefantrego/

The event creates lots of...interesting approaches.  The landing zone is small, perhaps 40 feet.  If you touch down prior to the zone, you lose 400 points.  Overshoot it and lose 100, 200, or 300 points.  Then you have to stop pretty short and they measure your distance from a traffic cone.  The winner is usually decided by inches and seconds.  

Best landing of the day goes to two of our most experienced instructors -Dana Smith and Ron Ogden who touched down hot and laid down a good 180 feet of skid mark before crushing the traffic cone.  While they were a little sheepish, it's nice to know everyone is human.

I didn't fly this year.  I intended to hand over the log to someone around 1pm and fly a couple of flights, but pretty much everyone else was flying and there just wasn't anyone to do it until much later when I had obligations at home.  Even so, there was so much energy and activity on the flight line, it was still a lot of fun to participate.

Moving into the winter, we're going to be fairly active with rework on number 3 and buff and polish of the 4 ASK-21's we own.  I can't wait until April to fly again!

Photo Credit Dean Alexander.

Harris Hill Soaring Corporation was asked to participate in an historic soaring event - Soaring 100 a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Orville Wright's nearly 10 minute unpowered soaring flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

The Wrights successfully flew the first powered aircraft in 1903, but the first real, practical version of the aircraft was the Wright Flyer III in late 1905 back in Dayton on Huffman Prairie.  In 1911, the Wrights returned to Kitty Hawk with a glider to test improved stability controls and there on the dunes, Orville ridge soared for nearly 10 minutes in a 50 knot wind.  The record held for nearly 10 years before it was broken.

The 1911 glider soars over Kitty Hawk

Soaring 100 celebrated the achievement 100 years later and HHSC's membership made the trek to Kitty Hawk with a Duo Discus, a modern example of recent gliding technology.  Club member Mo Acee piloted the Discus in demos for the crowd, landing on the same stretch of grass that the Wrights flew the original Wright Flyer from.  Only 15 examples of gliders were selected for the demo flights and it was nice that HHSC and the National Soaring Museum were asked to participate!