Day 3 - Team Scores and Today's Task

Keith Atkins photo of several people climbing in front of launch.

Here are the current standings and team names and members. There may be some errors since teams with 6 only lcan count five per day so I may have missed a pilot or two. E-team had a great day yesterday with Stan Roberts one of the few A pilots making goal and he assisted one of his other pilots to give him a multiplier on his score so they've jumped up in the standings from 4th to 2nd from the first day to the second. From here on out I'll just list the team' scores, but use this as a reference to see who is on what team. Today is suppossed to be ridge soarable and with not many C pilots having made goal they have decided a goal for them just down the ridge to hopefully get more people to taste the sweetness of making goal. B's and A's are also staying close to the ridge because the karaoke dinner is tonight that we don't want to have long retrieves to miss it. Last night Mike Barber gave an excellent talk on soaring - his keyword in flying is 'now' and the 'race is in the climb and the race is in the line.'

1 - Thermal Underwear - 428.25

~Keith Smith - B

~Bill Baker - C

~Bob Belshan - B

~Lucas Ridley - A

~Eric Donaldson - A

2 - E Team - 376.35

~Terry Presley - A+

~Stan Roberts - A

~James Donovan - C

~Dave Hopkins - A+

~Lindsey Chew - B

~Gavin Riley - C (injured and out now - he hit a tree the first day, but he is okay and I think his glider took most of the damage. The way he described it is that he just didn't see this tree because it had no branches or leaves, but I don't know all the details)

3 - Team Ohio - 296.9

~Jim Lamb - A+

~Mark Thogmartin - C

~Craig Hassen - B

~Terry Mull - C

~Christopher Thale - C

4 - B'Low Me Again - 265.3

~Edward Jowett - C

~Dennis Pagen - A+

~Stephen Krichten - A

~Donald Campasino - C

~Jesse Fulkersin - B

5 - Comp Concepts - 253.4

~Peter Kane - B

~Kevin Carter - A+

~William Estes - C

~Bryon Estes - B

~Jeff Nibler - B

6 - Arkansas Air Hogs - 232.7

~Mark Stump - A+

~Barron Mekinley - A

~Walter Jordon - B

~Butch Pritchett - B

~Steve Prater - C

7 - The Pale Gliders - 220.4

~Oliver Gregory - A+

~Ricker Goldsborough - C

~Collin Hodsdon - C

~Larry Snyder - A+

~Jake Mitchell - C

~Jeff Bozarth - C

8 - Mountaineers - 220

~Patrick Brooks - A

~Will Jenkins - A

~Pat Halfill - A

~John Mcallister - A

~Jim Rowan - A

9 - Team Colorado - 197.2

~Jeff Laughrey - A

~John Wilber - B

~Fred Kaemerer - B

~Shawn Banks - B

~Rick Maddy - C

10 - The Leftovers - 130.5

~Bruce Engen - A+

~Jonathan Small - C

~Roger Tubbs - C

~Kinsley Sykes - B

~Kevin Sheridan - C

Team Challenge - Day 1 and 2

Ollie Gregory on launch today.

The Team Challenge has started off great!
10 Teams have converged at the Tree Toppers site at Henson's Gap for a fantastic meet! There are teams from Ohio, Arkansas, Colorado, New York, and pilots from all over: Louisiana, Florida, Virginia, Maryland and many locals helping out. There are awesome volunteers helping even before the event started getting Henson's looking great and tonight for example, the Lee's are cooking an excellent dinner of corn and chicken. Other's help by either being 'wind technicians,' wire crew, drivers, the pro lecturers (Dennis Pagen, Mark Stump, Kevin Carter, Mike Barber), cooks, videographers (Keith Atkins), and much more. This meet has gone off well and everyone is enthusiastic to learn and fly together safely.
Yesterday was a tough day with only a handful of pilots making goal. Dennis Pagen's talk later that night about scratching had a lot of application for earlier that day.
Today was even tougher with even fewer pilots making goal. I can only speak to what I've heard about so far but our team has managed to do well and are in first as the "Thermal Underwear," with the Arkansas "Air Hogs" about 80 points behind us (we have about 240 points from yesterday). Behing the Air Hogs it is a close race with many people not being able to go xc.
Today's and yesterday's task were the same, except today the A pilots were a bit further. The C pilots goal was about 8 miles down the ridge, the B pilots 13 miles, and the A's 17 yesterday and 25 miles today.
It was fantastic to be able to fly with a team and use our radios to aid each other. For example, Eric Donaldson on our team helped our C pilot, Bill from Florida, make it to his goal by flying to him and guiding him there with me and one of our B pilots all in sight of each other. It's time to eat so I need to go get some before it's gone. I am already looking forward to next year!

Tomorrow a front may be coming through so we'll see what happens . . .

New youtube group

I just created a hang gliding youtube group and you can join by going to:
www.youtube.com/group/hangliding

Help!

Okay, I need some help. I have been in this Full Throttle Contest for a little while and I was on top, the only video with 5 stars until some nerds ganged up on me to vote about 30,000 times one star for my video. I know only have two stars. I am just trying to get at least one of those back.

You can go to: https://cocacola.eprize.net/gofullthrottle/index.tbapp?page=gallery
and vote as many times as you want, you just have to click Search and it will refresh the page and you can vote again. I'm not asking to vote anyone else's down - just mine 5 stars. I'm on the second page now. Thanks

What I do

If you're curious what I do for work, this is an example of what I've been working on:

http://atlas.utc.edu/crm

Another Video Contest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqxbaHE2Ntw

This is the link to my video in the Post-It Note youtube contest. We'll see if I'm in the finals in a week or so . . .

It will help me if you rate the video high (with the stars below the video) - makes the video look good :)