This year I finally signed up to fly in a competition, the Lumby Air Races. So far I had a valid excuse: I couldn’t read my GPS without reading glasses (and don’t think I can manage to switch glasses while flying). But after some half-hearted experiments Pete found sun glasses with little reading inserts for me. In Leavenworth, WA of all places! With my excuse gone and the weather looking reasonable we went to Lumby.
The Air Races are more a party than a competition, and fun and friendly. There is good food, live music and lots of friends we don’t see that often. In the end there was only one day with weather good enough to fly a competition task, but we got some airtime on the other days as well. Pete came in 4th in the Open Class, flying with and winning over pilots on much hotter (and higher performance) wings and won the Standard Class. Looks like I have second place in the Standard Class (leading only by a couple of points). Maybe I should encourage Pete to step up a class, so I don’t have to compete with him ;-) ? Results
here and
here.
Not sure I’m too much into this competition thing. My flying skills may be good enough to diddle along and get some points, but my parawaiting skills are definitely lacking! During comps there can be long wait times for an elusive weather window and competitors who don’t hang around and leave to do more fun stuff (kayaking? climbing? mountain biking?) risk loosing points when they are not around to fly.
The reading sun glasses worked out OK, but the inserts were definitely in the way when looking down at the windsock!
