Much like Jim, here I sit on Sunday AM, and am pretty much wiped out. I
stayed and flew a day of electric soaring just to be proved horsepower is
everything in their world, even in "stock events", but still tried anyway.
It has gotten very hot here since yesterday and that with the fact that the
Soaring Nats is done, means this will be a slow Sunday.
There was good and bad at the Nats for me, the Level V finish was obviously
the high point, and is a high point for my entire soaring life. But from
the context of being the Event Director, these points stand out;
The Good:
The greatest volunteers in the world, many will bring specific names, but
just as Jim noted, these are folks that come in many cases selflessly and
just help, do not fly, and make the event work. I worry that there are not
enough of these folks out there in our future though. I had a note from a
gentleman that really is not a hard core contest guy, but comes down for a
day or two evey year, and had not ever been to the TD part, and was amazed
at how smooth the contest runs.
Great contestants! Gordy, well...;')
The smooth flow of the contest, which I attribute primarily to Marna
Jefferies. Marna has the impound down to an art and I cannot imagine that
anywhere there is a better system than what she has developed for the Nats.
Marna and Larry will be helping at the Masters, which is great.
Scoring was rock solid, Robin Meeks and Barb Stieflel made that fly and I
know that Robin is helping at the Master's as well and F3B trials. Having a
reliable scorer and system is absolute in MOM.
Flight line and landing zones, Larry, Jim and Marti, your guys were on the
ball and that was a non worry in my mind. It looks simple, but the
knowledge that these men have is through the roof, and it takes it.
Sarah, handled the trolls and retrieval, no fuss no muss. Another worry off
my table.
The fact that the two possible cases that serious personnal injury could
have occurred, no one was. One gentlemen was scared to death though and
luckily only scathed, anyone that would have faced what he did would have
been. One note, when it is windy at any contest, let someone throw for you
when you are not confident in the situation, period.
AMA's support of our event was stellar, Ron Morgan and Al Williamson, and
the AMA Maintenence crews were their usual tremendous support of LSF. Also
Dave Brown, he is who greased the AMA's part of the winch deal personnally
and there was no hesitation on his part, if we had it figured out, he would
support it on his end no questios asked. I have many feelings, some good
and bad about Mr. Brown, but he came through for the LSF here big. Finally,
our new friend Amy who works for AMA, she was a great help.
Everyone should thank Tom Kallevang for all the work he has done, is doing,
and will do for LSF. He busts his arse for the organization as no one I
have ever seen. We are lucky we have him.
Again, the volunteers!
Fliers coming to the flight line prepared, from what I saw, folks did a good
job here
Minimum of line breaks in some very heavy winds, 15-20 mph, which can be
done pretty easily today. Thanks go to the fliers.
I did not hear a single gripe about Nostalgia not being flown.
Having the wind stay southwest for five straight days (which almost never
happens), made our life much simpler.
The weather as a whole allowed almost non stop flying, and that is always a
plus. Now, that is not to say it did not make it tough.
Did I mention the volunteers? Ah, yes I did!
The Bad:
The AC power that we have grown to rely on for our flight line charger
system power was lost for the week. And really for no reason other than
someone did not check it in a timely fashion prior to the contest from AMA.
We did have power for our scoring trailer and sound systems as usual, but we
had to use a generator on the flight line(which did the job and was a very
quiet unit). In many ways, it might actually be the better way to go, more
analysis later.
Small flight groups. There were times that we had flight groups of 4 or 5,
and that is way too small. This all eminates from how many we allow on
frequencies per event and the fact that up through the '06 event, we only
manage channels in a minimal way. In my mind, the future is here and we
need to:
1. Tweak the number of entries/frequency/event to better allow smooth flow,
i.e. HL 1, TD events 2-3 dependent on entries, RES 2 for example.
2. Ask entrants for listings of requested frequencies, or if they are
frequency mobile (synth), and then frquency allocation is done at the end of
registration for the event to allow that even distribution of entrants over
the frequencies. Barry, do not freak out...The goal in my book is an even
distribution of fliers over all the frquencies and thus a flight matrix that
is sending groups of 8-10 out to the flight line for every round.
Our slot time in the Nats, we really do need a Saturday to Saturday slot.
Whatever event is hung on the first Friday is kind of hung out to dry, and
2007 is going to be another year of potential schedule upheeval because a
World Championship is being held during the Nats for Pylon. We will not
know till probably September what our dates are. More to come here.
High gas prices, which I know effected somes judgements in deciding not to
come. I know there is nothing we can do directly, but it effected the
entire Nats, not just us. I also heard prior to the Nats of folks who were
mad about Nostalgia not occuring and were not coming, well, in that case you
missed a great week. Something like tennis, fishing, or golf could not be
near as fun as flying anything could it?
An Apology:
I owe everyone an apology for having a very divided mind during most of TD.
As anyone knows who sells for a living, unless you are really out of
country, you need to service your good customers, even on vacation. My
world went nuts about Tuesday and it detracted from my abilities to
concentrate and do my job effectively. The two weekes before the Nats, it
had been pretty quiet, but the Nats week it went nuts. I am sorry for the
distraction and my less than stellar job at times.
I am sure that many will chew these up and spit them back at me, but oh
well, my skin is pretty tough now. I had a week of a life time and I thank
the Bubbas, Jim Deck, and especially Jo Ellen for all their help with my LV
XC flight. The Bubbas were about to give up on me if I did not get it done
sometime soon.
Marc Gellart
2006, and 2007, Soaring Nats Event Director
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