Lakeview WrapUp

Chris V hucks himself into the blue.
Well we had a couple of no-fly days due to high winds, and I was hopeful (if not quite optimistic) that I would be able to resume flying when the weather got more cooperative. The knee continued to stiffen however, so Thursday I drove for Tom, and ended up picking up Doc as well. It was the first time I've chased; it was fun, more than I expected. Not as exciting as flying, but totally enjoyable in a vicarious way, and much more relaxed.

Ken gets some pre-flight strategic advice.
Wayne hit some turbulence on landing that day and unfortunately dislocated his shoulder, so Gerry, Sarah, Wayne, and I went back to retrieve his glider after he got back from the hospital. I've never dislocated a shoulder, I assume its pretty painful, but Wayne really didn't let it get in his way much. With flying for this meet over for both of us, the gimp patrol decided to head on back home. Hated to miss out on the final results and BBQ, but other aspects of life were beckoning (oh yeah, other aspects of life, I had forgotten about those...).


Tom poised to launch.
We went up to launch Friday and saw people off. Turned out to be a good thing, since Ben D. had misplaced a tip wand and basically didn't have a glider, so he used Ben R's, which we had on Wayne's truck. It was a light wind, light lift day. Several times it looked like whole squads of pilots were getting flushed near launch, but somehow persevered. Tom Flynn had a great comeback, getting really low early but ending up second for the day in sport class! Peter Wem also had a good day Friday, his flying has been very consistent this week.
Zac Majors had great flights almost every day, and won the comp. Ben, Bruce and Gerry put in very respectable performances, finishing up 6, 8, and 10th respectively in a field of very strong pilots. As for me, well, my lesson from Lakeview is that its really hard to score points on the ground ;-)