SVSS held the first XC event on the west coast this year at it’s Davis field.
We had two very different and great days of XC flying this weekend. Six teams made it out, one team from Southern California and another from Southern Oregon.

Saturday was almost a blowout but the air popped around 12:30 pm and continued into the late afternoon. No one made it around the 23.7 mile course but the miles that were completed by each team was pretty close. The crosswind leg of the course was difficult, the upwind leg just about impossible but the downwind run was a thrill. Winds were gusting to 20mph pretty steady between 12 and 15.
Dom and Steve's had the best mileage of the day but after reviewing the GPS data, their run was disqualified because they missed three turn points by more than the allowed .2 mile radius cylinder for each turn point. This was a difficult decision. This led to some discussion about whether or not the gps recorder was out of sync and what appropriate penalty should be used. Maybe the DQ was harsh, but this is another learning experience moving forward using the current technology. Everyone else made the turn points. 
We had one plane accident when a pilot lost sight of his plane while leaving the field under the dreaded tree canopy. We heard today that a club member's friend who has a paraglider flew over the area and found the parts. Nice!!!

Sunday's route was speed run of 16.7 miles and you must return to the field by 3pm with your scoring sheet and GPS. Everyone completed the course and got their score cards in on time. Those who completed early did a really outstanding job, the thermals were few and far apart, the early runs were very difficult. The afternoon the thermals were huge and generous. (A difficulty multiplier should have been applied to the earlier runs). Regardless, each team had some great runs and better stories.

I’ve included the Saturday and Sunday scores and a very interesting graph of team Broken Aero’s final afternoon run showing how close we were to missing a turn point and then the GPS tracking of the rest of the flight.

Looking forward to Montague

Bruce XC CD

Thanks Bruce for doing the CD thing.
Your final glide looks so straight, I can only dream of doing that well.

Could you elaborate on altitude and speed for each mile. Basically how many meters or feet per mile. Also what you think the wind was.

Regards Dean

Hi Dean
I recall starting TP5 at 500M, that was the last thermalling we did on our way to TP6 (finish). From TP5 for about two miles we were in constant lift and climbed to 650M. This is when I broke out in a big smile. At about the 3 mile mark we were back to 500M and went to full reflex and a click of down, at 2 mile 350M another click of down and another minute later another click of down and we were off to the races. It seems that the glider reached 110kph during the last 1.5 mile run. We finished at telephone height with plenty of speed. We were flying directly into the wind but at this time of the day and location it wasn't much of a factor.
Because this was our third attempt we flew pretty conservatively, we didn't want to be the only team not to complete the course.
The teams that completed the course early and went out again improved their time between 8 and 10 minutes.

BTW our max alt was 700 meters on Sunday, but we went over 1000M on Saturday but the wind was much worse on Saturday.