SILVERCREEK SUCCESSES

Several members headed southwest for this year's cross-country camp hosted by Silvercreek Soaring near St. Louis, MO this past June 7 through the 9th. The contingent from CISS included Peter Detore, Terry Dickey, Scot Ortman, Mike Warren and Nyal Williams. All had a great time. Here are a few experiences from a few of the happy campers.

Nyal Williams

Scot Ortman, my partner, flew the first day. We had two instructors and they divided us learners into two groups according to the agility of the gliders they were flying.. Our glider went into the first group. They used two separate radio frequencies and I listened to their progress by switching back and forth on my hand-held radio.

The next day, the instructors decided to put up three groups and to put Our glider in the middle one . The fastest group was the flapped gliders. They decided to use one radio frequency for all three groups, and this caused Me a problem.

We all had the same task, a triangle of about 91 miles. The instructor was supposed to lead the gliders out on course, get them established in a thermal and then run on ahead to mark the next good thermal and have everyone make a dash for that.

The learning task was to search for strong thermals, ignore the weak ones, how to recognize that a thermal was losing strength toward the top and to develop the courage to abandon it as a time waster at that point, and run for the next one.

My group launched second. I was supposed to be the second one up, just behind the instructor, but I discovered I had set the course incorrectly in the GPS and it wouldn't give me the information to the first turn point. I had to reset the course and they pulled me out of the line, so I was the last launched in my group. We were supposed to mill around, form up and head out together.

When I got up, I started searching for my group over the field, looking and calling, and heard that they were about a mile to the south ,though our course was north. I heard my instructor say lets go, I thought (he had inquired about me a couple of times to see whether I got launched and had some altitude). I made about 5 more turns in the thermal and got on the radio and said, "YJ is at 4500 and heading out on course."

I could hear the other instructor a lot, but I didn't hear mine much at all. I kept hearing about people on up ahead and I didn't know who they were or exactly where they were because they were talking about local check points like Bill Simpson's chicken farm, and such. I hadn't done much map study and was depending mostly on the GPS.

I was scared that I was being left behind, so I started flying fast and quitting thermals early and after an hour of pushing, I was joined by a glider coming out of the east. He circled with me about a half-dozen turns and disappeared. I figured that I had been left behind and would be even more embarrassed.

I quit the thermal early and pushed up to 80 knots for a run of 4 or 5 miles and when I found another thermal a second glider joined me. This one was one of the fast gliders with flaps and I thought, "Well, I'm not the only one

embarrassed by my speed; he's part of the first group and he's lagged behind and we are stuck here together." He disappeared shortly and then I thought, "Oh, he's already been to the turn point and is on the way back and across to the second turn point. I'm really behind!"

So, I found a good thermal over a field that was sheltered on three sides by some trees and went back up to 5200ft. The turnpoint was about ten miles away and I figured that I should have a lot of altitude to go into the turnpoint and back out. I wanted to pretend being in a contest and my Idea was to circle around behind the turnpoint far enough that I could point the wing down directly at it and pretend to make a photo with my nonexistent camera.

After doing that, I started off for the second turn point and I heard some people talking about landing out on an airport near the center of the triangle. Some of them were saying that the weather had deteriorated enough that they were going back to our airport after making the first turnpoint and that they were just chucking the triangle course. A bit later one of them said that the course was cancelled and I thought it sounded like the third group, the slower gliders, but I couldn't really tell.

I got really cautious and started going to the tops of thermals and never dropping below 3500ft msl, or 3000ft above ground level. I crept on toward the second turnpoint and saw the flapped glider again briefly in a thermal, but I couldn't tell where he went -- whether back to our airport or on to the second turnpoint.

As I got closer to the midpoint of the second leg, I saw that I had to cross a long, narrow lake and I lingered in a weak thermal to get plenty of altitude to cross and get to open fields with thermals on the other side. I noticed that the narrowest part of the lake was a bit south and near the town with the airport. "Aha! I'll get some heat from the town and jump the lake there."

Well, the town had spotty thermals that I couldn't stay in and I slowly sank lower and lower while searching - up 50 ft, down 100ft, up 75ft, down 150ft. until I was down to 2000 ft above ground (original tow altitude) "No real problem; they are bound to have a thermal and I'll find it."

At 1500ft I decided I had better tune in their airport radio and ask about the active runway; no one would answer. I landed on a brand new 4000ft runway going downwind in order to roll to the very end and be in position to turn around and get towed out.

A self-described hippie in his "ghetto-taxi" drove out and picked me up. His truck was all beat up, no window, no door knob, fenders flapping. Turned out he owns a Pitts bi-plane that they were servicing. Two of them were there and they were getting ready to go down to our gliderport. They called for me to get the tow plane and after about a half-hour a Cessna 172 with a tow hitch showed up. He had a short rope and he towed me back at 80knots. Roughest ride I've ever had! The thermals were choppy and we were going through them at 2000ft agl.

When I got back I found out that I had led my group all the way except that my leader was the one who said to abandon the course and come back. The leader of the fast gliders had to land out and get retrieved, and he didn't want to talk about it. He was quoted as saying "Damn, I hate to lose!"

About six people landed out that day, four of them on airports. Three went in where I landed. They gave all of us who landed out a balsa hand launched glider.

What a fascinating trip! I ain't gonna hang around no stinkin' Terry airport no more!