US Standard Class National Championship

This information was pulled off the net from a rec.aviation newsgroup. I have included the header so reference is given to the originator.

Article: 3124 of rec.aviation.soaring
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.soaring
Path: cfanews!hsdndev!dartvax.dartmouth.edu!axsys!rw
From: rw@surgicad.com (Randy Witlicki)
Subject: U.S. Standard Class Nationals - Day 0
Message-ID: 
Organization: Dover Systems
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 94 15:45:05 EDT
Lines: 38


  The 1994 U.S. Standard Class national championships are being held
from June 21 (today) through June 30th at Warren-Sugarbush Airport
in Warren, Vermont.  The Sugarbush Soaring Association is hosting the
event.
  I will be posting results as the contest progresses.  My network
access is at my workplace about 75 miles away.  Some nights I may be
camping at the airport and this will result in a gap in my postings.

  Day 0: Monday June 20th was the final practice day with a 198.7 mile
(about 320 kilometer) triangle task to the Mount Washington Hotel in New
Hampshire and the Jay Peak ski area near the Canadian border.
  All pilots who attempted the course made it around except for one
pilot who landed at an airport half way around.  The lift was better than
expected and the day turned out to be an undercall with the fastest pilot
making around in just under 3 hours with a 66.56 mph speed to devalue the
day to 995 points.  14 pilots scored over 900 points for the day, all with
speeds over 60 mph, which is fairly fast for a thermal (non-ridge) day
in the Eastern U.S.

  Day 1: Yet to happen.  Overcast and occasional drizzle today (Tuesday)
has made the first day of the contest period a non flying day.

  The weather outlook is for very probable flying on Wednesday and
Thursday with the next weather system holding off until Friday or Saturday.

  Random sight around the airport:  Pilots with beers in one hand and their
GPS boxes tucked under their other arm clustered around the Cambridge Aero
table in the contest tent.  Cambridge has a PC based application which
uploads the GPS data (I believe the boxes record  GPS and pressure altitude
data points every 4 seconds).  Vertical and horizontal views are available with
zoom functions so you can look at your start gate run, etc.  Another feature
of the viewer software allows you to replay the data points and display
the average rate of climb in a thermal.  I think Cambridge has this software
only for in-house use so far.  Neat stuff.

 - Randy   rw@surgicad.com