Why was Parowan dry? This is a Regional with pretensions to "National"
input. Why no water as is flown at this level in most other parts of
the world.

Fair Question,
I’ll attempt to fill in the blanks. Although the Parowan area is now
touted as perhaps the premiere racing site in the US (I agree) the
Airport has some glitches that currently add complications to
operating a contest when compared to more spacious U.S. Airports like
Hobbs, NM for example.

Here are a few reasons it’s currently best suited for a dry contest
and no open class ships:

(1) The Airport is as noted by others is located at 5932 feet MSL,
density altitude can reach 10,000 on hot days.
(2) It only has one 4/22 runway no cross runway options
(3) The airport runway is 5,000 feet x 75 feet Asphalt, with adjacent
RW lights and a parallel 50 foot wide x 3,500 usable (+-) asphalt taxi
way also with lights.
(4) RW 04 slopes down and RW 22 up at a 1.3% grade.
(5) The rope brake landing options are reasonably good on RW 04 but
extremely poor on RW 22 and a low rope break off of 22 will likely
result in some kind of damage…
(6) Downhill, down wind take offs on 04 are the norm, as are dropped
tips on roll out, this keep things pretty darned exciting right off
the bat.
(7) When we do take off on 22 (15+kt winds) it’s a relief not to have
to do a 10-15kt downwind take off but given the uphill slope and the
lack of immediate field landing options it’s not a warm fuzzy for the
first minute or so.
(8) All gliders must use a rolling grid / start to have enough runway
to safely launch, this means that 1/3 of the fleet will have to grid
off the runway and all pilots are tediously pushing the ships forward
every five launches.
(9) Contest landing is a bit tricky, especially when 10 ships hit the
finish circle at once. We generally land up hill on 22, that’s a good
thing but must carry enough energy to roll to the very end of the
runway where many helpers quickly push you off the runway while still
in the cockpit before the next pilot hot on your tail lands. If a
pilot mis-judges and lands short on the RW all hell breaks loose and
options quickly diminished for the pilots stacking up in the pattern.
If one carries too much energy, has poor breaks (who doesn’t) and
overruns the end, you will have runway lights to damage your wings as
happened to 3 or four last year. We had a few overruns this year too
but I didnt hear of any damage.

Parowan is an amazing place to fly and race but has it’s complications
that will bite the unprepared pilot. I heard some talk last year of
matching funding becoming available to extend the Airport but when and
how this will occur is an unknown and likely way down the road. Given
these AP limitations one should be very well prepared prior to
arriving at Parowan. I’ll be attending every contest held at Parowan
as IMHO it is simple the best.

Rick - 21