37th Annual Avenal Spring Contest
Avenal, CA
Thursday, May 12, 2011

Preliminary
Sports Class Day 1


Description of Day 1 flying from contestant, and CCSC club president,
Morgan Hall:


I thought everyone might be interested in how the day went.
Yesterday's practice day was a fun task 54 miles SE and then back up
to Priest Valley. Late starting seemed to work well and a nice
convergence was set up along the temblors and west in the the CA
valley. It would actually have been a very good day to run farther as
the convergence bent S towards Santa Ynez and was well marked the
farther south you went.

Day 1:

Weaker conditions called for with a top of lift maxing at 6500 (5200
was all the higher I went). The task was Avenal, Lost Hills,
Coalinga, Blackwell and back. The day started weak and at one point
half of the field was in a gaggle near Tar Peak. West wasn't working,
the valley was a bit better than the hills, but nothing was going much
more than 4500. Most of us started in the 2:40 time range. Heading
south it seemed that some people chose a more westerly track towards
Paramount while others went more direct to Lost Hills. 3 people
landed out at Paramount. 1 at Blackwell and another just west of
Blackwell. A sixth landout was at Hewiston. Almost 1/3 of the field
of 19. Several others abandoned the task. I think about 1/3 +
finished the task. In general it was a low and challenging day.
Exciting and fun, especially in retrospect, though I remember thinking
with about 50 miles of flying to go that boy I wish Coalinga had been
the last turnpoint.



More fun tomorrow,

Morgan

Some interesting weather is in the cards for the rest of the weekend.
Avenal is sandwiched between an upper level low moving north into
Southern California from the South, and a trough digging South from
the Gulf of Alaska at the same time. Our RASP forecast for AVENAL
is looking much better for Friday, Day 2. We should get a well defined
convergence along the coast range marked by a cloud street with up to
10,000ft. MSL cloud bases to the South of
AVENAL.

http://alcald.homelinux.org/RASP/AVE...RASPtable.html