Logan contest reporting now only on Soaring Cafe

On Jul 25, 8:09*pm, Andy wrote:
On Jul 25, 6:38*pm, Tuno wrote:

Although I personally disagree with this decision, it is within the
purview of the on-site contest management to decide who posts to the
SSA website.
QT
Rules Committee

And as reported by Ken Sorenson, "Logan, UT contests have apparently
elected to change reporters at the contest".

All that is clear, and no argument from me, but none of it explains
why SSA removed the old posts. I would like to know why that
additional step was taken.

2NO

On censorship:
It's up to the organizers to select the individual to post daily
contest reports. *They are within their rights to change writers or
even delete posts - though it doesn't look good when they do. *When
you ask someone who injects color and personal opinion into his
writing to post on behalf of the contest organizers, then have some
marginal days with intimidating flying you are going to get the
obvious injection of perspective to the commentary.

On Logan as a site:
I broke my beloved -27B landing in barley in a mountain valley on Day
2 of the 15M nationals. I made all the decisions myself and live with
the consequences. *In the end if I had flown about 2 miles farther
away from landable fields I likely would have made it home, but I
didn't feel comfortable with the all-or-nothing proposition that
appeared to represent at the time.

Logan is a very technical site and that fact is particularly apparent
when the top of lift is 10,000' or lower. *The spread in the scores,
large numbers of outlandings and significant numbers of withdrawals -
along with a couple of broken gliders - all stand as evidence of how
challenging the flying can be.

The challenges this year at logan fall into three broad categories:
1) The lift starts on the late side - generally after 2pm. It might go
on until 7:30, but sometimes it doesn't. *This makes it challenging to
get a 4-hour Nationals task in when you account for launching all the
gliders and giving them time to climb up. Yesterday's task shows the
challenge of getting a 3 1/2 hour task in.

2) Climbing out is a challenge. The Logan ridge is 10,000 feet high
and 4-5 miles from the airport. *It's a steep series of ridges and
canyons and you really have to rack it up (but not past 45-50 degrees
or your circle get's bigger not smaller - shockingly even experienced
pilots forget this). You have to work your way from one spur to the
next and when you get to the top you have about a 1,000- foot working
band before you are below the ridge tops and have to start over.
Better weather make this less of a challenge, but in 10 days there
this was the case every day this year. This year we towed to 2,500
feet to try to give pilots a better chance to get a climb, bit it
exacerbates #1 when you spend the additional 25-30% in timer per tow.

3) Ridge transitions are the name of the game. There is not reliable
lift in the valleys so you fly ridge to ridge. Given the nature of the
terrain you may ridge soar or choose thermals in the high ground. When
the top of lift is low you have to do both - climb up on one ridge and
dive to the next one, ridge soar upon arrival until you can find a
thermal - or ridge run for a bit.

4) There are broad swaths of terrain in the contest areas that are
unattractive, either because they are in marine air, filled with water
or made of lava (hardened, not molten), among other things. This is
true of many sites to one degree or another. Most problem areas were
briefed at various pilots' meetings. If you combine #4 with #3 you get
areas like where I got into trouble where you need the ridge to work
our are faced with a 15-mile glide to landable spots. When the lift
doesn't go very high you end up with what amounts to a 500-1,000'
working band. In my case I decided to glide toward the fields to play
it safe but with the air running down instead of up in the valleys my
achieved L/D was cut in half - 23:1 instead of 48:1 according to
SeeYou. Which brings me to the final point...

5) It's mountain flying. Mountains are big geographic features that
can have a big impact on the local weather conditions. Large areas of
lift and sink that you might not find in the flatlands are the main
things to think about. It's all the more critical when you are flying
low-level.

To me all of this adds up to a need to do a lot of homework when going
to fly at a place like Logan. *If the conditions are strong you likely
have enough margin to mask many of the challenges, but when you are
among, rather than above, the mountains you need to take care.

It's a beautiful place with a great airport and a supportive
community. I'd go again - I've already made a big investment in
learning about how to fly there.

9B

Meant to say "five categories" - or in the words of Monty Python, "No
one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"