Leave First and Pray for Rain
Dick Johnson got this to work for him much better than I did. Charlie Spratt told me that this was a tactic he saw work time and time again in Hobbs and Uvalde when there was a big storm in the forecast. The idea behind this is a large storm is going to shut down a turnpoint at some point during the day. It could even develop at the home airport. Leaving early could get you in and out of the turnpoint before it gets shut down.
At the 2015 Junior World Gliding Championships we watched the entire standard class refuse to start first, they waited and waited. They waited so long that only half of the fleet made it home because the day ran out of energy. The speeds ended up being not much faster than the dry club class. It still resulted in a 1000 point day and the winner of the contest was 999 points for the day. So the result still went well for many. However, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if someone could have got away early and been 15 km/h faster.
Leaving first would be a big gamble because all it might do is get the rest of the class to start a few minutes behind you. Now you have given them X amount of minutes and there is no way of knowing if you could have made it out unnoticed.
Racing now is much more ground assisted then it was when Dick Johnson was racing. On a blue day it is hard to get away, a cloudy stormy day it is easier to be unnoticed. However, when the team base is moving around and out near the start line or down the course line we can easily see who is starting. The live tracking also gives teams an idea of what is going on. Even with a time delay, it still can be useful with the ground people you can take a pretty educated guess on what people are doing.
This becomes labor-intensive and requires multiple people on the ground, at a World Gliding Championships this is very feasible. The ground crew for the 2015 US Junior team did exactly this. Having someone stationed on the start line, someone down course line, and another sitting on a computer screen watching the live tracking, spot tracking, Flarm, etc. It is faster-paced on the ground than it is in the cockpit.
On a timed task, if you get a few minute head start and everyone catches you, you still get to land before them. The end of the day might catch up with them, where you get to head home and they need to keep going for another XX minutes as the sky changes and hopefully traps them out or gets them slowed down.
Now when you first start racing leaving first might not really be that bad of an idea. Since you will probably be one of the slowest on task you might need the head-start. I would start first, get caught by the pack, try and hang-on as long as I could, and eventually see the last of the group get away from me as I was nearing final glide. I remember my first contest, most of the pilots were on their second beer by the time I landed.
Photo: Tom Serkowski
Garret Willat holds a flight instructor rating with over 8000 hours in sailplanes. His parents have owned Sky Sailing Inc. since 1979. He started instructing the day after his 18th birthday. Since then, Garret has represented the US Junior team in 2003 and 2005. He graduated from Embry-Riddle with a bachelor's degree in Professional Aeronautics. Garret represented the US Open Class team in 2008 and 2010 and the Club Class team in 2014. Garret has won 3 US National Championships.
