Day 2 at Big Spring

Today turned out to be a great flying day with plenty of strong lift making clouds everywhere. The task was an 86 miler with two turnpoints. The wind seemed less than forcasted so staying on or near courseline was no problem. I found some incredible climbs with one of them 1100 on the averager. It took me 2hr and 54min to run the course. I tried not to waste time in weak lift and flew hard between climbs.

The most fun I had was the final leg into goal. We were 16 miles out and headed into a giant blue hole. I found a light climb, maybe 100fpm, in the middle of it. Sunny Venesky, who had been with me most of the flight, joined me here also. This climb finally faded so I headed straight into the wind off course towards a thin, wispy cloud a mile or two away. I found the up and started climbing. Sunny and another glider soon joined me. I was on top of the stack but my GPS wouldn't say the glide ratio to goal. So, I kept looking for the airport wondering if I could leave for it. Finally, one of the gliders pulled away and started for goal. I pulled on full vg and the race was on! With about 6 miles to go and a bit of altitude advantage, I pulled in and put the ground speed at 70+ beating them by about 10 seconds. Nice picture from coudbase, about 9,500ft here

Here is the airport we are flying from. How many runways can you count? Also, if you look real hard, you can see the staging line and a couple of gliders ready to launch. It's a big place.