I really suck at this blog thing...  2011 started off wet...  all the sailplaneracing series races were scrubbed, not a single task counted...  In the spring I attended R6N Contest in Ionia in preparationfor the Canadian Nationals, the contest was a lot of fun but the weather didn't exactly co-operate.  The Canadian Nationals were "interesting" as always.  We had a tremendous turn out and ended up splitting up the Club class into two based on handicap, this caused a bit of a political debacle in our small comunity.  The weather and the tasks were challenging but all who participated had fun, those who didn't missed out.  In August I made my first trip to Harris Hill, NY (a bit of a lie, I picked up my LX-5000 there a few years but did not fly).  The Ontario Provincials were washed out and I closed off the season with a trip to Lake Placid, NY.  In the late fall I sold my beloved SZD-55  Sierra Zulu to a club member and purchased a 1/2 share of a ASW-27 2 Whisky (thanks Walter!).  Over ther Chrismas break I had a chance to fly 2W in Florida at the Seminole Lake Glider Port on a few short flights, the weather wasn't spectacular but it was still nice to fly in December... lets see what 2012 brings!

Sierra Zulu - 2011 from Luke Szczepaniak on Vimeo.

Shannon, Nimbus and I went away for a week of vacation to Lake Placid, NY.  where MSC and GGC host an annual Wave Camp.  The idea was to have fun relaxing trip with a possibility of some wave flying and hopefully to get mu Diamond climb.  The trip was a lot of fun and i was rewarded with a climb to 18000 feet MSL which was short for a Diamond climb but good enough for the Gold.

The Canadian Nationals are in North Battleford, Saskatchewan.  I plan to leave on the evening of June 10th, and should arrive either Saturday Night or Sunday Morning.  There should be a pretty strong crew from Ontario including Dave Springford (F1), Nick Bonierre (ST), Joerg Stieber (JS), Derek Mackie (TT) and Bill Cole (BC).

Here is a link to the weather for North Battleford:  http://www.theweathernetwork.com/hourlyfx/cask0223/hourlytable/1?ref=topnav_fourteenday_hourlyfx

Contest website: http://www.sac-nationals.ca

Over the winter Derek and I came up with the idea of running a series of no frills weekend races in Ontario.  The idea seemed popular so we created a basic set of rules and made a rough schedule.  Sailplaneracing.com was born.  The first event was held at TSC on the May 15/16 weekend, and even though we only had one contest day it was a great success.  Click on the logo for the series website and more details.

Sunday May 9th was a wonderful day on the ridge.  I went to Mifflin with Adam, Derek and Marian.  My plan was to declare a 750KM flight, but Adam suggested I declare a 1000km, being the easily influenced person that I am I laid out a new task.  The turnpoints were;

Start: Tussey N

1: Monteray Rdg S

2: Poverty

3: Quarry

Finish: Mifflin County Airport

for a total of 1007.5KM.  The conditions were excellent, the task took 8h45 minutes to complete.  In 2006 on my first trip to the ridge I had flown for 9 hours and I have always regretted not flying 10H, so this time I decided to keep flying.  The flight resulted in 1179KM OLC and should be good for my 500KM Diamond Distance and 1000KM Diploma.

Here is the link to the flight on the OLC