The
air at 7:30 in the morning is humid and the lingering evening moisture has found
its way into the cardboard cylinder of sugar set on the counter of the self-serve
coffee area. The crystals of sugar are all stuck together and no amount of banging
or shaking the box produces any results. Giving up on the container I grab several
packets of sugar and align them so I can rip off the tops with one pull. The moisture
has penetrated the paper and only half of the granules pour down into the Styrofoam
cup. The noise reminds me of a B-grade western movie's version of a coiled rattlesnake
waiting to strike an ignorant cowboy that walks by.Today I'm the innocent cowboy
and the snake is the first day of the Region 1 contest; the first day of my first
contest ever flown. I'm nervous not knowing what to expect and all I have been
able to eat is a piece of lightly buttered toast and a few cups of tea. I wish
I'd just puke and get on with the day. I'm not really this fragile but I'm willing
to try anything to calm down. The heat and moisture of the past few days has some
cheese-like product forming on the spout of the bulk storage cream container.
Undaunted, I pull the knob and send a few curds to mix with the sugar at the bottom
of my cup. The hot coffee will kill anything and with luck there will be some
nutritional value from the cheese. Pawing through the foil wrapped egg sandwiches
I pick the one that seems the hottest. Hopefully, the temperature is from being
recently pulled off the grill and not from spending a few hours incubating under
the warming lamp. Proper mindset
for soaring The biggest reason for choking down the sandwich
and coffee is ritualistic. Before each flying day I try to eat a high protein
breakfast and a cup of tea or coffee and this helps me get into the proper mindset
for soaring. Today should be no different. I've been looking forward to this day
for several years. I'd helped crew for a friend of mine at a contest before I
had even taken a ride in a glider or even sat in one. My goal when I began flying
was to become a cross-country pilot and maybe even enter a contest. The
Soaring Society of America's competition rules require that a pilot must enter
the Sports Class, a handicapped Class, as their first contest. One additional
rule of the Sports Class is that pilots are allowed to share a glider and compete
as a team. Rick, my friend and primary glider instructor, has agreed to team up
with me and fly the club ship on alternating flying days. I like this arrangement
since we are flying the only high performance glider, an HpH 304C, owned by the
Post Mills Soaring Club (PMSC) and I don't feel too much like I'm hogging the
club equipment. PMSC is primarily a teaching club and decided that we needed a
high performance glider to allow people to fly cross-country, so we committed
a hefty portion of our assets and purchased the 304. My primary goal of this contest
is to bring the glider back in flyable condition. I don't want to disappoint the
30 or so members who are part owners of it by doing something stupid and render
the ship unusable for the remainder of the season. Rick and I delivered
the glider in its trailer to the contest site the night before the official start
day. |
