July 17, 2024: XC Soaring

 Just a Bunch of Soaring Junkies …

By Mike Bergerson

Everybody is on their weather app the day before Cross Country (XC) Soaring is scheduled to start. “It’s gonna be great” … “Nah, the weather’s gonna be lousy” … well, it’s the weather—you take what you can get! That’s what we did, and we made the best of it with tons of fun flying and swapping stories!

XC Soaring is here, and day one of the event is officially in the books. Five brave souls with a winch have taken over the athletic field at Monroe Central High School in beautiful Parker City, Indiana! It’s a bit windy, but we managed to fly quite a bit … just not a lot of purpose-built XC ships.

Wally “by Golly” Adasczik has broken out his Sprite 2-meter (2M) sailplane. Ed Dumas has an F3RES Madina 2M on a hi-start, as well as his F3 Explorer setup for his XC runs. John Marien does have his purpose-built Catalina XC ship. It’s an older ship, but it flies very smoothly. Finding the thermals in the wind is a bit tricky, but John managed to find one or two—just not enough altitude for him to head out on the road to attempt his 10 km fly and return.

I did a hand toss on my newly assembled Supra. Straight and level, not a whisper of trim needed! Time to put it up on the winch and test the flight modes. Well, this particular fuse came with a towhook permanently placed just a tad behind the center of gravity. I left the wing clean to prevent a squirrely launch. Well, that didn’t happen! It was all over the place. Once it was off of the line, everything was fine. She’s a keeper. I didn’t attempt anything due to the wind and the need to adjust the launch mode when the wind is a bit calmer.

Midday, we tracked a big storm that would have ended the day, but it passed harmlessly north of us. John made one more attempt to get to altitude for his 10 km fly and return. For his best flight of the day, working a fast-moving thermal, he managed to get up to about 150 meters, but the winds kept pushing the Catalina too far downwind to make a viable run. 

We called it a day at 4 p.m. Tomorrow, July 18, should be a better soaring day with calmer wind conditions. 

Enjoy the pictures … you should be here!

Blue skies!

Note from AMA: Do you have photos from the Nats that you’d like to share? If so, email them to Clarissa Poston at clarissap@modelaircraft.org. Please include a brief description in your email, naming any individuals pictured in the photo(s), the name of the event that the photo(s) were taken during, and the name of the individual who took the photo(s). Your submission(s) might be posted on AMA’s Flickr page, which can be found at www.flickr.com/photos/modelaircraft/albums!