July 21, 2025: F5J Soaring

By Mike Bergerson

It was a calm and quiet morning. The birds were chirping and leaves rustled outside of Casa Muncie. I lay in bed (cot) for a few minutes before I realized it wasn’t raining! That means the F5J soaring competition will start on time and everyone will be joyous and happy! There might even be singing… probably not.

Launching!

Sixty pilots showed up for the festivities! Twelve lanes and five groups mean lots of planes in the air!

The pilots meeting covered the rules for flying, safety, and scoring operations. Let's fly! 

CD, Norm Poti, and crew pulled off a smooth and fun contest as we breezed through six rounds, finishing up around 4:30 PM. Breezy was the word of the day as we had a steady 10-13mph wind out of the east for the entire day. At first, it was overcast, breaking up as the morning pressed on. Yet that steady, virtually unreadable breeze from the east had us guessing where the lift would be.

Many of the pilots, myself included, opted to fly and push far upwind, surf and work back downwind as needed early in the day, but most found that less effective by midday. The lift was there, but it was spotty and moved in mysterious ways. Travelling way downwind, unable to get back upwind, and landing outside the 75 meter boundary was common and motor ups were frequent. The day was racking up zero-flights every round! Muncie madness was in full swing! Yeah, folks were figuring it out as the day kept on, but it left many scratching their heads.

“Hey, how high did you go?”

“Not high enough!”

Tom Broeski is offering prizes for the most zero-flights of the contest! Absolutely hilarious. 

Gliderscore.com has all the technical info. I’ll post a photo of the scores through round 6. 

Please enjoy the photos and videos and stay tuned for the final report, same Bat channel, same Bat station! For Pete’s sake, there were only three channels back then!.... You folks know I stay up too late writing this stuff…right? I’m going to bed. Blue Skies!