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Welcome to The 2010 Governor's Cup |
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PENNRIDGE JUMP OPERATIONS - Pennridge airport has a very active jump operation that is documented via a non-expiring NOTAM. A course through the far NW side of the PGC turn area will go directly over Pennridge Airport into the drop operation.
If you are seen, this will stop the jump operation (and PGC will get an angry call) - or it will create a very dangerous situation if you are not seen. Please make all transitions well to the East of Pennridge Airport ... watching out for PGC traffic as well.
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Sep 12 to Oct 12 - The season is winding down and we only had two completions during the prior comp month. Ryszard Krolikowski (RW) drove his SZD 55-1 around the GC South on 9/15 under a brilliant crystal-clear sky. Cerulean Blue is a challange to do when the fleet numbers two - your glider and you. Chris Ungermann (D) had a solo completion in his DG-808 on 10/2 - which was another extremely tough day - and Chris made it even more difficult by starting at New Garden - using Morgantown as a remote start. Great flights and congrats to both pilots.
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September 11 - A blue day with a deep boundary layer serves up difficult soaring conditions. Jim Hermann (TD) and Paul Seifried (PC) from ACA are both up to the challange and complete the GC South - starting at Blairstown and driving CCW. These were tough four hour flights on a demanding day. |
September 5 - A great late season day allows 10 pilots from all South GC clubs to complete tasks at good speed - often under time. Erik Mann (Potato Three) has the best raw speed driving his LS-8 around a 177 mile course at 59.34 mph actual. The Gov is a fast driver ... but his use of undocumented child labor probably means he couldn't run for a major political office. (Hey kid, quit posing for the camera and get back to work!). All the club scores moved up a little - but not enough to change overall club positions. |
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August 27 - Another difficult day that goes from CU to Blue. However, Chris Ungermann (D) figures it out and drives his big DG around the course from Morgantown at 57 mph to add some points to the BSA Club total - and to move up to 12th. place overall on the GC South.
Bud Bauder and "TC" (Tabby Cat) share lunch before the day's mission at PGC. TC is your typical "tiger" - he dates all the local girls ... and never leaves a tip. |
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August 7 - A tricky day that required a lot of gear shifting to stay out of trouble. The leg between PGC and Somerset was fine ... and the Blairstown to Beltzville ridge leg was smoking as pilots reported 7K+ bases - and we actually had a big smokey fire on the ridge. The VanSant / Somerset to BT leg was generally tough ... and the Kutztown and Potts Muni TPs were weak and OD'd ... and many pilots reported problems making these transitions.
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All three clubs had completions on the South course. PGC launched seven ships and Cotter (XJ), Bauder (2B), Jones (2PJ) and Kochanski (KK) completd the course flying CCW. Rob Dunning (V3) and Ryszard Krolikowski (RW) from ACA also both completed CCW as well. And just to be different, Bruce Conrad (IA) went around CW from Morgantown to score some points for BSA. In addition, Ryszard Kaleta (GR8) had a completion on the GC North course for ACA. |
PGC Grid - 8/7/10 |
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August 4 - Chris O’Callaghan (OC) lost his life in a midair collision while competing in the 15-Meter National Championships in Uvalde, Texas. This one hits especially close to home as I know many of us flying the GC knew Chris personally from the MASA meets and other contests. This is a tragic loss for his family ... and for all of us in the soaring community.
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July 30 - 31 - July ends with a couple of good days. PGC's Bud Bauder (2B photo right) completes a 60 mph flight on Friday in his 27 to take first place in the GC South away from Gregg Leslie. Congrats Bud! Looking at club scores, completions by Mann (P3) and Rob Dunning (V3) add a few points to the ACA total. PGC racks up five completions over the two days - Bud Bauder (2B), Phil Jones (2PJ), John Cotter (XJ), Norm Price (YW) and Ken Kochanski (PZ/KK) - to close the point gap on ACA. |
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OMG ! - we have a BSA completion! Chris Ungermann (D) adds the first points for the Brandywine Snifters by driving his DG-808 at 60 mph on a nice 170 mile flight using Morgantown as a remote start. Nice flight Chris ! BSA is out of the blocks ... but still in the basement.
A late submission from QV adds another 800+ points to the BSA club total, so the Snifters are definitely on the move. They will need a dozen flights to catch PGC ... and two dozen to catch ACA ... seems like a long way to go at this point in the season.
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July 27 - Andy Carazo and Bud Bauder break a two week drought and complete the GC South in the new PGC Duo Discus. Andy was recently working on his Silver Badge - this 140 mile flight should give him a new perspective on XC. Congrats to Andy and Bud. One completion in the Duo could be considered a fluke - now we have two in a short time. I wonder if we will look back and see this as the beginning of PGC's emergence as a force on the GC ... time will tell.
And if you are asking "Who are those VSC Guys ?" ... OH (Nikola Gradinski) on left ... IC (Alasdair Crawford) is second from the right ... LMC to enlarge photo.
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July 20 - We rolled out the second version of the site - it will enable us to display metrics and photos more easily. Most of the functions work OK ... but, we still have to add some sorts and a registration screen - but you can always go back to G-Cup Version 1 from the menu. (Contact KK if you have issues.) (Also ... send photos from your club and I will post.) |
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| June 9 - July 7 Update - We had a number of good soaring days in the last month and GC pilots took advantage of opportunities to log 33 flights ... half of these were actually logged during the first week of July - which was wonderful if you could fly during a week day. |
Gregg checking out his Flowbee haircut (Photo by Gregg) |
Gregg Leslie captured first place on both North and South courses - driving his ASW-27B at 67 MPH on the GC North to score 1000 points and grab bragging rights for the fastest raw (and handicapped) speed on both courses so far this year.
Erik Mann is in second on the North Course - 800 points behind Leslie - although he can easily make this up with a completion.
Nikola Gradinski is in a very respectable third place on the North Course - and has room to move up with another completion. It's great to see VSC in the race this year. |
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Leslie is in first on the South course as well, although he is only ~200 points in front of Bud Bauder from PGC. It is interesting to note that Bud has one completion in the new PGC Duo Discus ... we'll have to see if PGC can use the wonderful capability of this machine to develop more XC pilots for the PGC Team.
Ryszard Krolikowski from the ACA club is in third place - a few points behind Bud ... definitely within reach of first place with a good flight. |
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ACA continues to dominate the club totals on the South course ... having collected an even 22,000 points. PGC is in second with 8,500 points - but they still have potential as a lot of the XC Crew has not been available for mid-week flying.
BSA won the club trophy last year, but they are MIA and have not logged a single GC flight this season. I wonder if we will ever hear from them again? |
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June 7-8 Update - Six pilots from Blairstown make seven GC completions on two wonderful soaring days. Templin, Hermann and Abreu complete on Monday - and report is was not as good as it looked. On Tuesday, Templin, Mann and Janney drive around the GC South, pumping ACA's score up to a whopping 14,600 points on the GC South. Gregg Leslie, PI (Pudknocker Independent), starts at Wurtzboro and completes the GC South - returning to Wurtsboro for good measure - a wonderful flight. PGC pilots did some local five hour badge flights. BSA is still missing in action - and will be DOA when they show up.
ACA rules the Southern GC with an impressive 12126 points - a full 8000 points in front of PGC. The Champs from last year, Brandywine Soaring, currently have 0 (yes zero) points - and will have a hard time getting close to ACA, much less passing the ACA mark. PGC still has great resources and a fighting chance - but they have to get moving. |
April 20 Update - April delivers another excellent soaring day and pilots from PGC and ACA jump out under marvelous cu and complete long g-cups at good speed. PGC's John Cotter drives his new Ventus 2AX (XJ) around a 190 mile course at 66.06 mph ... and reports hitting 12 knot thermals (average) over the ridge at times. XJ is in first place overall with 1000 points. Bud Bauder also has a great day and just finishes off John's mark with an actual speed of 65.65 mph ... good for 989 points. Greg Leslie, an independent at Blairstown, did 188 miles at 59.09 mph ... and Bill Thar drove his SparrowHawk at 45 mph for the third best flight of the day and 907 points. On the North Course, Ryszard had a nice flight in the PW-5 ... and moved into second place with 859 points.
More logs are submitted for 4/20, and Ron Schwartz (434) knocks XJ out of first by completing the GC in his 1-26D, driving the Snailplane around the course at an actual speed of 39 MPH - which translates to ~ 63 Handicapped MPH - and 1000 points for the fastest sport class flight of the season, so far. April 20th. was the best day of the season - 12 logs were submitted by the ACA and PGC teams. And yes, BSA is still MIA - maybe they are planning a big sneak attack - we'll have to see. |
April 12/14 Update - Paul Seifried had the first GC flight in March, but the 2010 season really didn't start until mid-April when a bunch of pilots from ACA and PGC jumped on a couple of good mid-week racing days. John Carlyle from the PGC team did a nice early season completion in his LS-8 ... and Dunning, Seifried and Schwartz from the ACA camp put GC South points on the board. Those 50 mph speeds will surely topple as the season progresses. On the North Course, Erik Mann racked up a nice 63 mph flight to score 1000 points for the Pudknockers. The 2009 Champs are still strangely MIA - but not to worry, the season is just starting. (KK) |
The 2010 Guv Cup season opens on March 1st. !!! This years teams again include:
The 2009 GC Winners !!!
The Brandywine Snifters - Brandywine Soaring Assn
... and the other talented teams ...
The Slovenly Horde - Philadelphia Glider Council
The Pudknockers - Aero Club Albatross
The Middletown Marauders - Valley Soaring Club
The Beltzville Barbarians - Beltzville Soaring Club
The 2010 GC has the potential to be the hottest season since the inception The Cup ~ 15 years ago. The Snifters will be flying high and fast - full of confidence from their first win ... the Puds will be flying low and fast - full of Budweiser (or some other cheap beer of choice) - looking for revenge ... and the Horde will be launching a new crop of XC pilots in state-of-the-art soaring technology. This season could be fun to watch. |
Please register and add your sailplane make and model - you can do this when you upload your first flight.
Your Competition ID at registration is the primary key used to identify you and link you to a club and sailplane.
Create two Competition IDs if you belong to two clubs and will be uploading flights for both. For Example, QV could be QV-PGC and QV-BSA.
Create a unique team ID when you submit a two place TEAM FLIGHT ... PGC1, PGC2, Bob-Bill are possible example formats. Team submissions assume you will be flying the same type of aircraft on each flight.
The turnpoints for 2009 will remain unchanged. We will review the Kutztown situation perhaps make changes later in the season. |
2009 Recap
The 2009 G-cup is over and an upstart group of XC pilots from Brandywine Soaring have taken the trophy - ending the dynasty held by ACA since the GC inception. The BSA team accomplished this amazing feat by launching a sustained series of long-winged cruise missiles from their rebel base … taking the overall club lead … and putting many BSA pilots in the top scoring spots. This may not be a fluke as the BSA team members are all accomplished contest pilots and will probably repeat next season. PGC came in a distant third - but should not be counted out as they have a good roster and could easily mount a substantial threat if they get serious about XC. Tune in next season … it should be exciting. |
Many thanks to Dave Johnson and John Cotter for doing all the heavy lifting needed to setup the data collection and scoring systems.
Ken Kochanski - KK (3/1/2010)
Tech Notes: Please enable JavaScript on you client.
Link to prior flights/scores at Erik Mann's Guv Cup Site |
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