Back to the Rat Race

I'm super psyched to be going back to the Rat Race for the 5th year in a row. I'm so lucky to be able to take the time to travel to one of the country's greatest flying spots and fly with such a great bunch of people. And yes, after struggling to learn a few things about this kind of flying over the last four years, I realize it's likely that I'm never really gonna excel at it. But it sure is fun to keep trying! I feel like one of those perpetual students that never leaves college, just taking more courses and refusing to graduate.

Continuing the trend of the last few years, Hawaii offers a very small contingent to represent us this year: just me and JD are enrolled to compete, while LeeAnn, Pete, Bonnie and Andrew will be volunteering and/or free flying. And it looks like John (Duck) and Ginger might be able to stop by while they're on the West Coast.

But just two of us flying the tasks! I can think of at least a dozen of my local flying buddies who are ready to sign up and get a lot out of this event. I guess I haven't been an effective evangelist. Or maybe you guys are just feeling the downturn, or saving your vacation time for other pursuits. I do miss the big groups of local pilots we mustered for this event the first couple of years.

After the last two years of not making goal for a day's task even once, I need to recalibrate my expectations: my aim this year is just to use the day's task to work on my very remedial cross country flying skills, and not worry about trying to make goal on a given day. I have a lot to learn about cross country flying, not to mention competition flying. Or maybe I just have a lot to unlearn about coastal ridge soaring! Either way, this is the place to do it. This event is always a great education, and offers the chance to rack up more hours of thermal flying in a week than we will see in a year on Oahu.