Update on the 2010 WBC

Fred Hermanspann  6/15/2010

As hoped for, the enthusiasm for the friendly competition, that the OLC is fostering, has caused a steady growth in the number of Evergreen pilots participating in XC flying.  And that has not just increased the number of pilots but also the number of flights submitted by each pilot.  As a consequence, the 2010 Willy Burhen Cup (WBC) is becoming hotly contested.  And most importantly, the distances flown have shown an impressive increase.

It started off with Ron Clark, last year’s WBC winner, flying the first 400+km flight on the west side in his “new” LS-3 on April 8.  Then came the remarkable weekend of May 8 and 9, when all major glider airfields in Region 8 had exceptional weather conditions and a total of 48 XC flights were entered in the OLC.  Arlington contributed to this with 12 flights.  Paul Adriance took the new Evergreen L-33 (CT) on an outstanding flight down to the south side of Mount Rainier and back in a 7 hour flight.  This achievement should improve the reputation of the L-33 (besides Paul’s) and gave Paul the lead in the 2010 WBC – for exactly one day.  On the next day Dan Housler went off in his big Cirrus, disappeared to the East and was not heard of again until he announced his landing in Coeur d’Alene/ Idaho!  This flight set a new standard for Arlington and gave Dan a solid lead in the 2010 WBC.  Besides these headline news 3 additional pilots got on the Joe Patton milestone list (Silver badge distance on the west side) and several Washington State soaring records were claimed – all from Arlington.

Several other noteworthy soaring achievements were listed in Region 8 on that weekend.  Certainly the most spectacular was Dick VanGrunsven’s 758 km flight from Sunset (by Hillsborough/ OR), which also led by Mount Rainier and which was the best in the USA and the second best in the world on May 8!

So here is the current standing in the 2010 WBC (first 8 entries)

Dan Housler.                                      5/9         Cirrus 17.7           418.0 km              416.0 points

Paul Adriance                                    5/8         L-33                        346.3 km              401.4 points

Ron Clark                                             4/9         LS-3                        402.0 km              368.7 points

Tony Wiederkehr                            5/8         ASW-27                378.0 km              326.8 points

Fred Hermanspann                         5/8         Chinook               327.8 km              325.9 points      

Brad Hill                                               5/8         Apis-13                 294.3 km              304.7 points

John Gilbert                                       5/9         Std.Cirrus            300.5 km              301.7 points

Brian Hood                                         5/9         DG-303                 298.1 km              273.9 points

Toatal participants in 2010 so far (June 15) is 17 pilots with 80 flights (compared to 16 pilots with 66 flights for the whole year of 2009).

In the OLC standings for Region 8 Arlington has now second place behind Ephrata (and ahead of North Plains/ OR) based on total handicapped distance (compared to 6th place last year with North Plains in second place).  Let’s see whether we can keep that position!