Sunday was an absolute blast. After breakfast at Bill and Kathy's in Dunnigan, we set up and got planes on course around 1100 am. The rest, as they say, was history. There were a number of interesting side stories that I will leave to our Spirit Guide Dudley to relate.
Don't miss the next one!!

I forgot to add, I am pleased to report that my SBXC came home in exactly the same excellent shape it was in when it went to the event.

Rich Beardsley:

I will second the comments by JT. After a blow out on Sat. ( Rich Spicer and I were relegated to slope fly our XC's in the Dunnigan hills ) Sunday started out to be no better. But the Gods Smiled on the Safari crews.
What a great day!!!!!!!!!!!
Rich B

Scott Woodward:
I third that sentiment, Dudley proved perseverance pays off ! After a little breezy start, the day was awesome with some extended 40MPH runs over ten miles, cooperation among teams like stopping to relaunch a fellow competitor, a hefty dose of teasing ( I'll let the teasees's tell the tale) and a beautiful area of our state to take a tour on! Don't miss the next chance to "X-C Safari".

Jim Thomas Pt 2:

My day started on kind of a down note. After breakfast, we started preparations to head to the launch site. Opened the car and planned to top off the RX and TX batteries. Found the charger, charger battery, plane was there, but no TX case. A quick call to the wife confirmed it, TX case safe and sound on the bench at home. We all had a good chuckle over my "what an idiot maneuver" to start what was looking like a good flyable day.

Peter D II and I auctioned ourselves off to the highest bidder, which turned out to be Jim Rolle, who only had Scott Woodward to drive for him and nobody else. We had a team. Logic (and the combined team names) suggests "Broken Team" or "Green Arrow". We'll leave it to posterity to pick.

We got airborne once for Jim to trim the plane, then he landed just after Rich B had launched and looked like he found some air. I launched for us and hooked up enough to head on course, knowing that we had the means to relight if needed. We made it as far as the vineyard about 4 miles down course. Two on course relights there and we were off and running again with Peter flying. The lift had developed and we saw Rich Spicer on cruise real high, with Rich Beardsley fighting along a bit lower. We made the bottom of the course and passed Rich who had landed. We went a bit further, then stopped to thermal.

A quick phone call back to Rich B to tell him we could relaunch him, and he headed back. Meanwhile Peter is making the SBXC real little. We got Rich airborne with a great thermal well marked, then headed back down the road. We carried altitude across 505, then lost enough that it was time to thermal back up. Jim Rolle now took the TX and got his plane way up then off we went. He ran about 4 miles or so, and then began having trouble seeing the plane. I was riding spotter, so took over to finish the course, which we did with over something over 2000' agl. Stopped to play a bit and Scott flew for grins. Finally landed, packed up the plane and headed back to Dunnigan.

In summary, if we had waited 30 minutes to depart, we probably wouldn't have had to relight. Regardless, the car tow worked flawlessly for us and it got another team back in the air. The Safari was a blast. Now if we could just arrange 4 good days in a row...
Ya gotta love this stuff!!

Dean Gradwell:

These things don't just happen. Somebody has to do it. It takes many hours of planning. For this Dudley we thank you. Saturday I got to see up close, slope soaring with a big bird for the first time. A must do for me. Sunday was a soaring pilots delight. Developing Cu's, birds to play with, strong thermals. We never got below 500 meters with a high of about 900 meters making the course without a relight. I have to tell you though, the best part was being with people that have the same interest that you do. This is what I will remember.

Rick Johnston:

Knowing the job of driver, let me say Kent did an excellent job of driving. I think having a three member team is a lot less stressful than a two man team. There is no use hogging all the glory, you know, spread it around. We launched into dubious lift and after what looked like an impending relaunch, Rich in all his soaring skill and knowledge worked a small one into a big one and off we went. We stayed right on course thanks to Kent. My job was looking for brown fields among all that green and we kept flying. It was great fun riding along feeding Rich information both visual and from the cab, but I have to admit that I was sizing up the situation for me being the pilot and I see alot of practice and skill building in my future.  There's a lot going on. I'll get there. In the mean time what fun, going down the road, wind blowing in your face, looking up at the toy way up there, and knowing you've accomplished absolutely nothing but having fun. Although we'll need to practice restarts some time but not this time as we finished the course with 1500+ feet altitude to spare with no restarts, WE good: attaboy ATOMIC FIREBALLS; that's Rich, Rick and Kent for the record.

Joel Taylor (new guy)

After stumbling on Dean’s XC website and seeing all the fun being had at these cross country events, I decided I wanted to join in. I ordered my MXC and after picking it up decided that the thermal safari would be a good chance to see how these things get run. Rich B offered me the position as driver on his team, I figured how hard can that be, just drive the truck!?!...

Friday evening after arriving, I gave Rich S. a call to see if he could come by and check out my last min adjustments on the MXC. I brought it just to get some overview advice, if things worked out I would maiden it, otherwise just get things looked over by the ‘experts’. Rich and the gang came over after dinner and we spent a couple hours chatting and getting some things that needed last min changes. I was up 'til 1200 fiddling with my new bird. Boy she sure looked nice!

Saturday morning it seemed a tad windy. Boy it was a bit windy, yup. Cold n windy! Met up with Rich B and Weeds, and after breakfast the general feeling was it wasn’t going to turn into XC weather, so Weeds headed home and Rich and I decided to drive the course. Rich kept muttering something about slopes and such….. He gave me the drivers training course as we were going along, then we ended up taking a couple side roads and with Spicer and Dean in tow, we ended up at the foot of this hillside. Rich and Rich both rigged up their ships and headed up for some great slopeing… It looked great seeing these big ships flying in the ridge.

Sunday morning, look out the window, yup trees are blowing, no overcast, but still cold and blowing. Rich is still talking about heading back to the slope but we decided to give the launch site a try. We set up about 2 miles west of town which helped bypass some pretty steep area. Rich launches 3rd and does a couple circuits around the field to get ‘up there’. Next thing I heard was the words I had been waiting for all weekend… ‘Get the tailgate down and open up the seats". Hey, maybe they were serious about this cross country after all. Now all I have to do is make sure to keep my speed constant, don’t hit the breaks, follow their instructions, tell them about power lines, etc etc. Piece of cake!

Rich is doing real good, in fact we were looking to be in good shape as we passed Jim Rolle’s team out doing a re-light. Then a couple miles down the road, I get the message to pull over. After a couple low saves, Rich puts her down in a good field. We had de-rigged and were heading back for a re-light when JT calls up and offers to give us a bungee tow. Well when I found out I would be the driver, I was a little nervous, one slip on the gas peddle could fold those wings… As it was, things worked well, and within a few min, we were back on course. Now things were working well and I got the signal to step it up. We paused a couple times and let Rich say "thermal thermal thermal" three times, it seemed to always work! Next thing we were at 600M and heading on down the road. Got to our ‘end of course’ with about 700M of air under the wings. All in all it made for a GREAT cross country flight.

I want to say thanks for all the help I got with my new ship, I hope to fly her this next weekend. It really was great to meet the gang and I’m looking forward to getting to know my bird, finding a crew, and meeting up in Cal Valley in a couple months. A lot to learn, but some great people to help a newbie out.

Jim Rolle:

Thank you Dudley, for holding event together in the face of all the adversity. Scott and I went to Dunnigan on Sunday on speculation that we might get a third man to make a team.  The news of the missing transmitter transformed us from buying a teammate to selling seats, and a new team was formed.

We launched first with me holding the transmitter. What JT calls a "trim flight" involved a line break with my SBXC pointed straight up with zero air speed. The plane did recover and no burrowing mammals, humans or aircraft were permanently harmed but the pilot did need resuscitation.

JT’s narration is best but note from another source that on-course launching is quick, simple and safe. However the spools used to roll the bungee and line need to be stronger. They seem to break no matter how carefully I step on them.

Stats from the on board GPS as reported by SEEYOU:

Take off                               11:45

Landing                                14:14

Duration                              02:29     (includes on course relaunch)

Distance                               31.6 miles

Max Alt.                               3658’     at 13:02

Alt. Gain                               17201’

Thermals                             26