Huge thanks to Commander Rich Owen for offering me the opportunity to fly his beautiful new Schleicher AS33 Es this season in the build up towards the 2024 FAI World Gliding Championships to be held in our homeland at Uvalde, Texas.

The glider is a weapon, and I think I am just beginning to learn the true potential of the sailplane.

I started a little cautiously, but slowly moved forward until yesterday in a difficult and ultra short 1.5 Area Task I was able to get second for the day and surpass the two competitors who remained ahead of me going into the final day. Fortunately, US Rules scoring helped me out with a rather liberal helping of points for a fairly short albeit exciting task. Congratulations to all my fellow pilots, including my team mate Sean Murphy who I was able to do some valuable pseudo team flying despite not being allowed to team fly with radio use according to the SSA rules. Final results and link to all results and reports below. I’ll probably do a quick analysis video set for YouTube because I did manage to win somehow. Yes, I know nobody will watch it. It’s not for them, it’s for me.

https://members.ssa.org/ViewContent.asp?mbr=7749575376&cid=2578&display=results