Kathy Jaffe Challenge 2010 Part 1

I know I posted 13,000 Facebook status updates throughout the Kathy Jaffe Challenge. You may be surprised that to know that there are plenty of details that are not encapsulated within those quick jolts of status. There were three days of competition and each day was its own little world of learning. To do the weekend justice, I am breaking the write up into three parts.

The Kathy Jaffe Challenge is held each year at the Flying W Airport and Resort in Lumberton, NJ. To catch you all up on how my arrangements for the contest became arranged here’s a quick recap: the insurance company that insures my school and the Decathlon decided to preclude closed course racing, airshow performing, and competing from our policy. At the last second, the folks from Executive Flyers welcomed me to fly their Decathlon. I never had a rental checkout so I would be flying with one of their instructors in the backseat to satisfy their insurance. Game on.

I DROVE the 5.5 hours to the Flying W Thursday after work. I started to pick up all the radio stations beaming out of Philadelphia. It is down there. I pulled into the parking lot sometime around 9pm. The motel concierge was closed but I was told the bar had my hotel key. While waiting at the bar for the next hour and a half for the key to show up I met some of the folks that I would be spending the weekend with. I was there to compete and see how I stacked up but honestly hanging out with these folks Thursday night was the highlight of the weekend. If any of you read this, thanks for welcoming me with open arms. You all made the contest for me.

We were rewarded with perfect weather on Friday. The morning was reserved for practice session in the box so folks could see where it was. Rumor was that the box was really hard to fly in. Competition flying started late that afternoon with intermediate, advanced, unlimited and primary categories getting their first flights in. I was assigned as a judge’s assistant to Doug Lovell during the intermediate category. I would watch the flights with him, announce and figure and offer any input if I saw something funky in someone’s flying. The sun baked us mercilessly for the next few hours. I spent the whole day on the judges line watching the seasoned vets fly routines that seem insane.

And then it was time to relax with everyone at the Friday night BBQ. The whole time I couldn’t help my mind from wandering to what would happen the next morning. My first dive into the box. My first call from a starter. The first time I would get validation on all the work I had done. Tons of questions I had would be answered and I would probably discover 1000 more. I didn’t realize that it would be more like 10,000 new questions.