In a repeat of last year's weather, it rained through most of the Starthistle fly-in only to clear up beautifully in time for the RatRace.

Keith MacCullough and I drove up to the Woodrat LZ this past Sunday to see a smiling crew of pilots who had just spent an exciting afternoon flying around squalls. But by Monday, the sky cleared up and filled with nice puffy white clouds.

Monday, which I thought of as the RatRace practice day, was also the last day of the Starthistle Fly-in and Paul Murdoch organized a challenging task—fly out to Grant's Pass (~20miles up-valley) and back.

Having never flown the BoomSport in real conditions I wasn't sure I'd do the task, but I was looking forward to putting it through it's paces.

So I set-up on launch, and the unimaginable happened... Just a bit away someone pulled out another 'Mango' BoomSport! It was Dave Byrne from Seattle. I went over to confront him:

"How could you get those colors! They're so ugly," was my opening line.
"I called Jeff at SuperFly and told him I wanted the ugliest glider so no one else would have it," he replied.

Oh well, great minds, or odd ones at least, think alike.

Along those lines, Brad Gunnuscio told me he actually liked the colors.

So, mixed reviews on the ground, but what matters is in the sky.

Again, the glider inflated and launched beautifully. The first thing a noticed in the air is its glide—it just goes and goes.

Second obvious difference is airspeed. It's so much faster than my Zoom Race that it produces significantly more wind noise. I had to keep reminding myself that it's just faster, I'm not flying into a headwind (another way to get more wind noise).

The glider turns completely differently as well. The Zoom Race is a very flat turner, and the BoomSport turns fairly flat as well, but with a good yank and some weight shift it will bank up hard in a thermal.

So how was my first thermal flight? A little scary. The BoomSport 'talks' more through the risers and it moves around overhead a bit more. Nothing bad happened, but I kept wondering if the extra info was just that—more info, or if something was about to go wrong.

Between the new glider, the long drive the day before, the residual jetlag from my trip to Beijing, my head was not 100% in the game. I flew about half way to Grant's Pass, took a decent asym collapse (the glider barely turned) and decided to head back to town and an easy landing.

On the ground, I kited for 15 minutes or so, and then decided to head up for a second flight.

On the second flight, I pretty much boated around the valley practicing thermal turns, judging glide, and getting more familiar with the feel.

By the end of the second flight I had a total of maybe 2hrs on the glider. We're just getting to know each other!

The Boomerang Sport, or how I learned to stop worrying and fly a 2/3

So a few years back in Valle I remember watching pilots on their high end gliders--fast, slick, soooo skinny. I remember watching them wrestle on launch, fly fast and far, and every now and then explode into a gnarled ball of whipping cloth and lines, twisted, spiraling, plummeting out of the sky.

"You are never getting me on one of those, I told myself.

Then a few years back, when I was flying an Octane, a great, solid, DHV2, I was offered a deal I couldn't refuse on a Proton GT, the Octanes big brother, ad 2/3.

Not only was it a deal I couldn't refuse, Tim had just gotten one and it was really fun when I tried it at the coast. So I got it.

A few weeks later, I flew it at Slide Mt. in Tahoe and really enjoyed it. No problems. Not too active, stayed overhead. So I was fully over-confident when later that season I headed to Hat Creak to fly with Ann, Enleau, Tim and the acro twins: Ant and Tim.

It was a cracking day in a cracking week—later that week Enleau had a 50mile XC from a site that had been known as no-XC-possible...

Tim took up his Proton GT, had a large frontal collapse, stalled on recovery and drop a couple hundred feet. He was shaken but fine. I gave him a good natured razzing and headed out to get me some. And I got it. Frontal, stall, spin, 500ft plummet, recovered 500ft over (thank you Ann and Enleau for teaching me how to stall, spin, and come out flying!).

I had a demo Zoom (DHV2) in my car, and that was it for me and 2/3s. I switched to the Zoom and have loved it for 2 seasons.

But then at Bright (see previous postings) I got tired of falling behind the comp gliders and having them out glide me. AND I heard that Gin was nearly ready with his new 2/3—the Boomerang Sport, also called the Baby Boom, or apparently in Germany the 'housewives' Boom.

Hmmm... a 2/3 with glide and airspeed comparable to the unaccelerated Boomerang 4—arguably the best performing and toughest to fly of the current generation of competition gliders.

The buzz spread fast with everyone talking about the glider before anyone had seen it. Before long many of my racing buddies had placed their orders. Not wanting to be the only guy left out, I placed mine.

The phone call with Jeff at Superfly went something like this:
"Hey Jeff, can you save me a Medium BoomSport from the first shipment?"
"Sure, what color?"
"I'm sick of having the same color as everyone else, what's the ugliest color. The one no one else will get?"
"One medium BoomSport, Mango [orange and green], got it."

I returned home from China a week ago to find the BoomSport waiting. Unfortunately, weather was not good and I got a single sled ride at Ed Levin before heading north to Woodrat Mountain to fly the RatRace.

From that first flight here is what I could say:

• The color combination is not so bad, but it sure isn't pretty!


• The glider looked small. Probably because the of the aspect ratio, but it lifted me just fine.


• It inflates and kites very easily. I've seen people fight at launch with high aspect gliders like the Omega6 or the Boomerang3. I had no problems with the BoomSport.


• The shape is darn pretty in the sky. It has a arcing curve not unlike the Boomerang3 but it is less extreme and wider in the chord.