2007 Albert Lea Soaring Contest
U.S. Open Class Nationals • U.S. 18 m Nationals • U.S. Region 7 Sports Class
Turnpoints

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Nice Turnpoint Map Available
Willem Langelaan sent me a very nice PDF map of all the contest turpoints.  It is very easy to read and includes the turnpoint names as well as numbers.  It also highlights the non-landable turnpoints in red.  It will be a great resource for task planning - and for use in flight.  Thanks Willem!
AlbertLea_MAP07.pdf

Update on April 9th, 2007
Several competitors brought to my attention that with such a large contest, we should make provisions for the use of multiple start cylinders.  I sent out an e-mail for feedback from competitors and most were in favor of 3 or 4 start cylinders.  By the time you read this John Leibacher will have updated the contest waypoint files with the 4 new start cylinders.  I elected to add 4 start cylinders each 6 statute miles from Albert Lea Airport.  They are in the N, S, W, and E directions.  They overlap slightly but not too much.  Similar layouts have been used at other large contests.  Below is an image capture of how they look in SeeYou.  Albert Lea Airport can also be used as a start cylinder if desired.  All 5 points (N, S, W, E and Albert Lea Apt.) will have the "S" (start) attribute in the data files so they can be selected as the start point.  We don't necessarily need to use all the start cylinder options, but they are now available if we need them.  Be sure to download and use waypoints files that include "7a" in the filename.  Those files include the updated waypoints and start points.

Multiple start cylinders will enhance safety by spreading out the competitors before the start. For example we can have all the water-ballasted gliders use one start cylinder and all the non-ballasted gliders use another start cylinder. Or we could send each of the 3 different classes to 3 different start cylinders. All competitors in a give class will use the same start cylinder. We can also move the start of each task closest to the region of weather that looks the most promising.

Update on April 7th, 2007
Today we found a contest turnpoint that no longer existed so we have updated the waypoint file and all waypoint data files with the new data.  Thank you John Leibacher for the excellent support!!!!  We think that everything looks good so we consider the list finalized.  If we find that any of the airports are not landable we will probably continue to use it as a contest turnpoint, but clarify to all pilots the condition of the field. With these updates the coordinates of several of the waypoints were adjusted slightly due to changes in the official coordinates from the FAA. 

Please refer to John Leibacher's turnpoint database at: http://soaringweb.org/TP/Albert_lea.   The same data is also available at 2 mirror sites at: http://soaring.xinqu.net/JL/TP/Albert_lea and: http://soaring.gahsys.com/TP/Albert_lea/
That site includes data files for just about every type of flight computer and flight recorder made. The data files can be downloaded from the web to your PC and then uploaded into your flight computer or Pocket PC. The page also includes a map of the contest area and links to maps and satellite photos of each contest turnpoint. It also includes turnpoint distance/heading tables in both text and PDF formats.  Thank you John for this wonderful resource!

Albert Lea Airport Information: www.airnav.com/airport/KAEL