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Event info

We're back at the Francisco Grande Resort in Casa Grande, Arizona for the 13th Santa Cruz Flats Race. Come on out and join us from September 19-25 for some unique technical flying and loads of fun in the desert.

Expand page for more details

Flying site

The Francisco Grande Golf Resort is hosting us for the 10th straight year. The resort allows us to park fully assembled gliders in the green grass under the shade of many trees just adjacent to the "tower" where all of our rooms are.

Expand page for more details
  • 41 Pilots Confirmed
  • 41 Pilots total registered
  • 275 USD Entry fee
Go to Pilot List
  • left before start of event
  • Registration will open on
    11/06 12:00 (US/Arizona)

  • 🛰️

    The organiser will supply Live trackers to you, for safety and scoring

    Live trackers supplied
  • 📱

    The region generally has good phone coverage

    Good phone coverage
  • 📻

    We will be monitoring radios for your safety whilst you fly

    Radio coverage
  • 🛰

    The organisers will download the tracklogs at HQ for scoring

    Tracklogs managed
  • 📢

    The organisers are using Airtribune for registration, tracking, blogging and to publish scores

    Airtribune blogging
  • 🎉

    There will be an organised party during or after the event

    Party
  • 👕

    You will receive a tshirt or other welcome gift

    Free gift
  • ♻️

    The organisers support reducing the use of unnecessary plastic at the event. This includes NOT giving disposable water bottles

    Plastic reduction

Prize funds and scoring categories

  • Class 1 open
  • Class 1 Sport
  • Class 2

Event info

We're back at the Francisco Grande Resort in Casa Grande, Arizona for the 13th Santa Cruz Flats Race. Come on out and join us from September 19-25 for some unique technical flying and loads of fun in the desert.

Flying site

The Francisco Grande Golf Resort is hosting us for the 10th straight year. The resort allows us to park fully assembled gliders in the green grass under the shade of many trees just adjacent to the "tower" where all of our rooms are. You can sit in the comfort of your balcony and see all the gliders below.

Towing takes place a few hundred meters past the driving range at a dusty paddock with crossing runways created just for our event. There is a short walk from where you rig your glider to where we stage for towing.

The flying in this area is highly technical. Towing is normally reasonably smooth and lift often goes from being somewhat light to solid and strong and then back to light again. The taskable day is relatively short compared to some other flatland sites like Forbes or Big Spring, but the pilots seem to really enjoy it.

Francisco Grande Hotel, the legendary Arizona golf resort, is located halfway between Phoenix and Tucson, and is just 45 minutes from the Phoenix airport and an hour drive from Scottsdale. The place located on the border of famous Sonoran desert and Santa Cruz mountain ridge. It offers high thermal activity and fine flying conditions with 10,000 ft cloudbase.

The hotel has got all possible resort facilities a pilot may need after a
Launch field is located next to the hotel.
Launch method - aerotow by dragonfly.

Launch field coordinates: 32.882694, -111.847021

Selection and entry fee

Entry Fees: The entry fee for the competition is $275 (does not include tow fees) if paid by August 1st. After August 1st, $375. Entry fees are required in full to complete your registration and to secure your entry.

Registration and payment will work a little differently this year. Thanks to Sonora Wings, we have two dragonflies in Casa Grande. If we have no more than 22-24 pilots, we’ll be covered with these local dragonflies. However, if we have more than 24 pilots register, we will need to bring tugs from out of the area. We can get two more dragonflies from Florida via trailer, but there is a hitch: the cost of driving the trailer out to Arizona is the same if we put one tug or two tugs in it and that cost is extremely high. What this means is that it is only cost effective to pack up the trailer and bring 2 dragonflies. Bringing just one would make towing very very expensive.

So, we are in a situation where we can have either two or four dragonflies, but not three. If we have 42 pilots register, pay and commit to attend, all is great. But, if we have only 30, the tow fees to each pilot would be prohibitively expensive. With this in mind, it is critical that pilots register, pay registration fees and commit to participate no later than one month before the start of the competition.

We will initially accept only 24 pilots and they will be accepted in the order of payment of registration fees. If we fill up with 24 paid participants, additional pilots will only be accepted after we have at least 18 more (for a total of 42) confirmed. Once a total of 42 pilots have registered, we can then accept all 42 and confirm the tugs from Florida once all 42 pilots have paid their registration fees.

I realize this is complicated, but we don’t want to wait until the week before the competition starts to determine how much tow fees will be and we don’t want to risk having more than 24, but fewer than 42 pilots because that would make tow fees in excess of $550/person.

Documents required at registration

  • The organiser requires you to present your National flying licence.

    National Licence
  • You will need to sign an applicaton form at the venue. Usually the organiser will provide it on arrival.

    Signed Application form
  • You will need to sign a waiver or release document to show you understand the risks. Usually the organiser will provide it on arrival.

    Signed Waiver/Release form

Cancellation Policy

Full refund is possible for cancellation prior to August 19. After August 19, there will be no refunds.

Prize fund and scoring categories

Trophies for Class 1 Open, Class 1 sport and Class 2. Day prizes.

General schedule

September 18, 2021
10am - 11am On Site Registration

September 19 - 25, 2021
Competition days

September 25, 2021
Prize giving ceremony

Daily schedule

10:30 - Pilots' briefing / Previous task official results / Task definition
12:00 - Take-off window opens
22:00 - Provisional results posted

All times subject to change as needed.

Accommodation and Activities

Francisco Grande Hotel and Golf Resort http://www.franciscogrande.com/

The hotel has set aside a block of rooms for our group at a discounted rate. You must call and mention the hang gliding competition to book your room (don't book online or you will not get the discounted room rate). Book early because the discounted rooms may fill up before the start of the competition.

How to get here

By Plane: The nearest airports are:

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
Web: https://skyharbor.com/

Tuscon International Airport
Web: http://www.flytucson.com/


By Car:
From Sky Harbor International Airport:
Head East on East Sky Harbor Boulevard and merge onto AZ - 153 South towards I-10/AZ-143. Merge onto I-10 East via exit number 1A towards Tucson. Stay on I-10 East for 32 miles and exit AZ-387 South (make right at top of ramp) for 9 miles. Turn Right (West) onto AZ-84 (Gila Bend Highway). Head West for 5 miles until Resort on right.
Total driving distance is 46 miles and 50 minutes.

From Downtown Phoenix:
Merge onto I-10 East via exit number 1A towards Tucson. Stay on I-10 East for 32 miles and exit AZ-387 South (make right at top of ramp) for 9 miles. Turn Right (West) onto AZ-84 (Gila Bend Highway). Head West for 5 miles until Resort on right.

Total driving distance is 47 miles and 52 minutes.

From Tucson International Airport:
Take I-10 West to Casa Grande exit 194 Florence Blvd. Make a left onto Florence Blvd. Take Florence approx. 10 miles and we are on the right hand side.

Total driving distance is 78 miles and 1 hour 16 minutes

Casa Grande, AZ, USA
Casa Grande United States

Plane

The nearest airports are:

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
Web: https://skyharbor.com/

Tuscon International Airport
Web: http://www.flytucson.com/

Car

From Sky Harbor International Airport:
Head East on East Sky Harbor Boulevard and merge onto AZ - 153 South towards I-10/AZ-143. Merge onto I-10 East via exit number 1A towards Tucson. Stay on I-10 East for 32 miles and exit AZ-387 South (make right at top of ramp) for 9 miles. Turn Right (West) onto AZ-84 (Gila Bend Highway). Head West for 5 miles until Resort on right.
Total driving distance is 46 miles and 50 minutes.

From Downtown Phoenix:
Merge onto I-10 East via exit number 1A towards Tucson. Stay on I-10 East for 32 miles and exit AZ-387 South (make right at top of ramp) for 9 miles. Turn Right (West) onto AZ-84 (Gila Bend Highway). Head West for 5 miles until Resort on right.

Total driving distance is 47 miles and 52 minutes.

From Tucson International Airport:
Take I-10 West to Casa Grande exit 194 Florence Blvd. Make a left onto Florence Blvd. Take Florence approx. 10 miles and we are on the right hand side.

Total driving distance is 78 miles and 1 hour 16 minutes

Downloads

Waypoint files

Organizers

Jamie Shelden
Competition Organizer
Meet Director
Linda Salamone
Safety Director
Daniel Velez
Scorekeeper
Jose Fernando Posso Osorio
Scorekeeper

Contacts

Socials

Confirmed
Selected
Registered
# Name Nation Sponsor Glider Status
Women
,
Men
,
# Name Sponsor Glider
Class
Status
,
Category Tagline Participant Email Phone Description Price
Please sign in and register before posting your own classifieds.

Final Results

Class 1 open

  1. Zac Majors (13)
  2. phill bloom (10)
  3. John Simon (333)

After 6 out of 7 scored tasks, and showing all his skills, Zac Mayors ended up first on the Class 1 - (Alias Open Class) event with more than 730 points over the second place.

Class 1 open results

Class 1 Sport

  1. Leonardo Ortiz (28)
  2. Tim Delaney (714)
  3. L.J. Omara (2198)

The sport class was dominated since the first day, by the Colombian revelation, Leonardo Ortiz, who flew conservative gaining advantage over the second place every day but the last one where he arrived second, but still with 160 plus points to spare over Tim Delaney

Class 1 Sport results

Class 2

  1. Greg Chastain
  2. James Race

Class 2 was dominated by Greg Chastain. With 4 real tasks, and "bombed out" task, it was a pretty straight forward victory, with more than 2000 points over the second place.

Class 2 results

Tasks and results

Task 1

19 Sep, 2021

Class 1 — 74.0 km — Race to goal

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Task 1

19 Sep, 2021

Class 1 Sport — 56.1 km — Race to goal

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Task 1

19 Sep, 2021

Class 2 — 71.4 km — Race to goal

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Task 2

20 Sep, 2021

Class 1 — 83.6 km — Race to goal

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Task 2

20 Sep, 2021

Class 1 Sport — 50.6 km — Race to goal

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Task 2

20 Sep, 2021

Class 2 — 103.4 km — Race to goal

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Task 3

21 Sep, 2021

Class 1 — 60.5 km — Race to goal

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Task 3

21 Sep, 2021

Class 1 Sport — 41.9 km — Race to goal

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Task 3

21 Sep, 2021

Class 2 — 97.4 km — Race to goal

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Task 4

22 Sep, 2021

Class 1 — 81.8 km — Race to goal

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Task 4

22 Sep, 2021

Class 1 Sport — 58.4 km — Race to goal

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Task 4

22 Sep, 2021

Class 2 — 101.0 km — Race to goal

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Task 6

24 Sep, 2021

Class 1 — 53.0 km — Race to goal

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Task 6

24 Sep, 2021

Class 1 Sport — 23.1 km — Race to goal

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Task 7

25 Sep, 2021

Class 1 — 81.6 km — Race to goal

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Task 7

25 Sep, 2021

Class 1 Sport — 44.5 km — Race to goal

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Task 7

25 Sep, 2021

Class 2 — 88.2 km — Race to goal

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