CrystalRiver

You have to be creative to fly any distance when the wind is blowing from the east at Wallaby Ranch. Some pilots wanted to fly crosswind down Route 27, some wanted to fly to Quest, and others like me wanted to cross the Green Swamp and then fly north along a possible convergence line along the western shore. No one noticed that the early morning clouds were disappearing and that recent flights were nothing more than smooth sled rides. Dave, Rick, and I were almost ready to pack up for the day and go get ice cream when we decided to take our sled rides like "true men". Rick was the first to launch and commented that his tow was too smooth. I went next and was rudely tossed about in anything but smooth air. I released early and quickly climbed to cloudbase at 700 fpm. Was this a one-thermal wonder? Maybe not. Clouds were starting to appear all around us. Rick and I took off for the next cloud downwind while Dave was climbing up from 3000 feet. I wondered if the next cloud would be working or if Rick and I would land one glide away from launch. A quick climb back to cloudbase at 450 fpm soon answered that question and we moved on. After a couple more climbs I dove into a dying cloud at the edge of the swamp. I got there soon enough but Rick didn't. I waited around at cloudbase for awhile, but Rick urged me to press on so I did. (Rick landed after several climbs never got him high enough to get over the swamp.) I headed north along the western edge of the swamp and then drifted NW towards my declared goal of Crystal River airport. Rick kept me informed of Rodger's progress across the swamp. Rodger made it to a few miles NE of the Zypherhills airport. I kept moving along at a good pace but took a saftey climb near goal since I didn't know how strong the onshore wind would be. After flying with a 10 mph east wind, I landed into a 10 mph west wind. After breaking down I walked over to Dairy Queen and got the ice cream we were talking about earlier. You can look at my flight log on the OLC.

I saw a lot of airplanes heading south for Sun and Fun. Many of the airplanes were speciality planes or retired military aircraft. I even got to watch a biplane doing loops, tail slides, and Cuban eights below me.

Julie picked up Rick and took him back to Wallaby. Rick picked up Rodger, then drove to pick me up. We also found out that Ken flew to the coast about 30 miles south of me. We "saved" Ken from the bar he was supporting, grabbed some pizza and beer, and then headed home.