Florida Ridge

My busy day started before sunrise as I awoke to setup my glider at the Florida Ridge so I could calibrate my airspeed sensor with my new instrument pod. Steve Larson coaxed the DragonFly to life while Dave wandered out to help launch me. Rick and I had a sweet tow into the rising sun; words just don’t describe the buttery smooth air first thing in the morning. After Rick lazily waved me off I started calibrating my airspeed sensor. Things seemed to be going good until I noticed the words “GPS in mph” above the airspeed display. Um, I don’t remember seeing that before. Once on the ground I noticed the pitot sensor was turned off. I didn’t know how that happened, but I turned it on and followed Rick up for another picturesque flight. I noticed the “GPS in mph” returned shortly after launching, so I knew I wouldn’t be doing any calibration. I took some pictures, soaked up the scenery, and tried some very high-speed glides in the smooth air.

After having breakfast in my tent, I took apart my equipment and found a piece of cotton swab in the tube going to the airspeed sensor inside the instrument. Maybe Steve at Flytec left it there when he changed my pitot tube. Oh well, no calibration but at least I knew why it wasn’t working and it was easy to correct. Dave, Julie, and I cruised around some back roads doing our best to calibrate the instrument from the car. It’s not very accurate, but it is a good starting point.

Once back at the flight park, Dave looked at the clouds, commented that they had a driver and I had a car; maybe we could “work something out”. I’m easy so we were soon rushing to launch and beat the approach lake “front” that was moving in from the east. I inhaled a sandwich, tossed some new waypoints into my flight computer, and pushed out to launch. Dave went first, but got knocked off low. I got a good tow, but was soon down below 700 feet before finding something right off the tow field. I managed to pull myself back up and was soon climbing to cloud base. Dave took another tow, came in below me, but couldn’t find the elevator and had to return to home base. I asked if he was going to fly again and he said yes after I told him my climb rate. ;-)

Knowing that Dave was going to re-launch, I took off down wind. I had an easy time for the first 20 miles, but had to keep working west to stay clear of the lower clouds that marked the “sea breeze” convergence zone from the lake. I had to dive into the blue at Lake Placid and spent a lot of time there trying to gain some altitude. I finally stumbled into a good climb and was on my way again. I had some un-Florida-like climbs in rough air, but for the most part I had an easy flight until I approached Lake Wales. I wanted to avoid the airfield and the parachute drop zone. I worked around the field to the west, but the better clouds developed to the east. I fumbled along for awhile and was finally setting up for a landing at Winter Haven when I found a little climb when on my downwind approach to landing. I circled in pathetic lift for awhile drifting across interesting landing areas. It was obvious that my day was done; the good clouds were too far to the east. I found an LZ that I could do a fun approach over the water, between two large trees, and up into a field near a main paved road. The flight covered almost 100 miles. The flight is available online. I was soon greeted by two guys that watched my approach and came over to see what was happening. We talked for awhile and gave them my blog address. I didn’t have anything to write on so I drew it in the sand for them. They left reciting the address over and over so they could go home and look it up. (Hi guys!)

Julie picked up Dave around 17 miles out. (Dave didn’t get through the area soon enough to missed the sea breeze.) Dave helped me out with the airspace around Winter Haven and Dave, Julie, and I had dinner at an old-time BBQ joint before driving back.

(I don't have a good internet connection here, so don't expect daily updates.)