Quest and Back

The day started as usual at Wallaby Ranch with tandems and students flying in the mellow morning air. Gavin soloed this morning at the ripe old age of 15. Malcom told me this afternoon he bought his first glider, a Johnson Flex Wing, from Gavin's grandfather many years ago. (Another generation joins the growing line of hang gliding aviators and the previous generations feel a little bit older!)

The sky was filled with cummies by 11:00 and I was itching to go. My first tow behind Carlos was probably the roughest tow I've had in Florida. Once we cleared the tree line Carlos was above me, below me, to one side and then the other. I finally decided to release at 900 feet, figuring anything that can toss us around like that must have something I can climb in. Wrong! I was smashed to the ground in wicked sink and landed in turbulent air. Stevie came to my rescue with a cart and gave to a tow back to the launch line. Thanks Steve!

My second tow was sweet and Carlos dropped me off in a 700 fpm climb that went straight to cloud base. I floated around waiting for some other pilots to launch and climb out, but when they landed back at the ranch I decided to do some sightseeing.

I headed north along route 27 where I found an express elevator to the top floor near the 27 and route 192 intersection. I continued north until I came to the first of the big lakes. I originally hoped to go to the intersection of route 27 and route 50 but the blue around the lakes scared me off. The entire area west of the lakes was blue with the exception of some thin clouds and haze domes. I thought about turning around but decided to head northwest towards Quest; at least I could get a ride back to the ranch if I landed there. I saw a wispy form to the east and quickly raced to the forming cloud after I passed over the center of the runway. Meanwhile a tug pulled up a single surface glider to the same general area and a few moments later pulled one of the gray T2s up. (I later found out it was Kevin). Once at cloud base I waited for something to start forming on the other side of the blue before racing off. I hoped the other pilot in the T2 would follow me but he didn't. (Kevin was working with some students).

I shared a couple climbs with sailplanes at Seminole and then started my long slog upwind back to Wallaby. Once back into the clouds I never got low but made sure I didn't land behind locked gates in the quarries or one of the "forbidden" fields. However, I had a fairly easy time bouncing from cloud-to-cloud back to the ranch.

With the side trip to Seminole I flew a triangle 46 miles long. Total airtime for the day was a little over 3 hours.