West Rutland

The weather in New England has been frustrating this spring. It has either been raining or blowing or both at the same time. Meanwhile the pilots to the southwest at Ellenville New York have been having the spring of a lifetime. This week was no different. Wednesday and Thursday were blown out while pilots at Ellenville New York were able to launch and rack up miles of XC fun. With rain predicted for every day of the upcoming week, I decided to make the long trip to West Rutland Vermont even if it was predicted to be weak.

I met Dennis at Morningside Flight Park so we could share the last 1/3 of the drive and I could pick up a new vario mount. On the way I got calls from both Gary and Mike wanting to know if the work on the 4x4 road to the top was washed away by the severe storms that whipped through earlier in the week. (The new work held up fine). Dennis and I met up with Al, John S, PK at the base and then drove to launch.

It was blowing in slightly and I hoped the drying hay fields below were cooking up thermals just for us.


John launched first in his VR and I quickly followed. John got a "pop" as he crossed into the bowl so I quickly zipped to the bowl as I sank below the ridge top. I found a baby thermal and managed to extract a couple climbing turns, but got too greedy, pushed out too much, couldn't turn around back into it, and proceeded to fall out the side. It was gone. Dang. I fought my way to the LZ, finding a couple other small bug farts but nothing I could work. I finally zipped across the highway into the field for a frustrating, but good, landing. Moments later John joined me.


Meanwhile Al, Dennis, and PK waited. The waited some more. They waited a bit longer. Finally when a band of cirrus moved overhead they launched into a light wonder wind. Al hung on for a tiny bit but was soon earthbound.


However Dennis and PK managed to hang on and enjoy about an hour of light wonder-wind soaring.


Al, John, and I passed some PG pilots from Burlington Vermont walking up to launch when we were fetching vehicles. Although John's car couldn't handle any more passengers, we did take their gliders to the top and saw them sled down while we loaded gliders at the bottom. John, Dennis, and I had dinner before Dennis and I headed back to Morningside. We were transferring Dennis' glider to his truck when I heard "YOU CAN DO IT" echoing through the woods. I immediately knew a "campfire session" was in progress and had to check it out. Apparently Morningside was as stable as West Rutland, but it was great for training flights. I eventually had to leave so I could finish my drive home without falling asleep at the wheel.

Although it was a nice day to be "out and about", I'm not sure 9 minutes of airtime justified 7 hours of driving. Hanging out with my buds helped soften the blow. Meanwhile, I'm working on a glider that flies well in the rain.