Down the Road

  It was a busy day.  I started out watching Bill and Kathy each take two tandem flights.  I pointed out to Patrick that turning your driver (Bill) onto flying usually ends up with one less driver!  I later talked with Steve and Kim as Steve setup his Silent powered sailplane.

  Over breakfast us pilots discussed the less-than-stellar forecast.  The forecasted strong east-northeast wind and meager lift sent some pilots off to do other things.  Although not real hopeful, my attitude changed when I started seeing clouds form to the east.  That was all I needed to head to launch.

  I had a busy, but reasonable, full tow and started a slow climb.  I got greedy, went exploring, and found myself low running back to the flight park.  I landed, ran over to my tent for a wrench so I could make a minor tuning adjustment to the wing, suited up, and stepped back into line for "take two".

  Roger, the tug pilot, headed to a group of buzzards circling to the south of the ranch.  Since I was passing through 1200 feet (365 m), I released.  After a few turns the buzzards left and I was heading to the flight park again.  Oops.  I was down to 500 feet (150 m) before I starting spinning around and around like a whirling dervish in a tight little climb.  I managed to escape the LZ and then find a sweet climb that took me to 6000 feet (1800 m).

  Jason, Patrick, Mick, and I talked about heading south along Route 27, but we were scattered all over the place by the time I got high.  After some amusing and decision-less discussions, I headed upwind towards Champions Gate.  After snagging my impromptu turn point, I cruised back to hook up with Patrick.  Jason, Patrick, and I finally decided at 4:00 PM to cruise cross-wind south along Route 27.  I flew with Jason around the hospital and then spent some time flying with Patrick.  We had a couple of nice long glides together but got separated north of Lake Wales.  We eventually hooked back up and landed together about 40 miles out after 2 hours on course.

Here is Patrick with his ride.

Here is my new bird.

Bill showed up just as we were picking up our gliders for the hike to the road.  We picked up Jason a few miles behind us and made it back just as the big red sun was crossing the horizon.

Flights: 2, Airtime: 3:30, Distance: 40 miles