Lazy Day in the Tow Field

I flew at Morningside last Friday so I could test fly my Litespeed S after a full tear-down annual.  The valley was still foggy at 10:30 so the soaring potential would be limited.  I checked out Marilyn and Rhett's garden, chickens, and new bee hive before wading through the wet grass to setup.

I told Rhett to just drop me off over the field and skip looking for thermals; I'd do that on a later flight.  The glider flew great and didn't need any additional tuning.  I bounced around in light thermals over the hill, buzzed the tractor mowing the runway access, and then had a nice spot landing in the middle of the runway by approaching across the strip.

Since I plan to sell the Litespeed S, I packed it up before I did something stupid to it!  After chatting with Rhett for awhile, I gott motivated and grabbed some lunch and spoke with Greg, Art, and PK.  Greg was hiking into launch at Ascutney.  Since Ascutney is visible from Morningside, I knew what conditions awaited him, John A, and Jake!  Art just had a sledder at West Rutland which is about an hour's drive to the west.  PK was on launch at West Rutland and said he thought conditions were improving.  After figuring I wouldn't launch until 4:00 if I joined them, I decided to stay put and fly at Morningside and maybe hook up with Greg and crew.

I just finished rigging the T2C when Rhett rolled out with his green tug; perfect timing!  Rhett offered to tow me towards Ascutney but we both agreed the sky didn't look promising in that direction.  Instead I decided to try my luck with a few ragged clouds to the east.  I pinned off into a weak climb, waved a big "thank-you" to Rhett, and managed a few climbs while drifting north towards Claremont.  Greg said he was having trouble staying above launch at Ascutney, so I decided to head back to Morningside.  I had a long climb-less glide before stumbling into some lift coming off the training area.  I played around for a short time, landed, and then sat in the shade again and "shot the breeze" with Rhett until it was time to put the toys away.

I found out later Greg and John had short flights and both landed at the base of the mountain.  Art drove back up to launch at West Rutland and joined PK for an evening of nice wonder-wind soaring.  I didn't get my fill of airtime, but it was still fun.

Flights: 2, Airtime: 1:24