Righteous Pound

I writing this sitting in the warm shade at Wallaby Ranch at the Wills Wing Demo Daze.  I drove the 1320 miles (2124 km) to Florida from Massachusetts on Sunday in near record time thanks to light traffic, absent construction workers, and good weather.  The full moon was my companion as I left at 4am.  I watched the sun rise over New York City hours later, and greeted the moon again as I entered Florida.

New York City at sunrise

I voluntarily grounded myself on Monday as I rested and caught up with old friends.  I awoke on Tuesday morning to the sound of balloons drifting over my tent.

After watch the morning tows, I unwrapped my very sweet looking new T2C.  After fondling my new toy, I suited up and pushed out for my our first flight together.  The wind was light and highly variable.  The tow started out OK but I broke my one-year-old weak link around 500 feet (150 m).  (I know, I should have replaced it even though it looked fine).  I swung around the complex and setup to land near were we were launching.  I was slow and wobbly during final and ended high, slow, and in a right turn  with a crossing downwind when it was time to flare.  Yep.  Massive righteous pounding whack on our maiden voyage together.  Amazingly both the glider and I were unharmed; well at least not physically.  ;-)

After checking everything out, talking with bystanders about what they saw happen, and installing a new weak link, I hopped back into the cart for another go.  I pinned off at 1000 feet (300 m) in a strong climb and corkscrewed to cloud base.  I spent the next 3.5+ hours getting to know the new glider.  (It flies as nice as it looks, by the way).

Wallaby Ranch (upper center field below metal buildings)

I stayed tethered to Wallaby Ranch, but was still able to cover a wide area since cloud base was over 6000 feet (1820 m).  I even shared a climb with Richard who was flying his "inverse-colored" twin of my glider.  I managed to hang on after all the clouds dried up and even enjoyed a super smooth weak orange-blossom thermal to the top floor before slowly gliding home in flat air.  My second landing was immensely better than the first, but still had room for improvement as I had to "run it out".

I enjoyed dinner and flying conversation at a local pub with friends before crawling into my tent refreshingly exhausted.

Flights: 2, Duration: 3:43