Although post-frontal, the winds were light, the skies blue, and the lift questionable yesterday. Most of us work on little projects and drifted out to the launch line around 2:00. I was fourth to leave the ground behind Paul. We plowed through a thermal around 800 feet, but given the blue skies I wanted more altitude. After a couple turns in lift Paul waved me off and up I went.
Felipe, Mike, and I topped out at a dirty inversion east of Wallaby Ranch.
Felipe and Mike took off for the south while I flew upwind to a climb that John marked.
I spent about an hour taking video of how my sail behaves while thermaling, gliding, and stalling. I also played with long lift lines created when thermals drifting in the lighter westerly wind (5 mph) was sheared south by a stronger northerly wind (13 mph) around 4700 feet. I was easy to string together 1 to 2 mile glides whenever I cross one of these lines. Very sweet.
I was watching what I thought was a different air mass move in from the west. The air mass was much hazier and I watched it drift across the Green Swamp, then Route 33, and then even closer. I was convinced it was a sea breeze pushing in. (A sea breeze is very similar to a cold front which increases lift in front of it but makes landing "interesting" as it passes).
I decided to land and flew around at warp speed to lose my 5000 feet. The field was very active with the flags dancing around but patience was rewarded with a consistent light west breeze when I landed.
I later found out from Dave, who flew south along Route 33, that the "air mass" I saw was just smoke from a large fire in the swamp. Sigh. Oh well, I got my fix for the day and had lots of video to review.
Flights: 1, Duration: 1:27
3 comments:
Glad you to see you're getting some flying in and having fun.
So Tom, are you holding the down tube in your left hand and the camera in your right for the bottom photo? Very cool but be careful!
No Lee, it is a still frame from a HD video camera.
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