What's Wrong with Mondays?

The weather remained good on the monday after the Wills Wing Demo Days at Wallaby Ranch.  Many of the remaining pilots were ready for some XC flying and I was no exception.

I shared an initial climb to base with Mike B, Kip S, and Dave A before heading upwind to the southeast.

I was hoping to share at least part of an XC flight with Peter since this was his first trip to Florida in over 15 years but was disappointed to see him very low over Route 27 to the east.  I should have waited overhead instead of pushing upwind again, because the next time I saw him he was touching base at least two climbs away to the north.

I yanked on full VG and blazed northwest to catch him, skipping one too many climbs on the way there.  I arrived with 1500 feet (450m) and couldn't find the weak thermal he was parked in.  I was whining and down to 800 feet (250m) before finding a thermal-wanna-be that barely kept me in the air.  Eventually I found something substantial and started climbing.  Whew.

We danced around in the broken lift before I flew to the north and found a healthy thermal and called Peter over.  We finally were synced up; at least until I glided northwest to a big cloud south of Seminole-Lake Gliderport.  I called Peter on the radio after stumbling into large smooth lift and not seeing him anywhere behind me.  Peter reported he was low southeast of the gliderport.  He definitely got the bum line on that glide!

While I watched Peter sniff around for lift I spun up to base with Aric who cruised in behind us.  I don't think I turned more than a couple times on the cloudbase highway from the gliderport to Groveland.  Peter announced he safely landed at the gliderport and Jason W, who was having an off day, offered to pick him up.  Since Peter wanted to checkout QuestAir, I decided to land there after Jason picked him up.

I shared several climbs with Davis, Olav, other pilots that launched from airfield, and a bevy of pilots rounding QuestAir before returning to Wallaby.  We shared one climb that was classic Florida; big, smooth, and going up fast.  Ah.

I kept gliding east to the lakes or south towards the gliderport until I had just enough altitude to turn around and zip back to the field.  On the last of those glides, Jason announced he had Peter and was heading north.  I looked down and almost immediately spotted my car below.  I asked Jason if the Red Wing restaurant was open on Mondays.  I watched as they pulled into the restaurant and check the hours.  I then followed them to the field.  Unpowered aerial surveillance, sweet.

The field was lifting off as I setup my approach.  I delayed until I thought conditions were improving.  A bevy of vultures hopped out of the trees upwind of my chosen spot and started beaming up as I turned onto final.  Great.  I was so busy keeping the wings level that I missed the cue to flare and let the nose slowly touch the ground.  Dang.

I chatted with pilots as I slowly broke down and then gave Peter a quick tour before Jason, Peter, and I stopped for dinner at Red Wing.  We exchanged flying stories with Greg, James, Larry, and Sue who also stopped in for dinner after flying north to Dallas and (almost) back.

Not bad for a Monday.

Flights: 1, Duration: 2:57, Distance: 25 miles