Woodstock Sunday

[cdonahue]

Tom McGowan Just landed at Blue Sky Flight Park in Manquin. Steve just called me. Congratulations Tom!!!!

Peter

That is amazing! Congratulations!

[mcelrah]

Chris - thanks for your help with tensioning my glider and I'm sorry you didn't get to fly - I think it was a no-brainer not to fly with it ramping up like that. Hope to see you out at the sites often this season. Have faith!
- Hugh

[Flying Lobster]

Great one Tom, thanks for the description. Send me a copy of your track and I can easily score a dogleg for you--which will add significantly to your points. Besides that I'd love to see what your flight was like.

I post all of my xc flights at http://www.xccomp.org/module.php?id=1&date=20070302 where anyone can view and download my tracks. A great way to share flights (and will also score OLC).

marc

[Paul Tjaden]

Congrats for the great flight and thanks for the write-up. Too bad all of you weren't able to visit Steve!
Like Marc wrote, your track log will show a huge flight for scoring purposes with the area nine contest. As far as bragging rights go, the records that everyone down here keeps track of, such as the East Coast record that Jony and Dustin smashed last week, is straight line from launch to landing.

Paul

[silverwings]

Congratulations Tom on a great flight. Was wondering what sort of altitude you had when you reached Manquin and how long had you been in the air before you left Woodstock?

[XCanytime]

Tom,
Remember this Hangola excerpt from 9/16/2000, courtesy of Steve Kinsley's post?

"Woodstock Saturday. Spectacular day. If Tom McG hadn't run into Charlottsville airport and had remembered to push the Mark button on his GPS at H'burg he might have had a hundred miler. Well 80. Tom crossed over Shenandoah Park under a street at 5500 over."

Well, getting past Charlottesville Airspace was almost 7 years in the making, but going 70+ miles past it makes the wait well worth it I would bet . Congratulations again.

Bacil

[bengen]

Congartulation Tom on a great flight. I dream it you fly it. Good job.
Bruce

[mcgowantk]

Thanks everyone. Hey John, I left Woodstock to fly down the ridge almost immediately, but when I went over the back, I was slightly more than 6,000' over launch. When I arrived at Manquin, I was still too high to see people on the ground. Hard to say with more certainy. However, I was tired after almost 6 hours of flying and had not eaten much that day. I decided that I had accomplished enough and that landing at such a safe place was the wisest thing to do.

Tom

[lbunner]

Tom, awesome flight! I really enjoyed reading about it. Next time I want to do it too!

Larry Bunner
Bun

[Joe Schad]

Great Flight Tom. You are good.

Joe

[lplehmann]

Using the HOLC optimization function, Tom's flight totals out to be 143.7 miles. It calculated his first leg to the north end of Massanutten ridge, and then the long leg southward along the ridge to the point at which he jumped over the back west of Shenandoah and continued on to Manquin.
Friggin' fabulous flight.

[gardinator]

you guys is awesome!!

-gardner

[brianvh]

The world has just become smaller, thanks to you, Tom. I don't even like the thought of driving from Woodstock to Manquin. BTW, what's the going rate on Craigslist for drivers? (and how do you title it?) Great idea.

[mcgowantk]

After checking the distance flown with Hank, I wanted to make sure people understood the significance of his flight too. With the dogleg, Hank flew approximately 90 miles. The OLC mileage was 99 miles. He landed on the south side of Lake Anna. His flight may be the second longest from Woodstock, and we came within a whisker of having two pilots fly more than 100 miles from Woodstock. Congratulations Hank!

Tom McGowan

[mcelrah]

Ya, he's still flown significantly farther than any of us mere mortals. Wonder what the landing area was like - was it interesting near the lake? Any picnic-ers with beer?

Talked to Steve Wendt earlier this week. He said Hank was calling to say you would be coming over/in. He looked on the horizon - nothing. Overhead - stinking high. Anything to say abut avoiding the various airspaces (e.g. Richmond)?

- Hugh