Dickey's Saturday or Sunday?

[Joe Schad]

Looks like Dickey's might be flyable saturday but the wind velocity has changed since yesterday. Maybe better on Sunday. I will check in the morning before heading to the newly trimmed launch (I have been informed that the trees are all cut). I hope all the big ones are no longer there.

Joe

[Joe Schad]

Sunday looks better to me. May be some rain today and a bit windy.

Joe

[Joe Schad]

I believe Dickey's is worth a shot today. I plan to be there at noon.

Joe

[Joe Schad]

Twas a good day at Dickey's today. Pete and I were the only hang glider pilots, Ellis, Ben, and Jeff joined us and I believe 2 or 3 others flew after the five of us were in the air. Pete launched first and got up. He, as I did, had some trouble staying up but Jeff beamed to 1800 over and went XC followed by Ellis who skyed out and went XC (10,000msl was one of her calls). It took me about 40 minutes to finally get some altitude so I could follow Pete to Front Royal. He landed at the big field by the bridge along 522 as you come into Front Royal. I pressed on and managed to find a thermal about a mile and a half north that took me to 9700 msl just south of Winchester. I had two large United aircraft sightings over Winchester where the arrival to Dulles andNational crosses. I took a jog west to stay as clear as I could and lost some altitude so as not become a splat on a wind screen. Managed to get one more thermal to a couple thousand feet and ended the day east of I-81 along rt 11 by the Flying J north of Winchester. Just needed another 500 meters to cross the state line. It was my longest XC (31.8 miles straight line) from Dickey's. Pete managed the retreve and picked me up. Best day I have every had at Dickey's and the second highest altitude I have ever had.

Joe

[carweill]

Joe
Can't think of a better reward for all the work you put at Dickey's

Carlos

[XCanytime]

Great flight Joe. And all upwind to boot! I take it your highest altitude was driving the Airbus? Bacil

[Pete Schumann]

Great day at Dickies. Not much wind on launch but just enough to get off. We thought it was gonna be sleds. However, as soon as I got off I started going up At times it was pretty rowdy esp. when low, Joe & I had to listen to Jeff and Ellis specking out on their way past Front Royal. (Because it was light we all got on the same frequency to help avoid problems)

Ellis did great here's how it went, Ellis: "I'm 2000' over, I'm 4000' over, I'm 5000' over approaching 66" while we were getting spanked. Great job Ellis& Jeff...

After an hour or so I got to 4000' over and headed over Front Royal. Down to 1500' over at the main bridge into town. I've always wanted to land in the big field there, so I did. Had about 2hrs. Grass was high and I feared it was tick city. (No ticks )

Hiked back to town got a ride to the LZ and went and picked up Joe north of Winchester. Awesome job Joe!

One thing though the gnats had a field day on my legs while setting up. Well over 100 bites on each leg bastards....

Pete

[theflyingdude]

I landed in that same field next to the Rt 522 bridge on a flight from the High Point a couple years ago.

The big news from yesterday (Sunday) was Pete Lehmann's 82 mile flight from Avonmore (near Pittsburgh) to almost Jack's Mtn and getting to 11,000' MSL towards the end of the flight!!

JR

[theflyingdude]

I landed in that same field next to the Rt 522 bridge on a flight from the High Point a couple years ago.

The big news from yesterday (Sunday) was Pete Lehmann's 82 mile flight from Avonmore (near Pittsburgh) to almost Jack's Mtn and getting to 11,000' MSL towards the end of the flight!!

JR

Oops, I meant the Rt 55 bridge going into Front Royal.

[pink_albatross]

Sorry about that Pete. I just got really excited. I've never been over the back at Dickie's and I have never been to 9000 MSL (not 10k). And you can count the number of XC I have attempted in this region on the fingers of one hand.

Got a really good appreciation of all the XC that you guys do. A lot of decision making (most of the ones I made were wrong in hindsight). Some of them have to be split-second. I also got a good idea of why you guys love the track recording features on your GPS. Would be nice to mull over what I did yesterday and figure out what I could have done differently. Although I have enough to think about at the moment and enough mistakes to fix. Fine tuning comes later.

After I landed and watching the sky, still full of working cumies, I was wondering how the Pennsylvania XC sky gods were doing. Doesn't surprise me hearing what they did!

-- ellis

[Pete Schumann]

Ellis you did a great job. I thought it was cool and it was funny too. Made me think of Carroll O'Connor in the movie "Kelley's Heroes", where he kept saying listen to those guys go when they were radioing in that they were gonna keep on going behind enemy lines. I just meant it sucked that we got left behind.

But in the end "Big Joe" came through for us HG folks.

Awesome flight for Pete L. way to go.... Guess it was good at most places.

Pete

[eggzkitz]

Great job Pete and Joe (and Ellis!)

It was a neat day. Helps to have heard that there were two inversions. That makes some sense as I think we were dealing with the first one for a while... should have looked at the sounding before I left.

Havn't heard from Lazzlo yet, but I think he flew as well and must have gone up because we didn't see him anywhere around when we retrieved Ellis' car.

I'm researching the air traffic issue in that area and will post something tonight on it. The call of the day may have been either "I just passed 9000 msl, oh my god" or "a 737 just flew underneath me"

Jeff